Barbados or St. Lucia: which island suits your honeymoon better?

The short answer

St. Lucia, if you want the landscape, will spend a lot of time together at the hotel and put privacy above everything else. The island has the more dramatic setting and the higher density of resorts built precisely for couples.

Barbados, if you go out in the evening, like eating well, want to see several beaches and get bored after three days in the same resort. Barbados works as an island, not only as a hotel backdrop. And getting there from Zurich is considerably easier.

Getting there from Zurich: the underrated difference

This is the point missing from almost every comparison, although it decides the first and the last day of your trip. From Zurich there is no nonstop flight to either island. In the Caribbean, Edelweiss serves Montego Bay, Puerto Plata and Punta Cana, neither of the islands in this comparison.

Everything therefore hangs on the European connecting point, and there the two are worlds apart:

• Barbados is served nonstop from several European hubs: London Heathrow and Gatwick, Frankfurt and Düsseldorf, and Amsterdam. So you have a real choice of airline, departure time and connecting time.
• St. Lucia has only one single nonstop connection from Europe: British Airways from London Gatwick, year round. Everything else runs via a second change in the Caribbean or in the United States.

In practice that often means, for St. Lucia: a flight to London, a move across to Gatwick or a night there, then onwards. It is manageable, and for many couples the destination is worth it, but it is an additional travel day you have to allow for in the planning. If you only have ten days, you lose noticeably more of them than you would with Barbados.

Then there is the transfer once you are there. On St. Lucia you land at Hewanorra in the south. To Soufrière and the Pitons it is about 45 minutes; to the north towards Rodney Bay it is more like one and a half to two hours on winding roads. On Barbados, no hotel on the west coast is more than about an hour from the airport.

Landscape and feel

St. Lucia is volcanic: steep green mountains, rainforest, waterfalls, sulphur springs and the two Pitons, which dominate practically every photograph of the island. The feeling is enclosed, dramatic, lush. You sit a lot and look.

Barbados is a coral island and largely flat. The west coast on the Caribbean Sea is calm, with pale beaches and clear water. The east coast on the Atlantic is rough, windy and unsuitable for swimming, but strong on scenery. The south is livelier and younger. The feeling is open, sociable, a little British.

Hotels: how the two markets differ

St. Lucia has the higher density of houses built without compromise for couples: suites with a private pool, open fronts to the sea, many adults-only concepts, often on a spectacular hillside. The best-known address is Jade Mountain. The price for that is seclusion: at most of these houses the hotel is also the place where you eat, because the nearest alternative is a drive away.

Barbados has, on the west coast, an established luxury zone in which Sandy Lane is the best-known but far from the only address. Alongside it there are small, very good houses with thirty to forty rooms that work more like a club than a resort. You can reach restaurants that do not belong to the hotel on foot or with a short drive.

What you do outside the hotel

On St. Lucia: hiking the Pitons, Sulphur Springs, waterfalls, a boat trip along the west coast, diving and snorkelling at Anse Chastanet. Those are excursions, not evenings. Anyone who wants something to do in the evening is in the wrong place.

On Barbados: a restaurant scene spread across the whole island, the fish market evening in Oistins, rum distilleries, surfing on the east coast, caves inland, horse racing. Barbados has more going on without you having to look for it.

Beaches and sea

Barbados wins clearly on beach quality for a beach holiday. Pale coral beaches, calm water on the west coast, many bays within walking distance. St. Lucia's beaches are often smaller, in places dark-sanded, and frequently tied to a single hotel. If you see the beach as the main reason for the trip, you should take Barbados, or think about Antigua instead.

When to travel

The dry season from around mid-December to April is the most stable phase on both islands, and accordingly the most expensive. The Atlantic hurricane season officially runs from June to November, with the emphasis between August and October. Barbados lies on the eastern edge of the arc and is statistically hit directly less often than islands further west, but it is not exempt.

For Swiss couples that means in practice: a wedding in summer with the honeymoon straight afterwards is the weakest combination in meteorological terms. If you move the honeymoon to January or February, you get a noticeably more reliable trip for the same money.

What it costs

Both islands are expensive, and in the same league. The price is decided less by the island than by three other factors: when you travel, the room category, and whether the house works all-inclusive or à la carte. A stay in high season at the end of December costs a multiple of the same week in May.

Specific price ranges are deliberately absent here. I would have to estimate them, and estimated figures for a trip costing several thousand francs are worse than none. What I can tell you, once I know your dates: what that week in those houses actually costs, with the date the quote was obtained.

And if we want both?

That is possible, but it only makes sense with at least two weeks. Otherwise you spend a disproportionate share of the trip packing and in transfers. The usual order is St. Lucia first for the time together, then Barbados, because the flight home from Barbados is easier. For ten days I advise against it and recommend doing one island properly.