Great Last Minute Back to Back on the Summit (L-O-N-G)

[Vagabondage]

AT SEA (Thursday):

 

[Note: My cranky review for Grenada seems to have vanished here, so if I can repost it below, please read it before this one.]

 

Since I was still quite stiff and achy from Wednesday’s tour, I was really glad Thursday was a sea day. If we’d had a shore excursion we were really looking forward to planned, we’d probably have had to skip it – but instead, it was bliss to just laze about and enjoy the hot tubs and T-pool. I spent most of the day reading, listening to the iPod, people-watching and dozing by the pool = livin’ The Life :).

 

I’ve already commented on the at sea brunch and daily poolside Zumba sessions. More on the latter: My husband had never even heard of Zumba, and though I could never talk him into shaking a leg with the gang, I teased him because each night he always checked the ship’s daily to see when the next day’s Zumba was going to be. He got a kick out of watching it. What we both thought was fun is that a session would usually start out with a dozen or so Zumba veterans -- cruisers who clearly already knew the routines -- up front warming up and eagerly waiting for the music to start. But with each new tune more novices or bashful types (both genders, all ages, lithe dancers with sculpted bodies to out of shape good-sport semi klutzes) would join in till the crowd had usually tripled or quadrupled. It was infectious, at least to many around the pool, and everyone who joined in seemed to be having a ball. It actually inspired me! I’m one of these people who really needs to work out regularly (overweight after years on steroids, needing moderate cardio as ongoing rehab after open heart surgery) but who doesn’t do it enough because I find just using workout equipment boring beyond belief, even with my iPod. But when we got home from the cruise, I looked into local Zumba sessions and found that the Y just blocks from home offers Zumba Gold, modified for seniors and people with mobility challenges. I know some cruisers find the Zumba sessions corny or annoying to their peace by the pool, but if that includes you, just keep in mind that it may help turn fatsos like me into toned goddesses by next year’s cruise. Or healthier chubbos, anyway. If all this marks me as a fogey, so be it!

 

I’ll say again, too, that we thought Xtasea was the perfect high-energy party band to do a 45 minute set once or twice each day by the pool – usually a bit of high-spirited Marley, Buffet, Beatles and the like, sprinkled with occasional fun moldy oldies like YMCA that got a lot of the crowd off their lounges and doing the arm motions. I talked briefly to the band just after their set one afternoon and they’re really nice guys.

 

That night was our second formal night, so I took lots of time getting ready (long shower, redid mani and pedi, etc.) since my husband felt the need to recover from the rigors of snoozing by the pool all day by taking another nap as soon as we got back to our cabin :) .That’s what cruising does to otherwise busy-bee people!

 

All in all, we like sea days. We’re still mulling over whether we like them well enough to try a transatlantic, but we have an old Open Passage certificate that’s most useful on TA’s, so we just might.

Coming up: St. Thomas & St. John…

Edited February 26, 2014 by Vagabondage

[carolslc]

I am LOVING your port reviews Judy! And I also love Zumba. I've been going to Zumba classes off and on for about 3 years now. It's my favorite work-out. I combine it with weight training because I have to, but I look forward to my Zumba classes every week. Instructor is important, so if you don't like the first one you try, try another.

[Vagabondage]

(Warning: I get on a soapbox in this installment…)

GRENADA (Wednesday): This day rook a U turn. We planned to go to Grand Anse beach on our own and were heading for the gangway when a nice lady in the elevator asked my husband if we’d like two free tickets to one of the ship’s tours which was leaving in 10 minutes, as her companion was ill. It was the West Coast and Nutmeg Plantation tour (GD18). We had no time to deliberate or ask much about it, so we looked at each other, said “Well, why not?? Sure!” and made as fast a hobble-dash for the end of the pier as my cane and various limitations would allow. I’m sure I looked pretty undignifiedl! When we got to the assembly area the group was just boarding. Most were ushered to two normal tour buses (i.e. modern, big windows, AC, etc.), but 10 or 11 of us were shown to an old beatup van which I can only imagine had been added to accommodate last-minute signups. [Warning: I’m sorry I sound like a bad sport, but here you’re going to have to listen to me gripe.] Its windows were covered with half-peeled off tinting film making photos useless, there weren’t enough bench seats for everyone so some folks had to sit on fold-down jump seats in the aisle, the AC was a joke, the suspension was shot so we bounced our way through every pothole (which Dominica abounds in), and worst for me, there was a large, probably 2+ ft diameter, rolled up canvas on the floor of the first row behind the driver that left no foot or leg room, but rather forced those of us who sat there to do so with knees under our chins :(. The driver/tour guide [can’t find his name just now] was very nice but brushed off my apprehension, assuring me I’d be perfectly comfortable.

 

I don’t want to snivel, but criminy -- you just can’t bend disabled joints like this, with no ability to shift position to get some relief, for several hours of jarring roads and be OK. Even my super-nice German seatmate, who was younger, very fit and agile, was seriously uncomfortable and very vocal in her disbelief that a Celebrity ship’s tour could be run like this. By the time we finally reached our first stop, the old Dougladston Spice Plantation halfway up the island in Gouyave, I was so hurting I was in tears. Not big loud bawling, but eyes leaking despsite myself. We told the driver I just couldn’t continue and asked if we could get a taxi back to the ship. He said no, none to be found, so I gave myself a lecture on positive outlook, said a little prayer and determined to enjoy myself as best I could on what was supposed to be a 3½ hour tour, figuring we only had a couple hours to go.

 

The Dougladston plantation was picturesque in its decay and an eloquent testament to how Hurricane Ivan in 2004 had decimated the island’s main industry, spices. Grenada is still recovering. Replanted nutmeg trees take 10-15 years to bear fruit, so even now there’s not much processing going on. Our stop at the plantation consisted of looking around at the shed where the nutmeg used to be separated from the mace which surrounds it, then the empty beds where it was formerly dried in the sun. Since I’m a retired historian, my greatest interest is always in “time travel,” picturing how ordinary folks lived in times past, and this stop at least enabled me to imagine life on the plantation for generations past.

 

When we got back on the bus, my seatmate’s husband very gallantly insisted that I swap seats with him, riding shotgun by the driver where I could straighten my legs more. Bless him! That made some difference, though for the next two days I still hurt and was gimpy from the initial contortion and jarring. Our next stop was also in Gouyave, at the nutmeg processing station in town. Again, there wasn’t a whole lot going on on the main floor – mostly just photos of different spices, a brief accompanying spiel, and a shipping room with big gunnysacks ready to send all over the world – and I was hurting too much to climb the stairs and see what was up in the large loft. So while the rest of the tour group went upstairs for a few minutes, we went outside to have a bit of a look around this everyday working town and visit with the friendly ladies who were selling the spice necklaces you see everywhere on Grenada, as well as an interesting older Rastafarian gentleman with a long gray braided beard. We enjoyed that chance to chat, as usual. Then the day’s nicest thing happened. Two of the spice necklace ladies, noting my cane and reading my body language, asked me if I was feeling OK. When I admitted I wasn’t exactly, they insisted I cross the road to their little house and sit in the chair that was setup in front of it beside their makeshift market (huge yams spread out on the ground). One of them brought me a glass of water and another a cool washcloth. What angels! I often wonder if many of the Caribbean islanders don’t feel resentful, or at least jaded, when daily busloads of affluent tourists invade their communities and troop by their very modest homes, ogling them like museum exhibits. But these wonderfully kind strangers treated me like family, with genuine warmth and concern, and we parted with hugs and their pats and “God bless you’s” so that the whole stop in Gouyave turned out to be one of my favorite trip memories. Priceless.

 

Our final stop was Grand Etang with its crater lake in the national park. It was raining fairly hard and the vista was pretty socked in, but I enjoyed the several brightly clad, spirited local musicians and the Carmen Miranda-style fruit-bedecked ladies who hung around the little spice shops and posed for photos for a small fee. My fun German seatmate (lost her name!) did an impromptu dance with the calypso guys and the photo I got brings back happy memories. The free rum punch was also nice.

 

Our “3½ hour” tour lasted 5 hours in all. So, overall verdict on the excursion: Mixed. Did we get to see a cross section of Grenada? Yep. Did we learn a lot? Not really, unfortunately. Our driver/guide was very nice, and extremely knowledgable on one interesting topic, the native plants of the island and their many uses in folk medicine. Several times he hopped out and picked leaves or fruits and told us about them. Good job. But unlike Thenford Grey on St. Kitts, he volunteered almost nothing about Grenada’s very interesting history or demographics or daily life today or food, music, customs or other local color, much less fascinating but controversial matters like the 1983 coup d’etat that assassinated Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and his cabinet and led to the U.S. military invasion of the island. He did, however, point out things like the electric plant, water company, gas station – why, I’m not sure. When ever-curious me would ask him questions, he several times either said he didn’t know and let it go at that or in some cases gave outright misinfo. (Two examples: when I asked if many Grenadans were Rastafarian, he told me that the majority were Roman Catholic and most of the rest were Rasta. This seemed odd to me, as we had passed several historic Anglican churches and numerous small, modest independent Pentecostal ones with names like Latter Rain Revival Centre. I later Wiki’d it and found that the stats are 53% RC, 14% Anglican, 33% other Protestant, 1.3% Rastafari, and tiny fractions of Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist and Baha’i. Now granted, most cruisers probably aren’t as curious about this as I (a veteran teacher of world religions), but I was disappointed that he wasn’t very well-informed. Likewise, enroute to Gouyave we passed through a small town (Grand Roy) that had a big homemade roadside memorial proudly proclaiming itself the birthplace of __?__ -- we drove by before I could read all of it. So when I asked our guide what notable person had been born there, he told me “a politician,” nothing more. When I looked it up later, I found it was Slinger Francisco, a.k.a. “Mighty Sparrow,” the famous Calypso King of the World who was one of the earliest composers and performers to make that quintessentially Caribbean music known to the rest of the world. Am I the only one who would have enjoyed such a window into what Grenadans are proud of???

 

Was this excursion physically miserable? For sure. Should a van this crowded and decrepit have been booked by Celebrity? No way. Did the folks in our group get the same quality of experience those in the normal tour buses did? Hardly. Were others beside myself in our van disgruntled? Yep – but still it was a nice group and we still enjoyed some joking and laughing together. Several agreed we should all give candid feedback on the tour to the Summit’s Shore Excursions desk who say they want guest comments. I wasn’t sure it was appropriate for us to do so. After all, we ourselves had paid nothing for the tour thanks to the lady in the elevator’s generosity, so beggars can’t be choosers, but if we had paid $49@ like everyone else, we would have been annoyed as they were and certainly would have wasted no time letting X know. Finally two days later, still aching and ruing the loss of what could have been a pleasant day on Grenada, I did go to the Excursions desk to pass on my comments. What really bummed me out was that the guy we spoke with there – not the SE director, but a middle-aged man – seemed barely interested and certainly didn’t express regret at so many participants’ disappointing and uncomfortable experience. He asked no questions and made no written note of anything we told him. I had made clear to him at the outset that our tickets had been a gift and I wasn’t seeking some kind of financial compensation, but that I hoped future cruisers could be spared a similar disappointment. Maybe if we had paid for our tickets he would have offered some token OBC or something, I don’t know. I’m wondering what response others on our bus got if they related their experiences to the Excursions desk??

 

So was this Grenada excursion a total bust? Nope, if you’re curious I don’t see how any day in a new place can be a total bust, and I relished the various chances we had to meet local people.

 

And there ends my diatribe. Tomorrow I have happier experiences to write about….

[Vagabondage]

Thanks, Carol! Good advice!

 

Have to say I just proofread my at sea report and noted that I spelled Jimmy Buffett's name "Buffet." Ha! See how cruising permeates the mind with food fixations? :) No wonder I need Zumba...

[olemissreb]

Our first time in Grenada, we took a tour with Mandoo that sounds very similar to the tour you took. I wish you had been able to take a tour with him. He is a native Grenadian and very knowledgeable about his island and shared it with us. He works with the Tourism Department talking with school children and islanders about the benefits of tourism. We stayed one step ahead of all the cruise buses. It was the first time we'd ever booked an independent excursion and got us hooked! Now we don't book anything else but independent.

 

Next time you are in Grenada, look into a tour by Mandoo. I'm not sure what his buses are like these days, 10 years ago they weren't fancy, but IIRC they were a lot better than the one you described.

[Algebralovr]

I'm so sorry to hear your tour in Grenada was so poorly done. As a history buff myself, I really feel that part.

 

I'm also extremely disappointed in the way the Shore Excursion man blew off your feedback. They are not supposed to do that! I recommend you email the ContactMichael address with that piece of feedback. Particularly that while many passengers were on nice motor coaches, you were on an old van for the same tour.

[CaribbeanBound]

Nice work on your review. I like lots of detail. Appreciated.

Edited February 27, 2014 by CaribbeanBound

[NCruiser2012]

Vagabondage,

 

I am enjoying your review. I am right now looking for travel insurance. You mentioned that we should read your previous reviews where you discuss a bad experience you had with Celebrity's travel insurance.

 

Unfortunately, with the search function disabled, I cannot see your previous posts. I did use Google to search and found your post about your awful medical experience in 2012. You mentioned at the beginning of this post, "We think third-party insurance is an absolute must, as it covers you for all kinds of important things X’s insurance doesn’t."

 

I don't want you to have to repeat the entire experience, nor do I want to hijack you post, but what does a third-party insurance offer that X does not? What was lacking from X's policy. Just in a sentence, so I understand.

Edited February 27, 2014 by NCruiser2012

[Vagabondage]

ST. THOMAS à ST. JOHN (Friday): St. John, 2/3 of which is preserved as beautiful U.S. National Park, is what I’d been chomping at the bit to see for decades, so we wanted at it with no delay. First ones off the Summit and hoofed it to the opposite end of the big Havensight shopping complex where all the taxis wait. Struck up a conversation with an interesting, fun couple also off the Summit whose goals for the day were like ours, so we all decided to team up for a bit of an island tour before being dropped off at Cinnamon Bay. Because no one else had made it out to the taxi area yet, we didn’t have to wait for a safari taxi to fill up, but instead took off for Red Hook right away. $10@ each way, took us about 20-25 minutes. At Red Hook we had more than enough time to buy our $14@ round trip tix before the 9am departure. Ferry crossing was smooth, uneventful and short – 20 minutes – whereas the ferry that leaves only 3x/day from Havensight (the ferry X’s ship’s tours use) is rougher and longer and gives you less time on St. J. The cost of doing Red Hook independently is the same as the X on-your-own tour, so if you want my opinion, do Red Hook on your own. It’s totally easy, not confusing. Pick up a free map of St J in the Red Hook ferry terminal.

When you walk off the ferry in St. J a number of safari taxis are waiting in the parking lot next to the pier, and an official from the taxi association teams you up with the best driver to do whatever you have in mind. Fares are fixed – no need to dicker. We paid $25@ for a 1½ to 2 hour driveabout, followed by dropoff at Cinnamon Bay. We had a nice newer bright red pickup and a real nice older driver, who gave us quite a lot of interesting info about the island as we took our little pre-beach look-see. We chose a pretty standard route: up Centerline Road to the scenic Bordeaux Mtn. overlook where you can look out over Coral Bay and the other side of the island, with aquamarine indented bays everywhere .

 

After a short refreshment/WC stop there at Bordeaux, we headed to Anneberg Sugar Plantation. An old sugar estate fallen into ruin may not sound riveting, even a huge one like Anneberg though for photography alone it’’s picturesque. But IMHO it’s a good way to get at least a glimpse into the ‘white gold’ industry that built the Caribbean. Try to imagine yourself a newly immigrated smallholder (many indentured servants’ and ex-cons) struggling to eke out a living where everything was unfamiliar, then one of the wave after wave of slaves who had been kidnapped from many different tribes and languages of Africa (and some of whom had been princes in Africa) and thrown together under the most deplorable conditions of all of the worldwide slave trade, with an average life expectancy of just 2 ½ years after arrival, then an impoverished family of post-emancipation subsistence wage earners – sharecroppers, really. Perhaps you can even imagine yourself part of the affluent planter class that ran the show. If you can’t make this imaginative leap, I don’t see how these islands of the Caribbean can speak much to you, though of course their beaches and recreation will always be attractions. I had read Andrea Stuart’s new Sugar in the Blood: A Family's Story of Slavery and Empire (available on Kindle) just before the trip, and highly recommend it if you like some context for what you’re seeing on the cruise. It’s set specifically in Barbados, but could be about any of the Caribbean sugar islands Stuart traces the threads of her multiethnic ancestors’ lives within the larger historical tapestry, so it is a much more readable, human story than any straight history text would be. It helped me grasp the backstory of these islands and gave me an even deeper respect for the richness of the Afro-Caribbean culture that he taken root here. Anyway, Annaberg was an interesting 20 minute stop for me, and I recommend it. National Park volunteer docents help explain it to you. I intend to go back next year.

Next we drove all along North Shore road past one stunning overlook and beach after another, with our driver telling us one interesting story after another (e.g.. a resolute 93-year-old lady who would not let the Rockefellers buy her out, but instead built a house herself, with her own hands, that is now an island treasure used for community events.). Meanwhile, our driver [can’t find his card – dang!] filled us in candidly on the islanders’ mixed reactions when the Rockefellers bought up so much of their ancestral land, or the ST. John folks’ long effort to get a seconday school built on the island so their children don’t have to cross to St. Thomas every day. One politician’s promise after another broken… For such a tighknit community, it’s very frustrating.

I was enjoying al this so much I almost hated it when we arrived at Cinnamon Beach, where we parted ways with our shiny red jitney and great driver. The first thing we saw after we walked down the long path to the beach was the red flag warning of dangerous swimming conditions. There was a surprising amount of surf. (Most photos of Cinnamon I’ve drooled over for years look flat calm in most parts of the beach, other than that there are often some mild boogie boarding size waves in front of the beach rental shack.) It was also raining intermittently – not just light mist, but regular rain (though over within 5-10 minutes each time). The swell was so pronounced that we watched several adults and kids lose their footing in the surf, and asked around and found that the snorkeling we’d come to do was poor that day because of the turbidity. The tide was in far enough that the water level in the area close to the beach entrance was rushing right into the sea grape bushes where people had set up their chairs. I knew it would be better if we turned right and walked some distance down the beach, where it widens – but at this point we all agreed maybe it just wasn’t a good beach day. The lesson in this is to check wind and swell conditions before heading out to a particular beach. I’m sure there were other beaches on St. J that were as calm that day as Cinnamon usually is on most days. Live and learn.

 

So we grabbed a taxi back into Cruz Bay, noodled around in the shops for a short while, then got hungry and had some great fish and chips at Cruz Bay Landing right there at parkside, 4 minutes from the Red Hook ferry dock. Had a yummy frozen drink there, a Dirty Banana: fresh banana, rum, crème de banane, Kahlua, heavy cream. That was a new one on me.

If we hadn’t known we’d be back on St J the following week on our back to back, I think I’d have been pretty disappointed at the way our beach time at Cinnamon turned out. But we still had a very enjoyable day, and all in all liked St J even more than we had expected to. We’re now plotting a return sometime soon, to rent a VRBO cottage there.

Our first week’s cruise was winding down – boooo…..

[carolslc]

Judy - I can tell you that Trunk Bay was the same way that day. You probably read that in my review, but the waves were larger than I expected and the visibility was very poor. We got rained on quite a bit, our towels on the beach got wet because the tide came up higher than we thought it would, so we came back to Cruz Bay for lunch and shopping after not too long. Before our trip, I had trouble deciding between Trunk and Cinnamon, so it's good to know in a way that I didn't miss out on great snorkeling by picking Trunk. Although I would have wished better snorkeling for you.

 

I too would love to go back and just stay for a week on St. John so I hope we'll stay in touch and you can give me tips!

 

Thanks for the book recommendation. I'm always looking for new ones for my Kindle.

[Texed]

MDR DINING: the two times I tried the oft-praised waffles they already had a couple dozen made up and sitting at the steam table so would not honor my polite request to wait for a fresh one.

 

Unacceptable answer. ;)

[Vagabondage]

What does a third-party insurance offer that X does not? What was lacking from X's policy. Just in a sentence, so I understand.

 

Hi NCruiser2012 -- No worry about hijacking the thread, as I think it's an important topic for every cruiser to research and consider carefully. I can't give a point by point comparison of X's policy vs. a fully comprehensive one such as we buy since I've never bought X's plan and received the entire "fine print" policy -- only the somewhat general synopsis on their website. But in all the discussions I've read, these are the points other cruisers who HAVE bought X's coverage and advise other cruisers not to have found problematic: 1) Problems if you have pre-existing conditions, which many third party policies cover fully as long as you purchase the insurance within a short time after your first payment for the trip; 2) inadequate trip delay coverage ($500), which on some itineraries wouldn't begin to cover typical costs if you missed the boat and had to find a way to catch up with it; 3) trip interruption coverage, which appears to me to only cover the need to rebook air. What about a case like ours in 2012, when illness caused our removal from the cruise and left us unexpectedly stranded for days in another country? 4) pretty skimpy medical coverage ($10K is a drop in the bucket for many medical emergencies); 5) similarly minimal ($25K) emergency evacuation coverage, which can easily run $75K or more; 6) Some X reimbursement for covered situations comes in the form of cruise credit which has to be used within a year, not cash.

 

If you're young and fit and you and travelmates or family members back home have no pre-existing conditions, you may be just fine with X's policy. I'm really not trying to diss X here. But I've heard some sad stories -- i.e., parent passed away at home while purchaser was on the cruise but X wouldn't cover anything because parent wasn't one of the ones on the cruise. So I sure don't claim expertise, but I do think it bears looking into, then making your decision based on your own circumstances. Go to InsureMyTrip, do the side-by-side comparisons of a number of policies there, compare those to X's coverage, and see what works best for you. Insurance is a highly individual decision.

 

Let's hope you and yours stay healthy and it's all moot!

 

Cheers!

 

P.S. Sorry this was more than a sentence :cool:

[Vagabondage]

Judy - I can tell you that Trunk Bay was the same way that day.

 

That doesn't surprise me, Carol, but I'm sorry for your sake! I had been looking forward to that day at Cinnamon more than anything else on the trip! We chose Trunk the following week when we were back and it was super, so it's all a matter of how the swells are running.

 

You've probably read this info here on the CC boards, but here's some of what I've gleaned and intend to put to use next time we're on St. John:

 

• Most local dive shops use www.windguru.cz/int/index.php?sc=229370 to plan their outings for the day. When the winds are out of the south/southeast, the North Shore beaches are usually protected.
  
• Maho and Francis are usually more sheltered than other North Shore beaches, and since they're close to parking you can check them out visually before you commit. At Cinnamon it was a good 5 minute walk from where our driver dropped us off to where we could get our first glimpse of the water and whitecaps.
  

I'll be glad to tell you what I find out about renting on St. John, as that's what we definitely plan to do for a week at the end of next Jan/Feb's back to back. (We're going to leave the cruise a day early, in St. Thomas, to avoid doubling back.) VRBO has a wealth of options in and around both Cruz Bay and Coral Bay, and we've never had a bad experience with them anywhere in the world we've rented. Some of the places are W-A-Y too pricey for us, but there are some that look promising -- tra la!

[Vagabondage]

WEEK TWO EXCURSIONS AND ACTIVITIES (Jan 25-Feb 1)

 

AT SEA (Sunday) – Another super-lazy day – addictive. As mentioned earlier, we dined at Normandie Sunday night using our unexpected 2-for-1 offer and enjoyed it very much.I love the art moderne touches from the original Normandie. We would definitely do this again.

BARBADOS (Monday) – We had planned to just nose around on our own, then spend a little beach time. But the day before I’d gotten pangs about seeing so little of Barbados, since its history is so rich (settled intermittently from the early 1500’s, in many ways it is the mother colony of all the other British settlements in the Americas, and a surprising-to-me amount of our own early USA has roots here) and I’d been so pleasurably immersed in reading about it in the book I mentioned earlier. So despite feeling nervous after our last miserable ship’s tour, we signed up for the Essence of Barbados tour (BB69, $39@). Although not everything about it sounded alluring (watching rum being made and sampling it, since my husband does not drink, or visiting a mahogany carving factory that sounded suspiciously like a typical group tour souvenir ‘opportunity’ which we cringe at) we reasoned that it would let us see at least some of the look of the island, visit a Heritage Park (sounded promising, though we couldn’t get much info on it) and tour Sunbury, whose 1660 founding made it the oldest surviving plantation house on Barbados.

 

After a drive around Bridgetown enjoying its tidy British character and colonial Caribbean architecture and learning about its various sights, we headed to the Foursquare Rum Distillery and Heritage Park. Jim and I skipped the rum factory tour to have more time to check out the Heritage Park, which was actually just a small museum with simple but interesting exhibits on various aspects of Bajan folklore and culture – donkey man, Mother Sally, stiltwalkers, etc. It also contained a few replicas of old kitchens and other aspects of everyday island life. Though the museum was quite modest, and Heritage Park was a rather grandiose name for it, we quite enjoyed it, as unlike other exhibits we’ve seen in the islands, it really was trying to preserve something of typical Afro-Caribbean folk culture, not just the lifestyles of the wealthy English expats who owned the plantations.

 

While we were at Foursquare the heavens opened and it began to pour BUCKETS – not just the brief tropical showers we’d had many of for the past several days – and since we were locked out of our tour bus till the rest of the group came back from the distillery tour, we were S.O.L. We had actually brought both a mini-umbrella and dollar store ponchos on the cruise, but wouldn’t you know they were back onboard? Lesson: Caribbean weather can change FAST, so be prepared! We mildly amused ourselves by watching a plump 4” long, multicolored striped caterpillar float by on a mini-rapid caused by the pouring rain – we weren’t the only ones getting drenched. I know zip about entomology, but suspect he or she must not be very tasty, as with its almost neon color scheme a hungry bird could spot it from W-A-Y off.

Our final stop was at Medford Mahogany Creations, where an enterprising and personable Bajan related the story of how he had left his family’s professional class in life to make his way as an artist. His creations are carved mahogany root and burl pieces, largely abstract and following the natural form of the wood (which is a protected species, hence his use of castoff remnants). He now employs a handful of other islanders in his modest workshop. It’s nice to see a cruiseline draw attention to native islanders’ small enterprises, particularly eco-conscious ones, not just all the big corporate retailers like Diamonds, Int’l, that you find in every cruiseport, but we didn’t buy anything and I don’t think anyone else on our bus did, either. Another tourgroup was arriving just as we departed, so this “factory” is apparently a well-established part of the Barbados group tour circuit.

 

Altogether we weren’t unhappy to have taken this tour, as it did give us a chance to look around the island quite a bit, but we didn’t really find it riveting. We’d give it a C, and next year will just explore Barbados on our own. If you’re interested in rum-making and rum sampling and British antiques, you’d probably rate our tour higher than we did. I for one wish there were a REAL Barbados history tour available, one which dealt a lot more with the story of the slaves, their pre-kidnap lives in Africa, the reality of slave ship life, the written and unwritten laws and subhuman treatment which produced such shocking mortality rates, their attempted revolts, and their eventual transition to a successful, well-governed nation of free men and women. I find that story remarkable – but apparently tour operators find it too touchy to offer more than a passing reference to, preferring an abridged and sanitized version instead. Harrumph.... [sorry, guess I did get a little grouchy there!]

[carolslc]

Judy - I could read your writing all day! I'm thinking you should write a history of the Caribbean, and I would surely read it. Or anything you wanted to write about. :)

[NCruiser2012]

Hi NCruiser2012 -- No worry about hijacking the thread, as I think it's an important topic for every cruiser to research and consider carefully. I can't give a point by point comparison of X's policy vs. a fully comprehensive one such as we buy since I've never bought X's plan and received the entire "fine print" policy -- only the somewhat general synopsis on their website. But in all the discussions I've read, these are the points other cruisers who HAVE bought X's coverage and advise other cruisers not to have found problematic: 1) Problems if you have pre-existing conditions, which many third party policies cover fully as long as you purchase the insurance within a short time after your first payment for the trip; 2) inadequate trip delay coverage ($500), which on some itineraries wouldn't begin to cover typical costs if you missed the boat and had to find a way to catch up with it; 3) trip interruption coverage, which appears to me to only cover the need to rebook air. What about a case like ours in 2012, when illness caused our removal from the cruise and left us unexpectedly stranded for days in another country? 4) pretty skimpy medical coverage ($10K is a drop in the bucket for many medical emergencies); 5) similarly minimal ($25K) emergency evacuation coverage, which can easily run $75K or more; 6) Some X reimbursement for covered situations comes in the form of cruise credit which has to be used within a year, not cash.

 

If you're young and fit and you and travelmates or family members back home have no pre-existing conditions, you may be just fine with X's policy. I'm really not trying to diss X here. But I've heard some sad stories -- i.e., parent passed away at home while purchaser was on the cruise but X wouldn't cover anything because parent wasn't one of the ones on the cruise. So I sure don't claim expertise, but I do think it bears looking into, then making your decision based on your own circumstances. Go to InsureMyTrip, do the side-by-side comparisons of a number of policies there, compare those to X's coverage, and see what works best for you. Insurance is a highly individual decision.

 

Let's hope you and yours stay healthy and it's all moot!

 

Cheers!

 

P.S. Sorry this was more than a sentence :cool:

 

Thank you, Judy, for your thoughtful reply! Insurance is a big decision involving a lot of factors. I believe we should plan for the worst and hope for the best.

[Vagabondage]

St. Lucia (Tuesday): A snorkel cruise to the Pitons with Mystic Man was the day I had most looked forward to in the whole two weeks of our cruise, so I was really discouraged when my heart started acting crazy again on Monday. I hoped it would straighten itself out by morning, but when it hadn’t and I was really dragging I knew we had to contact Mystic Man and cancel. They were super understanding about it, and now we definitely plan to rebook with them for next year. Usually I’m able to take these occasional bad days in stride, having lived with them all my life, but I must admit I was in tears for a while over this one. Of all days! Nevertheless, after breakfast we decided to at least take a short, slow mosey around the part of Castries closest to the cruise dock so the day on this island I’ve long found so interesting wasn’t entirely wasted. Countless taxi drivers tried to talk us into tours of the island, wanting to drive us to La Soufrière and the Pitons, but we’d heard enough about the island’s winding, bumpy mountainous roads, which many tour operators advise Dramamine for, to say no thanks. So we just took our time soaking up the atmosphere of Castries instead, and taking frequent breaks to sit down and people-watch and enjoy the distinctive, musical sound of the native patois, which we heard much more often than English.

 

We only covered about six square blocks, but it was fun and very rewarding, at least to people with our interests. We enjoyed the gingerbread Caribbean colonial style of some of the downtown buildings, and admired the stately central library in its place of honor on the main square. We especially like the handsome, tidy grassy square itself, which was once the slave market and was latterly named after Christopher Columbus, but which in 1993 was much more appropriately named to honor Castries’ native son, poet, playwright and artist Derek Walcott, who had won the Nobel Prize for literature the previous year – the only Caribbean to have achieved this recognition.

 

Many of the poems and plays of Walcott (b. 1930), who like many St. Lucians is of mixed Afro-European ancestry, have a distinctive multicultural voice and explore the complexities of the colonial experience and what Caribbean identity uniquely means. He has had a distinguished teaching career in several countries including the U.S., and has won virtually every major prize in addition to the Nobel, including the MacArthur “genius award” and the O.B.E. (Order of the British Empire). I have long been an admirer of his work.

 

Derek Walcott Square is towered over by a huge Samaan or Masssav tree (Albizia saman, a.k.a. rain tree or monkeypod). It is said to be 400 years old, and it looks it. There’s also a Victorian-looking gazebo or bandstand which I understand is the site of many public concerts and celebrations.

 

Across the street from Derek Walcott Square is the imposing basilica which was our main goal. Its clock tower is easily visible from the cruise ship, only four blocks inland, so makes a good target if you’re setting out on a little walkabout like we were. A friendly middle-aged gentleman Peter introduced himself to us most engagingly as we entered the Cathedral and offered us his taxi/guide services, which he assured us were unexcelled in St. Lucia, but we again declined He laughingly said “Well then, I will wait for you here, as I’m quite sure you’ll change your minds.”

 

Most St. Lucians are Roman Catholic, a legacy of the island's original colonization by France, and the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception is the largest church in the Caribbean. We were stunned by the artistry and craftsmanship of this place of worship and sat quietly for a long time taking in every detail and reflecting on its message. Rather than try to describe it adequately, I’ll point you toward a few of my photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/22589647@N02/sets/72157641837590404/, which I’m ever so slowly editing and uploading a small selection of. [i’m not positive that link will work, so let me know if it doesn’t, OK?

 

The decoratively painted ceiling was upheld by delicate carved wooden arches, with clerestory windows softly illuminating the interior. The entirety of the walls were covered with vivid decorative panels and pictorial roundels – no soft pastels here. Strikingly, unlike conventional European and American church art which quite improbably depicts every sacred figure as milky-skinned Caucasians with familiar Northern European features, the figures here were Afro-Caribbean saints with black faces. I was really moved by this, little knowing at the time how groundbreaking the paintings had been. As a child in Sunday School I can still hear our young voices singing “In Christ there is no East or West / In Him no South or North / But one great fellowship of love / Throughout the whole wide earth…,” and that aural memory replayed itself in my head as we walked around the cathedral.

 

Later that day I dug around online and found that all the interior painting is the work of Sir Dunstan St. Omer (b. 1927), St. Lucia's most honored native artist, a devout Catholic whose famous iconoclastic sacred work at first caused a great outcry but is now treasured in churches throughout the Caribbean. Excuse me, but I must rattle on a little here because of my enthusiasm for this artist’s distinctly Caribbean spiritual vision and work. (St. Omer was, incidentally, a schoolmate and lifelong friend of Sir Derek Walcott, and in both it is easy to see their emergence into a distinctively Caribbean view of the world.)

 

“St. Omer painted his first Black Jesus mural in 1973 in a small church in Jacmel on the western coast of St. Lucia. This mural depicts the Holy Family, not just Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus, but also several members of the community, including a dancer, a fisherman, an Amerindian woman and child, and a musician, images that mirror the faces of the people who worship there every Sunday. When it came to unveiling the mural for the first time at the dedication of the new church on an Easter Sunday morning, Sir St. Omer admits to experiencing anxiety, he wondered whether the public would embrace his version of God. Not surprisingly, the people were thrilled and felt that Sir St. Omer had given them a church that finally belonged to them. (http://aphroditeares.wordpress.com/2011/03/20/a-lesson-in-art-appreciation-from-sir-dunstan-st-omer-by-nadia-alcee-miller/)

 

“St Omer’s most substantial work is in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Castries.... This was not just an altarpiece: he was asked to renovate the entire Cathedral. But the project collapsed from a lack of funds. That was in the late 1970s. Then, a mere three months before Pope John Paul II’s visit to St Lucia in 1985, the dilapidation of the cathedral shamed the authorities into reviving the scheme; an eleventh-hour decision was made to give it to St Omer. The artist [helped by his children, two of whom have followed in his footsteps as well-regarded artists] transformed the interior of the big church in just eleven weeks.

 

“I placed the first black icons on the walls with the European saints painted on the ceiling by a French artist in 1904,” he recalls -- an insistence on placing Caribbean realities at the centre of an inherited tradition of religious art. He depicted people with whom St Lucians could identify: the sisters of St Joseph of Cluny, for their work in education; St Martin de Porres, the first black saint; the martyrs of Uganda. The first thing the Pope noticed in the cathedral was St Omer’s paintings; since then, thousands of visitors have been to the cathedral just to see his work.” (http://caribbean-beat.com/issue-13/hail-mary-art-dunstan-st-omer#ixzz2uymcsTWB)

 

When we emerged from the cathedral an hour later, there was Peter waiting, true to his word. When I explained that I was really not feeling up to an island tour, he offered to show us around Castries and vicinity for an hour for $20, showing us things we’d never see on our own. His enthusiasm was irresistible, so we took him up on it, and he ushered us to his beatup teal Mitsubishi which he proudly told us was 27 years old and still running like a charm. (He is, among other things, a mechanic.) That launched us on the first of many good discussions, namely today’s throwaway culture and how much better off we and mother earth would be if we lived with less and made it last longer. Right on that one, Peter! Soon we were exchanging family stories, political views, jokes – in short, we ended up having both a great little sightseeing expedition and making a new friend.

 

Our first stop was the obligatory overlook halfway up Morne Fortuné, with a nice view of Castries and the harbor with its cruise ships moored below. Naturally, since I think every tour of the island stops here, there were souvenir booths set up and some fairly aggressive, though friendly and often amusing, hawking. One vendor insisted on having Jim get a snapshot of me with him, as he said he was the best-looking man on the island and I’d surely want to remember him :). Hint: Don’t ever let on how many kids or grandkids you have, as when I said we had 9 grandkids suddenly vendors were draping multiples of jewels, dolls, scarves and other trinkets all over me, insisting I should buy one for every grandchild. I laughingly resisted and we made our getaway with friendly waves all around.

 

We wound upward past numerous attractive, upscale traditional Caribbean Colonial style homes as well as gated Government House, the governor-general’s mansion, before reaching the summit of Morne Fortuné and the ruins of the fort begun here by the French in 1764. (Morne Fortuné means the Hill of Good Luck, and one would think whoever commanded this high ground would have been invincible. But the strategic hill was battled over repeatedly by the French and English, and in 1796 after heavy losses it finally passed into English hands thanks to the dogged heroism of the Irish 27th Foot Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, who are remembered here by a monument.) Many of the old fort buildings are crumbling but scenic, as is the graveyard where both French and English rest. Even if you have zero interest in 18th C. military history, this hilltop commands beautiful views of Castries Harbor and, farther away, the Pitons and Martinique. We were shown around the site by a young college-age man, who had had to pass a government exam to show his proficiency as a guide at this public memorial and did a very impressive job of filling us in not only on the military history, but on native plants, geography, and the general history of St. Lucia. All this for a purely voluntary tip, which we gladly gave him.

 

A few of the more modern British military buildings atop Morne Fortuné (it remained in use as Fort Charlotte until 1906), barracks and stables, are now in use as part of Sir Arthur Lewis Community College, a comprehensive educational institution which along with the adjacent campus of the University of the West Indies means that young St. Lucians with aspirations no longer need to leave the island to pursue them.

 

Its namesake, Sir Arthur Lewis (1915-1991) was a St. Lucian who, despite major color barriers to higher education for blacks at the time, went on to become a distinguished economist, teaching in the U.K. and at Princeton, among others. His work on the economies of developing countries won him the 1979 Nobel Prize in economics.

Imagine – a country with a total population of only162,781 in 2013 has produced not one but two Nobel laureates!! And Walcott and Lewis were not children of privileged European planter-class lineages, but the product of modest, working class Afro-Caribbean homes. Let’s hear it for St Lucia!

 

After Peter drove us around to a few more overlooks where we saw nary another tourist, he dropped us off back at the ship with our promise to tell you folks on the internet that if you’re interested in a tour with him – no fancy touring bus, but lots of good stops and stories – you can look for him and his trusty old Mitsubishi near the Cathedral, where he heads most days when he doesn’t have something else scheduled.

 

After a stop at a café upstairs in the dockside mall to use wifi and have a few tasty conch fritters, we reboarded Summit very pleased with what we had made of what had started out a very discouraging day. Am I still chagrined to have missed the Pitons? Of course. But there is such a thing as serendipity, and we had experienced a little of it.

 

Whew, that day’s report was a LONG one. I’ll try to be briefer tomorrow, I promise!

[Vagabondage]

As I said, I'm very slowly wading through trip photos and posting a few on Flickr. The ones to accompany my report on Barbados are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22589647@N02/sets/72157641812831185/. My battery went dead at the mahogany workshop, so I got no photos there. For you infofreaks, there's commentary with each photo.

 

Cheers!

Edited March 5, 2014 by Vagabondage

[Vagabondage]

ANTIGUA (Wednesday) – I got a little caried away with that last report, so I’ll stick to the facts here.

 

I woke feeling better so, determined to substitute something for the snorkel sail we had missed the day before, we went to the excursions desk and found we could still book a place on that morning’s Catamaran Sail, Snorkel & Beach Cruise (AN03) for $55@. The description read “The tour starts with a short 2 minute walk from the ship with easy boarding. A 45 minute cruise takes everyone to Paradise Reef with lovely snorkeling in 8ft of clear waters. From there, sail to a white sandy beach for swimming and relaxing whilst enjoying complimentary drinks before returning to port.“

This proved to be a great outing, even if not everything went as planned.

 

Several Wadadli Cats were moored at the foot of the cruise pier, and frankly I didn’t even notice which one was ours. I didn’t count passengers, but there were perhaps 35? The cat was large enough to accommodate all, with shade for those who wanted it and sun for the most who didn’t. The crew led everyone through an amusing but conscientious safety drill and we were off.

 

The sail to Paradise Reef was lovely – I can never quite get over the aquamarine color of Caribbean waters -- and relatively quick. Unfortunately, when we reached the reef the swell was running strong, the current fast, and there was quite a lot of chop. The crew strongly advised weak swimmers and inexperienced snorkelers not to try it that day. (Since the equipment provided by the ship was simple, just wet snorkels rather than dry ones, I think this was good advice – it can be disconcerting to gulp in a mouthful of salt water if a wave breaks over your snorkel -- but it was certainly disappointing to many.) In all, about half the passengers skipped the snorkeling while the rest got gamely ready to take the plunge, suiting up with the provided snorkels, fins and snorkel belts except for the few who had brought their own gear.

 

Entry/egress was solely by means of an aluminum ladder over the side rather than the steps down into the water you find on many catamarans especially set up for snorkeling, which made it more challenging -- particularly the climbing back up if you were already tired from fighting the current. With my mobility limitations, this alone might have kept me out of the water even if the weather conditions hadn’t, but I don’t think it was an issue for most people.

 

Several of those who ventured into the water were back at the ladder within 5 minutes, coughing up water and saying the current was just too strong to fight and they had seen few if any fish to make it worth it. Others stayed out a few minutes longer but returned with much the same report. Even the captain, who apparently usually attracts lots of fish by throwing bits of bread overboard for the weenies like me who stay onboard to see, couldn’t attracting a thing. Nada. So all in all, we just had a bad luck day as far as the snorkeling went. You've got to expect those now and then, and with the weather all that week pretty unsettled, it wasn't surprising.

 

Some people did have trouble climbing back onto the boat, but the crew was helpful and reassuring with those who really struggled, and there were no mishaps.

 

With the snorkeling part of the sail now over, the crew could break out the rum punch to add to the soft drinks that had already been available at the open bar. (People enjoyed the punch and there were good spirits all round, but I certainly wouldn’t call this a booze cruise by any stretch) They also passed around small sandwiches -- nothing substantial or fancy, but plenty for a half-day outing.

 

We had a relaxing sail to the promised "secret beach" for a swim and a little lazing about. I love being on the water, so again, I was in a state of utter bliss

 

We sailed into a bay with sugar-white sand backed with sea grape bushes and palms. Paradise! I can’t honestly say the bay was secret, as beyond the bluff at far end of it was another crescent of beach sprinkled with villas of celebrity megamillionaires -- but the end we anchored at was pristine and deserted. A small, abandoned British military outpost looked down on us from the bluff above. The water was the stuff of dreams.

 

After 45 minutes or so it was time to head back to St. John’s. The best part of the homeward leg was when we cut the engines and sailed under wind power for a while.

 

As we neared the Summit, our jolly crew broke into some funky song and dance moves and some of the guests got into it, too, so the whole outing ended with a laugh.

 

I see that this expedition is not on the roster for next year’s Antigua excursions – at least not at this point – so I’m wondering why. Even with the no-go snorkeling, it was my favorite excursion of the trip!

 

A few photos should be here:

[Vagabondage]

ST. MAARTEN (Thursday): This was a supremely lazy day, so there isn’t a lot to write about.

 

Before the cruise, I’d had in mind to visit the French side of the island, mostly nosing around Marigot and Grand Case and possibly visiting one of the smaller beaches there (Orient sounds WAY too busy) if time allowed. But the reality was sinking into me that our two weeks were drawing toward a close and we had actually spent very little time just lazing on a tropical beach. So we decided to do the easy thing today: basically nothing.

 

We took the water taxi from the end of the cruise pier to the central Philipsburg waterfront. I had read a lot before the trip about the pros and cons of swimming at Great Bay Beach. On the plus side, it’s super-convenient to combine a day of lazing about there with a bit of shopping in P’burg, since the town is right behind the beach boardwalk. And it’s undeniably easy to get there, either by inexpensive water taxi with all day back-and-forth privileges or via a short 20-30 minute walk. On the minus side, you’re within view of all the cruise ships lined up (5 on our day) so you sure as heck don’t feel like Robinson Crusoe. And there are those who claim the bay is polluted. I’ve read conflicting data by experts on both sides of that issue and finally concluded that the pollution problems have been rectified, so we went for Great Bay.

 

We were practically the first ones at the beach so we had our choice of loungers and umbrellas to rent. We chose “front row seats” at one of the several establishments (can’t even remember its name) that gives you back in drink/snack credits the amount you pay in rental. One thing I wish we had noticed is that some establishments had larger-diameter umbrellas than most, and we uber-conscientious skin cancer veterans could have used one. The beach has no natural shade, and with our normal-size beach umbrella and the sun angled low in the sky much of the morning, we had to take turns being under the shaded part. Oh well, if that’s the worst complaint you can make in paradise, you’re pretty lucky!

 

When we went into the water, neither we nor most of the other swimmers we watched through the day were aware that several yards out into the water, the bottom drops off without warning – only by a foot or so, but enough to throw most unsuspecting people off balance, resulting in a lot of comical arms-flailing-like-windmills belly flops or butt flops. But everyone was laughing about it – it wasn’t really dangerous.

 

Despite all the ships in port, the beach never did get too crowded. Maybe half the chairs/umbrellas were occupied by the time we left. It may have been more crowded down toward the end that had jet ski rentals and the like, which we were deliberately avoiding.

 

Eventually we’d had enough beach and were getting hungry. The snacks available at the place we’d rented the chairs didn’t look very promising, so we headed down the boardwalk a short way to a place called Barefoot Terrace on the corner right by the water taxi pier. It was crowded – a good sign – but we managed to snag the last table. I had a delish frozen drink called a Banana Banshee (banana liqueur, white crème de cacao and light cream) that was a new one on me. Mmmmm. The menu was pretty varied, with a lot of fresh seafood items as well as curries, rotis, conch fritters and what have you, but what ended up calling out to me loudest was a bacon blue cheese burger. I felt stupid to be so unimaginative, as I usually like to sample local things I can’t get at home – but when it came it was HUGE, done medium rare the way I like it, and really, really good. I didn’t regret choosing it a bit!

 

We then ambled around downtown for while but weren’t really feeling like shopping. (Even if we had been, I honestly didn’t see anything other than booze that seemed better-priced than here at home, despite Philipsburg’s reputation as a shoppers’ mecca, but that was just a quick impression. Others who are serious shoppers there would know far better.)

 

So there you have it. Next year, we definitely plan to spend our time going French on St. Martin.

 

A few pics at http://www.flickr.com/photos/22589647@N02/sets/72157641909758713/.

[Vagabondage]

ST. THOMAS --> ST. JOHN (Friday) -- For our last full day of the B2B, we had initially considered spending it somewhere on St. Thomas, since we’d just been to St. John the week before. But two things changed our minds: (1) Sapphire Beach on St. T, the quieter, scenic place we’d been thinking of trying, closed down in early January due to some sort of legal dispute, so though I’d read that it was still possible to get around the locked gates, there were absolutely no facilities there – not even bathrooms. (I wonder if this will have been resolved by next year, as I know a lot of veteran cruisers swear by Sapphire.) More importantly, (2) we had both fallen even more under the spell of St. John than we had expected to when we’d been there the previous week. Its natural beauty, still so largely preserved by VI National Park, and the island’s super low-key vibe, sans the relentless commercialism of some of the other islands, make it just our kind of place. And since the weather had foiled our plans at Cinnamon Bay a week earlier, we were eager to return and try one of the fabled beaches there.

 

The day broke clear and promising, so once again we were off Summit at 8 sharp and cabbed it to Red Hook for another easy crossing. Since it was only 9:20 when we got to the island and we had already done our island tour last week, we decided to head straight to Trunk Bay this time, figuring we had plenty of time to stake out a good spot before any crowds arrived. We got there well before 10.

 

We rented a couple beach chairs (don’t forget to have money or a credit card for deposit – one lady didn’t, so my nice guy husband loaned her $), found a perfect little private nook in the sea grape bushes that allowed us to move back and forth from sun to shade as we desired, and just sat there drinking in the absolutely gorgeous view and feeling like the cat that ate the canary. The brilliant aqua water was much, much calmer than Cinnamon had been the previous week, snorkeling was good though frankly not as interesting and varied as other places we’ve been, and when a couple of brief rain showers hit later in the morning we were prepared. No, we didn’t resort to our dorky dollar store ponchos, but I did whip out my little mini-travel umbrella which we’d been carrying with us faithfully ever since getting drowned on Barbados, and I just kept sitting there on the beach unperturbed, reading under my umbrella with my feet in the waterline. It must have looked a little goofy, as a couple of passersby took snaps of me – but what the hey, it worked! And the payoff for the showers: a double rainbow.

 

We made a couple of photo stops at North Shore bays we hadn’t seen on the previous week’s jaunt, then headed back to Cruz Bay in time to explore it a bit more, poking around some of the shops at Mongoose Junction and in the center of town (we like St. John Spice and bought some interesting rubs there plus a T shirt and a couple of books). We again headed to Cruz Bay Landing, the little outdoor café right by the city park that just opened last December, and had another good lunch and even better people-watching.

 

We began to plot a return to St. John for at least a week or so, in addition to next year’s cruise daytrips. There’s a lot more of this beautiful island that we want to see! The casual vibe and beauty at every turn remind us of Kauai and the Big Island in Hawaii, which we have spent a fair amount of time on and prefer to the other Hawaiian islands because K & BI are more laid back and the environment is less disturbed by development. So as soon as we got home, I began poring over VRBO listings for the island. Think we might do it next year if we can pinch our pennies hard enough, since with the B2B cruise booked again we'll already be there.

 

Some pics from both week's daytrips are here, with additional commentary: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22589647@N02/sets/72157641921341404/.

 

Cheers!

Edited March 6, 2014 by Vagabondage

[Kim in CA]

Judy, I LOVED your review. Thank you so very much for sharing your adventures with us. Your descriptive writing is a pleasure to read. :)

 

We have very similar interests to you and your husband, so I am optimistic we will enjoy our April Summit sailing as much as you did. No back-to-back for us, but we are going to spend two extra days exploring Old San Juan post cruise.

 

We also love the Big Island of Hawaii! It is a magical place, and it is sometimes hard to convince ourselves to go elsewhere for our tropical infusions since it is such a short plane ride away from northern California. (Not true of our upcoming heinous flight from Sacramento to San Juan!)

 

I hope you make it back to St. John in the near future.

 

Kim

[Vagabondage]

Thanks, Kim. I think April is a perfect time for the cruise, with fewer crowds, so have a wonderful time!

 

DEBARKATION (Saturday) – Since we would be spending the next few days in San Juan, we were in no hurry to leave the ship and so requested the last debarkation time – I think it was 9:45 or 10 am? Though we only had 21” carryon bags, we went ahead and packed them and left them tagged in the hall the night before, so all we had to do Saturday morning was take our time getting ready, gather up Jim’s daypack and my tote bag, have a leisurely breakfast, and go around the ship and say our last goodbyes and thanks to favorite crew members whom we hadn’t already done it with the previous evening. Sappy old me actually teared up saying goodbye to some we’d grown especially fond of, but we hope we may see some of them again on the Summit next year. As I’ve said before, Celebrity’s best asset is its people.

 

When it was time to report to Rendezvous Lounge to await our group's debarkation call, all the seats were filled and I thought “Dang! We poked around the ship for too long!” But just then two people got up and left the two comfy upholstered chairs closest to the bar entrance. Score! But we’d hardly sat in them for a minute before I realized why the other people had fled, so take this very petty but helpful tip from me: whatever you do, sit as FAR from where everyone is lining up to leave the ship as possible! No matter which way I turned to get myself out of harm’s way, I got banged and whomped by shoulder bags and run over by wheeled carryons. It was ten times worse than an aisle seat on a plane, believe me. I don’t know why everyone seemed in such a desperate hurry to leave the ship – you would almost have thought it was an emergency evacuation. I limped off the ship looking and feeling like I’d been in a punker girls’ roller derby or a prizefight. (OK, I’m exaggerating a little – but seriously, choose your seat wisely. I was glad I had my cane to limp off the ship with, and I had black and blue souvenirs for several days!)

 

My other tip is to pay for a porter. We did, even though our bags were so small, because I was feeling banged up and, hobbling along with my cane, a little help finding our bags and getting out to the taxi area sounded like a welcome luxury. What I didn’t realize is that not only did the porter locate our bags in about 15 seconds flat, but he steered us away from the long customs and immigration lines to an officer who is apparently only for those passengers with porters or in wheelchairs. (Can this really be true or was there some other reason we got to avoid the long lines? It seems kind of unfair to others, but that’s what happened to us and I didn’t hesitate to enjoy it.)

 

So all in all, we were off the ship and in a taxi in 10 minutes. Our destination was the Doubletree, which we had booked on Hotwire just the previous month as soon as I booked the B2B cruises. It’s really an ideal pre- or post-cruise hotel and gets very high marks on the TA review website I don’t think I can write out the name of here or it will get blocked. Rather than go on and on about its amenities, I’d suggest you just read the reviews on TA and consider whether it’s a good choice for you.

 

It’s a lovely, modern hotel, and though it wasn’t even 11 yet, they gave us our room right away. It was a handicapped room, which we hadn’t requested, but I think they had noted my cane and did it on their own. I read later that those rooms are slightly larger than the regular ones, so we were doubly lucky. The bed was super-comfy, but we laughed about the fact that though I’m average height (5’5”), it was so high I almost needed my cane to pole vault onto it at bedtime. That might actually pose a challenge for someone in a wheelchair. Anyway, we loved it. The room had listed for $209 + taxes and fees at the senior rate on Kayak, but I was pretty sure it was the one Hotwire was listing for $158+, and I guessed right. That wasn’t a spectacular savings, but for such a last-minute booking, I thought it wasn’t bad.

 

We walked across the street to the large supermarket with the big hot-and-cold deli section and grabbed a tuna pita sandwich that was so huge the two of us split it and could barely finish it, plus some fruit juice, fresh fruit and a small package of quesitos (typical PR croissant-like cheese pastries we like) to keep in our room fridge for breakfasts. We had a coffeemaker in our room, of course, and a Starbucks across the street, so we were all set. Then (it’s a little embarrassing to admit) I was so enthralled to have a fast, free internet connection again after two weeks of pricey, glacial service on the ship and quick sessions at cruise mall hotspots or cafes in ports of call that I couldn’t tear myself away from it and actually begged off of heading into Viejo San Juan till first thing the next morning. Who goes to a charming, scenic, historic tropical island and spends a sunny afternoon indoors glued to a screen full of pixels??? Moi. I had missed my internet, and not even the pretty pool below our window could entice me. There were several aspects of our next few days in Puerto Rico that I wanted to plan or check on online, plus family to get in leisurely touch with, plus I needed to download more reading to my Kindle and iPad, plus a few very hasty (and subsequently almost unintelligibly cryptic) notes I wanted to make to myself about various aspects of the cruise we’d just finished, etc. etc. etc. My husband gave me a little goodnatured hell about it, knowing what a travelhound I am and how seldom I’m willing to skip seeing the sights, but I noticed that within five minutes he had happily zoned out over his book on the comfy bed. After his nap and my net-fest, we went out for a walk, came back and ate a light supper at the café in the hotel lobby (so so, and super-slow service), and called it a night.

 

SAN JUAN: To quickly summarize our time in San Juan, we had already spent several days in the city two years earlier, but it’s a place we both find unbelievably historic and charming, so we didn’t have any one huge objective – we just wanted plenty of leisure to wander around, shoot lots of photos, revisit the fabulous old forts and churches, walk the Paseo de la Princesa, enjoy the views of and from the amazing city walls, browse through craft shops and art galleries (though there’s also more than enough cheap tourist ticky-tacky), sit at sidewalk cafes and watch the world go by. And that’s just what we did.

 

Old San Juan is hilly and cobblestoned, both of which can pose challenges for the mobility-impaired, but the free trolley lines which snake through the old town are a GODSEND and once again enabled us to get everywhere we wanted to go without much difficulty at all – just be sure you keep a route map handy, and remember that the only trolley that goes all the way up to the entrance of El Morro is the white, open air Park Service tram. The others let you off across the street from the l-o-n-g walkway and grassy lawn filled with picknickers and kiteflyers on weekends. We caught a bus from right next to the Doubletree to the Viejo San Juan bus terminal, which is stop #2 on the trolley line – total cost, 0¢ because they noticed we were seniors. What a deal!

 

We did make sure we always had water in Jim’s daypack, as well as taking fairly frequent café breaks, as in the heat and humidity it’s easy to get dehydrated. And don’t forget the sunscreen.

 

On Sunday we enjoyed watching TV in our hotel room as our home-team Seahawks won the Superbowl. Since it was only the two of us, it wasn't actually as fun as when we had watched the playoffs against the 49ers in the bar on the Summit. In that game, the bar was crowded, with all the Hawks fans jumping up and trying to outclap the 49ers and vice versa at each big play -- plus the playoff game was actually a better game. After the playoffs, and even more after the Superbowl, we were kind of surprised that whenever many people we met learned we were from Seattle, they'd give a big thumbs up or the like and say "Seahawks, bravo -- that's who I was for" or sentiments to that effect. With Americans I could understand it, but I really didn't think Puerto Ricans or most of the Summit crew would care much about Yankee-style football, being from countries where fútbol (soccer) or cricket are the national passions. I guess sports are a universal language.

 

I won’t try to run through each sight we visited or each place we ate in San Juan, but I’ll mention a few of the latter a bit farther below. I’ll also post a few of our San Juan pics in that later post.

[AlbertaCruisers]

The porter thing is true. We saw it happen in November, and took part in Jan. If you grab a porter you get to use the shorter line, and it was much shorter and quicker!! We tipped our porter well as he was a great guy and we were sooo happy to skip the long line!

[davekathy]

The porter thing is true. We saw it happen in November, and took part in Jan. If you grab a porter you get to use the shorter line, and it was much shorter and quicker!! We tipped our porter well as he was a great guy and we were sooo happy to skip the long line!

 

Agree.