cgmiller63

We did this same cruise back in March. We had a blast! Loved St. Lucia and St. Maartin! We've booked the Aruba itinerary on Adventure Of The Seas for next March though. The itinerary is perfect for us as we want to return back to San Juan and visit my favorite island of Aruba.:)

We're thinking of doing the same cruise. DH is not sold on one of the ports of call, Grenada. I'm working on him :rolleyes:

I'm famous now! Thanks for the picture

 

 

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That's an awesome t-shirt!

I was on the Valor from April 6 to April 13 and I just posted my review. You can read it and get some ideas on what to do. The Boatyard in Barbados and Maho Beach in St. Maarten are two places you should definitely visit. The Marriott Resort in St. Kitts is another great spot.

It is nice to be near the pool in order to cool off on those hot days, but I choose not to do so either, in my case mainly because I have a temper that needs controlling, and choose to avoid confrontational situations that could lead to a problem.

Kevin C

LMFAO! I'm with you, brother! I get all worked up and my husband comes to my rescue, which escalates the situation. :eek:

On my recent cruise it was a huge problem and it took away from the enjoyment of the pool. The majority of chairs were “reserved” and the pool attendant refused to do anything about it. I’m not talking about people running to the buffet to get food or drink, I’m talking hours. I pointed out to the attendant that there were only about 4 people in the pool but 20 or 30 so chairs were “reserved”. He just shrugged. This was in the Adults Only pool. People are just downright rude.

Long drive?? It is like 4 miles....

 

...Doing the island tour in St Lucia.....NOW THAT is a long drive.

It seemed like a long drive, especially over the hairpin curves. Perhaps we would have enjoyed the bay more had we brought our towel and cooler. The water was very pretty.

Great review. We were on the same cruise and also went to the Boatyard (we were on the left side of the "bridge") and were at Jalouise Beach around the same time you were (based on the sun and that blue yacht) with Cosols tours. We were also at Maho towards the end of the day! Defintely a great time! We missed the meet and greet but met some cool folks on the ship. We never saw you but saw Earle and his crew everywhere. My wife said he was the unofficial cruise director from the first day when he and his guys got the cruise going with "Happy"! The guy with his whistle was cracking us up.

Earle and the Rum Runner Crew were hilarious. Donna, Kenya, Anita also were a riot! It’s going to be hard to beat this cruise.

Great Job so far!! I am doing this cruise in June and have tentatively booked Spencer's Land/Sea tour. There have been alot of negative reviews for him lately on TA. How was your overall experience?? Thanks again for taking the time to share with all of us.

Spencer’s team was great. They could have been better organized when we first boarded the van at the pier and when we boarded the speedboat at the beach, but they were very knowledgeable about the island and very attentive to the 8 people who were on the tour with us. There were plenty of drinks in the cooler and the food at the beach was delicious. They did everything to insure we were comfortable.

My one complaint is not about the Spencer team but about the beach. The beach is quite small so we stood around until another group left. It was challenging trying to eat standing up while balancing all your gear.

Can't stab anyone with a rum runner... I've heard they are a little lax in checking for booze in San Juan. Hope so!!!:eek:

I don't know how lax they are because I did not attempt to take booze in our carry on. They do make all carry-on’s go through the x-ray machine.

Sunday – We ordered room service and had breakfast one last time on our balcony. At 6:30am we took our luggage down to begin the disembarking process. It was uneventful and we were at the airport by 8:30/9am. The flight out of Puerto Rico was delayed for one hour, which caused us to miss our connection. We did not get to Los Angeles until 10:30pm. Thankfully, we had taken Monday off so we had a day to recuperate.

I have to say that this was one of the best vacations we have taken. The ports of call were amazing and the people we met on the Facebook page were great! I’m thinking of doing this same cruise but on Royal Caribbean because they hit a couple of different islands.

We decided to call it an early night so after dinner we packed our bags and watched a little television. We had a 12pm flight out the next day so we had decided to self-disembark and needed to be at deck 0 at 6:30am.

We decided to head to Maho Beach and watch the airplanes land. It was very crowded and all the beach chairs were taken so we grabbed a table at the bar/restaurant. It was awesome. In hindsight, I would forget the shopping and head to Maho Beach early to grab a beach chair and umbrella. Getting blasted by a jet engine was the highlight of the trip for my husband.

Saturday – The ship docks on the Dutch side of San Maartin. We took a taxi downtown to do a little shopping. There wasn’t anything that excited us so we ended up not buying anything. However, there is a Yoda museum in town which was created by one of the guys who built Yoda in the Star Wars. It was pretty cool. There is also a nice beach and a few bars where you can hang out. The water is incredibly turquoise and clear.

Sunrise

Beach near downtown

We grabbed our pool towels and cooler and headed to the Marriott Resort. We did not pay the $35 for the day pass but we were able to snag a beach hut with beach chairs. The place was pretty empty and there wasn’t anyone checking for passes. We took a walk to the black sand beach and hung out in the water. It was a very relaxing day.

The Marriott has a couple of restaurants and a snack shack where you can purchase lunch. The snack shack does not accept cash so you’ll need to use a credit or debit card.

Friday – As we were pulling into St. Kitts we were treated to a beautiful rainbow. There were a lot of dark clouds in the sky but by the time we got to port the clouds were gone.

In addition to the natural landmarks we got to see Howard Sterns, George Foreman and Sophia Loren’s houses. God I wish I had been born rich instead of beautiful! :confused:

After dinner we headed to the 80’s trivia and then the Comedy club. There were 2 new comedians on the ship and they were good, but not as good as the comedians on the first night.

We also saw the Lady Slipper rock that was in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

The speed boat took us to the Bat Cave and the vajayjay cave (that’s what the guide called it, I swear!). Can you guess which one is the Vajayjay rock and which one is the bat cave? :D

We were then taken to the beach for lunch. The lunch was better than I expected. I really liked the green banana salad (it tasted like potato salad). The beach here was my least favorite beach of the trip. It was very rocky and, unless you had water shoes, you could not get into the water without hurting your feet. We spent a couple of hours at the beach and then headed to the ship by way of speed boat.

Thursday - St. Lucia was the next port of call. We had booked Spencer’s Land and Sea tour directly with Spencer. We met the driver at 8:30am and proceeded to see the island by land. We visited an old church, a banana farm, the Pitons and several scenic overviews. Half of our group went to the mud baths and the other half went to the volcano. We were part of the group that visited the volcano. The volcano was interesting, but was not what I expected. It was basically an area where steam was being released. After the volcano we visited a waterfall.

Pitons

Volcano

Waterfall

After spending the day relaxing on the beach, we headed to the ship. Departure was delayed for an hour or so. I don’t know what happened but we saw a couple of people getting taken off the ship (with their luggage) and getting into a police car. Note to self: Do not commit crimes while on vacation.

Dinner was at 5:30pm and after dinner we hung out at the cigar and whiskey tasting bar. The bar was hosting Karaoke, which was comedy in itself.

Wednesday – We woke up in Barbados. The weather was warm and humid and a little overcast. We grabbed our beach towels and cooler and took a taxi to the Boatyard. What a bargain, for $15usd you get beach chair, umbrella, one drink and a ride back to the ship. This was one of my favorite days. There is a bar/restaurant on site and we were able to buy lunch and buckets of beer.

Tuesday – We had a day at sea so we hung our around the adult pool. The chair hogs were in full force and I could not find a beach chair to sit on. The attendant refused to enforce the “no saving chairs” rule, which was disappointing. I finally found a chair to hang out. I lay out for a bit and then went in for lunch and to get ready for the Meet and Greet.

The meet and greet was great fun. We meet a bunch of really great people and shared rum punch and lots of laughs. After the meet and greet it was time to get ready for dinner. After dinner we hung out at the cigar bar.

Here is a picture from the meet and greet.

We returned to the port around 3pm and rested a little before our 5:30pm dinner time. After dinner we hung at the piano bar and listened to the piano player (he wasn’t very good). We then went to the adult comedy show which was great. I suggest getting there early as the place got packed and it was standing room only.

We retired to our room and found that our steward had made us the infamous Vajayjay towel animal. LOL!

Monday - The next morning we woke up in St. Thomas. It was overcast but humid and warm. We took a taxi to Magen’s Beach. Although the beach was beautiful, we neglected to bring our towels and portable cooler so we were not as comfortable as we could have been. It was also a long drive from the port to the beach. In hindsight, I would have visited a different beach. This was probably my least favorite port of call.