Travel Package Offers Sure Way to Grab Ticket for Taste of St. Croix

Chapel Hill, NC (January 26, 2012) - Snaring a ticket to the Taste of St. Croix is a challenge for visitors to the island as well as food festival habitues. Admission to the annual culinary competition and fete, this year on April 19th, is once again expected to sell out within minutes. Divi Carina Bay Beach Resort, the perennial host venue, is making it easy to savor every moment of the 2012 event with a travel package that includes a ticket to the event and after party, oceanfront accommodations, all meals and beverages for a five-night minimum stay.

About sixty of the island's best chefs, bakers, chocolatiers and caterers leave their kitchens for the night and come to Divi Carina Bay's 1000-foot beachfront to offer samplings of their specialties under the stars. While about 1500 guests sample food and beverages - wineries, breweries and rum distilleries also participate; a panel of celebrity chefs determines prize-winning entries. Among the judges this year are Merlin Verrier, executive chef of Chicago's Graham Eliot restaurant; Howie Kleinberg, known to Top Chef viewers and Miami diners; Ana Sortun, a James Beard winner and owner of Oleana in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Sue Zemanick, chef of Gautreau's in New Orleans, three-time finalist for James Beard's "Rising Star Chef Award", Top Chef Master Series alum and a Food & Wine "Top 10 Best New Chef" (2008).

The Taste of St. Croix is the elegant, festive and wildly popular centerpiece of the St. Croix Food & Wine Experience, a five-day epicurean extravaganza that evolved from the original chef competition in 2000. This year's festival, April 17 through April 22, features sophisticated dinners prepared and staged by the visiting chefs in stunning historic and residential settings, sunset BBQ and jazz on the beach, kid's cooking class, wine tastings and golf tournament-cum-progressive-tasting experience. For the full schedule of events, visit http://www.stcroixfoodandwine.com.

The "Taste of St. Croix Travel Package 2012" also includes tennis courts, non-motorized water sports equipment, fitness center and daily half-day program at the on-site Kidz Klub. Divi Carina Bay, St. Croix's only all-inclusive resort, also features the island's only casino, a full-service spa, four restaurants, two freshwater pools, driving range and miniature golf.

Visit Divi Carina Bay's A Taste of St Croix for booking through March 31 (subject to availability).