CruiseXLife Takes Liberty- Maiden San Juan to Southern Caribbean Photo Review

[cruisexlife]

Do you recall on Lido first elegant night seeing Creme Brulee? Thanks following your review.

 

I think they had Creme Brûlée, but in the MDR, not on Lido. I've never been a fan of Creme Brûlée so I wasn't scouting it down. Sorry! :o

[cruisexlife]

You mentioned a shopping book your mom bought. Can you describe what sort of freebies you searched out please? Also what you got for scavenger hunt initials. We love walking around like you describe and having things to look for would add to the fun.

- I still recall old days when you'd go in stores looking for lucky cabin number and won a prize.

- also the st.Thomas team - how many stairs to climb to get on?

 

Just little things. I answered in an above post but I'll answer again. Diamond studs, socks, postcards, shirts, keychains, necklaces, etc. Little things to draw you into the stores.

 

The scavenger hunt initial prize will come later on in the review when we recieved the prizes.

 

Didn't see any "lucky cabin number", but I did see some drawings where you wrote your name, ship and cabin number in order to run the chance of being pulled. Then a prize was delivered to the ship. Never tried this before though.

 

I don't quite understand the last question, what is a St.Thomas Team, and where were the steps? I can't recall climbing any steps while in the city. The only ones I climbed were from the ground to the entrance to the Paradise Point SkyRide.

 

Hope I covered some topics, always feel free to ask more questions along the way! :D

[Buffettfan 225]

Just little things. I answered in an above post but I'll answer again. Diamond studs, socks, postcards, shirts, keychains, necklaces, etc. Little things to draw you into the stores.

 

The scavenger hunt initial prize will come later on in the review when we recieved the prizes.

 

Didn't see any "lucky cabin number", but I did see some drawings where you wrote your name, ship and cabin number in order to run the chance of being pulled. Then a prize was delivered to the ship. Never tried this before though.

 

I don't quite understand the last question, what is a St.Thomas Team, and where were the steps? I can't recall climbing any steps while in the city. The only ones I climbed were from the ground to the entrance to the Paradise Point SkyRide.

 

Hope I covered some topics, always feel free to ask more questions along the way! :D

I meant the paradise sky ride up to the view- how many steps to get on it. (I hate iPad auto correct!)

[Buffettfan 225]

My bad! I meant to type "entrance fee". Don't know why I typed rental! The taxi driver said that it was an $8 ENTRANCE fee per person. Sorry about the confusion!

Unless Magen's beach changed very recently, the entrance fee was $4 per person. We paid $12 total in and $8 return.

Sounds like Barbados taxi that we also got "mischarged" him claiming that quoted fee was for one person not two, and $us not Barbadian - doubling our fare of $10 to $20. Lesson learned on getting taxi fares stated before getting in.

[melodyc7504]

Thanks. I really want to enjoy this cruise.

[cruisexlife]

Unless Magen's beach changed very recently, the entrance fee was $4 per person. We paid $12 total in and $8 return.

Sounds like Barbados taxi that we also got "mischarged" him claiming that quoted fee was for one person not two, and $us not Barbadian - doubling our fare of $10 to $20. Lesson learned on getting taxi fares stated before getting in.

 

Well maybe you're right, it's been over a month. My bad.

[cruisexlife]

I meant the paradise sky ride up to the view- how many steps to get on it. (I hate iPad auto correct!)

 

About 15-20, and then once we got to the top, we had to go down about 10 total, so you'll have to go up them later. It was very pleasant but for someone with mobility issues, it could be tramautic.

[cruisexlife]

Thanks. I really want to enjoy this cruise.

 

You will enjoy this cruise beyond comparison! Feel free to ask any more questions if they come up, I'll be glad to answer them. I want you to enjoy it just as much!

[cruisexlife]

I made my way back into the terminal after they checked my backpack. The more we walked, the more we realized how sunburned we got. It was 3:45 and we had 45 minutes until we had to be onboard. I wasn't really interested in many of the stores. The only thing we wanted was stamps in our passports. We made our way to the immigration officer. He was very nice and stamped our passports. His office has this sign on it so make sure you bring your passport and stop by if you want a stamp!

 

 

Mom has a Harley and she wanted something to bring back home that had "Barbados" on it. We spent about 10 minutes in here.

 

 

I didn't really understand why there was a flower cart in the terminal, to my knowledge, you can't bring plants onboard. Am I correct or could I have brought one of these beautiful flowers?

 

 

We also stopped in this store as well. We got our free Barbados painting (a coupon from the book) and proceeded back to the ship.

 

[Alexv500]

Love your review so much! Just got caught up, I wish I was at one of those beautiful white sanded beaches right now haha!

[cruisexlife]

We walked back to the ship and got onboard. Right as I was getting on, they were making the announcement that the Barbados guests were to report to the theater for their muster drill. I went back to the room and ordered two vegetable trays from room service and got into the shower. When I came out, Mom had already began digging into hers. I had to apply the spray-on aftersun that I picked up from CVS the day before leaving. It was like $2, and worked nicely. MAKE SURE that if you are spending a day of your trip on a beach at any of the islands, you pack lotion. Lotion will rehydrate your skin, and is a good substitute for aloe. Another way to lower the risk of sunburn is to increase water consumption 2 weeks before leaving. That way, your new skin will be wetter, more hydrated, so within two weeks, your dry skin has shed and your wet skin is now on the outer layer. I got burned pretty bad, and when I followed this step before my Glory cruise in November, I got a nice tan.

 

Okay, back to the review. After mom showered, we went onto the secret deck to watch us sail away from one of our new favorite islands.

 

 

"Barbados II" assisting us out of the harbor

 

 

The beautiful cliffside of Barbados as we depart in the background, some cargo material in the foreground.

 

 

Here is the Barbados shopping center and terminal. So, apparently, Americans cannot board in Barbados. Try searching with your address or location in, and it will say "no cruises found". If you wipe all of your information, you can see the cruises, but then again you have to give it all up later to do the booking. In order to board in Barbados, you must book backwards through an agent. I feel as though they should open up the booking to Americans. Honestly, they could charge more for the rooms (take some of the rooms away from San Juan boarders and give them to Barbados boarders) and Americans would STILL pay it, and they'd make more money. I would like to fly down to Barbados on a Saturday night, get settled in my resort, have all Sunday, Monday and Tuesday to explore the island, and then cruise on Wednesday to the next Wednesday, and fly home after that. That would be great for me, to make a long vacation. There has to be some kind of reason that we don't know about, so I'll stop rambling.

 

 

Celebrity Equinox docked as we were leaving.

 

Edited May 16, 2015 by cruisexlife

[cruisexlife]

Aft of the Celebrity Equinox as we departed. She looks like a pleasant ship. She's just missing the whale tail.... :D

 

 

 

We were pretty darn close. I have to say about a 10-20 foot clearance. I don't know how they get it so perfectly, nor how the larger ships get out, but I was just about to begin filming one of those cell phone videos you see on a CNN report, because I knew that it would be newsworthy. But we cleared it... barely.

 

 

Northern coastal beach

 

 

I went back inside after clearing the turn and fixed my hair up for dinner. On the way there, I went up to deck 10 to snap one last pic of Barbados. Goodbye Celebrity Eclipse, have a safe journey, and goodbye Barbados, we'll be back!

 

 

Next: Dinner and Nightlife

[cruisexlife]

Love your review so much! Just got caught up, I wish I was at one of those beautiful white sanded beaches right now haha!

 

Alex,

 

Thank you! And I too wish I could be on one of these sandy beaches right now as well! ;)

[cruisingbajan]

WOW!! This is actually the coolest thing I've heard all day. :D I always think to myself "I wonder if I am in anyone's vacation photos, and what moment they caught me at". I guess you found yours!

 

If I remember correctly from the roll call, you were debarking right? What was your perspective on the 3 nights you were onboard?

 

(And to address your "up next" section in your review, maybe you could try the Fascination or Victory 3 night from San Juan to Barbados? They have to have them when they start the Southern route from San Juan.)

 

You are correct we did debark in Barbados.

 

I believe our "up next" will be on RCL...just have not decided which ship yet:).

[cruisexlife]

You are correct we did debark in Barbados.

 

I believe our "up next" will be on RCL...just have not decided which ship yet:).

 

Isn't Royal building a big port in Barbados to embark guests and can fit an Oasis Class ship for port visits soon? I haven't heard much about it, do you know anything?

[cruisexlife]

We went to dinner. I had the shrimp cocktail, a chicken breast, and two orders of bacon mac and cheese. Nothing was satisfying me tonight on the menu. The dessert menu didn't look to amazing either, but I ordered two scoops of butter pecan and Mom got the Popcorn with Blueberry Marmalade thing. I tried it, it tasted like carnival (like a real carnival) kettle corn with blueberries. I liked her dessert.

 

 

Tonight, we went to the show. It was a show dedicated to Gene Wilder. We met a couple from Bermuda and talked with them every night thereafter. The couple said that the best way to see Bermuda is by boat, as everything on the island is freakishly expensive. So make sure if you are considering a trip to Bermuda, you check Carnival first, then Royal or NCL or Celebrity second before considering a land trip!

 

The show itself was very good and very entertaining, I really enjoyed it. The singer was very good and they had a segment where all of the little kids were invited onstage and all got candy when he sang "Candyman" from the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

 

After this, it was about 9:15. We went to the piano bar and listened to some tunes for a bit. The singer was very good, never got his name. The piano bar was BEAUTIFUL, I have pics coming during my ship review. At around 10:15, we headed to Pizza Pirate and got some pizza. Make sure you remind him to put on sauce!!! I asked for pepperoni, and mom wanted cheese. Both were delivered without sauce, so we had to order and wait a second time. This wasn't a huge issue, as many were out and about all over the ship and the lines were small, but it could be a real problem if you plan to eat at Pizza Pirate one day during rush hour. We then stopped at the little snack buffet right across the way. I picked up a hotdog and some watermelon slices and mom got icecream. Then, we headed back to the room. It was 10:45 and we had a big day planned in Saint Lucia, and wanted all of the energy we could possibly muster (ha no pun intended). We came back to this.

 

 

I put more aloe spray on and turned in for the night around 11. Big day approaching! :D

 

Next: Castries, Saint Lucia

[cruisexlife]

We woke up to the pre-set alarm at 7:45. We had ordered some fruits to the room. We ate them while we got ready for our day. Then, we left the room to the Lido for a real breakfast. But, first, we had to stop at the secret deck to look outside.

 

 

Wow!!

 

 

 

The MSC Musica was docked with us today. She was on a 7 night cruise from Guadeloupe. I later researched the itinerary, and it looked amazing. :D

 

[cruisexlife]

We had to be off at 9:30 to meet for our 9:45 excursion, but we wanted to do some port shopping before we met our group, so the goal was to be off at 8:45. We went to the lido restaurant and found a nice table facing the port by the window, which was a great view for breakfast. I had an omelette and French toast with some strawberries and hashbrowns. We ate out meal and we were off by 8:40.

 

 

Welcome to Saint Lucia (for the first time ever I believe) Carnival Liberty! :D

 

 

Port Seraphine is the main port for ships. As seen in my first picture in the above post, there is another docking space for a small cruise ship. If there are two large ones, the bigger of the two docks at Seraphine (us) and the other docks near the city center. At one point, they have had 4 ships in the harbor, one being the Norwegian Breakaway. Castries is a very well-built port.

 

 

Mom searched her FunFinds and found a free waterproof case (perfect for swim-up bars and snorkel tours while on vacation) from Diamonds International, and some other free little things in some of the other stores. Here were some little things that I found in one of the souvenir stores.

 

[cruisexlife]

The well-kept port area of Port Seraphine. The other area is nice as well but this one is a bit more meticulously trimmed.

 

 

A cute little telephone booth I found and decided to take a picture of.

 

 

Lady Liberty from the port area

 

 

Notice the Piranha Joe store. Well, there is no free wifi available in any of the stores in the ports. I checked all over and could not pick it up. I was disappointed, as I would've liked to have shared my photos from that day when we came back from our tour, but I could not. Inside the building you enter when you initially get off the ship, there is wifi for sale. But at Piranha Joe's, there is free wifi, just you must buy something in order to use it. So if you plan on getting anyone a little shotglass or shirt, but also want to save on not getting an internet package, or need to send an email or post a picture, buy something here.

 

We noticed that it was 9:30 so we began to make our way back towards the ship to get on our tour. It was already 88 degrees with 80% humidity, and we only had one water bottle, so Mom wanted to run back onboard and grab some more water. Thank god for the budget cuts, those water bottles really did come in handy. Here was my view while waiting for her.

 

 

At around 9:40 she came back, and at around 9:50 we left. We had to split the group into two. We followed our guide to our bus.

 

 

We were on a tour titled "Top 10 of St.Lucia: Soufriere, Pitons and More!" We had a hard time with this port, as there was so much to do here. But little did we know that we were beginning the best tour of the best tour we've ever done ever. Our bus rolled out of Port Seraphine, into one of the most interesting islands in the Caribbean.

 

Next: St.Lucia Adventures

[Pandot]

Thanks so much for writing your review! Really enjoying it.

[cruisingbajan]

Isn't Royal building a big port in Barbados to embark guests and can fit an Oasis Class ship for port visits soon? I haven't heard much about it, do you know anything?

 

Yes...they are plans to build a port. It will be not too far from where the current one is. Construction was suppose to start this year but the economy is so slow that it has been put on the back burner for now.

 

It's called the Sugarpoint cruise terminal. If you do a google search you will find some details.

[cruisexlife]

Thanks so much for writing your review! Really enjoying it.

 

Thanks so much for reading, I'm glad you're enjoying it! ;)

[cruisexlife]

Yes...they are plans to build a port. It will be not too far from where the current one is. Construction was suppose to start this year but the economy is so slow that it has been put on the back burner for now.

 

It's called the Sugarpoint cruise terminal. If you do a google search you will find some details.

 

Oh okay, makes sense now. I'll google it later, thanks for the info!

[SoloSailorII]

We honeymooned in St. Lucia for a week love that Island and is one of the main reasons we booked this amazing itinerary. Looking forward to your review of this emerald jewel of the Caribbean. great review overall, really enjoying it.

[cruisexlife]

We honeymooned in St. Lucia for a week love that Island and is one of the main reasons we booked this amazing itinerary. Looking forward to your review of this emerald jewel of the Caribbean. great review overall, really enjoying it.

 

I would love to do a landtrip to Saint Lucia, there are some beautiful beaches that I didn't get to, and I would like to swim in the mudbaths and take a sunset cruise by the Pitons. They always say that cruises are a way to find what places you'd like to visit for a long period of time, and Saint Lucia has entered that list.

 

Thanks for following along, I'll get more tonight! :D