Elevate Your Well-Being in Saint Lucia

Aug 06, 2013

The Health & Wellness Retreat will take place across Saint Lucia. // © 2013 Sophy Farnad F

Saint Lucia will host the Third Annual Health & Wellness Retreat: “Elevate Yourself” event on Nov. 1-3. The health event will include seminars, seaside yoga, rainforest tours and cooking demonstrations. For agents selling Saint Lucia, the “Elevate Yourself” retreat offers commissions on ticket sales and added incentives for bookings of groups of 20 or more. Participating hotels include Bay Gardens Beach Resort and Smugglers Cove Resort.

“The retreat is becoming a notable event on the island, and we attribute much of the success of the program to our network of agents,” said Louis Lewis, director of tourism for the Saint Lucia Tourist Board. “The (travel agent) commission on tickets sales is just one way we can reward their unwavering efforts to promote the island.”

The Health & Wellness Retreat will take place in locations across Saint Lucia, from Pigeon Island National Park near the capital of Castries to the natural mud baths of Sulphur Springs in the southwestern town of Soufriere, near the Pitons Management Area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This year’s retreat will include an impressive group of experts.

Cat Cora, known for being the first and only female iron chef on Food Network’s “Iron Chef America” as well as a best-selling author, will lead healthy cooking demonstrations and host the seminar entitled “Elevating Your Living.”

Gabrielle Bernstein, New York Times bestselling author of “May Cause Miracles,” motivational speaker, life coach and founder of HerFuture.com, a social networking and mentoring website for women, will lead seminars on “Living a Miraculous Life” as well as morning meditation.

John Schumacher, founder and director of Unity Woods Yoga Center and one of only 13 certified advanced lyengar yoga teachers in the U.S., will lead daily yoga sessions on the basic postures and breathing exercises that energize and center the body.

Dr. John Douillard D.C., a physician, writer, professor and chiropractor specializing in sports medicine, will lead seminars on Ayurveda, a holistic system of medicine originating in India that aims to provide guidance on achieving healthy lifestyles.

Dani Devaux, creator of the Blood, Sweat and Tears fitness program, will lead multiple sunset beach boot camps based on her high intensity interval training program, designed for all fitness levels.

Priced at $595 per person, the weekend includes daily spa treatments, classes, receptions and transportation from select hotels. A day rate of $200 per person is also available, and a number of the island’s top hotels are offering discounted rates starting at $75 per night.

Rounding out Health & Wellness month, Saint Lucia will host its first international triathlon, on Nov. 22-23, challenging participants to swim, bike and run picturesque Pigeon Island.

United Airlines has also recently added a Newark/Saint Lucia flight, increasing ease of travel to the island.

“This new partnership with United Airlines will help make Saint Lucia even more accessible for travelers from many of the island’s major gateways in the Northeast, Midwest and West Coast,” said Lewis. “It will also provide added convenience for connections with a number of new markets.”

Flights depart Newark Liberty International Airport on Saturdays at 8:55 a.m., arriving at Hewanorra in Saint Lucia at 1:48 p.m. Return flights on Saturdays will depart Saint Lucia at 2:38 p.m. and are scheduled to arrive in Newark at 7:33 p.m.