The gang consisted of Grandma Lynne, Aunt Patricia, Uncle Simon, Cousin Isabella, CousinCharlotte and the three of us. It was the usual 2 full days of travel to get there with delayed flights and yucky stop overs... but we were excited to be in warm weather again!
The resort itself is all inclusive and has a kids program but does not have on-site diving, which is something we won't ever do again. Having to go with off-site diving meant that Tim and Simon were away from 8:00 - 5:00 every dive day - not great for anybody. They dove with Scuba St. Lucia who were located out of Castrilles, right next to the protected underwater area and they were a good dive shop.
Right off the beach at Coconut Bay was a top global site for Kite Surfing (which meant constant breeze at the resort - good and bad...). After watching the kite surfers for a few days, I decided that this was something that I had to try - definitely a learning curve with lots of bumps,bruises and mouth fulls of salt water but after about 8 hours of lessons over a few days, I managed to get up. I'll need to continue this in the future!
The resort had a few pools, a lazy river, waterslides and a kids club. One of Hunter's favourite places was the "games room" where they had 3 Xboxes with different games on them. He made a few friends with like minded young boys and they could be found running between the Games room, the pool and the lazy river.
There was a good variety of activities around the resort to keep busy with each day. One day there was a gentleman with a large machete chopping open coconuts and then drilling open a hole so that you could drink coconut milk straight from the source. Hunter was most impressed with the tools! He also spent time snorkeling in the pool with Tim when he was there - one of our goals was to try snorkeling in the ocean again this year so lots of practice was important...
On our second to last day everyone piled in the shuttle van and headed up to the beach near Castrilles where Tim and Simon had been diving. It was a great sandy beach where the kids could play in the sand and the water, Hunter could try snorkeling on some shallow reefs and there was no wind. It was a definite success - even grandma went in the ocean - and everyone had a great time. Hunter was thrilled with snorkeling in the ocean and what you could see!!! We stopped at a few of the tourist stops on the way home and learned more about the island of St. Lucia, the volcanoes and experienced a local thermal hotsprings.
While it wasn't Beaches Turks and Caicos, we all managed to have fun and enjoy the weather.
