St Lucia: Renting a Car vs Tour Company

Virgin cruiser here, sailing away on the Valor in June, which can not come soon enough! :)

I've been looking at the various tour companies, and I appreciate the CC and TA reviews, however; I'm wondering if anyone has been brave enough to drive themselves around in St Lucia. I've noticed that the roads are winding all over the place...

We are a family of four, just looking to take this island at our own pace instead of being herded around.

Also, I realize we are limited by the clock, so is driving even feasible considering travel time on these Indiana Jones roads and getting back to the dock?

Thanks for the input. Really appreciate it!

In my research I found that the roads are hard to navigate with twist and turns and hills. I would leave it to the locals to drive.

I too would hesitate to drive in this port. Very windy hilly roads. We did a tour with Cosol and had a great day. It's a beautiful island.

We also did a cosol tour. We saw so much, the sulphur springs, sample local food at banana tree mountain stop, boat transfer to pitons with time to swim and snorkel, etc. it was around 65 or so pp and there were four of us and two other couples. One of our best tours.

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Family members were on their first cruise and to save money, they rented a car and went exploring on their own. They were driving in a foreign country and someone hit their car--fender bender... It was a mess to deal with the police and the rental car company and due to the extra time, they almost missed the ship. My sister said it was not worth the hassle, and if they ever go again, they will take a ship sponsored tour.

Virgin cruiser here, sailing away on the Valor in June, which can not come soon enough! :)

 

I've been looking at the various tour companies, and I appreciate the CC and TA reviews, however; I'm wondering if anyone has been brave enough to drive themselves around in St Lucia. I've noticed that the roads are winding all over the place...

 

We are a family of four, just looking to take this island at our own pace instead of being herded around.

 

Also, I realize we are limited by the clock, so is driving even feasible considering travel time on these Indiana Jones roads and getting back to the dock?

 

Thanks for the input. Really appreciate it!

We were just there last month. I would second the recommendation for Cosol Tours. I can not imagine driving on those roads.

I drove a rental car in St. Lucia, from Castries to Soufriere and back. The traffic was extremely light outside Castries plus there is only one main road along the coast. I took GPS with me and loaded a free St. Lucia's map. The navigation didn't work but I followed my location on the map and it was quite sufficient. The main problem was 3 of my relatives in the car who drove me crazy: they were suspecting my driving abilities on the "wrong" side of the road, especially considering the sharp winding turns. But it was perfectly fine. You can go through these turns as slow as you want letting others pass you. Just allow plenty of time to get back to port and get some gas (having some local currency helps) -there will be traffic delays in Castries after 3PM.