Sugar Beach, A Viceroy Resort

A stunning setting for a hotel, flagged by two Pitons. Even though St Lucia is on a volcanic island and the sand is black, Sugar Beach has imported white sand and soft white sand it is! You can enjoy the privacy of your own villa with your plunge pool or you can relax on the beach or by the swimming pool. Snorkelling is great from the beach and there is a designated area where you can safely do so.

It is all about the service at Sugar Beach. There is no need to go to the hotel reception upon arrival, your transfer takes you straight to your villa where you are met by your butler so your holiday starts immediately and check in can be done in the comfort of your own villa! You are given a firefly phone to call your butler who is on call 24/7. They are there to unpack your suitcase, pack your suitcase, organise your table reservations, or simply to arrange a tuk tuk ride to take you to your room or to the beach!

The rooms are lovely - very calming in style with lots of white. Very spacious bathrooms. Each night you get a little surprise at turndown service; chocolate truffles and macaroons to name a few!

Amazing breakfast buffet - one of the best I have seen in the Caribbean with endless options to choose from the menu as well! A lovely bar to enjoy a pre-dinner drink or you can even enjoy the sushi there too.

A hotel for all ages!

Love, love, love Viceroy Sugar Beach. The location alone is spectacular; film set worthy. Add the villas and rooms that are so well thought out, fabulous food, great beach and some of the best service in the Caribbean and this really is heaven! I loved that you have the privacy of your own space and private pool or you can go and be seen at the beach and restaurants should you wish. The private butler service is divine offering unpacking, repacking, ironing clothes for supper, I felt truly relaxed staying here. Having travelled extensively to some of Asia's top resorts, Viceroy Sugar Beach is holding its own amongst these and I love that couples and families alike can co-exist here without intruding on each others stay due to the space and privacy of rooms.

Sugar Beach is a really special place that I would recommend to families and couples alike, they really do cater for everyone.

For families they have an amazing complimentary kids club for ages 4 years and above where children are kept engaged and amused from the time they get there to the time they leave. When I was there I could see smiles all round, staff and children. For the older teens and tweens they can head over to the Spice Club where they can hang out, listen to music, play pool until 6pm when the bar opens, but families are welcome here until 10pm.

The beautiful horseshoe shape beach has plenty of sun loungers and is serviced using the red flag system for when you need a drink or a bite to eat. Great for snorkelling and diving, including night dives. You can also hire a beach cabana for the day.

The artwork around the hotel really stood out for me, very impressive and I would recommend that if this is of interest to you I'd ask for a guided tour and one of the friendly staff will walk you around telling you about the different pieces on show here. It really is a passion of theirs.

All in all I would say that Sugar Beach is luxurious but not pretentious with an impressive beach, spacious and comfortable accommodations and a great choice for everyone.

The beach bungalows at Sugar Beach offer elegant and chic accommodation with an all-white colour scheme, and a prime location, just steps from the beach, and with your own private loungers. The butlers will ensure that you feel thoroughly spoiled throughout your stay, and if you're not sure of your way around the resort for the first couple of days, will escort you to your destination.

Sugar Beach is one of my favourites in St Lucia, with its spectacular location between the Piton Mountains, set on a stunning beach and rainforest with 78 rooms. They have a fantastic rainforest Spa plus a lovely beach restaurant and bar. There is great snorkelling straight from the beach as the sea around this area is a Marine Park. The rooms are beautiful with all white linen four poster beds and furnishing so crisp and fresh with plunge pools. When I went there, I truly loved Sugar Beach, it is so chic! The little touches such as double sun loungers around a beautiful pool really caught my eye, and the food was excellent! This is also the hotel which has the cool London style bar with sound system, plus lovely Kids Club called Sugar Club and Teens Club called Spice Club which has fun electronic consoles that even the parents like to try! This is the only white sand beach in St Lucia with its backdrop of the Piton mountains it is stunning - man-made therefore not the volcanic sand you find in St Lucia.

The Rainforest Spa is amazing. It has been designed in a treehouse style. The entrance is like walking into a rainforest, and you start to feel relaxed straight away. There are seven treatment rooms but do pre-book your treatments so as not to be disappointed.

After some wonderful holidays with Scott Dunn courtesy of exceptional service from Olivia, Louisa and Maudie it was time for our next one. So a call to Juliet Morris to discuss St Lucia and our love of a great beach, super scenery for me as a very amateur but enthusiastic photographer, and some good food to boot. With no hesitation Juliet pointed us to Sugar Beach (formerly Jalousie Plantation) and we were not disappointed.

In an amazing setting between The Pitons, with the best beach on the island, lovely gardens and a beautiful Plantation Great House this was paradise. Our Beach Villa was decked out in cool whites, lots of linen and with a particularly comfortable 4 poster bed, a free standing bath and - crucially for my wife - plenty of wardrobe space! In one step we were on the beach, with our own dedicated sunbeds and hammock. What a joy to step out in the morning and stroll the beach or swim before breakfast with the amazing Pitons looking down at you and then an excellent breakfast - buffet or la carte cooked options. Our butler team were always on hand (each guest is given a little phone to contact them) and they were both charming and efficient.

Sugar Beach has two dinner restaurants, Bayside the more casual beach offering (good for lunch too) and the more formal Great Room up in the main house where we enjoyed excellent food and very good service (indeed the service throughout the resort was the best we've enjoyed in the Caribbean). And on the wine list we discovered a particularly delicious Californian white wine blend called Conundrum.

The Spa was excellent, with charming individual treehouse treatment rooms set in the rainforest. Go for the Cabana Massage for Two with a dip in a private warm water watsu pool to follow.

There would be no need to do anything other than bask in the sun, be fed and watered and gaze at those amazing peaks but there are plenty of other distractions; snorkelling directly off the beach, speed boat trips to other reefs, water taxi to Marigold Bay (a lovely natural harbour, quaint shops and some serious boats) and - a must - a taxi trip to the volcano to smother each other in mud and bathe it off in the hot volcanic springs. We went with another couple who we made friends with and had a great laugh.

There is a small public beach area in the bay and boats with visitors would arrive on occasion but not impinge on the peace of the hotel beach front, and we actually enjoyed the occasional buzz of the more public area.

The other great merit of Sugar Beach is the fact that there are several really good restaurants within a short taxi ride. Juliet had given us some great recommendations before we went and the hotel had booked them all in advance.

We also took a Water Taxi to Jade Mountain hotel to enjoy a wonderful dinner at sunset, and then we were water taxi-ed back by moonlight- magical!

This was one of those holidays where everything simply hit the spot. There were plenty of other experiences we didn't get around to - horse riding on one of the other beaches, Friday night Seafood Party down the coast, Soufriere market on a Saturday morning. So plenty to do next time. Speaking of which we have already booked to return (next time with our daughters), within 5 days of getting home - and that is a record!

We are relatively experienced and, I guess, pretty demanding travellers, but all I can say is Juliet and everyone else at Scott Dunn have shown endless patience and perseverance, given us great enthusiastic advice, and treated us to caring intensely personal service. And more to come..