BooBooMonkey and Poppadaddycruiser’s FASCINATION with the Southern Caribbean 4/30/17

By this time, we are at least 2.5 hours into our Barbados adventure, and feeling hungry. Edwin knew just the place for lunch:

I am truly sorry I didn’t take a picture of the food and atmosphere here. I had flying fish, which I had never tried before and it was delicious! The local Banks beer was good too—if you are like me and like yellow ales (or lagers or whatever--you know-plain old US tasting beer lol). There were a couple other tour van drivers there with a few more tourists enjoying lunch. These are the kind of stops I love when you take a private or smaller tour. Small family restaurant with interesting food you do not see every day.

Side note on this lunch stop. The couple we ate with were older but young-acting Brits. They complained that their tour driver kept rushing them. We actually saw this in action when he came to tell his group it was time to go. The rest of them were at another table. He actually said something like "Time to go. Hopefully these two won't continue to hold up the tour." I mean, really???

So glad Edwin was so patient with us!

After lunch, we were supposed to drive to Bathsheba to take some more pictures of the seashore, but we were both ready to head back to the ship,since we weren’t firing on all cylinders that day. We had a leisurely ride back across the island to the port area, where we tipped Edwin and said our good-byes and headed back to the ship. The entire tour was at least 3.5 hours.

Edwin Lovell and Scenic Barbados Tours- TWO THUMBS UP!

Next up: Deep Sea Fishing at St. Lucia

Thursday-St. Lucia-Deep Sea Fishing with Hackshaw’s Boat Charters

We had an early wake-up for our scheduled fishing tour at 8:15. We were told to go to the boat dock “right below your ship”. After finally finding it, it was only a short 5 minute walk, as promised. However, not having been there before, it took us a while to figure out where exactly they meant. This tour was $200, and you paid $100 on Paypal up front and the other half in cash once on board. Here is a shot of the ship from that area, in case anyone decides to do this tour:

Quick observation about St. Lucia- It looks beautiful with pastel-colored homes on hillsides, and is supposed to have great snorkeling. We observed the taxi drivers in port to be "Nassau-like" in their aggressive approach--although we told them we were already booked on a boat tour. If we go back, we will book a snorkeling tour or pre-book an island tour).

Now, after 20 cruises, we are running out of new things to do on shore tours. So, I booked this since hubby loves to fish at home. It was a bit over my usual price point, but I figured it would be a bucket-list type of experience and went for it.

While waiting for our boat to come (some time after 8:15—maybe more like 8:45), I met this gentleman. I’m not sure what it is about me that causes people to tell me stories and/or their life story, but this poor guy did just that—in one of those thick island dialect/accents that makes one difficult for a north-American English speaker to understand. First he asked me what boat we were going on. I told him Hackshaw’s and he said well, “He’s good, but not the best, but not the worst”. Thanks for the info, lol.

Then he was telling me about some boat captain who died in a boat explosion and the son taking over the business (may be this tour operator??? Not sure), and a few other things I can’t remember four weeks later.

Then, he showed me his bandaged leg (with what looked like a piece of a black trash bag and duct tape on it) and told me he was attacked by a pit bull and proceeded to show me his prescription for I think it was Tramadol and aspirin, and asked if I had $10 for him to buy his Rx. He needs the Tramadol so he can sleep, says he.

I politely declined (mostly since I had only brought the cash we needed for the balance of our tour plus tip, but I would be giving away cash all the time if I gave to every stranger who shares a story with me—really!). Anyway, this kind of thing happens to me ALL the time. Maybe I look like a nurse, lol. I did not see a Rx for an antibiotic, so I hope he already had that (or wasn't really attacked by a pit bull, lol).

Hubby snapped this photo of us having this conversation. while this picture makes the area look "shady" it is just shaded. Felt safe there.

Fishing trip, cont'd...

Once aboard the boat, which already had about 12 other passengers from hotels (we were the last pick up and first drop off), the mate gave a safety briefing and approached me for the remaining $100. We headed pretty far out and it became VERY choppy. Words alone cannot describe how VERY choppy this trip was. I wish I could post a video here. These were 8 foot swells (like from the bottom of a dip to the top of a lift)-so like 4 foot waves I guess.

Trying to walk around was almost impossible. Going to the head was a necessary evil because you had to go inside and down some stairs, then back up with all this motion going on. The weather was sunny and beautiful, so I am not sure why it was so choppy. No one was ill because of it (to my knowledge), which was a miracle from God.

Maybe a couple of these photos will give you a tiny idea what I mean, but I doubt it!

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That was hubby in the fishing chair.

Here is how it went. They had one fishing chair on the stern. Everyone on the boat would have 15 minutes sitting in the chair. You are not even holding a rod (not that any of us would have been able to do so with the motion of the boat and size of the rods). The boat trolled at a pretty fair clip for the 2 hours or so that we were “fishing”. Hubby says there's no way any fish were going to hit that way. They did have a cooler with plenty of water,pop, and beer, as well as an assortment of bagged chips to snack on.

Hubby napping later inside the boat—all those waves were tiring.

Maybe if you look at the angle of the horizon in the pic above to that of the boat you can see what I mean. I know the seasoned deep sea fishers are going to think I am exaggerating the level of the swells. Hubby told me he thought they were 10 feet, and he has good sea legs. I lowered it to 8 feet in my description above. Not sure if it was just windy there that day, or there were storms nearby or what, but it was really, really bad. Just sayin'!

We are heavy users of the casino, so this was our third trip where the casino comped the cruise (minus taxes and fees). That is part of the reason we even chose this one—it was basically free!

Because we are "Advantage Players" in casino lingo albeit "Low Rollers" and understand odds, statistics & terms like "Standard Deviations" there are a few games/techniques you can employ to get the Bounceback and only use $200-$300 for a 3-5 day.

This was the first 7-10 day cruise that we'd done this on and learned that to get the Bounceback on these longer trips requires $400-$600 on average.

If you normally DO NOT go 7+ days you won't get the same value in comps/freebies/offers.as you would doing 3-5 day cruises.

We arrived on time at SJU around 1:30 in the afternoon. We picked up our bags and grabbed a taxi to port. The taxi was $26 plus tip for the two of us and our 2 large and 4 small bags.

Sometimes Uber is best and sometimes taxis are best.

At airports (especially pick up) the convenience of not having to play the Hide 'N Seek© game with your Uber driver is worth a few extra bucks on a taxi.

You can go online and compare taxi & Uber rates in most areas before leaving. Determine if the additional time to get out of the airport AND playing The Uber Hide 'N Seek© game is worth the value (and added on mental stress on my part).

ME: "Honey is that the Uber driver?"

HER: "The app says he's eight minutes away." :rolleyes:

ME: "It said he was four minutes away just 2 minutes ago!":loudcry:

HER: " I think he's at the wrong terminal and turning around.":confused:

ME: " Here he is! Are you Gomez?":cool:

HIM: "Are you Sharon?"

ME: ":mad:NOOOOOOOOOO!:mad:"

The priority area has drinks and little sandwiches for free. The longest part of this is having them load the Carnival gift cards onto your account.

#TheWIFE is not doing this Welcome Vip Area Justice. ;p

They had little deli cut half sandwiches with a variety of meats vegetables and condiments stacked nicely on platters. :hearteyes:

There was a tremendous variety of cheeses and crackers. :p

Additionally they had row upon row of cakes and cookies.:')

There was more to drink than just lemon water like at other Carnival ports. There was water, pop comma coffee, tea and lemonade. I enjoyed a sample of all.:halo:

I was absolutely famished and while #TheWIFE was spending (once again) a ridiculous amount of time standing at their desk while they input cards for 25 minutes.

I slowly massacred many of these delights. :evilsmile:

I had not eaten since 5 a.m.

I was about to die LOL.

We met our steward, named Bagus, after dinner. He actually saw us coming down the hall and asked if we were in E196. ... he introduced himself,asked us if we wanted once or twice a day service (twice), and asked us if we wanted bathrobes (yes). Bagus and his helper provided excellent service throughout the week. He always mentioned us by name when we saw him in the hallway, and went above and beyond in one particular instance I will share later.

This room Stewart was by far the best I have experienced beyond none.

He was regular in the times he took care of your rooms him and got them done quickly and efficiently. Only one time were they running late or behind and had that experience of needing to use the room at the same time.

The driver talks to the back of the bus via an intercom, which is very loud. Plus, they have a pretty thick island accent. Add to that, the fact that Mr. Love had a love for loud reggae music, to which he sang, and encouraged the whole group to join in singing and doing hand motions, etc. He was loving life, and most passengers were having fun. I do think some were not into it, and I can see why.

Out of all of the Safari type drivers we came across during this excursion Taxi Love (Sonny Listens brother) was the only driver this entertaining and engaging. So if you want a fun exciting party like trip around the island just can't be beat. Just do not think all Safari buses or even all of Sonny Liston tours are this much fun.

If you are going to get drunk this is the bus to be on LOL Best Time Ever

Since DH has brought up the casino, let me do my casino post for this ship right now.

Most Carnival ships have a fairly decent casino, considering the amount of space allotted. The Fantasy class has a relatively smaller casino area than do Conquest and Breeze class. They do have a variety of slot machines. However, there are only a few of the ones frequent slot players like to use, leading to frustration on a daily basis, looking for your go-to machines.

The casino host(ess) was Daisy. I mentioned her earlier, but she was AMAZING! Very personable, and seems to really love her job and interacting with the guests!

The FB group we joined prior to the cruise held a slot pull. We all put $ in and each person got like 3 or 5 pulls on that slot. We ended up losing a couple dollars each (as in no one hit a big one while we played), but it was great fun on the one sea day (Tuesday). We donated the excess (what couldn't be divided equally) to St. Jude.

I did excellent on the first couple of nights, but the rest of them drained my bank terribly. We did end up with cookies, chocolate covered strawberries, a free bottle of wine, and free steakhouse selections to use in the MDR one night (this ship does not have a steakhouse

So happy you're back! Still enjoying the review!

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Sorry Matt! Working hard to get through at least St. Kitts today! Wish it was easier to post pictures, otherwise I would have been done by now [emoji849]

 

 

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Well your back and we can find out how the rest of the trip went. Big Thank You's to you for all the work your putting in. I just go for the Fun.

Matt