Caribbean
Caribbean Luxury Travel
Caribbean luxury travel is most of what I book, and after enough of it you stop thinking in islands and start thinking in resorts and room categories. St. Lucia is not Grand Cayman. Anguilla is not Punta Cana. I'm Beverly Schulte, and I plan these trips from Sioux Falls for people all over the country who want the week to work the first time.
Caribbean
Picking the island before you pick the hotel
People usually come to me with a resort name they saw somewhere. I start one step earlier. Do you want to leave the property, or do you want to not think for seven days? Are you flying with kids who melt down after four hours in the air? Is anybody in the group going to want a golf course, or a reef, or a real restaurant scene?
St. Lucia gives you the mountains and the drama and a drive from the airport that runs about ninety minutes. Grand Cayman gives you a flat, easy island, good food, and Seven Mile Beach. Turks and Caicos has the water everyone wants in the photos and very little else going on, which for a lot of couples is the whole point. Anguilla is quiet and expensive. The Dominican Republic gets you the most resort for the money if you pick carefully.
Caribbean
The room is the trip
Two rooms at the same resort can be a different vacation. At Jade Mountain in St. Lucia the whole reason to go is the open fourth wall, so a room without it is money spent on the wrong thing. At Sandals Grande St. Lucian the swim-up rooms on the lagoon side stay quiet and the ones nearer the pool bar do not. At the Ritz-Carlton on Grand Cayman I'll ask which tower before I ask anything else.
This is the part booking sites can't tell you, and it's why I ask so many questions before I quote anything.
Caribbean
Hurricane season, honestly
June through November is the season, and September is the peak of it. Rates drop for a reason. I book that window when the trip is flexible and the client understands the tradeoff, and I put insurance on it every time. If you have one week a year and it can't move, I'll steer you to January through April and tell you what it costs.
Sample itinerary
A week in St. Lucia, the way I'd build it
This is a real shape, not a brochure. Seven nights, two properties, one travel day in the middle that doesn't eat the trip.
Day 1
Arrive UVF, drive south
Fly into Hewanorra rather than Castries so the transfer runs toward Soufrière instead of across the island. Private car, cold towel, about ninety minutes. Dinner at the hotel the first night, always. Nobody makes a good decision after a travel day.
Days 2 to 3
Soufrière and the Pitons
Sulphur Springs early, before the buses. The mud bath is worth doing once and it will ruin a swimsuit. Afternoon on the water with a private captain out to Anse Cochon, which beats the group catamaran by a wide margin for what it costs.
Day 4
Nothing
I build one of these into every week. No transfer, no reservation, no guide waiting. It's the day people tell me about later.
Days 5 to 6
Move north to Rodney Bay
A short helicopter hop or a driver up the west coast, depending on budget and stomach. The north end gives you restaurants outside the resort, Pigeon Island, and a beach that's easier to swim off than the volcanic sand down south.
Day 7
Home
Late checkout arranged in advance, day room if the flight is evening. Transfers timed to the actual airport, not the closer one.
Questions
Questions I get asked.
Related
Where this fits.
Caribbean rolls up into a bigger pillar of my planning work. Caribbean and Mexico luxury travel has the wider view, and the journal has the notes I write between trips.
Begin
Start the conversation.
Tell me who's going and roughly when. I'll tell you honestly what Caribbean takes to do properly, and whether I'm the right person for it.