Blue Collar Diamond's review of Jewel's last Southern Caribbean cruise from San Juan

[BillOh]

Well, I've made a mess of this review with the picture problems. Its now day five and we have arrived at Barbados. Barbados is primarily a shipping port and an active one. We again pulled in bow first. After clearing a cargo ship we pulled in sideways at our spot. I'll post the pic tonight, but I got an upclose look at their life boat and how its aft mounted and is literally thrown in to the sea when the crew uses it to escape. That's quite a drop.

 

Many of us looked forward to this port with the Calabaza catamaran cruise. Very few port excursions match this one for enjoyment and value. Out boat was limited to 12 people and 10 were from our roll call. We got great communication from the crew before arrival and they were exactly where they said they would be with visible signage. As soon was we were all there we boarded a bus and took a short ride to their boat.

 

 

 

 

Below is my wife and Jon and Penny with our first rum punch before leaving the harbor. I think it was 10am. I'll try to get more pics from Calabaza uploaded tonight. I already put this video on Youtube.com Just about 7 minutes in there is a good interaction wtih a turtle. I haven't looked at the other videos yet.

 

 

Edited May 16, 2018 by BillOh

[Ocean Boy]

I have pictures this morning too. I love Barbados. Looking forward to seeing more of your photos.

[BillOh]

I have pictures this morning too. I love Barbados. Looking forward to seeing more of your photos.

 

 

Thanks OB. One of the surprises for me was getting home and having a link to 300 pictures the Calbazza crew took. They made them available for download for 2 weeks I believe. I downloaded some good ones and will share them, probably tonight.

[akcruz]

Thanks for the great review. We did this trip last year and also Calabasas, agree was one of the highlights for us as well.

 

Sent from my SM-T810 using Tapatalk

[ARandomTraveler]

Bill, which GoPro do you use, did you say earlier it was a 4?

 

Also, what did you attach it to in the water, it looked like a head view, and if so, how did you get it over your snorkel mask (or were you not wearing one?)

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[JamesEM]

Not having any problems viewing your photos, although some take a second or two to download.

[BillOh]

Not having any problems viewing your photos, although some take a second or two to download.

 

That has slowed me down in doing this, I'll finish this up Saturday. I've got more pictures of Calbazza and Dive Grenada to go and then a day in Old San Juan.

[BillOh]

Bill, which GoPro do you use, did you say earlier it was a 4?

 

Also, what did you attach it to in the water, it looked like a head view, and if so, how did you get it over your snorkel mask (or were you not wearing one?)

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

 

It was a gopro4 and I own a scuba mask which has a go pro mount on it. That can give nice views, but for scuba you end up with a lot of bubble noises in your video.

[BillOh]

Ok, I am going to finish this up this weekend. Probably today if it rains all day! Last night I didn't do any work on this as we were on a happy hour with people from my wife's work. Why do I mention this? One couple there is getting married next Saturday and then is honeymooning on Symphony, so our cruise experience, and knowledge of that class of ship did come up. Eventually the topic of private vs ship excursions come up, which brings me back to where I left off. We had just boarded the best excursion ever (private) Calabaza Sailing cruises in Bardbados. During the day the topic of getting left behind came up. I was told they have never had a cruiser left behind in port. He showed me the ship's schedule and a list of phone numbers. People who make bad decisions on ship excursions have been left behind.

 

Ok, I'm going to shut up and just throw out a few pictures with minimum comment. I'll start with this one. Because I am the only cruiser in my group who thinks an Iphone is a phone and not a camera, I don't get in any vacation photos. (Well almost never)

 

 

Another of me, I hate that this forum software rotates portrait style photos on their side, I haven't figured out how to stop that.

 

[BillOh]

 

 

 

[Ocean Boy]

No pictures this morning.:(

Never mind, now they are here.

[BillOh]

No pictures this morning.:(

Never mind, now they are here.

 

 

I may have to consider my hosting site since I know longer build my own webpages.

[BillOh]

I mentioned last year my wife tried and loved her full face snorkel mask. Redsoxgirl's boyfriend wasn't fond of snorkeling, but when he saw my wife enjoying hers and found out Calabaza had some as part of their eqiupment and tried it with success.

 

After 2 great snorkel stops and lunch the crew found us a nice spot to swim, relax, and clown around while drinking responsibly. I was the catamaran chin up champ!

 

[BillOh]

 

All of the people in this photo came to this excursion from our ship and from our roll call. I continue to spout the merits of cruise critic's roll calls.

 

 

 

[BillOh]

Ok, let me wrap up day 5, Barbados, as you can tell, we were real happy with Calabaza. Everything you hear is true, check out their reviews on tripadvisor! We got back to the ship and of course the ladies shopped in the area near the terminal They had places to sit, so Jon and I were happy. Once back on the ship, we enjoyed another nice night in the DL joined by roll call friends. Dinner, the food was good, but the service, which had been pretty good was slow tonight. I think our team got assigned another table, possibly because of illness from another waiter? I have no idea, we were too late to get to what ever the show was that night. This may have been the worst thing of the entire cruise, but our BAC never dropped below .08 that day, so we managed.

[perfect match]

I have heard really good things about Calabaza from several other reviewers, so I'm not at all surprised that you liked them so much. I'll bet it helped, too, that so many of the people who sailed with you were from your roll call. I already have Calabaza bookmarked and will most likely sail with them when we finally book a cruise that stops in Barbados. :cool:

[BillOh]

Our last port was Grenada, a new port for my cruise mates. We had a naval presence next to us.

 

 

There were people on and off these naval vessels all day. I heard an unconfirmed report that at least one of the ships were just acquired from Brazil. No idea if that was true.

 

Out welcome to the island.

 

 

For this stop I arranged my dive of the trip and found a vendor who would combine diving with a snorkel excursion. This was great for my wife and friends and I got to dive.

 

 

[BillOh]

I did let this drag out longer than I should and I have a lot of plans for the holiday weekend. I'll wrap it up by saying, the last Sea Day was beautiful weather, we ordered breakfast in our room so we could enjoy the corner aft balcony for most of the day. Room Service was on time, the order wasn't totally accurate, but we had plenty of food. As we returned north back toward San Juan the sun was on our balcony all day. So we spent most of the day there working on the tans we started on Orient Beach. ;). We went for lunch in the WJ, spent the rest of the afternoon on our balcony, enjoyed a last evening with Latoya in the Diamond Lounge, had a great dinner, in which Cruise Director Andrea stopped by one more time and we wished him a great TA back to Italy.

 

The final day we got 9:30 departures, got off the ship, hailed a cab to Barachinas and spend the beautiful day walking around OSJ and having lunch there before returning to the airport for a hyper long flight home. We got in our own beds 2am Monday morning! Glad I took Monday off. Next up our first time on Enchantment.

[Canadian Tyler]

Hi Bill - enjoyed your review!

[BillOh]

Hi Bill - enjoyed your review!

 

 

Good to hear from you Tyler, hope to sail with you again, though it took 10 years to find out we sailed together once before ;) What's coming up with you?

[accio_7]

Great review, Bill, loved your photos!

[Canadian Tyler]

Good to hear from you Tyler, hope to sail with you again, though it took 10 years to find out we sailed together once before ;) What's coming up with you?

 

Too funny - and true!

We did Freedom again in January. A few ideas in the hopper but nothing firm yet. Still haven't tried the big boys.

I'll look forward to your Enchantment review. Haven't done that one, but we've enjoyed Rhapsody.

[rdsxgrl28]

I did let this drag out longer than I should and I have a lot of plans for the holiday weekend. I'll wrap it up by saying, the last Sea Day was beautiful weather, we ordered breakfast in our room so we could enjoy the corner aft balcony for most of the day. Room Service was on time, the order wasn't totally accurate, but we had plenty of food. As we returned north back toward San Juan the sun was on our balcony all day. So we spent most of the day there working on the tans we started on Orient Beach. ;). We went for lunch in the WJ, spent the rest of the afternoon on our balcony, enjoyed a last evening with Latoya in the Diamond Lounge, had a great dinner, in which Cruise Director Andrea stopped by one more time and we wished him a great TA back to Italy.

 

The final day we got 9:30 departures, got off the ship, hailed a cab to Barachinas and spend the beautiful day walking around OSJ and having lunch there before returning to the airport for a hyper long flight home. We got in our own beds 2am Monday morning! Glad I took Monday off. Next up our first time on Enchantment.

 

Loved the review. This is was our pre-honeymoon cruise. Inspired by Senaloy. We are getting married on 6/16. My DS is best man, my DIL is MOH & my DGD is our flower/ring bearer. Can't wait to marry my love.

[pstone1]

Loved the review. This is was our pre-honeymoon cruise. Inspired by Senaloy. We are getting married on 6/16. My DS is best man, my DIL is MOH & my DGD is our flower/ring bearer. Can't wait to marry my love.

 

Aww, Lisa, CONGRATULATIONS! Our best wishes for you and Eddie! We had a great time with you guys on the cruise and hope to see you on a ship again soon!

[pstone1]

Great review and photos Bill! We had a blast!