St Lucia or another Caribbean island?

[blossomsarepretty]

Hello
Hoping to book a holiday for sometime next year..

We have extended family in Trinidad and would like to go there for a week, and then spend another week on another Caribben island just with our family. We have already been to Tobago a couple of times which was great, but would like to go somewhere else this time.

BA does a stopover in St Lucia on the way to Port of Spain so that would be an easy choice, but having read some negative reviews I am not sure now.
Has anyone been to St lucia with kids and how was it?
We would prefer self catering to a hotel or resort, would like to try local food and restaurants, visit beaches and rain forests, maybe a boat trip here and there, that sort of thing. Kids are primary school age.

Would St Lucia be a good choice, or should we consider another island?

We went pre kids. I loved it as it wasn’t too touristy, plenty to do but mixing with locals rather than put on for the tourists. There were tourist areas with all the tours etc but it was easy to mix with the local people and eat with them etc.

Thank you @peajotter sounds promising, hopefully it hasn't changed much since. Tobago was like that as well, not too touristy. Which part of the island did you stay at?

We also have family in Trini. Last time we went to Grenada for a few days and it was really lovely - small island, not too touristy and it felt safe.

We went to St Lucia when our daughter was 18m old. It was great, we stayed in a hotel, Coconut Bay beach resort which was lovely though not on a good beach.
Loved the island, we did an island tour which did various stops, we did a waterfall hike and also a boat tour to see the pitons. We also went to the sulphur springs which was interesting (very smelly)
We also did Greneda which was gorgeous, again did an island tour and a boat trip etc

I love St Lucia! The north is more built up and resort like but the west coast is really beautiful, around the Pitons and Soufriere. We have stayed in various hotels on west coast but our favourite place to stay (and best value because Air bnb) is a fishing village called Laborie. Just a few casual bars and places doing home cooking and you can organise water taxis to go to other beaches for the day.

Thank you for the responses. Grenada might be an option too, I will definitely look into that.

Those of you who visited more than one island, how did you book your flights? Did you buy multicity or just buy one return and then the other flights separately? When we went to T&T we bought a return to Port of Spain and then separate flights to Tobago, but of course that was quite cheap as the flights were domestic.

@Cyberworrier funny you should say that, I just saw Laborie mentioned on a TripAdvisor forum and it sounds amazing!

We went to St Lucia when my son was 3.5 (2012) and it was amazing! Lots to do with the kids, my step kids were with us as well and they were 10 and 14. We did a tour of the island in a jeep and they all loved it. We all said that we would definitely go back, we went in February and the only downside was the frequent rain but it would quickly pass.

@blossomsarepretty That’s so funny I think I probably found it on Tripadvisor... or through looking for Superhosts on Airbnb! We’ve stayed in a couple of places there, all lovely and really good value. We combine a few days in Laborie drinking beers on the beach and eating at local cafes with a few days in hotels... invariably Laborie ends up being the highlight, especially meals at Mama Tilly’s with plenty of rum punch!
Ahhhh wistfully dreams of the Caribbean...

Hi OP. I’ve never been to St Lucia but if I had the chance it would be my first choice out of the Islands. I’ve visited Dominican Republic and it was paradise from the people to the beaches. Also I’ve travelled to Jamaica too.

I went to St Lucia about 20 years ago and hated it. Touristic. Got my hotel room keys stolen and the hotel would not help. Then someone tried to get into the room. Food was terrible. But I loved Barbados (been twice). Also enjoyed st Martin/Maarten and Anguilla. But I’d never go back to St Lucia.

M00rfarm I would definitely choose Barbados over St Lucia, I’ve been twice as well and just love it!