DIVERTED! Adventure Southern Caribbean June 3, 2017

St. Maarten

I had been itching to return to St. Maarten since our first cruise in 2013. The big reason I wanted to get back here was that we didn’t get to go on this excursion on that first cruise. I wanted another shot.

I should tell you right now that our excursions break down into two pretty distinct categories. One group has me as the instigator and it is more adventure prone; boating tours, hikes, activities. I don’t sit on a beach particularly well, although on this cruise I was going to try to do a couple of beach only days since we had so many ports. The other group is led by our friend Sheryl. She wants one thing…a great beach. She wants a chair in the sand and a drink in her hand all day every day in every port. Sheryl leads the beach bums when we are split up.

I think I did permanent damage to Sheryl the time we sailed Oasis and I took the whole group to the Blue Hole in Jamaica. She was a wreck as her husband, daughter and son-in-law climbed over boulders and jumped off of precarious places into a river. At that point, she told me that I can do whatever on these trips but from then on she was going to a beach!

The beach bums headed out to Orient Bay for a day of sun and fun on a world-famous stretch of beach. The rest of us were headed to visit Captain Bob!

I need to be precise, the actual name of the excursion is Soualiga Destinations Boat Tours, but everyone calls it Captain Bob. There's a reason that this tour continues to be the #1 rated Trip Advisor boat tour in St. Maarten. And that reason is Captain Bob's commitment to the hands-on details of his operation. He's there to greet you and get you set at the dock with several staff to assist. He speaks personally to each group before they depart and confers with each boat crew about the scheduled details of the day.

Then you are off around the island seeing sites, snorkeling, visiting beaches, turtles, iguanas, Pinel Island, Mullet Bay Beach and just generally having a great time. Each boat arrives at a beach side restaurant for lunch served by none other than Captain Bob and his staff. The place is named Enold’s Caribbean and Creole in the Grand Case Beach area. It's a fabulously good lunch too, not something that's been sitting in a cooler on the boat for 3 hours. And don’t miss getting a frozen Guavaberry drink! Only $6 so have a couple.

After lunch, more stops and of course they hit Maho Beach in time to catch a couple of planes landing! Because they are watching the daily schedule from the airport.

You never hang around too long at any one place which makes this tour different from many others. Bob's boats do twice the stops of many similar tours I've been on. And every once in a while, they will crank on those 900 horses to get the boat up a moving!

I had been wanting to do this tour since 2013 when we last visited the island and Bob had to cancel our excursion that day due to weather. Which also impressed me that he was honest that day and said our tour would not be much fun in the conditions that existed and then offered his help in finding us other activities.

For those interested the boats are mostly 35 foot Wellcraft with 3X300 Mercury outboards. They run surprisingly quiet. I believe they have the noise dampening system hooked up but I didn’t confirm that with Bob.

On the day we were there this time the weather was great and Bob had 5 boats running. Everyone seemed to have a great time. Totally worth the money and I can't recommend his tours highly enough.

For future reference: Mullet Bay Beach (pictured below) looked like a great place to spend a day. Especially if there are a bunch of ships in port and everyone is heading to Orient Bay.

Beverage Alert

If you are planning on drinking a lot of soda using the Coke Freestyle machines...you won't be happy. The machines were often broken or out of ice but that wasn't the real problem. The bad thing is the soda tasted horrible. The mix was all over the place, sometimes no fizz, sometimes no flavor, there was just no consistency to the taste. Many people would take a drink and then dump it out and head to the bar for a soda. I had one correct tasting drink from the Freestyle machine the entire cruise. This is my desperate attempt to obtain soda. It was unsuccessful.

Positive note, the Beverage package included STARBUCKS on this ship! Which, as you can see, made my wife extremely happy! The fact that the Starbucks is included isn't well publicized, in fact no one knew for a day or so that you could get Starbucks on the package. Once we figured it out our group hit the coffee stand multiple times a day.

Enjoying the review, and the excellent photos of one of our favorite ships.:)

This is not the first time I have read about the Freestyle machines on Adventure having issues. I don't know what they are waiting for to get them fixed.

El Yunque National Forest – Death Defying

First off, kudos to Puerto Rico Green Transportation for being so responsive. We used them for all our transfers and for a rain forest tour. We were scheduled for an 8 am pickup, my fault I should have known better. There was no way our group was ready for an 8 am tour departure so I emailed Green after 8 pm and to my surprise they called me right away and we pushed back our tour to 10 am.

 

Harold was our driver and he was great. The vehicles they use are Mercedes Benz Sprinter Vans, very nice, roomy and comfortable. I always look for transport companies using the Sprinters. We got underway on time and made our way to El Yunque with just enough commentary from the driver to be informational but not overwhelming.

 

The park itself is beautiful and well maintained. The flora and fauna are thick. We stopped at the visitors center for a few minutes and the headed on into the park. It was busy and there were no ships in port that day. We made several stops but the best one was a change on the fly. A trail that had been closed for several months for renovation had just re-opened and Harold decided to use that trail. It was a good suggestion since it was much closer to where we were, and shorter in length. We had a couple of people that would have struggled with the longer trail.

 

We hiked up the trail and it was outstanding. I wanted to just keep hiking for the rest of the day. Eventually we made our way to the waterfall. We had the place to ourselves! Several of us got in for a swim in the cool water. We swam into the falls and went behind the falls. And that’s when it happened. The near death experience. I was behind the waterfall so I couldn’t hear anything but the roar of the falls. Luckily, one of the non-swimmers had the GoPro running or we might never have known what happened. There was a loud splash, very loud and very violent. My wife wasn’t looking and just assumed I had climbed up the side of the hill and jumped in to make a big splash. But as they looked, nothing was surfacing. Then one by one we all were emerging from behind the waterfall. So, what happened? We guessed it must have been a rock but no one really saw it. When we got back to the Sprinter we connected the GoPro to the app on the iPhone and watched the video. That’s when we realized how bad this little swim could have turned out. In an area where we had all been standing not 2 minutes before and very large rock came flying into the picture and crashed into the pool. It looked like a meteor hitting the water. This thing fell from a very high place and was moving fast. If it had hit someone it would have been very bad, quite possibly fatal.

 

It wasn’t really anyone’s fault. It was just one of those things that can happen. We were very glad it didn’t happen to us. The guide did report it and they let the park know what had occurred. Again, not sure there is anything that could have been done to prevent it.

 

The rock that could have killed us! Watch closely at the end of the clip -- lower left corner

 

We finished our time in the rain forest and then headed to eat at Terruno in Luquillo. Great seafood selections and good drinks. Harold helped us with ordering suggestions that were spot on and delicious. The coconut rice was a huge hit with everyone. Do not miss the appetizer Piononitos Artesanales de Camarones y Churrasco (stuffed sweet plantain w/ shrimp and skirt steak). It was fantastic. If you are in the area you cannot go wrong here!

 

The rain forest is a "must do attraction" in Puerto Rico as far as I'm concerned and Green will do an excellent job of getting you there and making your day a good one. Don’t miss this place. When I return to Puerto Rico I am going to do a tour with more hiking and exploring on the trails! This group didn’t have the makeup for that kind of trip but I will be back!

Which tour is this? There are at least three listed - $49, $69 and $139.

We are sailing on Adventure Saturday. We just got an email saying that our cruise will not be going to St. Lucia. That was the only excursion I was looking forward to. Back to the drawing board.

 

My AKASO EK7000 looks just like a GoPro in every respect right down to the packaging. But we will call it the FauxPro from now on. There is one very important difference between the GoPro and the FauxPro; the knock off costs less than $90.

Are you happy with your AKASO EK7000 and the quality of the video? Thinking about getting one...

Cruise in Motion!

Here is the short video I made of some of the highlights of our cruise. It's kind of like a movie trailer for this review.

 

Thank you for the 2.5 minute mini vacation I just took with you....it will be viewed often as we don't sail until November.

This is not the first time I have read about the Freestyle machines on Adventure having issues. I don't know what they are waiting for to get them fixed.

... and (it seems) every other ship for that matter.... We had the same issues on Oasis. I usually just got ginger ale from the bars. No use standing in line to get a bad tasting soda from a machine :D

Thank you for the detailed breakdown. I coordinated just 6 people my last cruise and that was enough for me. You have way more patience than me with 20. lol.

Which tour is this? There are at least three listed - $49, $69 and $139.

Puerto Rico Green Transportation does custom tours by the number of people in your party and the number of hours you want to tour. We had 10 People and did 5 hours. From their website:

Pricing:

All of our tours are private and are priced per hour , depending of the vehicle size, NOT per person, below is a list of hourly prices for the, ENJOY A 15% DISCOUNT ON ALL TOURS MONDAY TROUGH FRIDAY!

1-3 passengers $52 per hour

4-7 passengers $62 per hour

8-11 passengers $82.5 per hour

12-14 passengers $93.5 per hour

14-25 passengers $137.5 per hour

Are you happy with your AKASO EK7000 and the quality of the video? Thinking about getting one...

Thus far I have been totally happy with this camera. I have been editing side by side video and photos from both the GoPro and the FauxPro and I cannot see any difference in quality. Now, if you are very particular and technical about videos and photos that may not hold true for you. I have had my camera on 2 trips and have had no issues. I have not utilized the phone app or the remote control to any real degree yet.

Here is the thing for me. If I had spent $400 on the GoPro I would be far less likely to put it in harms way...which is kind of the point of owing a camera like this, because you WANT to put it in harms way. I figure I can totally destroy 4 of the FauxPros and still be money ahead compared to buying 1 GoPro. In the short video teaser I linked in this review there are pics and video from both the real and the knock-off...I can't tell a difference.

We are sailing on Adventure Saturday. We just got an email saying that our cruise will not be going to St. Lucia. That was the only excursion I was looking forward to. Back to the drawing board.

I wish they would let everyone know when they expect to go back to St Lucia. The last minute notifications is very unprofessional

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Great review! We will be on in December. How far in advance did you book Captain Bob?

Great review! We will be on in December. How far in advance did you book Captain Bob?

I contacted Captain Bob the day after I booked our cruise. Now he has the capacity for more than 100 people per day, but if there are several ships in port...he will fill up fast. On our day he filled 5 boats and all but 4 people were cruise passengers from just one ship in port. My advice, book yesterday!

Are you happy with your AKASO EK7000 and the quality of the video? Thinking about getting one...

We have it and love it. No issues.

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Thank you!

St. Kitts

Sometimes I get ideas that seem like good ones at the time…but when I think more about it I decide maybe I need to rethink the plan. That’s my St. Kitts story. My original idea was to take the group of 16 to Discovery Beach Bar & Grill. It looks great, off the beaten path, kind of unknown to most cruise travelers. However, all that exists about Discovery is a Facebook page and Trip Advisor reviews but not much else. It’s kind of a one man show and I would be bringing 16 people. With no way to pre-plan our visit or even communicate with Discovery leading up to our arrival.

That’s when I started looking for a little help in arranging transportation and I found Pereira Day Tours. Liz really helped us make the most of our time in St. Kitts. She was willing to take us all to Discovery but when I asked for her suggestions and shared my nervousness with her she agreed that a large group might not go as planned. So, we changed the plans.

She helped arrange transport for my whole group and got us to the places we wanted to go without any delays or unnecessary side trips. In my experiences, it is not always easy to get some guides to do what you want. Many times, they have set agendas they want to adhere to and places they want to take you; regardless of what you want. I’m always open to suggestions about where to go and what to do (You’ll see that when we hit Barbados) but I also know my group and what they like and don’t like. As a rule, they don’t like land tours that go sightseeing. If a couple of good sites are on the route to our ultimate destination that’s great. But don’t drag us to governor’s mansions, cemeteries, distilleries or other things that are really not of interest to us.

We made only one stop, a stop well worth the time, Timothy Hill. I will just let the picture do the talking. It’s a beautiful overlook. And for those that haven’t visited Kitts in recent years there is a lot of new development going on. And with that development came massive improvements to the road leading to this area of the island. It is an easy trip now with a very good road.

We sustained some injuries on the cruise. After the near-death experience, we should have been on guard. Our friend Adam took the picture of my DW and I (below). It's one of my favorite pics from the trip. Side note, it’s taken with an iPhone 7 Plus using the “Portrait” mode only available on that phone. My father-in-law had an ancient iPhone 4 forever and a few weeks before the trip he lost it and got the new 7 Plus with the awesome camera. I kept stealing his phone throughout the trip to take pictures, because eventually I wouldn’t have a phone of my own. But, I digress.

Adam climbed up on some rocks and kept having us move back towards the drop off…not a steep drop off but also not part of the observation area. He got the shot as you can see, one of my favorite pics of the trip. He handed the phone to us and then he had to leap and jump on a couple of the big stones in order to get down. When he landed he lost his balance and crashed his shoulder right into my mother-in-law’s head. She buckled and started to go down. I caught her and we steadied her. But there were a few moments of panic there…she eventually recovered and was OK but our day almost included a trip to the St. Kitts hospital. I include this story to further torment Adam because he felt terrible. Adam is a medical doctor so we accused him of trying to drum up business on the trip.

We arrived at the Reggae Beach Bar with chairs reserved and a drink quickly served. The rum punch reminded me of a drink I had on Nevis called a Killer Bee. If you’ve been to Nevis you may have had that drink, this one is very similar.

We had a great day at the beach. Some rented paddle boards, others swam and some just soaked in the sun. The restaurant is good beach fare and there were some good drinks to have as well. Local beer was cheap! Liz got everyone situated, took pictures for the group, and made sure we were taken care of in every way. At the agreed upon time the bus was back and we were on our way to the port.

One other interesting thing happened on the beach. My DD was paddle boarding and lost her expensive sunglasses. Notice at the far right of the picture, the paddle board group is a hot mess. Now I won’t get into the problem of wearing expensive glasses on a paddle board without a floater strap. Because if I did get into that discussion, it would be a very “dad” thing for me to do. So, there she is, glasses sunken. A local kid comes snorkeling by. All the local were on the next beach because it was some kind of Pentecostal holiday called Whit Monday so they were off work. The kid swam around and found the glasses, dove for them and got them. He handed them to my daughter and then swam off before we could even ask his name or offer him some money for getting them. Maybe my daughter will wear a floater strap next time? But again, that’s kind of a “dad” thing to say.

Here is the one other thing you need to know about working with Pereia Tours. Liz is RESPONSIVE. She uses social media very well and she was super prompt in answering email and helping me make decisions about our day in Kitts. We even asked to push back our pick-up time at the last minute and she was right on it. The communication factor is really a big plus for her and using her services to plan your day. She has all the island connections to help arrange your day and that is a big advantage. Her parents are from Canada and Kitts so she has the western culture and the island culture. She uses that combo to make your trip better. Highly recommend using her on whatever kind of trip you are planning to St. Kitts. Be that a cruise ship day or a week on the islands.

Someone couldn't resist getting the donkey and monkey photo...

 

Diverted!

I know that for some of you readers this is the thing you are most interested in hearing about. Our ports of call were supposed to be: San Juan, St. Maarten, St. Kitts, Antigua, St. Lucia and Barbados. Three weeks prior to our sailing the Adventure was diverted from St. Lucia to Martinique. This happened at the last minute, literally many found out as they were boarding the ship to sail on Saturday.

:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

Nice dramatic segue. Diversion means you're en route and get diverted because someone drowned, medical, etc. Your scenario represents an Itinerary Change, which if you read your contract carefully is perfectly acceptable. Settle down now... Settle down...

Food & Games

That night we skipped the MDR in part because we wanted to go to the 80s music trivia game in the Schooner Bar. We had several music and trivia fans in the crowd and this sounded like it would be right up our alley. Maybe our team would win. I knew immediately that the trivia was poorly put together when the first answer was technically incorrect. They played 15 snippets of songs and you had to identify the titles of said songs. But they were painfully easy if you were alive and listened to the radio at all in the 80s. At least 1/3 of the teams got all 15 correct and almost all the teams had 13-14 correct. Except they really didn’t…the first song was Pink Floyd, “Another Brick in the Wall.” Problem, that is not the correct name of that song. The correct title of that song is “Another Brick in the Wall Part 2.” Most people forget that there are separate songs on that album with that name as parts 1 and 3. Of course RCCL messed that up. Again, just a little detail but easily correctable and maybe then you would have had enough little prizes for all the teams that got 100% correct answers. The guy running the trivia had to go scavenge more prizes and seemed shocked when so many teams got 15/15.

We also went to the Perfect Couple game which is a newer offering. Couples have to do stunts to win. Roll a frozen lime up your partners pant leg, up, over and down the other side. That kind of mildly sexual stunt. Let’s just say it ended with trying to put the tip of a pool cue through a toilet paper roll hole. In a precarious place while blindfolded…ouch.

:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

 

Nice dramatic segue. Diversion means you're en route and get diverted because someone drowned, medical, etc. Your scenario represents an Itinerary Change, which if you read your contract carefully is perfectly acceptable. Settle down now... Settle down...

While you might be technically correct, I like Randy's version much better than yours. It's joyful and fun. Yours isn't.

Lordy, I hope there are tapes. :D

One other note before I move on. We were in Antigua the day before Martinique and I was hanging on the beach with our excursion guides who were both islanders. They asked me where we were headed next and I told them that we had been diverted to Martinique. One of them asked me, “Does anyone in your group speak French?” I said that no one did. Both of them laughed and he said, “Well, good luck with that!”

I am not sure what prompted that type of response unless they had never been to Martinique.

On our last cruise that ported in Fort-de-France, we walked around the town on our own. Tourist information in English was readily available on the pier. We received a map and walking tour brochure.

Walking through the town, the people were friendly and did speak English. An unexpected surprise was the local tourist bureau personal that were stationed at each location on the walking tour. They are dressed in white with a red bibed apron and caps. They spoke perfect english and would give anyone who approached and was interested a short talk on the location. They also would give suggestions on what to do and see next.

We asked and we were told the tourist bureau personnel were assigned during cruise ship's ports of call.

Our ship was the only one in port that day and only 1200 passengers were on board so it didn't seem to manner how many passengers might be on shore.

Antigua

Our original plan for over a year was to go to Jacqui O’s for lunch and beach time. The entire group was in for that plan…until they decided to close the restaurant for the summer this year. So that pretty much killed that plan. We wound up splitting up into our 2 normal kinds of outings: Beach and Adventure.

The Beach Bums had a big group on this day and they headed to Jolly Beach. They had a great day jet skiing, playing volleyball, relaxing. The only issue they reported was upon arrival at the beach. They were approached by locals who had staked out various sections of the beach and were pretty much demanding that the group sit in their area and not another area. There was a lot of arguing and some hot tempers among the chair vendors. It eventually got straightened out but not without some drama. Our group did get to sit where they wanted to sit but beware of talking to the first person who offers a chair. Maybe hike around a bit and find where YOU want to be and then see WHO is controlling that section of beach.

The adventure crew only had 4 members on this day. We chose the Xtreme Circumnavigation Tour offered by Adventure Antigua. Similar to the Captain Bob excursion the Xtreme covered a lot of miles and some really great sites and activities. We had a 45-foot boat with 750 horses for this tour and we needed every foot of that boat.

The boat picked us up very near the dock so it was a short walk. We loaded up and were off. There were 2 boats running and they stayed pretty much together for the day. We started off looking at some resorts and beach front areas – mostly we were killing a little time waiting for some stragglers in boat #2. Eventually we headed out in earnest and it took about an hour of travel to get to the first major areas of interest.

The picture is of Hells Gate. This company also offers an Eco Tour where you spend time exploring this area more in depth and doing some hiking. We just got up close. But getting close was quite interesting. He maneuvered that 45-foot boat into areas where I would have been nervous on my SeaDoo. It was shallow and there were rocks and coral everywhere. Yet closer and closer we went. Very cool.

Our next attraction was Stingray City. A sandbar with floating docks. We docked and then put on our snorkel masks, no fins. We then went down a short ladder and onto the sand bar. The water was 3-4 feet deep. The stingrays are everywhere. And if you stand by one of the workers you will get even closer to the rays as they certainly know the guides and swim around them a lot. You can pet them and hold them, the rays not the guides, and they will swim up against you. It is a very interesting and fun time. The calmer you stay the more fun you will have with the rays. I have done quite a bit of snorkeling but this was a very different experience. Even people that don’t do well with snorkeling can totally enjoy this activity because you can just stand there and see the rays and watch them swim all around you.

We loaded up, which was very easy because you are docked and not trying to climb back into a boat from the water. Another plus if you are not a strong swimmer. And the we headed for lunch at Green Island. This is a private island with almost no development of any kind. A couple of picnic tables and an area that has a kite surfing school. The beach and the surrounding scenery are beautiful. I took tons of photos and videos here. I even went back to the boat and got my iPhone out of the backpack to shoot some panoramic photos. They served a lunch of chicken, fried plantains, pasta salad and banana bread. We ate on the beach.

The Xtreme part of the trip is twofold. The first thing that I will say is pretty Xtreme is you are really out in the open ocean at times. And the swells are big. There are long sections of this tour where you are in relatively calm water but there are also several sections where you are in the surf. And you will bounce around and you WILL GET WET. There really is nowhere to hide on this trip. If you watched the video montage I linked in this review the shot where the water comes up over the side of the boat and splashes the camera and everyone else, that is this boat ride. My daughter actually put on her snorkel gear and rode that way. It was a lot of fun in some ways but if you are squeamish this might not be your excursion choice.

More Antigua to come...

Antigua Continued

That brings me to the second Xtreme part of this trip. The Pillars of Hercules are a well-known rock formation on Antigua. We cruised by it and into a harbor. Then the guides announced that we had arrived at our second snorkeling site. We snorkeled at Hercules! Now, as far as seeing fish goes this wasn’t a great site for that. But it is the most Xtreme place I have ever snorkeled. The waves were big and getting up close to that rock formation was something I will never forget. You can choose to just swim around where the boat is anchored or you can follow the guide and get up close and personal…It’s pretty obvious which choice I made.

I did have a little mishap here. Remember when I talked about getting my iPhone out to take some photos on Green Island? Well I never got a chance to put the phone back in the backpack. I realized this as soon as I jumped into the water at Hercules. But, I was prepared, I had placed my phone in a zip lock baggie. My phone spent less than 10 seconds in the ocean before I handed it up to my daughter. But hey, I had it protected. Unfortunately, this baggie had a hole in it…More on this later.

After Hercules, we headed on around the island seeing the sights and listening as the guides pointed out the sights and shared information about the island with us. We then had one more stop at a completely deserted beach. You can’t even reach it by car. They served up some great rum punch and we just relaxed. So much fun.

If you read this review and think this is your cup of tea then defiantly book this trip. It is a well-run excursion and they know what they are doing. But you will get wet and it will be choppy at times. The scenery however, is outstanding.

The obvious thing to do would be to compare Captain Bob and Adventure Antigua. I have struggled to come up with a way to do that. I even talked to our guide on Antigua about the fact that we had done Captain Bob and some of the differences in the trips. One factual difference is that Adventure Antigua covers a lot more real estate going around the island. It’s just bigger. Captain Bob has more stops and more action but the scenery of Antigua is outstanding. My advice, do both.

Rice, More Games and Photobombs

You may remember my phone got a bit damp. As soon as we returned to the ship we went to the service desk and inquired about getting some rice in a baggie. I had to explain that I wanted uncooked rice so I could put my phone in it and attempt to draw out the moisture. They called the kitchen and made the request. A little while later a delivery was made to our room. On a room service tray with a covered dish of uncooked rice in a bowl. The staff member had a confused look on his face and said something like, “You wanted no-cook rice?” I’m sure they were all wondering what we wanted with a bowl of dry rice. Into a baggie went the phone and the rice and that’s where the phone stayed for the rest of the cruise. I was now off-line unless I wanted to carry around my iPad, which I didn’t.

We have a couple of serial photobombers in our group and that behavior just becomes more prevalent as the trip continued. This is perhaps the best photobomb though. My DW and I on formal night, nothing appears out of the ordinary in this shot...but wait. There she is, Laura is off in the distance right over my wife’s shoulder. Making sure that she will retain her title as queen photobomber.

This was Love and Marriage night and we were hopeful. My In-Laws have been married 53 years and we just knew that one of these days they were going to wind up on stage. This was the day. It was hilarious as we knew it would be, my In-Laws are great people and they both have a good sense of humor. They wound up winners and celebrities for the rest of the cruise. During The Quest they arrived just as things were starting and made their way down to the seats we had saved for them. The whole section saw my FIL and started chanting his name, Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!

There they are, the big winners. We always go to the Love and Marriage show. It has never failed to entertain.