Celebrity Excursion to spice farm, nutmeg factory, waterfall--ho hum

Was anyone else vaguely dissatisfied with the tour of the Gouyave Women's Cooperative Nutmeg factory and a waterfall (Celebrity ship excursion)?

We can't put our finger on the exact cause--the bus was clean, the driver polite and knowledgeable, we did go to the places and back again in once piece.

But the whole thing seemed rather like being in an assembly line. At the Douglaston estate, we received a small lesson in the spices that grow on Grenada--us, and the other 20 buses that had arrived at the same time.

It was about 10 minutes of maneuvering to get out of the parking lot, but that was luxury compared to the nutmeg factory in Gouyave: This small village has one narrow two-lane road running through it with no room for parking, so one stopped bus at the nutmeg factory can cause a traffic jam. There were 10 or more buses there, with more arriving all the time, so our driver spent more time finding a parking spot before the tour, and escaping from the town after tour as we did at the factory.

The factory itself is almost non-operational--the nutmeg harvest was devastated by a hurricane in 2004, and it takes 6-7 years to regrow nutmeg trees, so things are a bit slow at the moment--mainly empty floors and bins while someone described what would be happening if there was anything happening. Big crowd of freelance vendors waiting for you as you try to get back to your bus too.

And the waterfall--it was okay, but as it happens, where we live in Canada, there are probably 50 waterfalls coming over the side of the Niagara Escarpment that are taller and more dramatic. There was a free drink while you watched, served by someone who had forgotten how to smile about three or four busloads before us.

All in all, it seemed to be pretty ho-hum and a lot of sitting on the bus while the driver got us into and out of traffic jams.

If we had done this privately for about $25 pp, we might have felt it was worth the money. However, booking through the ship cost almost twice as much (of course); compared to private tours on St. Kitts and St. Croix the previous two days that cost less, what we got on Grenada through the ship didn't seem to be worth the cost.

Did the full day version 2 years ago which included lunch at a plantation, it's the only excursion I have ever been on that I wished would be over.. The whole thing was as you describe it... Ho hum...

Last week we opted to take the water taxi for a day at Gran Anse Beach .. Was great