Coconut Bay Resort And Spa, St. Lucia

A beautiful island, a great resort, a high quality all-inclusive experience for all ages in a verdant eco-paradise.

St. Lucia’s majestic Piton mountains and lush vegetation make it one of the most beautiful islands in the Caribbean. If your family has just arrived from a long international flight, however, you may not be able to fully appreciate your two-hour drive to St. Lucia’s northern resort area with luggage and weary kids in tow. Coconut Bay Resort and Spa, located about 10 minutes from the airport in southern St. Lucia, saves this initial journey and allows guests to start their vacation sooner.

That’s just the beginning of the family-friendly perks at this 85-acre, 254-room resort that was once a Club Med and is now a new and improved all-inclusive resort. The resort is unofficially but conveniently divided into a “family side” with busy pools, activities, a water park and the CocoLand kids club, and an “adult side” with an adult pool, spa, wedding area and hammocks. Each side includes a building with entirely ocean view rooms, so families may choose to stay in the building closer to CocoLand.

Each room features a private balcony, either a king or two queen beds, and a sitting area. Cribs and connecting rooms — especially nice are the Family Connecting Oceanview Rooms — are available upon request and kids ages 3-12 or 13-17 pay reduced rates for all-inclusive packages including all meals, beverages, activities and recreation. Most rooms sleep a maximum of 6.

For family-together outdoor activity onsite, Coconut Bay’s waterpark offers two sizable slides and an addictive lazy river, and there are also tennis courts and daily-organized games like Bingo and volleyball. While the water here is an unusually deep blue rarely seen in the islands (due to the beach’s position on the island), the sand and sea are steps away from the resort’s three clean, spacious swimming pools. Kids will enjoy ordering their own non-alcoholic concoctions from the swim-up bar with names like “Power Puff Girl” and “Stinky Winky.”

A beach grill is open 24 hours a day, serving up hearty junk food like burgers and fries, at no cost to guests. For perhaps healthier dining, a buffet restaurant offers daily breakfast, daily lunch, and dinner most evenings of the week. Two specialty restaurants (Asian fusion and Italian) offer a la carte dining and family seatings under the all-inclusive price; just be sure to make reservations.

Coconut Bay Resort is especially proud of its “not just childcare” CocoLand Kidz Club and Adventure Club programs, which seek to incorporate education about island culture and ecology into its daily activities. Parents can preregister their children online, and upon arrival kids will receive CocoPacks with a tote bag, water bottle, t-shirt, and other useful goodies. CocoLand’s Kidz Club covers ages 3 to 11, while the Adventure Club includes ages 9 to 14. And for the little ones, Coco and Loco, the resort’s popular, coconut-shaped mascots, make daily appearances in CocoLand and in the resort’s open-air lobby.

Tweeners who qualify for both programs may choose one or the other. Activities start at 10am and continue throughout the day, with Kidz Club members nature hiking, learning Creole, feeding the resort’s two resident donkeys, or crafting with coconut shells, while Adventure Club participants face “Survivor”-like challenges that require teamwork and problem-solving (don’t worry, no one is voted off the island). CocoLand’s facilities include a kids-only water play area and a tranquil, spotless nap room.

Like any good all-inclusive, Coconut Bay Resort’s facilities do not require that you ever really need to leave the property. Yet a desk is available for booking a variety of interesting, all-ages excursions around St. Lucia, including a catamaran cruise up the coast, nature walks or hiking, botanical gardens, a steaming volcano, or (a teen favorite) zipline canopy tours.