Random Notes, Voyager, 11/26-12/6/18, Miami-Miami--LIVE!

[Mr Rumor]

We’ve got a gorgeous day!

[Mr Rumor]

In Shaunaspeak, “Bus!” is shorthand for “Dad, I want to go on another Regent cruise, and ride on different kinds of excursion buses, my favorite thing to do!”  So it was a no-brainer for me to book for Shauna and me the three-hour “Coast to Coast Scenic Drive” on what the literature described as an “open air safari bus,” while beach lover Ginny did the “Scenic Drive and Beach Break.”

 

Here is the BVI version of what open air safari buses look like: 

 

We chugged up and down hills and all around.  We had this view of the North Shores:

 

A favorite moment for me was driving past a block-long multi-artist mural on Fore Hill highlighting various aspects of BVI culture, including the love of music:

 

About two hours into the drive we wound up at Cane Garden Bay for a mini-beach break.  Guess who we walked into?

 

In the hills beyond Ginny and Shauna I noticed a “Cellphone Tower in Paradise”:

 

(That was for you Jimmy Buffett fans.  Jimmy’s signature tune “Cheeseburger in Paradise” has a Road Town, Tortola connection.)

 

Our guide/driver Frenzel didn’t address Hurricane Irma, but there were indications aplenty—wrecked boats in a marina, damaged homes that haven’t been touched—that Tortola still has post-Irma work to do.  On a positive note, we saw restoration work underway on buildings, and new driveways—presumably for new homes—being carved in hillsides.

Edited November 29, 2018 by Mr Rumor

[forgap]

Shame on you, Rich, for making Shauna carry EVERTHING!    😎

[Mr Rumor]

18 minutes ago, forgap said:

Shame on you, Rich, for making Shauna carry EVERTHING!    😎

Ha, bad rap!   Thay’s Ginny’s stuff that Gin is clutching in her left hand!  (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. 😇)

[rcandkc]

We own 2nd residence in Port Aransas, TX where Hurricane Harvey first hit with 145 mile winds and storm surge from the bay...15 months later progress has been made but still lots of damage to try to repair.  Major hurricanes take years to try to recover and somethings are lost forever.  It takes lots of fortitude of the population. 

Edited November 30, 2018 by rcandkc
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[Mr Rumor]

The Voyager’s new Production Cast hit the Constellation Theater stage for the first time tonight.  With “Dancin’ Fool,” featuring songs from Van Morrison, Bee Gees, Whitney Houston, The Police and more, they had a fun vehicle with with which to shake a leg. 

[Mr Rumor]

Good morning, St. John’s, Antigua and Barbuda!

 

Linda/Mudhen, I’m waving!!

[Mr Rumor]

Today’s lunch special in St. John’s: Mega Ship Sandwich with Voyager Filling.

[Hambagahle]

My goodness! my father built that harbour in St Johns and I have never seen it...   the photo of the Voyager "sandwiched" between two mega ships reminds me a LOT of being somewhere (I think St Martin but maybe not) on the Navigator years ago, with some HUGE HULKS alongside.  Ken and I went for lunch and during a 90 mins lunch one of them continued to disgorge its passengers - via a double gangway.  Cruise Director went on shore for lunch and was asked if she came from a ship.  She pointed the Navigator out.  Reply from the waiter "oh!  the baby ship" !!

[merlot101]

Can't wait.  We are on her December 16th.

[Mr Rumor]

Gerry, I wonder what your dad would think about the Anthem of the Seas hogging his harbor?

 

My favorite  Antigua view of the day, from Shirley Heights Lookout.  If you look closely you can see Eric Clapton’s first Antigua home, center bottom, with pool.

 

Another special view, from The Blockhouse.   If you look closely you’ll see Clapton’s present home, Standhouse Point, sitting low and long on 45 acres.

 

A closer look.  When he’s off the island, Eric is said to rent Standhouse Point out for a reported $50,000 a week. Clapton, by the way, founded the Crossroads Centre, an addiction treatment center, on Antigua in 1998.

Edited December 1, 2018 by Mr Rumor

[Mr Rumor]

Yesterday on our Antigua “Historical Island and Beach Break” tour, I was reminded what a difference a well-prepared, engaging tour guide means to an excursion.   Johnnell kept me busy scribbling bits of interesting info in my pocket notebook, and at the end she entertained our sixteen tour mates and us with her rendition of the Antiguan national anthem.

 

From the scribbles:

 

Antigua and Barbuda became an independent state within the British Commonwealth of Nations in 1981. 

 

There are exactly 365 beaches on Antigua, one for every day of the year.

 

Antigua with its 100,000 inhabitants were barely touched by Irma:  “Irma shifted at the last minute.”  Tiny sister island Barbuda, with its 500 residents, wasn’t so lucky:  “It was destroyed.”

 

Irma did impact Antigua’s sugar-cane business, destroying 38 of the island’s 150 sugar mills.  However, she added, sugar-cane has been replaced by tourism as the island’s No. 1 income producer, accounting for 85% of the island’s income.

 

You don’t want to buy a car in Antigua.  Even the cheapest car, a Kia, she said, would cost $40,000 US.  So, Antiguans order used cars online from Japan for as little as $300, and have the car shipped to Antigua for approximately $1700.

 

Health care is free.  Three percent of each worker’s check is withheld for medical benefits.  Unemployment stands at 15%.  Unfortunately, she said, there are no benefits for the unemployed in Antigua.  

 

In part because some men are faced with leaving the island to find work and in part, Johnnell claimed, because Antiguan women have more daughters than sons, women on the island outnumber men something like six to one.  She admitted that there is a lot of competition among Antiguan men for an available guy:  “You got to be on top of it!”

 

Johnnell and admirer:

 

Our beach stop was at lovely Pigeon Point Beach:

 

[Mr Rumor]

Good morning, Bridgetown, Barbados!

 

Captain Stan mans the “barbecue” with Staff Captain Marco as the Voyager eases ever so gently into its berth.

Edited December 1, 2018 by Mr Rumor

[Hambagahle]

The "modern" Antigua sounds wonderful (my parents lived there in the late 60s!) and you clearly had a great time.  Shauna looks like she has been promoted to Tour Guide?  Don't leave her behind!!

[Mr Rumor]

While beach lover Ginny relished another beach break, Shauna and I bused around Barbados on “Best of Barbados.”  It was the second excursion in a row enhanced by wonderful commentary by our guide.

 

I was surprised at how flat Barbados is.  It’s flatness led the British to deem the land perfect for sugar cane production.  

 

However, as with Antigua, tourism some years ago became Barbado’s No. 1 industry, also surpassing rum, No. 2.  According to Jamie Lee, rum originated on Barbados in 1703.  (So did the grapefruit, she claimed, when an orange and pomelo were crossed.)

 

Our excursion included a hoot of a tasting (rum drinks and local snacks) at the 300 year old Sudbury Plantation House, where our fun-loving hosts, and the rum, put our group in very good spirits (that’s Jamie Lee, our guide, on the right):

 

We also visited the historic Gun Hill Signal Station, a lookout for enemy ships that used flags to communicate warnings to the other stations, and toured the Orchid World and Tropical Flower Garden, where we came upon specimens such as this:

 

Along the way Jamie Lee, microphone in hand, informed and entertained.  Here’s a little bit of what I managed to write down:

 

Bajans (as residents call themselves) had celebrated just yesterday 52 years of independence from England.  She added that many Bajans were also still on a high following the election this past May of the country’s first female prime minister, Mia Mottley.

 

Today marked the beginning of Barbados’ “dry” season, which will run through the end of next May.

 

The Barbadian literacy rate is 99.7%.  Children start school at 4.  An exam at age 11 determines the child’s secondary level.  Yearly promotion exams follow.  If a child fails to pass a promotion exam, he/she repeats the year.  Education through the university level is free.

 

Ninety percent of Bajans regularly attend church.  While there are 101 denominations on the island, the predominant religion is Anglican.

 

There are three dozen species of palm trees.  One of the largest species (80-100 feet tall) is nicknamed the Politician Palm, because “it grows and grows, and does nothing.”

 

Alluding to the worldwide popularity of rum and grapefruits, Jamie Lee noted that “Bajans like to say that,  ‘Anywhere you go, you will find another Bajan.’”

Edited December 2, 2018 by Mr Rumor

[Mr Rumor]

Good morning, Castries, St. Lucia!  

[macbest]

Mr. Rumor

really enjoying your writeup! Thanks for taking the time to provide such insightful nuggets on each port. It is gearing me up for my Feb Caribbean cruise on a Voyager!

[Mr Rumor]

macbest, it’s my pleasure!  Wishing you as wonderful a Voyager Caribbean cruise as we are enjoying.  

 

Loved our full day Santa Lucia tour; details and pics to follow!   But first a photo of the Voyager’s boo boo (we finally got a look at it when we returned to the ship this afternoon):

[tripperva]

Mr Rumor, that little booboo will be just like repairing a Porsche, not too big but very expensive.

[Travelcat2]

5 hours ago, Mr Rumor said:

macbest, it’s my pleasure!  Wishing you as wonderful a Voyager Caribbean cruise as we are enjoying.  

 

Loved our full day Santa Lucia tour; details and pics to follow!   But first a photo of the Voyager’s boo boo (we finally got a look at it when we returned to the ship this afternoon):

 

Definitely a big booboo!. We asked when we were onboard last week when it would be repaired. The response was "during dry dock" (which is scheduled in early 2020).  They have all the paperwork that states that the Voyager is seaworthy and there is no problem other than it looks rather ugly.

[Mr Rumor]

We sure made the most of our time on St. Lucia!  We were on Bus 1 of the first tour and were among the last few to return to the ship, less than 30 minutes before we set sail at 4 p.m.  We had just enough time to do a madcap clean-up so what we could attend the Regent “Top Tier” event (new name now that we have two additional tiers, Diamond and Commodore), a sailaway party on the Horizon Lounge.  (Executive Chef Kelly personally prepared some scrumptious Caribbean-themed nibbles featuring lobster, scallops, shrimp and pork tenderloin.)

 

“Land and Sea to Soufriere” was by far the longest of the day’s excursions at seven and a half hours.  We visited the fishing village of Anse la Raye (Stingray Bay), photographed St. Lucia’s famous Pitons from a choice viewing spot, toured the Diamond Botanical Gardens where we were captivated by one of the most colorful waterfalls we’d seen (due to minerals in the water such as sulphur, iron and copper), and ate fresh creole cooking at the Morne Coubaril Estate in Soufriere.

 

And as our guide Candida put it, “That was just Part One.”

 

Part Two began with a 40-minute catamaran trip along the west coast, a sail that was suddenly enlivened when the catamaran dipped, somehow catapulting a two-foot-long Spanish mackerel into the netting in the front of the catamaran, next to where one of our fellow cruisers had been sunbathing (two crew members were instantly all over that mackerel). A stop at Anse Cochin (Bay of Pigs) followed, where those who were inclined could exit the catamaran for a swim, or in DW’s case, one last bout of shell-hunting.  

 

Our catamaran then continued along St. Lucia’s west coast as the rum punch continued to flow, the music got louder, and crew members succeeded in landing two more Spanish mackerel to much hoopla from passengers.  After a brief sail-in to picturesque Marigot Bay, an historic landmark where the French and British navies had battled various times (according to Candida, St. Lucia changed hands between the British and French no less than 14 times over the centuries, until St. Lucia finally gained independence from Great Britain in 1979), we made it back to the Voyager.

 

We were proud of Shauna!  “Land & Sea to Soufriere” is Difficulty-rated three walking men, but she took all the steps and walking like a champ, and still had enough gas in her tank to relish a lovely dinner in Chartreuse and the Voyager Production Singers’ “Broadway in Concert.”  

 

A few favorite photos from this special day:

 

The beach at Anse de Raye, one of St. Lucia’s six fishing villages.

 

View of the town of Soufriere and Petit and Gros Pitons, twin volcanic spires and St. Lucia’s most spectacular landmarks. 

 

Diamond Falls at Diamond Botanical Gardens is colored by various minerals, including sulphur, iron and copper.

 

Ginny about to descend into the water at Anse Cochin for one final bout of shell-hunting.

 

Catamaran Catch of the Day:  Captain Dalton revels in the second Spanish mackeral his crew caught on our trip.  A third mackeral found its own way onto the catamaran’s netting.

 

The long and the short of it:  the Voyager and its big NCLH cousin the Norwegian Gem as viewed from our catamaran as we neared the dock.

 

[WesW]

Thanks very much for taking us along on your family's  very special  St. Lucia day Rich.  Terrific word pictures complemented with your (felt like we were there with you) beautiful photos.  

[Mr Rumor]

Thank you, Wes, it is always my pleasure!

 

Good morning, Gustavia, St. Barts, from our tender position.  And thank you for  that little rainbow for the little lady!

[forgap]

We spent our 40th anniversary at Jade Mountain above Soufriere.   What a magical place!  Your pictures brought back such fond memories.  We had an infinity pool in our open air room.  This was our view. 

[Boatmans Lady]

So very sorry to be late to your wonderful blog.

Your daughter has a captivating smile and radiates happiness.

 

Thank you for your wonderful photos, I'm reliving our cruise last Christmas to the Caribbean, such happy memories,