Ladera Resort, the Pitons, Catamaran, Drive & Lunch

[mary_228]

Princess is offering a full day excursion that visits this resort for a sumptuous lunch overlooking the Pitons. Following that you take a 3 hr catamaran back to the ship.  $180 pp. Wondering if anyone has taken this and what was the verdict? It appears that we will likely join another tour for the catamaran/swim portion since the capacity of that is 60, whereas the capacity of the minibus is 22.

Edited November 6, 2019 by mary_228
additional notes

[reedprincess]

5 hours ago, mary_228 said:

Princess is offering a full day excursion that visits this resort for a sumptuous lunch overlooking the Pitons. Following that you take a 3 hr catamaran back to the ship.  $180 pp. Wondering if anyone has taken this and what was the verdict? It appears that we will likely join another tour for the catamaran/swim portion since the capacity of that is 60, whereas the capacity of the minibus is 22.

It's a bit expensive, but it's a lovely view from the restaurant, food is good (sumptuous is definitely overstating the food - but it's very good) and the boat ride back is amazing.. nothing bad to say about the tour. And yes, you'll definitely be joining another group or two aboard the catamaran for the return trip.. it's likely aboard either Carnival Sailing or Endless Summer's cats, they have the largest cats on island. 

[mary_228]

12 hours ago, reedprincess said:

It's a bit expensive, but it's a lovely view from the restaurant, food is good (sumptuous is definitely overstating the food - but it's very good) and the boat ride back is amazing.. nothing bad to say about the tour. And yes, you'll definitely be joining another group or two aboard the catamaran for the return trip.. it's likely aboard either Carnival Sailing or Endless Summer's cats, they have the largest cats on island. 

Thanks for the feedback. I figured this is the only way I am ever to see such a high end resort property!

[EatonDoolittle]

It sounds quite nice - please report back, if you do go.  

[reedprincess]

2 hours ago, mary_228 said:

Thanks for the feedback. I figured this is the only way I am ever to see such a high end resort property!

You can actually just book yourself in for lunch. You don't have to go on a tour.. you could cab down, exp some sights on your own, lunch at Ladera, maybe a little beach time and drive back on up. Cab one way will run $100usd for up to 4, around $250 for the entire day, same driver.   You could visit volcano and mud baths, then lunch then a little beach time. Or walk/hike Tet Paul (and hour, easily done in sandals), then lunch then some beach or a variety of other things - botanical gardens, waterfall dip, etc. Likely would work out less than doing a tour for two, but no catamaran involved for return... (Lunch will be around $70 or so USD pp)

Depends what you're most interested in..

[mary_228]

3 hours ago, reedprincess said:

You can actually just book yourself in for lunch. You don't have to go on a tour.. you could cab down, exp some sights on your own, lunch at Ladera, maybe a little beach time and drive back on up. Cab one way will run $100usd for up to 4, around $250 for the entire day, same driver.   You could visit volcano and mud baths, then lunch then a little beach time. Or walk/hike Tet Paul (and hour, easily done in sandals), then lunch then some beach or a variety of other things - botanical gardens, waterfall dip, etc. Likely would work out less than doing a tour for two, but no catamaran involved for return... (Lunch will be around $70 or so USD pp)

Depends what you're most interested in..

Well now you've given me something to think about. I am wondering if my son would be able to hike Gros Piton while we do lunch and some of the other attractions? I know he must pay a $50 fee to hike. He is extremely fit and experienced at hike/climbing/caving, etc. The rest of us have no desire to do that but maybe with our own driver this could be logistically possible, do you think?

Edited November 7, 2019 by mary_228
punctuation

[reedprincess]

19 hours ago, mary_228 said:

Well now you've given me something to think about. I am wondering if my son would be able to hike Gros Piton while we do lunch and some of the other attractions? I know he must pay a $50 fee to hike. He is extremely fit and experienced at hike/climbing/caving, etc. The rest of us have no desire to do that but maybe with our own driver this could be logistically possible, do you think?

Eminently doable if you went private. Would take some planning obviously with driver goinf back and forth a lot, and costing more than a typical day, but its doable. 

You could all drive down together, you guys could get dropped off at botanical gardens or maybe Tet Paul or Morne Coubaril for your tour time, driver could then drop your son, come back ans shuttle you to lunch, and such and then altogether go retrieve your son. Or some such. There would be some logistics to work iut as the trailhead for Gros Piton is about 25 minute drive further past Soufriere .. 

Maybe talk to one of the private tour providers and see if they could work out the logistics for you.. it's doable, just would take some extra planning...

[TTEllis]

On 11/6/2019 at 3:05 PM, mary_228 said:

Princess is offering a full day excursion that visits this resort for a sumptuous lunch overlooking the Pitons. Following that you take a 3 hr catamaran back to the ship.  $180 pp. Wondering if anyone has taken this and what was the verdict? It appears that we will likely join another tour for the catamaran/swim portion since the capacity of that is 60, whereas the capacity of the minibus is 22.

$180(US)per person for transportation to and from Ladera which includes a Cat sail back to the ship, WHAT A DEAL!!

Princess offers that?? 

That's the ticket on St. Lucia, thought I had done it all on this island. Lunch at Ladera a new and must do on St. Lucia.

Please post a review of this tour. Thanks

[mary_228]

On 11/8/2019 at 11:18 PM, TTEllis said:

Please post a review of this tour. Thanks

This was a wonderful tour. We had a great guide who made the hour long minibus ride quite pleasant. There were a few stops for photos and a gift shop for banana bread and rum tasting to stretch our legs. The resort was quite lovely. You were so close to Petit Piton that you felt like you could touch it. Our group of 18 had an entire section of the restaurant just to ourselves. The Jack fish was good and the chocolate decadence dessert was phenomenal, the carrot ginger soup too spicy for me, however. A chicken dish was available which my kids loved, along with a vegetarian option. The meal included a welcome drink and wine. We had a brief tour of one of the open air suites, complete with its own pool. The large catamaran was exclusively for our group so we had plenty of room to spread out. Nice clean bathrooms onboard to change into our swimsuits. We learned a lot about the country that we had not heard before which added to our appreciation of the island (two Nobel Laureates, for example). I highly recommend this tour.