Visit to St Lucia for Jazz and Arts Festival 2016 – 3rd – 13th May 2016
Getting There – The BA flight experience
The journey from the Vieux Fort airport
Soon as we reached St Lucia the biggest smile ever came to my face. The heat that licks you when the plane door opens was like medicine to my soul. There was quite a walk to the arrivals/immigration lounge, but once we reached the doors we were greeted with the sweet sounds of a steel pan band… What a nice way to welcome guests to your country.
Getting through immigration was fairly smooth, but for some reason I always get scared when visiting a new country, like they wouldn’t believe who I am even though I have legit papers. After successfully getting through, and reaching the main doors of the airport, we were greeted by our Driver, Mel.
Little did I know then that he would impress us so much with his well mannered nature and friendliness that he would end up been are Go To guy for the rest of the holiday 🙂
The journey from the airport at Vieux Fort to our resort at Rodney Bay took nearly 3 hours I kid you not. I have no idea how on a small island it can take so long to get from one end of the island to the other, but turned out there was an accident on the main road north, so Mel had to use his back street knowledge to get us there by a clearer route. The roads were like Monte Carlo, twisting and turning every few minutes, and having to climb up hilly road with a mini bus full of tired Brits and 10 suitcases big enough to keep us out there for 6 months each, its amazing the van survived. In the end we got to Rodney Bay in one piece so couldn’t complain too much.
The resort – Rodney Bay
The accommodation – Bay Gardens Inn
ICE Pass and Entertainment
The Jazz and Arts Festival
There was so much hype about the St Lucia Jazz Festival for years, so when we heard the 25th Years anniversary was coming up it was a sure winner to go for. What a disappointment. We booked for the last 3 nights of the festival in the hope that Shaggy (Friday night headliner) and Marc Anthoy (J-Lo’s ex husband and huge Latin American singer) would really entertain us, along with the vibe of the festival, but in all honesty it was shit. I couldn’t believe big arse St Lucia been running this thing for years and this was the calibre of line up that they could get together for their 25th year. The only thing that saved it was seeing George Benson strut his stuff on the Sunday day time, and Kool and the Gang later on. I all honesty I was really miffed I wasted a lot of money of tickets for this festival, and risked my life getting a water taxi from Rodney Bay Hotel Resort to Penguin Island. Sorry, but never again!
The Catarmaran Party – Yellow and White edition
