Checking out two full-service resorts that make kids feel welcome on a French-rooted island better known for its romantic hideaways

“Hello there, mon petit,” cooed Martha, the waitress at Jalousie Hilton Resort on St. Lucia. She squeezed Dillon’s toes and wiggled his leg. “Aren’t you a handsome fellow!”

Dillon, 8 months old, gurgled happily and drooled gummed banana on Martha’s hand. “And a fine appetite too,” she added, as Dillon banged on the highchair tray with a spoon and pushed slobbery bits of fruit onto the floor.

Dillon’s mother, Sunny, took a deep breath and mopped up the banana with a napkin. Then she looked at the rest of the faces assembled for breakfast, checking the reactions.

Grandpa Steve looked relaxed. Seven-year-old Diane was sticking out her tongue at Dillon and giggling. Grandma (me) was sipping her coffee. Uncle Steve was unfolding a sightseeing map, and Dillon’s dad, Paul, was smiling. Sunny smiled back. Day 1 of our family gathering in the southern Caribbean and the mood was upbeat, a good sign for the week ahead of us.

St. Lucia, a former French, then British colony, is small--27 miles long and 14 wide--but it has everything any stressed adult could want from a Caribbean vacation: blue seas, warm sun, sandy beaches, easy snorkeling, rain forest hikes and no rushing about anything. But there’s something that doesn’t make the guidebooks: Kids are made to feel welcome on St. Lucia too. And to our family, coming here from New York, Houston and Los Angeles just for time together, a child-friendly atmosphere made all the difference.

Everyone who spied baby Dillon stopped to smile and chuck him under his chubby chin. Restaurants produced highchairs without being asked. No one clucked or looked annoyed when he cried. When Diane chattered on nonstop at the Castries Market, the spice vendor answered her with a patient smile.

We didn’t know this when we made reservations at Jalousie Hilton Resort, on St. Lucia’s remote southwest coast, for early December. We chose it almost randomly from a list of Hilton resorts where we could use “points” acquired from business travel in the Hilton Honors club, similar to airline miles. We had enough points for five nights in two cottages, which would have cost $3,000. Since we wanted a longer visit, and to see a different aspect of St. Lucia, we also booked three nights at the Windjammer Landing Villa Beach Resort on the island’s popular and busy northwest coast.

In each case, our choice was influenced by the hotel’s having programs for children.

Not every resort here puts out the welcome mat for families, of course. One of St. Lucia’s top-rated resorts, Anse Chastanet, specifies in a guidebook listing: “Children under the age of 2 are not accommodated.” And some are simply physically not set up for children, like the exclusive Ladera resort, where each villa is open to the air on two sides--no walls.

But “accommodating” children and caring that they have fun are two different things.

Jalousie’s Children’s Learning Center--an unfortunately stiff name for a place to have fun--is open to child guests age 5 and up. Attendance is free though there is a charge for lunch ($6), tennis lessons and field trips ($20 to $30).

After that first momentous breakfast, with Diane settled into the children’s center, we adults straggled down to the resort’s private beach. This was our day to wind down, talk, read, swim and most particularly watch the clouds form and disappear over the tops of St. Lucia’s landmark pitons, the cone-shaped extinct volcanoes that rear up on both sides of Jalousie’s private bay.

Diane, full of energy, spent the day learning about marine biology, a project that involved studying shells, poking in the rocks along the shoreline, identifying various corals and crayoning pictures of fish in coloring books.

Day 2 resembled Day 1, except that Diane went on a field trip to sulfur springs at the Soufriere Volcano. There the kids, with their leader and a local guide, climbed up to a viewing deck to see the bubbling mud pots and steaming vents, evidence of volcanic activity not far below the surface.

By Day 3 we were ready to explore, mostly around Soufriere. While it was early and still cool, the entire family headed for Morne Coubaril Estate, a working plantation a mile from Jalousie. Part of the property has been restored for visitors, who are greeted by guides, young women wearing 18th century plantation dress.

Though the owners, a French family, have landscaped the old slave quarters, repairing and cleaning them, nothing can erase the aura of hardship that the Africans, brought here to work the sugar cane, endured. The tiny huts, 10 by 12 feet and made of sticks, housed families of six or seven who shared a single cot; most slept on the dirt floor.

Afterward we took a cab into Soufriere, St. Lucia’s first capital and its oldest surviving town, founded by the French in 1746. A few colonial buildings still stand, but most of the town was tumbledown, charming in its own way.

Dillon was too young to enjoy the sights, but a baby in arms is a universal attraction himself; we met all sorts of people who admired his smile, patted his fat stomach and asked us where we were from.

The next day we rented a car and explored the verdant southern half of the island, primarily rain forest and banana plantations, winding up in Vieux Fort, a commercial port at the southern tip. Driving isn’t hard, though traffic moves on the left (a legacy of the British) and most roads are rough.

By now the resort was feeling like home. Originally a French sugar plantation, it’s on 325 acres in an isolated valley that runs down to the sea. Rimmed by peaks, the valley is a volcanic crater half sunk into the ocean, and fabulously spectacular from any angle.

“We tried to measure the depth [of the bay] a few years ago, while we were sailing,” said Stuart Freeman, a Jalousie spokesman. “Our last reading was 325 feet, and then it went off the charts. We never did find the bottom. That’s why you get that deep, dark-blue water about 100 feet offshore.”

The resort, designed to preserve the natural beauty of the valley and cove, is low and spread out under the trees. The three-story Great House is in the plantation style, with covered porches, wide staircases, high-ceilinged halls and the constant whir of fans. Most of the communal areas are here: a couple of restaurants, a cocktail lounge, a magnificent Great Hall furnished with colonial antiques.

Guests stay in cottages built in groups up the steep valley wall and hidden under a thick forest of palm, mango, breadfruit and poinciana trees. The growth is so thick that from the ocean you can see the Great House and the pool, but none of the cottages.

Our days began slowly, with breakfast on the veranda of the Great House--a bounty of baked goods, omelets, fruit, meat and cheeses, cereal, waffles. . . . Lunches and dinners were light, though one night we feasted at Ladera’s superb open-air restaurant, amid the chirping of hundreds of frogs.

Our cottages--a one-bedroom and a two-bedroom with sitting room--were spacious and bright. The bathrooms were unremarkable except for having plenty of water pressure, sometimes iffy in the Caribbean. There was air-conditioning but no screens, making it impossible to leave the rooms open to the evening breeze. For that, we sat on our patio, next to a lovely but mostly unused plunge pool. (These pools are not fenced, so parents of small children must be vigilant.)

We didn’t take advantage of the resort’s other facilities, but we talked to some guests for whom they were a main attraction. These included a spa with aromatherapy tubs, a light, breezy fitness center, tennis and racquetball courts and a three-hole executive golf course.

On the day we checked out of Jalousie and headed north, we stopped in Castries, the capital, to visit the spice market. Three enormous cruise ships were docked in the port, which has become one of the Caribbean’s largest.

Though there must have been hundreds of cruise passengers on the loose, the spice market was surprisingly quiet. That gave us plenty of time to look at all the exotic things that local people grow or make and a few that we suspected were imported: cocoa sticks for cooking, bags of cinnamon bark, packages of cardamom, vanilla beans, red pepper, curry powder, whole cloves, whole and ground nutmeg and allspice.

The drive from Jalousie to Castries was long and wearying. Though it improved north of Castries, we were eager to reach Windjammer--where we learned that our villas were not ready.

Swallowing our annoyance--on St. Lucia, confrontations only compound the problem--we took the opportunity to look around the resort, a bustling place that at first felt bigger and more impersonal than Jalousie.

The main building, restaurants and pool were close together on the edge of a long but narrow beach. The guest villas--more like apartments, with fully equipped kitchenettes--were white stucco buildings with red roofs, up a steep hill.

While we waited, we watched a young couple in a tuxedo and a long white gown having their wedding portrait taken on the sand. A few feet away teenagers were playing pingpong on a table, and other kids were steering pedal boats through the shallow water.

Finally the resort shuttle delivered us to our villas. We felt banished at first, but soon discovered the pluses: The villas, Spanish colonial in feeling, were more spacious than Jalousie’s cottages. We had a bigger and more inviting plunge pool and wonderful ocean views. Once again, however, window screens were absent, so we had to run the air-conditioning at night or sleep under mosquito netting.

Most important, Diane liked the children’s program. It was similar to Jalousie’s, but felt more like summer camp. The kids met at the day care center just long enough to form groups and head off to swim, ride the banana boats, search for shells, identify flowers or play games. Babies and toddlers were welcome, too, but an adult had to accompany them.

Diane had plenty of playmates at Windjammer, and there were many babies and toddlers. When everyone showed up for the breakfast buffet at the same time, there was a run on highchairs. But our waitress, Monique, took a shine to Dillon and saved a special table for us in a quiet corner of the restaurant’s open air deck.

“Are you having fun today?” she asked him each morning, brightly mopping up lumps of oatmeal and bits of pineapple. Dillon only chortled and smiled, but we answered for him: “Yes!”

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GUIDEBOOK

Kid Stuff Deluxe

Getting there: American Airlines flies to St. Lucia with a change of planes in Miami. Air Jamaica has three connecting flights a week from LAX. High season (Dec. 15 to April 14) round-trip fares start at $902; off-season, $862.

Jalousie Hilton Resort, telephone (888) 744-5256 or Hilton reservations, (800) HILTONS, has 102 individual cottages and 12 guest rooms. Most sports, activities and the Children’s Learning Center are free. Cottage prices per night: $375 in high season (Dec. 18 to April 16), $300 in mid-season (April 17 to May 28 and Oct. 30 to Dec. 17), and $225 in low season (May 29 to Oct. 29).

Windjammer Landing resort, tel. (758) 452-0913 or (800) 743-9609, has one- and two-bedroom villas with kitchens, a big plus when vacationing with children. As at Jalousie, most activities are free. Rates start at $260 per night.

Meals are not included unless you have booked a package. Resort breakfasts start at $8, lunches at $12 and dinners at $16. Children who eat little or share an adult meal are usually not charged.

Travel agents can find tour companies with packages that include air fare, lodging, meals and drinks.

For more information: St. Lucia Tourist Board, 800 2nd Ave., Suite 400J, New York, NY 10017; tel. (800) 456-3984 or (212) 867-2950, fax (212) 867- 2795, Internet https://www.stlucia.org.