Caribbean Cruise, 7 days.
Sailed from San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Here were the stops:
- St. Thomas, Charlotte Amalie
- St. Marteen, Philipsburg
- St. Kitts, Basseterre
- St. Lucia, Castries
- Barbados, Bridgetown
This ship was an older ship and has the same layout as Carnival Imagination (See other post).
We went to Puerto Rico 2 days early and went on lots of adventures. Check back later for separate post.
First stop St. Thomas:
St. Thomas is the gateway isle of the U.S. Virgin Islands in the Caribbean. It's known for its beaches and snorkeling spots. Territorial capital Charlotte Amalie, founded by the Danish in the 1600s, is a busy cruise-ship port. Historic buildings include a 1679 watchtower called Blackbeard’s Castle, in reference to the area’s pirate history. On the harbor, 17th-century Fort Christian is now a local-history museum. (Wikipedia)
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| Magens Bay |
The first thing you see when you get off is cute shops all lined up in a row to make it easy to shop.
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| Entrance to all the shopping |
After the beach we walked around for some food and found a brewery.
Rock City brewing company. Nice and was quite busy. Food was meh, they serve all your food in paper bags which was a turn off. The beer was good but, I wouldn't recommend it.
In the end I enjoyed the time here. We saw a lot of beautiful sights and oh that water!!!
St Marteen, Philipsburg:
Philipsburg is the capital of Sint Maarten, the Dutch side of the Caribbean island Saint Martin. Beachfront bars line the boardwalk along Great Bay. Voorstraat, or Front Street, has duty-free shops and casinos. The St. Maarten Zoo is home to parrots, monkeys and a playground. Saint Maarten Museum displays artifacts from the indigenous Arawak people. The ruins of 17th-century Fort Amsterdam stand on a nearby peninsula.(Wikipedia)
We came back! It was good to be back and take more pictures. The picture to the right are the prices for the water taxi to get from the port to the beach across the way. Much easier than taking a taxi all the way around and than only spending so much time at the beach. Here there is a lot of shopping, drinks and eating. First when you get off you have a ton of people surrounding you to get you to buy a package. If you want to sit on the beach and drink all day I recommend just finding someone who has a chair, umbrella and a bucket of beer. We did and we had a great time! He brought us our beer in a bucket and we had wifi and access to their bathrooms. 
My last post I could not remember the name of the restaurant that we liked a lot. Now I know!
Its called Lizzies. The fish and chips are the best ever. I HIGHLY recommend Lizzies to eat. Just look for the green roof.
St. Kitts, Basseterre:
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| Lizzies |
This is literally all we did on this stop. It was so relaxing and just what we needed. Oh I want to go back already.
My post on our MSC cruise for this stop we did a lot more than we did this time.
Well.... although I made a last decision to swim with dolphins with one of our friends we went with. Her husband and my husband just hung out on the ship while we met and loved on some dolphins.
I highly recommend this excursion. They had the dolphin experience where you sit and watch people play with dolphins. The one we did was swim and play. The company is called discovery dolphins. They take a ton of pictures and you do a lot with the dolphins. The whole time you are constantly touching the dolphins. This was an amazing experience. I give this excursion a 5 out of 5 stars!!When you are done they take you to a gift shop with over priced items and your pictures. I paid $40 for both these pics, prints and digital copy. Yes its a lot but when am I ever going to do this again. For all the pics it was like $130 and i wasn't going to do that. I originally just wanted one, but one of the employees gave me and my friend a deal and we took it. It was very nice of her to do that price for 2 because it wasn't even listed. For the digital prints you have to have their app. There is wifi at the store, but it was pretty slow so watch out.
I booked this excursion through the ship.
Here is the website if your more interested:
https://www.dolphindiscovery.com/saint-kitts/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=mybusiness
Like I said in my last post. Be careful with the people with the monkeys. If you point, say "look at the monkeys" or even look at them. They will immediately put the monkeys on you, take your phone and take a bunch of pics and than say a price. This guy did it to us and said " ok $20 each"
Uhhhh no dude!! we did get to hold baby monkeys and take cute pics but now we are out $10 for 2 seconds of holding them. Ya all we both had was $10 and the guy didn't even care. So be careful!
St Lucia, Castries:
Saint Lucia is an Eastern Caribbean island nation with a pair of dramatically tapered mountains, the Pitons, on its west coast. Its coast is home to volcanic beaches, reef-diving sites, luxury resorts and fishing villages. Trails in the interior rainforest lead to waterfalls like the 15m-high Toraille, which pours over a cliff into a garden. The capital, Castries, is a popular cruise port. (Wikipedia)We took tour of the hot spots on this port. They do have a beautiful waterfall you could go too but its a couple hours away and we didn't have a couple hours.
Where we went was very pretty; It did rain quite a bit. We went and saw the banana farms and the rum distillery. It was a lot of fun to go and look at all the spots our taxi driver took us. He told us about the island and every stop we went to. Some of the spots was a tourist trap, watch out! just say no thank you and move on. Unless you see something you like of course. The pictures to the right are the first stop we did. This was full of shops so be careful. It was super beautiful and worth it. Our taxi driver came and gave us some info on this stop and took our pictures. He was super nice!.
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| Banana tree from a local banana farm |
One of the stops was an art shop. This was way way awesome and totally recommend this stop. Eudovic's art studio was the name.
Vincent Joseph Eudovic has been carving wood longer than anyone else on the island of St. Lucia and has established himself as St. Lucia’s leading sculptor. He started sculpting at a very young age, competing in his first exhibition at the tender age of twelve. From then on, he was set in his vocation, and to date has made a significant contribution to the art form through the training of a number of highly talented young men.
Vincent Joseph Eudovic uses local woods for his abstract carvings, and since no two roots are the same, every single sculpture is unique and different. The main wood he uses is Laurier Cannelle, which is now extinct on the island, but he uses the old stumps and uncovered roots which are usually found deep in the forest. Laurier Cannelle has a remarkable beauty which one can see after a sculpture has been completed. It is also very durable. Other woods used are Mahogany, Teak, Laurier Mabouey, as well as red and white Cedar.
At his studio on Morne Fortune, you can see his magnificent pieces on display – pieces that beg to be touched! (Eudovicart.com)
It wasn't to busy and a young girl came and was our tour guide. All of his pieces were just incredible. I was in aw of every single one. And to make it better each one had a story to tell.
We bought a fish piece for our son and to remember this place.
Below are more pictures
Another stop was the St. Lucia 27th Inniskilling Regiment of foot:
The 27th (Inniskilling) Regiment of Foot was an Irish infantry regiment of the British Army, formed in 1689. Under the Childers Reforms it amalgamated with the 108th (Madras Infantry) Regiment of Foot to form the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers in 1881.This place was actually really cool and I learned a lot.
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| This explains more of what the Inniskilling is. I hope its easy to read for you. |
We also went and looked at this cool arch. They had some people jumping off of the arch and it was really cool to watch. I have a video and I'll have to post later, but here is a pic of the arch. |
| This was from a different stop. Just beautiful scenery. |
We were going to go to the beach after the tour but it was so rainy and mucky we ended up just going back to the ship. There was quite a bit of shopping and if your into beer they had good deals on that (I recommend Cari B). If we do come back I am determined to go to that waterfall.
Last stop- Barbados, Bridgetown:
Barbados is an eastern Caribbean island and an independent British Commonwealth nation. Bridgetown, the capital, is a cruise-ship port with colonial buildings and Nidhe Israel, a synagogue founded in 1654. Around the island are beaches, botanical gardens, the Harrison’s Cave formation, and 17th-century plantation houses like St. Nicholas Abbey. Local traditions include afternoon tea and cricket, the national sport. (Wikipedia)This stop was one of my favorites! We booked a turtle catamaran boat excursion through the ship. I highly recommend this excursion. You go on a boat, they feed you lunch, you are guaranteed to see turtles when you go snorkeling and after you snorkel and OPEN BAR!!! yes!. The rum on board was a local rum called Mount Gay and the beer... I can't remember the name but it was freaking good and it was on tap!.
Oh it was so much fun. We were snorkeling and I accidentally kicked a turtle in the head. I was so sad that I kicked it!! They had an employee sit on a board and feed them so we can pet and look at them. The weather though was terrible. Just poured rain on us throughout the snorkeling. After the turtles we went and looked at some reefs with beautiful fish. During this the weather go much better. On our way back we went swimming for a while, drank drinks and enjoyed ourselves. This company did absolutely amazing on everything. The food was absolutely delicious and the drinks were so refreshing and good. Sadly I didn't have a waterproof phone case or a GoPro to take pictures of the turtles. There was a ton of them.
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| After all the swimming we had a dance party |
Oh and FYI there were kids on this boat so this is not an adults only excursion.
I give this company and excursion a 5-out-of 5 stars!!
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| That water though!! |
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| Snorkeling for turtles |
Pros and Cons of the ship:
PROS-
- Same layout as Imagination
- Very tidy and clean rooms
- We got the suite and it was amazing. Very spacious and the balcony was huge! very big walk in closet.
- If you book a suite you get one free load of laundry. Just fill the bag and hand it off. Was really nice to have.
- Employees were always nice and happy
- No matter where you looked some employee was cleaning part of the ship
- Dining room food was delicious every night.
- I highly recommend brunch on a sea day. The huevos rancheros.... mmmm so delicious.
- We got the beer bucket this time. It was $25 for 4 beers. For coronas they put them in cups because of the glass bottles. This was fun to do when we got back on the ship.
- Food was always fresh
- Getting on and off was smooth and fast.
- Debarkation was so fast and simple
- Since booking a suite you get to embark and debark faster than anyone else.
- You can bring at least 2 bottles of wine with you on board from embarkation.
CONS-
- The bucket of beer..... like I said before about the Coronas... ya you had to drink them fast or they got warm super quick. And nothing is more yucky than a warm beer.
- Our sinks were clogged in our room. So we couldn't turn our shower all the way on.
- Buffet food was fresh but not great.
- Bingo was freaking expensive... but fun. I wouldn't go again.
- Coffee was a little watered down. Not the best.
- We did room service for breakfast and there wasn't a whole lot of options.
- Ice cream was ALWAYS busy and ALWAYS over worked so you get melted ice cream.
- Main pool was always overcrowded
- Hot tubs were overcrowded
- With any drink with a straw.... they had edible straws and they were terrible! We bought a reusable straw and used that or no straw.
Below are pics of the suite.
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| The closet |
I didn't take a whole lot of pictures of the ship since it was the same as my Imagination post.
I would go on this ship again, just because it was the perfect size for a Caribbean getaway.
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