Blenders stopped spinning behind the swim-up bar when we requested Dezral’s The Car, Saint Lucia’s winning power soca song of 2025. I’d guess international guests usually favour karaoke in The Cricketer’s Pub when they come to stay at Sandals Regency La Toc.
I hadn’t risked the Caribbean’s wet season for raucous evenings in the rum bar, though. Instead, Lucian Carnival called, or at least its fringes did.
Parade day, the carnival’s main event, may anchor the festivities, but it’s during the lead-up that Saint Lucia really comes to life.
Celebrations start in July, with key dates including the pre-parade J’Ouvert paint party and the crowning of music royalty at the National Groovy and Power Soca Monarch competition.
The contest is a crash course in the genre. Soca, or the “soul of calypso”, originated in Trinidad and Tobago in the 1970s and spread quickly across the Caribbean. “Groovy” and “power” are different speeds – the former slower than the latter.
It seems that anything can happen at the competition. Fan favourites fall short, and police cars deliver performers to the stage with a typically Lucian dash of unpredictability. It’s nothing like your standard Caribbean resort holiday.
The islands get packaged together like no other archipelago, with cultural exports out of Barbados and Jamaica often taken as blanket representations of everyday life. Today, the teams behind the Lucian Carnival aim to stay true to its individual roots.
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Carnival in Saint Lucia was strategically moved from its February or March slot to July in 1999, a decision aimed at avoiding competition with Trinidad and establishing a distinct event during the low season.
At the 2025 event, a record 24,500 visitors arrived in Saint Lucia during the carnival’s 78th official year, with a sea of over 10,000 walking the parade route through Castries city, including 7,000 revellers as part of Mas bands.
In its current iteration, 10 competing bands take to the streets across two days to win various accolades, most notably the coveted “Band of the Year” award.
For Adrian Augier, creative director of consecutive champion band Tribe of Twel, the scene’s cultural significance is rooted in island history.
Backstage at the band’s “Mas Camp” warehouse in Castries, wall-to-wall fabric, wire and glue guns were being used to bring Tribe of Twel’s 2025 theme to life.
Costumes are usually built from scratch in Saint Lucia, with hundreds of choreographers, costume designers and truck drivers helping to prepare the ensembles for the parade.
According to Adrian, it’s these costumes that sit at the soul of carnival, “to dress up, to transform, personify, identify and fantasise”.
In 2025, Tribe of Twel’s winning performance told the story of Jesus and the Angel of Bethlehem, showcasing a colourful catalogue of all the major milestones in a Lucian life. Symbolic outfits of baptism, communion, marriage, death and social occasions such as Saint Lucia’s national day and flower festivals were stitched and sequinned for the bodies of band members.
Although an impressive thing to watch– bands choose to both dress and undress during their performances – the carnival isn’t just about the spectacle. Carnival is “to be experienced”, says Adrian.
Calls for a heavier focus on its cultural background have been directed at Saint Lucia’s tourist board. Creative director Adrian insists the carnival must “not only be known for one end of the spectrum” with advertising that “98 per cent of the time is just sexy women”.
“Long-term, it is in the strategic interest of Saint Lucia to make room for the cultural content of Carnival.”
“How viable is it to keep selling boobs and bums?” he asks.
Currently, only 10 bands take part in the parade, where there were once 20. Adrian says traditional bands are dying out because “people are more attracted to the skimpy costumes.”
“It is all very government-organised and some of the spontaneous eruptions of creativity and colour and candour are a little bit over-managed.”
It’s true that some of Saint Lucia risks becoming a tourist trap. A tour of its over-Instagrammed Sulphur Springs was crowded and rushed even in off-season, and Gros Islet’s heavily-promoted street party felt like typical resort entertainment compared to the high-energy of D’Vibez a few nights prior.
A downpour of “liquid sunshine” (an optimistic name for rainfall) at the showcase didn’t dampen the spirits. The Dennery Segment event – a sweet sub-genre of soca music that originated in the 2010s – had the same food stands, punch and fast-paced music, but felt like a proper party.
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That’s not to say resorts don’t have their role in proceedings, or that a soak in a Sandals tranquillity tub isn’t a welcome indulgence post-concert. The combination of all-inclusive coffee and rum was necessary fuel for the string of late-night parties that make up the season.
But this carnival-studded, all-inclusive holiday showed different displays of culture and community beyond bottomless breakfast buffets and convenient, scheduled entertainment.
Preparations for the band's parade costume entries will already be well underway for this year’s event. I’m sure July will be another exciting spectacle for holidaymakers in 2026 if they dare to dance outside of their resort gates.
Natalie travelled as a guest of Sandals and the Saint Lucia Tourism Authority
How to do it
The 2026 Lucian Carnival will take place from 1-22 July. Find out more on the official website.
A seven-night stay in an Emerald Honeymoon Hideaway Grande Luxe room at Sandals Regency La Toc starts at £1,975 per adult. Price includes all-inclusive accommodation, return economy flights with British Airways from London Gatwick airport and resort transfers.
Includes a £100 saving per booking when booked by 3 February 2026 via Unique Caribbean Holidays Ltd. Quote the code “SAVE” at the time of booking. All pricing is subject to change and availability.
