Ultimate Guide to Staying at Royalton Resort & Spa, St Lucia.

I recently spent a blissful week at the Royalton Resort & Spa in St Lucia, and I loved it so much I just HAVE to tell you all about it! I thought I’d do a useful ‘know before you go’ style post, so I’m literally going to tell you everything you need to know about staying at the Royalton Resort & Spa in St Lucia. Hopefully it’ll be useful, whether you have a stay booked in or are considering staying there! 

I’ll be covering the rooms, the resort itself, food and entertainment, things to do in the local area, and the journey there and back. I’ll also take you through the two most popular day trips that the resort offers, showing you the very best of St Lucia – the full day Tout Bagay trip and the half day Sunset Pitons trip. 

Why We Chose Royalton & St Lucia

So my friend Sophie and I are both single women in our early thirties. We wanted a place that wasn’t romantic or coupley, had a fun vibe, was all-inclusive, contemporary, and was somewhere neither of us had been before. Originally we were looking at going to Pineapple Beach in Antigua, as I’ve been a couple of times before and really like it. But I was super keen to go somewhere totally new for me!

I’d never been to St Lucia before but had always wanted to go, and when we looked into the hotels on the island, the Royalton really stood out as the right place for what we wanted. A lot of the other hotels on the island are very couples-focused, or don’t look particularly luxurious. It’s also part of Marriott’s Autograph Collection, which I really trust.

So, with the hotel we wanted, I set about searching for the best deal with flights from London Gatwick. And strangely, it came from an unlikely place.

Booking with Tui

Now, I’d always thought of Tui as being the place of cheap, tacky package holidays. But when I found an incredible deal with Royalton through them, we jumped on it. 

It was our first time using Tui and the whole experience was honestly so seamless. We paid just under £1800 per person for a one week stay, and that included our flights, luggage, transfers, a swim-out room (we upgraded, which cost around £100 per person), and the all-inclusive food & drink package. It’s MUCH cheaper to fly out on a Tuesday – we noticed that on average you can save around £1000 per person by flying out on a Tuesday.

And without giving too much away this early in the blog post, the holiday was worth every single penny and I would definitely do ten days in the future.

Because we were two friends travelling together, we requested a twin room through the Tui live chat option, and although the twin room wasn’t guaranteed, thankfully it was honored when we checked-in. I love my friends but I do not love any of them enough to share a bed for a week, haha!

We were umming and ahhing whether to upgrade to Diamond Club or Hideaway, but decided not to as we just couldn’t see the benefit. We’re actually really glad we didn’t and don’t feel like we missed anything by not upgrading.

Currency to take with you

I’d recommend buying some East Caribbean Dollars to take with you. You need to order them in because most currency places don’t carry them as standard, but you can also get some when you arrive in St Lucia.

The benefits of ECD is that when you go out to places like the Friday night street party, everything will be cheaper for you if you pay in ECD. I took ECD in cash and then paid for day trips and the spa in USD on my credit card, which worked perfectly for me.

The Flight with Tui

We flew with Tui from London Gatwick, which is the nearest airport to us, as I live in South London and Sophie lives in Surrey. When you book your holiday, you can actually choose to pay more to fly with British Airways, but I can’t stand BA so I would never, ever pay extra to fly with them.

But, if you’re flying with Tui I would 100% recommend eating a large breakfast before the flight, and taking plenty of snacks onboard with you. The food on Tui was horrendous. Like the worst plane food I have ever eaten. I’ve definitely been spoiled with plane food in the past as most of my flights are long-haul flights with Singapore Airlines and Emirates, but still. It was almost inedible and the portions were so tiny I spent most of the flight starving.

The flight itself was perfectly fine, the seats were reasonably comfy and the entertainment on the seatback TVs was decent for the 8-hour flight. However, there were a bunch of rows at the back of the plane whose TVs weren’t working, and apparently they never work – Tui just never fix them.

So I would recommend taking a book and downloading some movies onto your phone or tablet, just in case you’re sitting in those rows, or pay to choose rows at the front of the plane. And if you are on one of the rows with broken entertainment, Tui will only give you a £30 refund.

The Transfer

Now, you need to prepare yourself for the transfer because it is loooong. You have an eight hour flight and then a 90-minute to 2 hour transfer depending on the traffic. The resort is literally the other side of the island to the airport.

You can choose to pay an extra $200 USD to get the helicopter transfer, but I’ve flown on helicopters twice before and I’m not a huge fan of them, so we didn’t do this. It also only gets you to the resort an hour earlier, as there’s a 45-minute drive to the resort from the helipad. 

The road transfer was fine, we had a really lovely driver and the drive was absolutely beautiful as it takes you across the island and through the mountains, but there were lots of mosquitos on the bus so I would definitely recommend spraying yourself with mozzie spray before you get on! 

Arriving at the Resort

We landed in St Lucia around 4:15pm and then arrived at the resort around 7pm in the evening. You’re given a welcome cocktail on arrival after giving the bellboys your name to check-off, and then you join the queue to check-in. 

Check-in was actually fairly quick. Because the resort is part of Marriott’s Autograph Collection, as a Gold Elite Bonvoy member I was keen to at least earn some points from our trip. They can add your membership number to the booking, and although you don’t earn points for the whole stay if you book through a third party like Tui, you can pay for the taxes on your credit card when you check-in, which is around £64 GBP for the week, and you then get one nights worth of points. 

Our Swim-Out Junior Suite – Room 6005

Like I said earlier, we had a twin swim-out room, and were given a room in Block 6. Our room number was 6005, and if you’ve seen my room tour on YouTube you’ll already know my full thoughts on the room. I highly recommend watching that full room tour video.

In short though, it’s a beautiful room design-wise, but definitely a bit tired and broken around the edges, a couple of our plug sockets didn’t work because they were loose, and the room smelled quite musty. The paintwork around the edges was also very dirty and bashed about, and there were bits of wood missing from edges of the furniture.

Also, Block 6 is in shade all day, so we also didn’t really use our pool at all because there was never any sun on it, so the terrace was full of mosquitos constantly because of the shade and still water. I got sooo many bites every time I went out there even just to try and dry our swimwear out there! 

However, the room was amazing for being close to the restaurants and gym, and it was also super close to the beach and pools. We went outside of the school holidays so there weren’t many kids there, but it would likely be quite a noisy block during school holidays as it’s right by the kids pool. The beds were also SO comfy, and the shower was absolutely incredible!!

The Resort & Pools

Ok, so on to the resort! The resort itself is stunning, like literally beautiful, and I absolutely fell in love with it.

It’s super green with lots of palm trees and flowers, and the beach is a really lovely secluded cove that can only be accessed by resort guests. Most of the hotels I’ve stayed in elsewhere in the Caribbean have been very barefoot luxury, but the Royalton is very polished. It feels new, luxurious, clean, and was just a super relaxing place to spend a week. 

There are a total of eight swimming pools including the Hideaway and Diamond Club pools, and six swimming pools for everyone. Four of them are connected to each other but on tiered levels, and two of the pools have swim-up bars, which was my favourite thing! I loved chilling in the pool and then going and sitting on a seat in the water and ordering a cocktail. It was so much fun! 

When it comes to sunbeds, annoyingly people get up super early to claim sunbeds. I noticed this more on the weekends when all the Americans flew in for a long weekend. The towels are also a bit threadbare and not very luxurious, and quite often they would run out and we’d have to wait for them to bring more down to the pool area. We also found that a lot of the toilets dotted around had broken locks or flushes, so we’d usually just go back to our room instead.

Food at Royalton St Lucia

Oh my gosh you guys, the FOOD. The food was hands down the best all-inclusive food I’ve ever eaten. No joke.

There’s a coffee shop, a buffet, and SIX A La Carte restaurants (steakhouse, Italian, teppinyaki, Mexican, Caribbean, American sports bar), plus the hideaway-only restaurant, Dorado. The buffet restaurant was amazing for breakfast with a huge selection of food (my standard two-course brekky was an omelette with half a plate of plantain, and a plate of pancakes and fruit), but we found lunch and dinner at the buffet wasn’t so good and quite often the food was stone cold. 

Sophie’s favourite restaurant was the Teppinkayi, which is the only restaurant you have to book into. The Italian restaurant was one of my favourites for lunch and dinner, and I also loved the Caribbean restaurant and the steakhouse. 

There’s also a little food truck by the pool that’s good for lunch, and the sports bar in the lobby does a great burger and *goes off* late at night. What I will say though, is all of the food is very heavy on the garlic, so if you have a garlic allergy or intolerance like Sophie does, you’ll need to tell them every time you dine.

In terms of bars, there are three pool bars and a beach bar, and then two cocktail bars up in the main building where the restaurants and entertainment are. We really liked the Martini bar and I highly recommend the Coconut Martini!!

I was also really impressed with the range of cocktails and non-alcoholic cocktails at the pool bars, I’m not a big drinker so mostly stuck to non-alcoholic and they were SO tasty! They tasted like fancy smoothies.

Entertainment & Activities

On our first day we quickly realised there were so many activities to do that we literally had to write out an itinerary. You will not be bored here at all!! Each day there’s yoga, dance classes, pilates, and more, plus there’s a really well equipped gym. We loved the caribbean dance class, and sunset yoga and sunrise yoga sessions. 

Each evening they have entertainment, from a Michael Jackson tribute, to karaoke, a country singer and they also have a soca night. The entertainment was actually the best I’ve ever seen at an all-inclusive, all of the bands and performers were so, so talented and we had so much fun!

There are also two day-time foam pool parties at the main pool each week. We went to one of them and had the BEST time! It was honestly incredible. 

We really loved that you could basically choose what sort of experience you wanted at the Royalton, like if you want to be on-the-go you can, but if you want to chill and relax you can easily do that instead.

Day Trips & Local Area

When it comes to day trips, I did both the Tout Bagay and the Sunset Pitons boat trips. We also did the Friday night street party, and the walk to nearby Pigeon Island.

We booked all of our trips through Tui, but found the service between Tout Bagay and Sunset Pitons very different as they were run through different companies. 

Friday Night Street Party

The Friday Night Street Party is a must-do if you’re staying at the Royalton. It’s in Gros Islet, only costs $15USD per person, and it was SO much fun!

I’d definitely recommend getting the later transfer bus though, and then getting the last one back at the end of the night. The party gets really good later at night. 

All of the prices at the street party are in East Caribbean Dollars, so don’t pay in US dollars otherwise it’ll be super expensive for you. There’s food and drink at the party, and a DJ playing music. But, be warned that the rum punches are INSANELY strong – I literally drank half a glass and my legs went to jelly, it was mad.

Tout Bagay

Tout Bagay is a full day trip run by Nexus and Seaspray Cruises, that cost $145USD. It leaves from nearby Rodney Bay early in the morning, and takes you on a fancy new catamaran down to Soufriere, and honestly Seaspray were absolutely amazing the whole day. 

You see the Pitons as you come into Soufriere and it was absolutely beautiful!

You’re then taken in a minibus up to the sulphur mud baths in the volcano, which was one of my favourite experiences. You have to wear dark coloured bathers and use one of the brown hotel pool towels because the mud can destroy lighter-coloured items. They have toilets and changing rooms there.

They say that if you cover yourself in the mud and then leave it on for a bit, before soaking in the baths, it fixed skin conditions, BUT, I had an eczema flare-up at the time and it did not get rid of it, so that was kind of disappointing. 

After the mud baths you have a quick but delicious buffet lunch at Morne Coubaril Estate, and then they take you to the Toraille Waterfall. Oh my gosh guys, I was in AWE of this waterfall. It’s ridiculously beautiful.

Again, they have toilets and changing rooms there, and the Seaspray staff are amazing at taking photos of you under the waterfall.

I won’t lie, it was an experience. The waterfall was so heavy my waterfall photo ended up looking, um, not very attractive haha. It made me laugh so much, but it definitely was not the instagram photo I had been hoping for haha.

You then head back to the boat, and on the way back you stop off to snorkel at the famous, Anse Chastanet Beach, which was beautiful. I mean LOOK at the water!

I chose not to snorkel as it was quite busy with lots of people, and instead had a swim further away from everyone else. 

On the way back to Rodney Bay you pass through famous Marigot Bay which is the last stop of the day. This is where you can see the film location of Dr Doolittle. It’s super cute, but you just sail in and out of the bay and don’t stop off or anything.

I honestly really recommend doing the Tout Bagay trip, it was my favourite trip and I thought Seaspray was a far better company than the company that runs the sunset trip, and the boat was also far newer and nicer.

Sunset Pitons Cruise

The Sunset Pitons cruise was nice enough, but it wasn’t my favourite. It’s a half day tour that starts around 2pm and costs 110USD, but I didn’t think you really get much for your money compared to Tout Bagay. 

The tour is run by Carnival Sailing, and it’s quite a long journey to get to Castries to get the boat – it takes between 45-90 minutes depending on how many stops you have to do to pick up guests from other hotels. With Tout Bagay, you didn’t need to do this as it was one bus per hotel for transfers. 

The boat itself was fairly old and not well maintained, and the layout just wasn’t as good as the Seaspray boat on the Tout Bagay tour. But anyway, we sailed down to Sugar Beach where we snorkelled, and I did really enjoy this part of the trip because Sugar Beach is GORGEOUS, like super super gorgeous. 

The snorkelling wasn’t great if I’m honest, there isn’t a lot of reef there and they also make you wear lifejackets even if you’re a strong swimmer (hence the sad photo below haha). I think I’ve been spoiled with snorkelling though because I used to live in Australia so I’ve snorkelled at both Coral Bay and the Great Barrier Reef, and I snorkelled at Coral Bay in the early 2000s when it was still very untouched and really pristine. 

But, seeing Sugar Beach and the pitons up close was really special and next time I come to St Lucia I definitely want to spend a couple of nights at the Viceroy Sugar Beach hotel! 

With this trip you also don’t actually see the Pitons with the sunset, as by the time the sun sets you’re back up near Marigot Bay. I was kind of disappointed because I assumed by the name that we would actually be by the pitons at sunset. 

In terms of food you get a very light supper on the boat, but the food wasn’t great and I was starving by the time we got back to the hotel around 8pm. Anyway, so I’m not sure I’d recommend the sunset pitons cruise, and if you have to choose just one trip I would definitely do the Tout Bagay instead.

Pigeon Island

So something more in the local area is Pigeon Island. It’s really close to the hotel and well-worth doing, and it takes either 20-minutes or 40-minutes to walk there from the resort depending on which route you take. 

We decided to do the longer 40-minute walk and it felt really good to do some proper exercise after spending most of the week eating such an insane amount of food at the resort.

Pigeon Island is really, really beautiful. It’s not actually an island anymore as they built a mandmade causeway in the 1970s, but it’s part of the St Lucia National Trust and is close to the Sandals Grand hotel. 

You have to pay an entry fee to get into the island, which was – I think – $10USD or $28 Eastern Caribbean for tourists. Pigeon Island is a national park that used to be a British fort, and there are lots of ruins there you can see.

The beaches are also incredible, so I’d really recommend bringing your swimmers and a towel so you can go swimming!

Just outside the entrance gates there are a few little bars and shops, and honestly the bars are so great for having a cool drink before doing the walk back.

In total we spent about 3 hours doing the walk and wandering around Pigeon Island.

Final Thoughts

We honestly had the best week at Royalton St Lucia, and I’d definitely go back in the future. I think I’d definitely do 10 days though. The staff at the Royalton were super friendly, and everything was just beautiful. For me it was well worth the cost, especially when the entire holiday was cheaper than my 4-day trip to Miami last year! 

The one thing I will say is it feels very different to other Caribbean islands. It didn’t feel as ‘Caribbean’ as Antigua, the Grenadines, and Barbados, if that makes sense? I think it was just the lack of Caribbean music really, it was mostly American pop music everywhere which was the only disappointing thing.

If you’ve booked a stay at the Royalton St Lucia or are trying to decide whether to stay there, I really hope this has helped you plan your holiday!

It really is a stunning resort and I’d recommend it to everyone. If you have any questions please just let me know in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer as quickly as possible. 

Book your stay here!