Part 7, Ohco Rios, VOS 7/16/04 sailing

[babchia]

Day 5: Ocho Rios:

 

Another early morning for me. When I went out, I found someone had stolen the wedding picture from my door. The Meet&Mingle sign was still there. I was disappointed, but wasn’t going to let it ruin my trip. (Unfortunately, this was also the beginning of my noticing many of the pre-teens and teenagers were not behaving well during the trip.)

 

After reviewing the excursions being offered by RCCL, and reading the various postings on the CruiseCritic boards, we had decided to take the tour by Peat Taylor. We had already made our reservations with him, so we knew where and when to meet. In his e-mail, he had described where he was going to take us, and that it was flexible.

 

His tour starts early, and goes to Dunns River Falls. We are each given a ticket to enter. We were led to the river guides, who then led us down to the beach and the bottom of the falls. The only way to climb the falls was with a guide (and someone with a video camera so they can sell you a video or DVD). “babchia” and I decided to not climb the falls, but we did climb the steps next to it and watched others climb.

 

Here is the same advice you have heard about Dunns River Falls: When leaving, go back the way you came in. When you see the sign that says EXIT and points to the right, you will see it leads you to the Craft Market. Continue to go straight back to the entrance. You bypass the market, and use a valid way out. We did this and had no problems.

 

Once everyone was done, we met Peat. He was exactly where he said he would be. (At first, we missed him because we hadn’t realized he was in a gazebo with a group playing dominos.) We boarded onto his bus and went for a more common and less tourist-y tour. He drove us by some of the poorer neighborhoods, and some of the nicer homes. We drove through the “Fern Gully”, and saw the man who had been living in a cave for 15 years. We got some history, and some singing. Peat said he would stop for us if we wanted to see anything. We did pass several people on the street who were selling things, but nobody on the bus asked to stop. Peat told us of the Shrimp Flower. He then pulled over and found one. He showed everyone how it looks like a shrimp. He, also, picked some Impatiens and placed one into a couple of our hands. We would keep our hand open. After a few moments, it would burst open.

 

He took us through some of the back roads and saw even more. It was when we passed a telephone pole with spiders hanging on it when several people in the bus asked to stop to see them and take pictures.

 

Peat’s tour took us to the WAYSAI Pottery. They gave us a quick tour of how they make the pottery. It was obvious that even when they were quickly doing the work, these people are artists. Of course, this led us through the obligatory shop. There were various sizes and prices of their work for sale. A number of the larger items were high quality and worth it. We found something small that we liked and bought it.

 

Back to the bus, and we went to a really old Banyon tree. The man who lives under it did some fire breathing for us, and swung from a vine on the tree. Later, Peat took us up a hill so we could get a great view of our ship, then of the city of Ocho Rios. (I had run out of film, so I wasn’t able to take any pictures at this point.) As the morning part of the tour ended, he offered to take us to a restaurant, or back to our ship. Most decided to go back to the ship, with some deciding to go to Margaritaville.

 

Peat did offer to take us anywhere we wished for the afternoon. He said he would take us downtown for shopping, or to do a raft trip. We decided to skip this part.

 

Peat charges $30 per person for this tour (including entrance to Dunns River Falls). It was worth it, and I highly recommend him if you want a tour of the area.

 

After lunch (on the ship) we went back onto the island. If you walk straight out through the taxi/bus area, you come upon Oceans 11. They sell souvenirs, and offer free tastings of their flavored rums. It often gets busy here, so you may have to wait for the tastings. Also, if you buy a liquor here, they will deliver it to the ship (if it is not too late). (We bought ours later, just as they left to make their delivery, so we got to carry it back to the ship.)

 

We continued down the street to the Island Village Shopping Center. We did some shopping there (including stopping at Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville), but didn’t find anything we wanted.

 

From there, we made a left turn and walked down the street towards the Taj Mahal shopping center. We went to a couple of stores and did buy some things. In addition, there was a place to exchange money, so I was able to get some Jamaican money here.

 

Be aware that when you walk down the street to get to the Taj Mahal, you may pass several people who may have their hands out. Also, you will probably be asked if you want any marijuana or cocaine. I would advise not talking to these people except to politely say, “No thank you.” Once done there, we headed back towards the ship, and joined the large number of people also returning to the ship.

 

A few days before, we had gotten tickets for the Ice Jammin’ Ice Show. Our tickets were good for today, so went to the 7PM show. I did take a couple of pictures with our digital camera, but someone must have thought I was shooting video, so I was asked to stop. Overall, the show was impressive. This is especially true when you consider the smaller size of the ice rink. I felt the story was a little light, but the staging and skaters’ talents made the show.

 

We had another dinner, and another wonderful conversation. We had planned on going to the Love and Marriage Game Show, but we were having such a nice time with our dinner table group. Eventually, we did leave and went to the show. We had missed the selection process, but got to see most of the regular show. Without giving away too much, let’s say the show was funniest time we had on the ship. Three couples are chosen. One is a newlywed, a couple that has been married for a few years (we were told it would be 20-25 years, but they chose a couple who was married for 7 years), and a couple that has been married for about 50 years. (This oldest couple ended up winning the hearts of everyone and was considered the darlings of the ship for the rest of the cruise.) Anyway, their answers were great and not always expected. The Cruise Director, James Andrews, did a great job of getting answers from the contestants, and of controlling the action. One answer even made a few people question if they wanted to even use the lounge chairs on “…the balcony on Deck 12” anymore. Or, is the better place a Model ‘T? (Don’t worry, your mind is probably going in the right direction.)

 

(Of course, the ship repeatedly played a video of the entire show on one of the TV channels for the next few days, so nobody got to miss it.)

 

That night, there was dancing and a buffet on Deck 12 around the pools. We went, but decided it wasn’t worth waiting in line for food we weren’t hungry for, and it was a little loud and busy as we watched the Cruise Director’s Staff try to get people to join in with a group of people doing a line dance. Oh, well. Another early day tomorrow, so off to bed.

 

The towel animal of the day was an elephant.

 

Grand Cayman next!

[babchia]

I have copied and combined all of the parts of this review after Part 1.

 

Sorry about this mess.

 

Read the entire review at:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?postid=1744631

 

DH of Babchia