Day 8: St Kitts

 St. Kitts is one of my favorite islands!  I've been wanting to visit again since the first time I set foot there!

Aside from being spectacularly beautiful, the port area is very nice and the scenery is just breathtaking.  I took a ton of pictures here. 

We took a cab to Morsi's Discovery Beach Bar on the Caribbean side of the island. We had the BEST cab driver ever! He dropped us off and then took another couple to a different place and said he would come back for us whenever we liked!  

Morsi's place is not fancy at all. I'm pretty sure there are no nails holding the place together BUT Morsi is a fabulous host and his food and drinks are really good and decently priced. 

He has chairs to rent for the day and some are covered by a small palapa. Perfect for staying somewhat protected from the sun.  There are also picnic tables under the cover of the roof at Morsi's hut. You can tell he's been through a number of hurricanes and/or tropical storms.  Things are replaced with upcycled material.  Still, it has a rustic charm/vibe that I just love.  He has Bob Marley decorations and Bob Marley music playing all the time!  

Sometimes, interesting visitors stop by to enjoy Morsi's hospitality and dance around!  Great atmosphere!

Day 6: St Lucia

 This morning was an early call, so I sent for room service and a banana to start my morning. I met up with the kids near the gang Way. We walked off the ship to a gorgeously sunny day. We did a ships tour because I wasn’t familiar with this port. we did a snorkeling trip. Once again today, the snorkeling was just MEH. It was however much better than yesterday. I have been trying to work with this camera in one of the dry packs and it keeps freezing or not registering a “tap”   Sigh

                                                                                            

Leaving the port area on the Catamaran

D snorkeling

Heading back to the port.  We had no beach time because the current was too rough for the boat to land. So, we went on a seemingly endless trek all around the island.  The rum punch was flowing and there may have been something else in there.  I had 2 plastic cups of punch during the never-ending cruise along the post  Then one of the ship's mates was passing out cups of the stuff telling everyone to drink up. I had MAYBE 2 sips out of the cup before we got back to shore. 

Literally, all the people on the boat were like this.  We just wanted off the damn thing! And a note to all: I did confiscate K's man card for wearing those "shoes"!!

Back on shore finally-----we were walking back to the port area and I remember buying this cool woven palm frond basket and then,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,nothing----for at least 45 minutes.  All of a sudden I couldn't walk! Like I said----not that much rum punch, I swear to God.  Ended up needing assistance getting to the ship and getting aboard. OMG  They got me to my room where I was immediately extremely sick.  After that though, I drank a bunch of water and felt so much better.  

Of course, I am no longer a fan of St Lucia. LOL  

Day 7: Barbados

 Today was a super early wake up time I set the alarm for 6:30, ran up to the Buffet and got some oatmeal and half a cup of coffee, and then we were off on our tour. Well, not exactly off on our tour, but we rode through the port area to the duty-free area and now we’re on the bus heading for the snorkeling location. 

We are now officially on our way leaving the port area and can see some nice blue water in the distance.

There are three or four other ships in Port with us today so I expect all the locations were visiting to be crowded.

We booked another ships tour today. It was a catamaran, and it was supposed to take us to a turtle snorkel, as well as snorkeling over two different racks that were sunk to start coral reefs and then the third stop was supposed to be a swim stop but the water was far too rough for us to actually go to the beach.

The first stop was the turtle snorkel. Personally, I thought it was terrible, but with hundreds of people in the water it was just so churned up there was no visibility. Some people stated that they did see turtles however, the only time I saw a turtle was from the little boat.

After that, we really only went about 100 feet away and there were two wrecks visible they were sunk intentionally as I stated above to start a reef. However, they were close enough to the surface that you could swim pretty close to them, and they were already starting to grow corals. I was able to see really well here and was trying really hard to use my underwater camera. Well, my phone in a waterproof case. Unfortunately I could not get the button to push to take a picture so I’m definitely looking into some thing different without having to buy a whole new underwater camera. I have one, but it’s so old that the zoom just isn’t great.

After the snorkeling was finished, we were supposed to go to the beach, but did not. Instead, we took a really long, long ride up and down the coast of Barbados. The rum punch was flowing, but after yesterday’s experience, I had nothing L O L.

They even had the good rum on board here they had mount gay rum, and all kinds of other mixtures to go with it plus beer. So, there was a lot of drinking going on, and a lot of time to do it. I was actually pretty bored towards the end maybe because I wasn’t drinking ha!!!

We got back on board the ship pretty early it wasn’t even 1230 but all aboard was at 3:30 and quite honestly I would not have wanted to leave the port area. The area near the port looked very industrial and not a good place to go. It just did not look safe. 

They did, however, have a large duty-free area to shop at you actually had to pass through it to get to the shuttles back to the ship. The ship is docked in a very commercial Port, not appealing whatsoever.

We got back on board despite the early time because we were starving and the only thing they had on that catamaran was rum L O L

We had a little bit of lunch at the international Café, which was really good and I think somewhat of a secret we found out about it from a guy getting on the elevator that had this like Melty, ham and cheese on a croissant. Oh, Yum! After we ditched our swimsuits, etc. we met down there and had a little bit of lunch I had a Panini of some sort and honestly there was too much meat and if there is such a thing lol but it was good. 

After lunch, we went back to our cabins and then met up later on the Lido for a couple of drinks, and to watch the sunset.

We are going to try to get into dinner a little earlier tonight so we can get to the casino earlier and then hopefully we won’t be out as late as we were other nights!

We have two sea days in a row, and then we are back in Ft. Lauderdale 

The time has just flown by. We’ve been having a fabulous time. Will be sorry to go home except I miss a certain person quite a bit.

Good night from the lido deck!

jilly

Day 5: Antigua

At the Port!

K&D on those phones............LOL

 We started the day fairly early and took a ships tour to snorkel and then later go to the beach.

I chose to do ship tours in the next few ports, as I’ve never been here and quite honestly for the first time in my life, I have done no research on these ports. I know, I know it’s very unlike me to not have an eight page tabbed excel document with all the plans. LOL. 

One thing I will tell you be careful with the rum punch. Oh my god that stuff is deadly. I had 2 cups after we snorkeled and they were so strong. I was tipsy when we got to the beach.

I’m having trouble with the water proof iPhone case I bought for underwater pictures.  In this case, it wasn’t really a tragedy because there were just fish near the catamaran and not a lot of healthy looking coral. It was also kind of choppy on the water today so the sand was a bit churned up.

The beach we went to afterward, was very nice. It was in a sheltered bay that had all the requisite bars and beach chairs.

It wasn’t really hot today, but the water was so perfect. It was a little cool it felt great.

On the way back, I took these photos:

  

Once we got back aboard the ship, we got some food and went back to our cabins to rest up after that punch LOL

We had a nice dinner in the Amalfi dining room again. We go to dinner every night at 8 o’clock but we don’t have the same weight staff. It’s very surprising how different each waiter team is some nights we’ve had fabulous service and others not so much. But the food has been consistently good

Sweet Dreams from beautiful Antigua!

jilly