The Island of Grenada
Why We Went
In September, I visited the amazing country of Grenada on a familiarization trip! I visited many hotels, went on excursions and spent time talking with the locals. These types of trips are incredible as we get to experience everything for our clients. When you book Grenada, you can rest assured you’ll be in great hands and your trip will be curated to your liking!
As of the posting of this blog, there are direct flights to and from the following airports to the island of Grenada from the United States; Miami, JFK, Boston, and Charlotte seasonally. This can provide a challenge for those who do not reside near those hubs. When I recently visited the island, I extended my trip, and stayed overnight in Miami before and after visiting the island.
What We Did
The purpose of my trip was to visit resorts, and go on excursions so I can better help my clients who travel. I was only on the island for about 72 hours but packed so much into my short time there.
The first excursion I went on was filled with a few excursions in one, and our tour guide was phenomenal. As mentioned, Grenada is known as the island of spice, and during our drive, he told us about some of the vegetation on the island. We saw banana trees, cocoa trees, nutmeg trees, sour sop and so much more. During our drive, we stopped at an overview of Prickly Bay for a photo op. Prickly Bay is on the South side of the island and features a marina.
The first place we actually stopped was Fort Frederick. This fort was built in the 1700s when the French and British were fighting over this island. It is one of the few forts in the world that has never fired a shot in anger. The views from Fort Frederick were awe inspiring. It overlooks the city of Saint George, which is where cruise ships go into.
Next up, our guide pulled to the side of the road so we could try to see some monkeys! Where he pulled over was right next to a small shop where there were souvenirs too. We brought some bananas with knowing we wanted to see them, and our guide also came prepared with some. He made monkey calls for a few minutes and next thing we knew there were wild monkeys everywhere. It was amazing!
Our next stop was Grand Etang Lake. This lake is actually an extinct volcano. I have heard mixed reviews. One that this is a completely bottomless lake, and a bottom can’t even be found with sonar, and also that it is only about 20 feet deep. There is no swimming allowed, so that can’t be tested, but I like to think that it is truly bottomless.
Here there are even larger Mona monkeys. It looks a little longer but our guide was able to eventually lure him out. He was really friendly and hung around with us for a bit.
From there, we backtracked and went to Annandale Waterfall. I totally forgot to bring my water shoes, so learn from my mistake if you go! There are a lot of big rocks in the water, so watch your knees and be aware that they are really slippery. The water was so refreshing though. I am all about being candid and something that I REALLY didn’t like here was that they had a couple of captive monkeys and birds for tips towards the entrance. Especially after seeing them in the wild, it was really heartbreaking to see that.
At this point, we were basically out of time but our guide still wanted to take us to Grand Anse beach. We were only there maybe five minutes. This beach is voted one of the best in the Caribbean. We were at a stretch where there were a lot of locals. Lots of kids playing, people playing soccer, listening to music, drinking, and just generally hanging out. I love immersing myself in with the local culture when I travel, so I would have loved more time here to stay and hang out with the locals. We did go to a more tourist stretch of this beach when we toured some resorts the next day and my goodness were the views jaw dropping.
That night, we still wanted to experience more of the island, so a group of us went out to Umbrellas, a restaurant which came highly recommended by the locals. We were told there is an amazing view of Grand Anse beach but the sun was set when we were there so we couldn’t see that. The food here was really inexpensive. It was right around $100 USD for five people for dinner, and that includes drinks. The food was really good too. While we were here they had a band playing and everyone in the group kept commenting on how amazing they were! They had things like burgers, fish tacos, sandwiches, nachos and that sort of thing. If you are looking for somewhere to eat while in Grenada, keep this place in mind.
The next day was filled with resort tours for the group we were with. While we were in between tours, with a little bit of time to kill, we stopped at a local market. I was told getting Jouvay chocolate while on the island was a must, so I snagged some of that. Something we did not do, but wanted to was a chocolate tour. As I mentioned earlier, Grenada does grow wild cocoa, and therefore they have chocolate factories where they make their own chocolate. If you are interested in something like that, know that it is an option while on the island.
Finally, we knew we couldn’t go to Grenada without checking out the world’s first underwater museum. This was SO cool. We went to two different locations. Again, I am candid with things. This was my first time actually snorkeling other than putting on a mask and sticking my head under water in a lake. Four people from my group went snorkeling, and three of us used basically pool noodles to keep afloat while we snorkeled. Know that is an option if you do go snorkeling. Our tour guide for this one picked us up right from the beach at our resort. We then headed out to a reef, where we saw so many fish. It was absolutely beautiful. I know I keep saying those words, or similar words to describe this island but my goodness this island is incredible, and I feel very underrated. It can be hard to get to but if you are reading this and considering going, do it. We snorkeled there for a decent amount of time and then moved to our next stop. Our tour guide took us to each of the sculptures and told us what they symbolized or meant and it was really neat.
That was all I was able to squeeze into my time on Grenada. The island also has rum distillery tours, a variety of other waterfalls some with hiking (you could also hike at some of the places we went), ATV rides, a market that usually opens when cruise ships are in port, catamaran rides, and restaurants you can check out. There is just SO much to do on this little island.
Enjoyed looking through this, very good stuff, regards.