Good morning, you guys!! Sorry for the long absence from blogging – to be honest, it was really nice to take a little break. I think I mentioned in a previous post how the latter half of 2019 was really tough for me and Chris – we decided to “skip Christmas” this year, since being at home would be really sad (and make us think of loved ones who couldn’t be with us). Instead, we planned a trip to St. Lucia! I had been to St. Lucia back in 2016 and stayed at Anse Chastenet – to this day it is one of my favorite trips I’ve ever been on (you can read my review of Anse Chastenet here!), and ever since then I have been dying to bring Chris back. This time, we decided to stay at Anse Chastenet’s sister resort, Jade Mountain. Jade Mountain is a little more private and a lot more romantic, but you still have access to all of Anse Chastenet’s amenities including their restaurants, beaches and activities (like snorkeling!).
I’m rounding up some of our images from the trip below, but you can scroll all the way down to the bottom of this post for the full review.
This was the view from our room (we stayed in a Galaxy Suite, specifically number JC1). All of the rooms have an amazing view with the fourth wall missing!
We LOVED the beach – we spent every morning in a cabana relaxing and reading! If you desired a drink or a beach snack, all you had to do was put up your flag in the sand, and a waiter would come over right away.
This is the view you have walking to Jade Club, the fine dining restaurant at Jade Mountain. The very top floor is known as the Celestial Terrace, where yoga was held every morning.
I wore more swimsuits than “real clothes” in St. Lucia – which is definitely the sign of a good vacation!
What I wore for Christmas dinner at Jade Club!
One of my favorite swimsuits I wore on our trip:
The view from our room!
Overall, we LOVED our stay at Jade Mountain! It was one of the most incredible resorts I’ve ever stayed at, and I would highly recommend it for a romantic vacation and especially for a honeymoon! Let’s get on to this review, shall we?
Room
All of the rooms at Jade Mountain are incredible. They call the rooms “sanctuaries,” and there are several types to choose from, ranging from the Star Sanctuary (with the smallest infinity pool) to Galaxy Sanctuary (with the largest infinity pool). As you can guess, the bigger the pool, the higher the price. We initially booked a Sun Sanctuary, but they upgraded us to a Galaxy upon arrival, which was amazing! (In case you’re wondering, our specific room number was JC1.) Since none of the rooms have a fourth wall, you can hear the sounds of nature and birds chirping at all hours (which is really relaxing, I promise!). We woke up every morning to a beautiful sunrise, with the sound of birds and fresh sea breeze blowing into our room. We had a comfortable bed, two wardrobes, a full-length mirror, a shower, jacuzzi bathtub, two lounge chairs, a sitting area, fridge, and a beautiful infinity pool. Every night, someone would come in and light candles and arrange the mosquito net over the bed so you didn’t have to worry about bugs getting in while you slept. In case you want a little room tour, there is one saved on my “St. Lucia” highlight on my Instagram page. We really loved our room, but you can’t go wrong because every single room at Jade Mountain offers a breathtaking view of the Piton mountains.
Food
The food was definitely one of the highlights of our trip! We chose the All Inclusive meal plan when we made our reservations on the website, which includes breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and most alcoholic beverages (excluding a few nicer bottles of wine and specialty cocktails). It was really nice not having to worry about how much the meals were costing or trying to keep up with bringing a credit card or cash with us to every restaurant. The quality of the food at Jade Mountain was utterly outstanding, and to my joy, almost everything on the menu was organic and the fish were all wild-caught. A lot of the vegetables are grown on the island, and Jade Mountain gets most of their ingredients from their own organic farm called Emerald’s, including organic salad leaves, micro greens, vegetables and herbs. Jade Mountain has it’s own fine-dining restaurant called Jade Club on the top floor of the resort – we ate most of our dinners there because we loved the food! Staying at Jade Mountain also gives you access to all of the restaurants at Anse Chastenet, including their restaurant on the beach called Aspara, which was our favorite. We ordered room service for breakfast every morning, and for lunch, we either had lunch delivered to our beach chairs or we walked over to the second beach, Anse Mamin, to dine at the beach-front Jungle Bar and Grill, offering some of the best burgers on the island (and if you don’t eat meat, they also serve a mean veggie burger!). We thought all of the food was fresh, healthy and absolutely delicious. If you’re looking to go on vacation and eat a lot of junk food – sorry, you won’t find it here! They didn’t have any prepackaged or processed foods at the resort (the one “junk food” item I did eat on the trip was french fries, I couldn’t resist those!).
Beaches
Staying at Jade Mountain gives you access to the two beaches at their sister resort, Anse Chastenet. The beaches are unlike any I’ve ever been to before, because they have BLACK sand! The Anse Chastenet Beach is the quintessential Caribbean resort beach – we spent every day here laying on cozy beach chairs under the shade of straw huts. Someone would periodically walk around offering fruit kebabs, cooling eucalyptus spray or cold washcloths, and anytime you desired a drink or a beach snack, you could put a little flag in the sand and a waiter would walk over right away. The second beach, Anse Mamin, is located to the north and is about a ten minute walk away (it is a beautiful walk, though, right next to the ocean). The beach is a little more private, has some beautiful rock formations and is the location of the famous burger restaurant, Jungle Bar and Grill.
Activities
There were tons of activities to partake in at Jade Mountain, including snorkeling, scuba diving, mountain biking, kayaking, tennis, sunset sailing, hiking, chocolate making, and yoga (and I’m sure I’m missing a few, too). Some of the activities are free to participate in, like yoga, tennis, kayaking and even snorkeling. I personally LOVED the yoga every morning! It was early (7 a.m.) on the Celestial Terrace, and I felt like my body got to “wake up” with the island – the sun started rising in the sky and the birds were chirping as we began our yoga practice. I loved the instructor Nelson Chako – definitely take one of his classes, if you can! I felt so at peace afterward.
Chris and I also went snorkeling off of the main beach, Anse Chastenet Beach. It is free to rent snorkeling equipment, and it was one of the best snorkeling experiences I’ve ever had in my life (in fact, many other resorts and snorkeling excursions come to that spot and charge their guests to snorkel there!). The water was crystal clear, and we could see hundreds of different types of fish. We saw turquoise fish, blue fish, yellow fish, striped fish, stingrays, even what looked like a swordfish! There’s also an octopus that lives on the ocean floor, but we didn’t see it that particular day.
The one excursion that we did have to pay for was the Jazzy Cruise that we did one night. I would HIGHLY recommend it – we had so much fun! There was an incredibly talented saxophone player on the boat, and we cruised around the coastline close to the Piton Mountains while listening to jazz music. There were also unlimited drinks, so everyone definitely had a fun time, haha!
Transportation
When we visited St. Lucia four years ago, there were not any direct flights from Charlotte, so we had a connecting flight through Miami. But nowww there are direct flights from Charlotte!!! This made us SO HAPPY, because it makes it so easy to get there. The flight was around four hours and not bad at all. We took a morning flight and before we knew it, we were descending into St. Lucia.
If you do end up staying at Jade Mountain or Anse Chastenet, I would highly recommend booking a helicopter to transfer you from the airport to the resort. It takes nearly an hour to get there by car, but only six minutes by helicopter, and you get to see some breathtaking views of St. Lucia, the Piton Mountains and the turquoise water. My one recommendation is to pack a swimsuit, sunscreen and a change of clothes in your carry-on so that you can change right away into your swimsuit – they transfer your checked luggage by car, so you end up at the resort for about an hour without your checked luggage.
Downsides
There are hardly any downsides of this exquisite resort, but I can think of a few things that you will probably want to know beforehand! The first is that there are no TVs in the rooms. Chris was a little upset about this at first because, ya know, FOOTBALL, but he got over it quickly when he realized that we had a strong wifi connection pretty much everywhere we went in the resort. There were a few nights where we returned to our room early and watched Netlfix on our computers! The second “warning,” is that you do have to be in good physical shape to stay at this resort. Jade Mountain is located higher up on the mountain (which gives you quite a beautiful view of the Pitons!), but it is quite a long way down to the beach… and back up. We counted the number of stairs from the beach to our room and there were more than 300 (this number does not include the steps taken, just the number of stairs). Although the way down wasn’t too difficult, we definitely had to stop a couple of times to catch our breath on the way back up. I feel like I am in pretty good shape, but I can see how an older person might have trouble getting up and down the stairs to the beach. They do offer a shuttle service down to the beach if you don’t want to take the stairs every time. I personally didn’t think that the number of stairs was a true “downside,” though – I felt like it kept us active while we were on vacation and I ended up feeling better since we were getting some exercise every day.
If you have any questions about Jade Mountain, our room, or our stay, please leave them in the comments and I’ll get back to you there! If you want to read my review of Anse Chastenet (Jade Mountain’s sister resort), you can click here. If we’re going to compare the two resorts, I would pick Jade Mountain if you want a truly romantic getaway, and Anse Chastenet if you have a tighter budget or you want a more family-friendly option (we did see a few kids at Anse Chastenet, but none are allowed at Jade Mountain). I hope that helps!
xoxo
I’m thinking about St Lucia for my honeymoon ! Your blog post has been so helpful. And the pictures are literally insane. I’m obsessed. Is jade mountain pricey? Is it all inclusive ? ( obviously you don’t have to give me the exact price) but jade mountain has been on my list of places wanting to go to!
Yes, it is very pricey! We did the all-inclusive meal plan so all of our meals were included (which I highly recommend). Here is the page where they show their rates: https://jademountain.com/reserve/rates_and_packages.html?_ga-ft=1U3arh.0.0.0.0.3mGayk-AIB-4yA-9M+-VtqvLcH.0.0
Highly considering Jade Mountain for our honeymoon! Was the sand black at all of the beaches? Did you really get a tropical feel? I’m between this Island or Hawaii and trying to decide! What do you think? Love your content so much!
I have been to both Hawaii and St. Lucia and I personally like St. Lucia better! Not all of the beaches in St. Lucia have black sand… at our resort, it was black because of the nearby volcano. It is mainly black right where the ocean is, but near the beach huts it looks like normal sand. Very weird to describe haha. It is still VERY tropical… there are palm trees everywhere and crystal clear water! here’s a better picture of what the beach looks like: https://static.tripexpert.com/images/venue_photos/profile/5547637.jpg?1476296000
Thank you for your review!!! Was your stay sponsored in any way (only curious because it’s common for bloggers- but I think there would be a disclosure?) It looks so beautiful. What were the temperatures like in your room during the night? Weird question I know- I just am a “really hot” sleeper like naturally super warm. Did they have any fans? I traveled to Costa Rica and the hotel was beautiful (no a/c) large ceiling fans though but it was relatively hard to sleep due to high heat/humidity and I was already tired from hiking during the daytime.
I’m considering this spot for a once in a lifetime vacation for maybe a five year wedding anniversary haha so quite a few years away (not married yet. Honeymoon will prolly be Iceland in 2021).
Also- how often were you in close quarters with other people? Again- weird but more of a I’m a fairly quiet, private person and if I was on a romantic vacation w husband would want it more secluded (not near a lot of really loud drunk people etc). I actually feel like the stairs are a semi positive for keeping in shape while there with all the indulgent food/drinks like without having to do a designated separate workout- idk if you agree. I always get a little concerned on vacation out of routine about staying in shape.
I hope you guys have an amazing 2020!
Also I think tons of people mention this but I love how down to earth and real your blog/brand are even though you’re in a much higher income bracket than me I really love perusing your content!
This resort looks and sounds absolutely amazing – I would really love to go there!
Happy to hear that you made the best out of such a hard time in your life – the holidays really can be difficult for people.
xx Janine
https://walkinmysneaks.blogspot.com
Hello Caitlin,
I’m writing from France so please excuse my uncorrect english.
Thank you so much for your blog and instastories. You give me some joy in my complicated life.
I really like seing your experiences. I can’t travel a lot so I like travel with you thanks to your blog and Instagram. You are absolutely beautiful ! I wish you a beautiful 2020 year for you and Chris, a lot of hapiness and health, good time with the people you love ! God bless you two !
Thank you,
Kisses from France
With the rooms being open do to no fourth wall, were you able to hear what others were doing in their rooms or was it still private?
No, we were not able to hear or see our neighbors the entire time! It feels COMPLETELY private. 🙂
Thanks for the detailed review, and especially the tip about arranging the helicopter transfer!
Your stay looks gorgeous! Thank you for sharing such an in depth review.
Did you feel safe having your room be open? Were there any security measures in place?
Hey Sam, yes we felt very safe the entire time! The door to our room stayed locked the entire time. The resort is on the edge of a cliff, so it is not physically possible for anyone to enter the room – they would have to scale a mountain to do so!
Hi, thank you so much for the review. I have actually researched staying at Jade Mountain but I was super curious about the temperature in the rooms with the 3 wall room. Did you get too hot or cold throughout the night?
The temperature was actually perfect the entire time we were there! It was in the 80s during the day and cooler at night, plus there was always a sea breeze to keep things cool. The bed has a powerful fan over it so we never got hot at night, either. I think December is a great time to go, but I can’t speak for the other months – I think it does get hotter during the summer months and it might get uncomfortably hot but I’m not sure!
LOVE St. Lucia! I went their this past June with my fiancé’s family! It was beyond incredible! We stayed in a gorgeous Airbnb up the road from Jade Mountain! Your room looked so amazing, the Pitons are a view that I’ll never get over! I’m definitely hoping go back…& like you said, it’d be a great honeymoon!! Happy New Year – wishing you & your husband the best!
-Madi xo | http://www.everydaywithmadirae.com
How was the weather in June? We are planning our honeymoon that month. Thanks!
Hi! How many days did you and Chris stay? Did you feel like it was long enough to do everything you wanted? Love love love your pictures from St. Lucia! ♥️
We stayed five nights! We thought it was the perfect amount of time to really feel relaxed and to be able to do everything we wanted. We started to get a little homesick on the last day thinking about our pets at home!
Is it weird sleeping with it being so opened? (Like it looks like you can walk right outside from your bedroom)
No, it’s not weird at all! In fact was really peaceful and relaxing, both my husband and I talked about how we woke up “happy” each morning because you wake up to a beautiful sunrise. The resort is on the edge of a cliff so there is no way possible for anyone to get into your room, unless they can scale a mountain haha.
I’ve considered Jade Mountain in the past – but I’m SO nervous about the bug situation (specifically Spiders!) I so appreciated your candid review of another resort and the bugs in the past- I would LOVE your feedback! My phobia is pretty intense and would ruin a vacation for me 🙁
Hey Jessica, it did not even cross my mind to write about bugs because we didn’t see one the entire trip! There were absolutely no bugs or spiders in the room… however the pretty little birds will fly into your room and try and come eat your room service after your done haha! They give you a water gun so you can squirt them and they recommend calling your butler immediately so that he can take away the food.
Hey Caitlin! This sounds absolutely like a dream, I’m so happy you had such a wonderful time especially at this time of year. My heart ached when you mentioned you had a getaway to distract you both from the heartache of 2019, but just know we all send our love and sympathy. On another note, I’m planning my honeymoon with my fiancé and we’re torn between Cape Town or St Lucia (but St Lucia is a really strong contender). Could you clarify how much you reckon the trip cost in total? Money isn’t too much of an issue, we’d rather spend to have an amazing time but it gives us an idea of a budget. And how long would you recommend we stayed? We’re thinking 10 days, since 7 days seems too short and two weeks MIGHT be a bit too long. Let me know your thoughts! Sending kisses x
Hey Rebecca, what is your email? I can email you info regarding how much we paid!
I just looked at the prices and it’s around $3500 a night!
My husband I went last year and loved it tremendously! We hiked Gros Piton and it was unforgettable but you have to be in good shape, it wasn’t easy, still highly recommend it to everyone though, especially if you are young 🙂
WOW! your time in St. Lucia looked incredible! I can’t believe the view from your room!
http://www.rdsobsessions.com
Thank you for this!! With all of the rooms having the open fourth wall, was noise an issue at all (could you hear others in their rooms)? Did you feel like you still had ample privacy?
I’m so glad to hear the WiFi strength was good! We are considering this resort for our honeymoon and that’s something my fiancé was concerned about (since we would be going during football season lol)!
Hey Sarah, we could not hear or see other people at ALL! It felt completely private in our room, we didn’t hear another guest once.
Would love to go here? May I ask what camera you used for these pictures? Also did you guys use a tripod for pictures of you guys? Thanks so much !
Another very well written review. So glad you guys got away from it all to relax. I did the same thing once and it did help a bit. All the best for 2020 for you guys.
Ive been thinking about going to that resort for a few years now but the 4th wall issue has kept me from booking. Im not a very outdoorsy person although I love a good beach in a luxury hotel but Im terrified of bugs. Did you have any issues with bugs or other wildlife in the room? Plus the sunrise early in the morning would drive insane…is there anyway to block out the sun at 5/6am? or will I be doomed to waking up at sunrise?
Hi Cait,
You mentioned that this resort was super romantic, would you recommend it for a solo getaway? I’m looking for a safe, yet peaceful resort.
Love your content as always.
Xoxo—Lauren
What sunscreens and SPF moisturizers do you love for the beach? Also, do you use anything on your hair for the beach or the pool? You’re the cutest by the way and so is your Mom! 🙂
When you stayed here, did you do the total romance package or just book your own activities? We are thinking of doing this for our honeymoon next year and wondering if we should do the package or not. Did you see any of the other rooms or have you ever stayed in the other rooms?
We did not get the total romance package, we booked our own activities! And I did not see any of the other rooms, but I think they ALL have an amazing view. I don’t think you could get a bad room there!
My fiance and I are looking at Jade Mountain for our Honeymoon. Looking to go in June! The one thing I want was a infinity pool and came across this beautiful resort. I know you want handful years ago but how was the food? What are the food options? We are both picky eaters sadly and both don’t eat fish, I dont eat chicken. Are there many choices to choose from especially if staying for 5+ days. Thank you in advance.
I remember that there were some plant-based options to choose from! However they are BIG on seafood since it is an island!! I have found that to be true for all of the islands I’ve visited – a ton of seafood options and not a lot else! But I do think the food was really good. I don’t know if you like burgers but their burger hut on the beach is incredible!