nutocruzing

Hello Cruise Critic!

I have been on here for over a year now, especially right after I book a cruise I can't get enough of the reviews and conversation (I'm obsessed, what can I say!). I recently managed to talk my extended family into going on a Christmas cruise this upcoming Christmas. Almost two years ago we lost the matriarch of our family, my grandmother. My mothers family had always spent Christmas together at my grandma's farm, but that's obviously no longer a possibility. We've spent the last two Christmases together at one sibling's hometown. This upcoming Christmas, we all agreed to go visit my uncle in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a house large enough to accommodate all of us (there are 15 of us ranging in age from 12 to 60).

While looking for cheap cruises earlier this year I noticed that Carnival offers cruises out of Long Beach. I also noticed that these cruises are among the most reasonably priced in the fleet. My sister and I are the only ones who have ever cruised with Carnival and only my one uncle has even cruised with another line. I suggested a family cruise and to my surprise everyone agreed that this would be a ton of fun!

I have a PVP with Carnival so I'm not too worried about the booking though I do wonder if anyone could tell me how the booking will be coordinated (I called my PVP this week but she hasn't gotten back to me)? Does one person need to book all the rooms? How else can we be sure that we all get rooms that are nearby? We are planning on getting one suite so that we will have a room large enough for most of us to gather in.

Other than the booking, does anyone here have some general insight into large family cruises? Any tips or advice?

Thanks in advance everyone, this forum is really an awesome resource!

I don't remember what kept us busy all afternoon. I know I got some studying done. We had planned to attempt to go out to the port again, if only to find free wifi somewhere, but this (it turns out to be fortuitously) didn't happen. DBF brought some chocolate cake back to the room to much on while I worked and I think we ended up watching some tv.

Around 8:15 we headed up for dinner. Tonight, we opted for the opposite of the previous night and went for less formal food, apart from the appetizer of frog's legs. They do taste, especially in terms of texture, just like chicken... fishy chicken though. I wasn't a huge fan but DBF liked them.

The little flippery feet really freaked me out

I went for the chicken, bacon macaroni and cheese, and DBF went for the fried chicken. He said that for a good reliable everyday menu item it was an excellent option for picky eaters who couldn't find anything else on the menu they were interested in.

It was pretty good but DBF makes excellent homemade macaroni and it wasn't nearly as good as his. That was my biggest disappointment with the food, maybe I'm just spoiled but we felt like the food we eat at home was usually better than even the MDR food and when I'm eating out like at a restaurant I would like the food to be better than what I could have made at home. DBF did give full marks for presentation though.

After dinner we had once again planned to go to the comedy show but I actually ended up being pretty sure that I had gotten mild heat stroke earlier in the day and I wasn't feeling so well so we ended up making it an early night once again. It was a bit of a mediocre note to end the cruise on, but maybe 7 days was a bit long for a first time cruise?

Up next: San Juan, my top 10 list and my overall opinion on the cruise!

St. Maarten

We didn't really have anything planned for St. Maarten. I was hoping we could find somewhere to snorkel, or find a way to get to Maho beach to see the jets come in. I knew the jumbo jets mostly come in later in the day so we weren't in a huge hurry to get there. We lazed about in the cabin even though we got plenty of sleep due to dozing off at 8:30 the night before. After breakfast we decided to head to the port and take a look around Philipsburg.

View of the port from, I believe, the Lido deck. The water here was almost as beautiful as Barbados and for once this entire trip there did not appear to be any risk of rain

I remembered from reading reviews on here that many people are already feeling bittersweet about their last day on board, but I had myself deluded into thinking I wasn't concerned about it because we still technically had a full day left of vacation in San Juan. Upon exiting the ship we noticed that there were five ships (including a couple of masted ships) in port that day. It didn't really feel as busy as you would expect with that many ships however. We walked towards a large tourist targeted map where a man was giving out basic tourist information. We noticed a water taxi to downtown but since I had been under the impression that the city wasn't that far away we opted to walk. The fare was $5 per direction or $7 for the day. For some people, if you're planning on going back and forth throughout the day for example, it might be worth it but it just seemed unnecessary to us. Because it was relatively far away from the exit, I feel like lots of people probably had no idea there was any other way to get to the city. Don't let this fool you.

Although it was nice having nothing but blue sky, we quickly felt quite overheated. We wandered down along the boardwalk. There is a beach right there in downtown Philipsburg but the sand was gravel-like and it seemed pretty well abandoned despite the five ships in port. There were also lots of water sport activities for rent e.g. jet skiis, and also segways. We walked past lots of restaurants and vendors selling lounge-chair and drink combos that weren't outrageously priced but as a general rule I was left with the impression that things were quite expensive in St. Maarten. We were running low on cash and DBF wanted to avoid taking out any more if we could. This left us in a bit of a pickle. Once we were done sightseeing in the city itself, we needed to decide what to do with our day. However, the unionized taxi system meant that it was pretty much a minimum of $20 per direction to get anywhere on the island by taxi. While we may have been able to walk to some beaches (other than the downtown beach we had no interest in), it was honestly just too hot. I was sweating buckets and starting to feel a little ill already and it was barely 10am. With the amount of cash we had left there would barely be enough for the taxi fare to Maho (or any other beach for that matter) without a tip and we weren't sure to what degree tipping was expected. We hemmed and hawed about what to do, but ultimately determined that we didn't want to risk not having enough cash and decided to head back to the ship.

The beach on the boardwalk. You can see how this would be a let down after the beautiful serene beaches in St. Lucia. I'm sure St. Maarten has beautiful beaches too, but $40 just to go to the beach was a bit much for us to swallow to be honest. It may have been a different story if it weren't so late in the cruise.

We stopped along the way to grab a guavaberry colada since I had heard so much about them and it really hit the spot!

Back on board, we went to our room, put on sun suits and sunscreen and headed up to the serenity deck to do some reading and relaxation. It was all but entirely abandoned on this beautiful day so we found a couch in the shade and I quickly fell asleep. Feeling much better after re-hydrating and getting some shut-eye, we headed into the lido restaurant for some lunch.

Relaxing on the serenity deck

We tried the mongolian wok on this day and DBF couldn't even finish his, he found it to be so unpalatable. Instead, he headed off in search of a burrito while I eyed the chocolate buffet. I had heard about this phenomenon but for some reason had myself convinced that it was only offered on the newer ships; not so! And it was everything I dreamed it would be. There were cakes, marshmallows, nuts, chocolate fountains, deep fried goodies and dessert sushi all across the lido grill. They were all about 100 times better than any other buffet dessert we had the entire trip long. I was barely able to contain myself to just a few options. I tried the marshmallows, the pudding (delicious, almost like a ganache) the chocolate truffle cake (omg) and the coocnut cream cake. Later DBF had some chocolate cheesecake that was even better than the steakhouse cheesecake.

I won't review absolutely every stop we made on the tour and I don't remember what the timing of all of them was either. I know we stopped to see volcanic rocks at the edge of a cliff, I know we stopped to see where the Atlantic and Caribbean sea met (not the iconic image though we did see that as well).

The next major stop on the trip was the entire reason that I chose to book the island tour with Royston Tours. I had read about Brimstone Hill Fortress and knew that DBF and I would want to spend some time doing historical sight-seeing and felt this would be a perfect opportunity. But knowing that the fee to get in was $10 and not being certain how low of a taxi fee we could find, we were happy to get the stops at the other locations as well as lunch for an all inclusive fee of $45 with Royston. I would sat the tour is definitely worth the money if you want to see the history and contemporary life of the local people. If you want to sit on a beach or snorkel though, this is not the tour for you.

Brimstone was impressive. The trip up the hill is not something I would want to make in a rental vehicle, I can tell you that. The tight turns meant that the driver had to honk his horn and hope that whoever was coming in the opposite direction heard and stopped. We did make it up to the top alive thought! Just as the rain was letting up. The driver let us off giving us about 45 minutes to explore. The museum here is modest but informative about the history of the island more generally and the fort specifically. We got some beautiful views of the valley and ocean, and we even saw some wild monkeys (Vervet, I believe). Apparently they are considered to be pests and are known for thieving. We didn't get too close just in case (I have a friend who was attacked by a monkey once so I was particularly nervous about them) though I managed to grab a couple of shots of them running away.

Once again, just as the weather was getting dicey it was time to go, we made a run for the van once again. This left us with the feeling that it was the right choice to have taken an island tour over a beach day. Next there was a long car ride. We spoke for a while about our experiences on board. I commented that the night before had been quite rough. I hypothesize that this was because we were going full speed but I'm not quite sure. It wasn't list all the way to one side, or broken dishes rough but you could really feel it! I also commented on something I forgot to mentioned above about our cabin. Although we didn't hear any noise from the other passengers, we definitely heard a crew party one night. We know it was the crew party because we were too far away from the other passenger decks and had heard the music that was playing as we had walked around ourselves prior to coming to bed. It wasn't very loud, but the noise sort of came in through the vents and echoed a bit so it was annoying to try to sleep through. We also discussed elegant nights and apparently P&O take theirs quite seriously! DBF and I may have to look more into that line!

I think I actually ended up having a bit of a nap at this point. We stopped along the side of the road at one point where Sylvester picked up some local BBQ for lunch (he also had a cooler full of drinks and had been providing us with soda, water and beer throughout the trip). He then took us to a secluded beach spot with a picnic table to eat lunch. It was BBQ chicken and a roll. Very, very good, but a bit messy since there were no utensils. We managed alright and then headed back up the hill where we stopped to get an iconic picture at Timothy Hill.

Such a beautiful image - the Atlantic to the left, Caribbean on the right

It wasn't too long before we got back into town and to the port. All in all, I would highly recommend the tour for cost efficiency if nothing else. It was a unique experience as there was definitely quite a bit more visible poverty than on the other islands but you really got to feel like you experienced the whole island in a way that wasn't glossed over for tourists.

Back on the ship I knew that today was the day I wanted to try out the water slide. Since I was already wearing my bathing suit we went straight up to the deck where you access the slide. A little bashful, I got the attention of the attendant and asked if I could go down, he laughed probably as I was the only adult I had seen near the slide the whole time, but I went for it. It was fun, and actually faster than I thought it would be!

This shot was taken shortly after a much less flattering shot where my legs were straight up in the air from hitting the water at the bottom

We headed back out to the port for a while because DBF wanted to see if we could get our passports stamped again (we never did manage to track down immigration). We wandered around the city instead in search of some place DBF could purchase something small so he could get some local currency (the east Caribbean dollar) as he collects money on his international travels. We ended up in a local grocery store that was packed at the end of the day on a friday and we were definitely the only tourists which got us a few strange looks, especially after DBF requested change in local currency. We stopped by a couple of the churches in Basseterre as DBF finds the architecture of old churches interesting (side note, there were TONS of churches on this island, it felt like every other thing that the tour guide pointed out was a 250 year old church!).

We didn't wait until the boarding time of 5:30 to get back on the ship because we had reservations for the steakhouse that night at 6:30. I was pretty excited as I had heard good things about the steakhouses on these ships but I think DBF was a bit apprehensive knowing he wasn't a huge fan of the food even in the MDR and worrying about paying $35 US for a meal he wouldn't like. It was a great experience overall. We both agree that the value was actually quite good because the food was, in our opinion, significantly better than the rest of the food on the ship and the total cost for three courses was significantly less than we would have spent at a steakhouse on land for the same amount of food.

We ordered a bottle of wine to go along with dinner as well. The wait staff were professional and they even do this little display where they bring out the cuts of meat to show you exactly what you will be ordering. I didn't take photos because it didn't feel like a very classy thing to do but I can tell you what we ordered. I was actually a little bit intimidated because they don't make it quite clear what is included and what is not. For example, I wasn't sure if you were only allowed to order salad as an appetizer or a main, or whether you could order one as a side (you can, DBF tried it at no extra cost). I ordered a jumbo shrimp cocktail for my apetizer, the surf and turf for my main with a side of potatoes (there were multiple side options, DBF also ordered a second side at no added cost) and the chocolate sampler for dessert. DBF ordered lobester bisque for his appetizer, the surf and turf along with the potatoes (they were wasabi flavoured which was surprisingly yummy!) and mushrroms, and cheesecake for dessert. In advance of the appetixer we were brought amuse bouches courtesy of the chef. They were alright, though not as fabulous as the rest of the food. I got a kind of pea soup and DBF had what he called a glorified tater tot lol. Everything was fabulous. In particular we LOVED the tiramisu which came as part of the chocolate sampler. It was much, much better than that which was offered in the MDR, as was the cheese cake.

After dinner it was only 8:30. We had planned to go to the comedy show but it was a bit early still so we headed back to the room. The intention had been to have a short nap but we ended up sleeping through the show and decided just to call it a night; talk about a food coma!

I think this one was a gorilla

St Kitts!

So those of you who have read the whole review will remember that St. Kitts was the only island that I had pre-booked a tour for. I knew that we were expected by Royston outside the Pier at 8:30 so we wanted to be sure to get off the ship early. I had also intended to get up early enough to watch the sunrise. I had wanted to do this on multiple days but it really is much more difficult when you're on the lowest deck and you don't have a balcony. Even though we woke up early for vacation most days, usually before 8, getting up before 6:30 was a bit of a struggle and we hadn't done it yet so I was determined when I set an alarm the night before that we would in fact get up on time to see the sunrise. We managed to pull ourselves out of bed by 6:20 or so and quickly get dressed (our bag was still more or less packed from the day before so we grabbed it hoping to avoid having to stop back at our room later and to save some time).

I was a bit worried when we got up on deck and it was already light out, but the sun itself was still hanging on the horizon so we didn't completely miss it. The sun hung out behind the clouds for quite some time so it wasn't the most beautiful sunrise I've ever seen, but it did end up being a memorable sight to see the sun rise over Nevis as we came into Port. This was also the first time we had gotten up early enough to watch the ship come into port.

After a drawn out breakfast (since we were up two hours before we needed to meet for the tour), we headed down to deck zero hoping to be among the first off the ship (I was a bit paranoid about not making it to the tour on time and getting left behind). When we arrived on deck one there was a rope across the staircase down to deck 0 indicating that immigration was in process. Slowly, a line started to develop. We had never headed to debark this early, but it took until almost 8:30 and there was quite a line before they took down the rope and let us down. I was starting to freak out a little which was of course silly because there were only two ships in port and it was likely several of the tour guests were likely to be from the Valor as well.

At any rate we made it on time. Royston had told us that we would be on a tour with his cousin Ashton, but we ended up on a tour with another friend Sylvester because Ashton ended up not being available. We were thankful though because Sylvester had a tour bus that, unlike Royston's, had windows and A/C as well as a speaker system so that we could hear everything he said. The other passengers included a middle-aged couple from the P&O ship and another retired couple from the Valor, all of whom had names starting with the same first letter, except for one man's wife, which we thought was pretty funny. Needless to say we were the youngest by a couple of decades but the company was pleasant so no complaints here. Just as we were hopping in to the tour bus the rain hit, but with a beautiful result:

A double rainbow! (you might not be able to see the second one in this shot, but I promise it was there though faint

It was actually decent timing because we were set to be in the car for a while starting with a tour of downtown Basseterre. It was actually pretty interesting touring around the island because there had recently been an election; a pretty close one and it appeared that there was a bit of division on the island over it, with obvious support for the incumbent (who ended up losing) in the rural areas with whole street walls painted in party colours and even some individuals with hair dyed in support. We didn't get tons of information on this but it was interesting to see regardless.

After a tour around the city we headed out toward Romney Manor and the nearby plantation ruins. It was interesting to note that although they had stopped sugar cane production on the island about 10 years ago, the islands was absolutely rampant with the stuff; it was literally everywhere, a real testament to invasive species.

When we arrived at our first stop (the plantation ruins near Romney Manor) it had stopped raining. The first thing to keep in mind on St. Kitts is that there are monkeys everywhere, but don't be fooled into thinking you can snap a few quick pics for free, most of the moneys (at least those with diapers on them) have owners who are going to want a fee for a photo. We didn't take any photos because the whole practice made me kind of uncomfortable. We walked around the ruins of the plantation/ factory which had been abandoned in the 1930's if I recall correctly and had been originally started quite some time prior (1600's I believe). It was interesting to see and our tour guide did a great job not only of explaining the ruins but also of discussing some local flora with us as well.

The chimney of the factory remained in good condition

Another picture of the ruins, the area to the right is beneath the chimney and is where the sugar cane was boiled down to make sugar

After probably half an hour or so at this location, we got back on the bus to head up to Caribelle Batik and the gardens. Whether you take a tour or not I would highly recommend this stop on St. Kitts, the gardens were beautiful and the batik was beautiful too, as well as decently priced (I kind of expected it to be outrageous given the tourist grab the area is). The estate used to belong to the great-great-great grandfather of Thomas Jefferson before it was sold to the Earl of Romney, hence the name. The highlight of the stop for us was the 400 year old Saman tree, a tree not local to the island, but brought there, likely by some of the natives and not the English. There was a beautiful poem on a sign by the tree about how the tree owns the land or something along those lines.

The Saman. You can see where it's limbs have grown all the way down to the earth and back into the air again. It wasn't the largest tree I've ever seen but it was breathtaking nonetheless

We also got a quick batik demonstration. In the photo below you can see the woman working away on her piece. Above, there is a demonstration of the many steps it takes depending on how many colours you want to add to your piece.

Just as we were about to leave, it started to pour! We had to make a run for the van but we were thankful more than once this day for the fortuitous timing of the weather, allowing us to enjoy each stop and waiting to start up again until we were set to be off again.

Another tip for NEXT TIME! :D Pack a foldable umbrella in your suitcase to help shield you from the sun! ;)

I DID actually bring an umbrella (my grandma always said it's sure to rain if you don't bring an umbrella so I bring one as kind of a good luck charm whenever I travel) and I even think it was packed in the beach bag but this didn't occur to me for some reason. LOL :p

I'm loving this review! I was so hoping that I would find a review from someone close to my age. Not that those from older reviewers aren't helpful (they definitely are!!) it's just nice to hear the opinions of someone also in their mid 20s [emoji2]

You're making me so excited for our turn on this itinerary in June [emoji2]

Thanks for reading! I definitely understand what you mean. I learned lots from reading the posts on here regardless of posters age, but I thought it might be nice for others in similar situations to myself to hear about the cruise from perspectives other than retired individuals or families!And you should be excited about the itinerary; it's awesome! It's a bit of a let down from here on out because I feel like no other 7 day itinerary compares!

Here are the pitons in all their glory. Ironically they were just around the corner from the snorkeling area and we could have swam to the edge of the cliff and peered around and seen them while we were at the beach for an hour and a half. Eli told us that the one on the left is actually Petit Piton even though it looks bigger than Gros Piton due to perspective

Here are DBF and I at the Pitons. One of the other passenger's took our photo and managed to have our heads totally block the pitons hahaha oh well.

NOTE THAT I FORGOT ABOUT BARBADOS: Looking at DBF's shirt above reminded me that the night before we got to Barbados we were lucky enough to have heard from the host in the punchliner that Barbados has a law against wearing camouflage. Thank God we heard that because DBF surely would have worn this shirt on that day instead.

The drinks on board the boat were good and plentiful, they didn’t shy away from giving us many, many refills and DBF calculated that by cruise ship standards we almost made back our money in alcohol consumption alone!

The boat ride was fun, there weren’t tons of opportunities for talking though because it was pretty loud and wet! Very wet! I’m sure it depends at least partially on the waves but those of us in the back of the boat pretty much got soaked.

Eli, Tara and the boat captain, never caught his name!

Our tour guides Eli and Tara were wonderful, hospitable (Eli even jumped into the water at one point to help a struggling fellow passenger - she was fine, just a bad combo of undertow and life jacket problems) and funny people. We also enjoyed the company of our fellow passengers and even made a few friends. It was a beautiful and relaxing day and I really hope to be able to return to St. Lucia in the future.

Apparently this rock formation was featured in Pirates of the Caribbean

Some of us swimming off the boat. It was fun!

After our tour we had a couple drinks with some people we met on the boat and made plans to meet at their table for dinner. This was our only time barely making it back to the ship on time, but we didn’t have to run! There was a huge (but fast moving) line.

For dinner that night, we made arrangements to eat with another table. We actually showed up after they had already been seated but the table mates of our tour friends had no problem with us joining. It was nice to chat with some other people for a change! I don’t even remember what we had for dinner that night. Probably because I was pre-occupied with the fact that I had finally made reservations for the Steakhouse for the next night, yippee!

I do know that in the dining room that night the waiters danced to Gangnam Style. Our waiter was actually really into it, but as something I haven’t mentioned yet, I wasn’t really a huge fan of the dinner time shows. They felt uncomfortable to me, a lot of the staff seemed uncomfortable and just not that into it. It would have been different perhaps if they all looked like they were enjoying themselves but when they don’t, it just feels forced. I felt bad for them really. And they rarely did more than wave their little napkins in the air. Just my two cents, though I know lots of people really enjoy this tradition on Carnival.

After dinner we headed to the Casino to meet one of the girls and the guy she had been seeing on the ship. We waited probably 15 minutes for drinks. This was easily my biggest complaint about the service, the bar service was awful. I think it’s hilarious that people criticize the line for trying to push alcohol on you. In our experience, we were barely served drinks when I wanted them, other than in the Eagle’s lounge or the dining room. After a drink we decided to go see the Showtime show for the evening. Tonight’s show was called, “Far From Over” and it was an 80’s themed song and dance extravaganza. This time it was I who had some trepidations about this show having read some not so flattering things about the Carnival shows. I will say that some people definitely enjoyed it, so obviously this is a subjective opinion but… it just felt very amateur. The singing was ok, good even at times, the dancing was great for some numbers and just alright in others. The on stage fireworks and excessive costume changes felt very overdone. It was the only show we saw that we didn’t really enjoy. That being said there wasn’t much else in the way of entertainment going on that night so I’m not sure I would say we regret having gone. Once the late show was done we decided to head back to our room knowing that we had to meet our tour guide the next morning bright and early at 8:30.

Coming up: Saman trees, sugarcane and monkeys, oh my! St. Kitts!

I had heard so many wonderful things about St. Lucia so my expectations were pretty high. We woke up around 8, packed our beach bag and headed up to the Lido for breakfast. I took a couple of pictures of the port (I think this was probably the most beautiful port of all).

As mentioned above I had not booked an excursion here in advance. For some reason I thought it would be very easy to find some sort of transportation to the pitons. I was being naïve. All of these islands look like they shouldn’t take long to get around on but that doesn’t take into account the steep hills and the fact that roads are only built where they can be built leading to indirect routes. So, though the pitons appeared not to be too far away, it was actually more of an hour and a half long car ride. If you’re travelling with a group (three or more people) you may want to consider renting a car. I know we ran into others who had done so. I’m not sure about the cost, but it would surely be less than it would cost for three or four people to do a tour. After de-boarding we decided to try to find some tourist information.

When we made it out of the port, we spoke to a few of the tour operators around the ticket information stands and they were mostly offering boat tours with beach stops and snorkeling. They were all quoting us around $55 per person. This was a bit more than we wanted to spend but we quickly realized that it was the best we were likely to be able to do without having done the prior research. So I went with a company I had read about in doing research: Papa Boat Tours. The operator, Irwin, was actually the one who sold us on the tour, he’s a great salesman! We decided to take the snorkeling tour whichwas a boat ride along the shore to the pitons including a stop at the marine reserve at Anse Chastanet resort beach followed by a view of the pitons from the water. The return trip included drinks of rum punch or beer on the boat as well as a stop at Marigot Bay before returning to a rock formation used as part of the set in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and finally a stop to swim out in the middle of the ocean. The tour left at 10:30 and we were back just before 4:00 so it was a nice long tour as well.

Before leaving for the tour we wandered around the shopping area by the port looking at souvenirs for my aunt who was looking after my cat back in Toronto. We didn’t find anything quite right there but I did manage to find another big bottle of SPF 30 (our first one was close to running out already!) for only about $15 US. This really seems like a good reason to stock up on cheap sunscreen if you’re going to check bags anyways.

I could spend a very long time documenting the trip, what I will say is that the money was absolutely worth it.

This photo doesn't do the crab justice, it was a beautiful iridescent silver, look at that water though!

The snorkeling was the best I have ever done. There were tons of fish, whole schools of them swimming all around you. Colourful, different kinds of fish, parrot fish, butterflyfish, flounder and huge sea urchins. The reef wasn’t super colourful but it was diverse and expansive and, most importantly, a good depth below the surface; just deep enough that there wasn’t any real risk of scraping yourself on it or getting bashed into it by waves. The tour also provided you with snorkel equipment, life vests and flippers if you needed them at no extra cost.

The Anse Chastanet beach (I think that's the one) was BEAUTIFUL. I preferred it vastly to Marigot although that beach was nice too. The beach is located just underneath the Jade Mountain resort (look it up, OMG so beautiful!) We didn’t realize how close we were to the pitons but we did spot a set of stairs near the dock up a big hill that we’re pretty sure retrospectively we could have gotten an amazing view of the pitons from. Anse Chastanet was a beauiful black sand beach (watch out for the combo of undertow and waves trying to leave the water! I stopped to take off my flippers and ended up getting pulled back under and scraping my thighs on the hard (glass!) sand). They had a restaurant with food as well as shower and bathroom facilities. We chose to have the tour guides grab us some local grub. It was quite good and it was $15 for a big platter and a drink. We shared it and it easily tided us over until we were back on the boat.

This is from Marigot Bay. Nice enough but the sand wasn't nearly as nice and it was much busier and louder than the other beach

Boarding the ship once again we were lucky to catch a steel drum band. The music was beautiful. Back on board I can honestly say that I don’t remember how we passed the time until dinner. Dinner that night was uneventful. No new tablemates appeared. We each ordered sushi as the appetizer because we both LOVE sushi. It was not good sushi. Not that we expected it to be. The rice was just regular rice and it didn’t stay stuck together. The fish was ok but nothing special. If this was someone’s didja I would highly recommend trying sushi again at an actual Japanese restaurant! I also ordered the prosciutto as a second app and it was delicious. For the main I ordered the jerk pork and DBF ordered some sort of beef option. Both were served with the same rice and green beans. For dessert I believe we split a cheese plate and each ordered a WCMC. I think this may have been the night I started adding the butter pecan ice cream to my order. Delish!

I forgot to add this picture in earlier. This was by the Washington Dining Room. I thought it was beautiful and enjoyed passing it every night on our way to our MDR

For our entertainment this evening we knew there wasn’t going to be comedy show. We decided to try seeing the main Showtime show in the Ivanhoe theatre. It was Marcus Munroe, Rockstar of Jugglers. DBF was very very skeptical but willing to humour me. We both ended up being super glad we went! I hadn’t been sure what to expect but it was very entertaining! Marcus was incredibly funny with an appropriate amount of disguised adult humour for a family show. It wasn’t all juggling, though the juggling itself included flaming torches and knives. There was also a glow in the dark segment. His comedy was really what sold the show though. We genuinely laughed out loud throughout the show. Maybe it was just because our expectations were relatively low going in but we walked away pleased that we had decided to go and feeling that it had made up for the lack of punchliner entertainment on board that night.

Up next on the list for the late night entertainment was the Mega Deck Party but guess who was there ready to ruin it? The weather, that’s right, rain again. We were a bit bummed, but not very since we were tired and we knew we might have a long day ahead of us trying to decide how best to get to the Pitons in… St. Lucia! After checking out our new towel animal and reviewing the Fun Times it was time for bed.

Not sure what this one was... a dog?

Up next: How to get to the Pitons?

Waking up in Barbados we knew we had to make a choice: the Rum Distillery or the Boatyard. We knew we wanted to spend some time on the beach and I even hoped we might be able to swim with the turtles, but I also knew that DBF didn’t need to end up looking any more like a cooked lobster. So we opted for the Boatyard, knowing that they had umbrellas included in the entrance fees. I had read lots of good things about the Boatyard and was confident that we could have a good time there, but we also knew that it wasn’t going to be a super cheap day so we decided to walk there (early in the morning so that the sun wasn’t at its peak yet) rather than paying for a taxi. It honestly probably only saved us $10 or $15 but it was worth it to us, plus DBF likes to be a little adventurous. So, after a breakfast at Rosie’s we headed out into Bridgetown, without so much as a map!

DBF was trying to avoid the sun and he walked right into the port building while I awkwardly tried to get both me and the sign in a selfie. I wasn't successful haha

Based off of a “you are here” map near the port, we knew the vague direction we needed to walk in. We headed past the taxis and walked along the port until it wasn’t really possible any more. At this point, we happened to pass by a local grocery store and thought it might be our last chance to get decently priced sunscreen. It was still pretty expensive but we were lucky to find some SPF 30 as well as some aloe lotion. Sun protection in hand we headed back out toward Carlisle Bay. Soon we found ourselves in downtown Bridgetown. I didn’t mention it above but the Bridgetown port is really pretty unimpressive, very industrial. The downtown itself is beautiful though!

We managed to get a little lost at this point but luckily the water is a pretty good landmark and just as we were ready to give up … we found it! It is down a bit of an inconspicuous road but you will know when you get there. We made it there around 9 am even with the half hour walk and luckily there were still loungers left; score!

The $15 US entrance fee includes a lounger, a drink (beer or a rum based mixed drink, no frozen cocktails!), the use of all facilities (including wifi) and water toys and a cab ride back to the port. The loungers also have umbrellas so we scoped out a place where the umbrellas provided some shade to keep DBF out of direct sunlight. We lathered up in sunscreen and I went to hook up to the wifi and check in at home. Shortly after this I went to grab us our free drinks because we were afraid the tickets (which are attached to the proof of payment bracelets) might fall off in the ocean. Don’t judge our prior to 11am drinks!

A few tips about the Boatyard:

• The drinks were good; I had a Shark Bite which was a kind of rum punch and it was really good. They also had pretty good deals like 6 beer (Caribbean size around 275ml) for $24, and happy hour (which, at least when we were there, was actually only a half hour around noon) 2 for 1 drinks!

• Wifi is slow and mostly only available near the front by the bar

• The food is purportedly pretty good though we didn’t try it and there was a wait of about 20-30 minutes, more typical of a sit down restaurant

• The bar staff will tell you where you can go to swim with the sea turtles free of charge if you bring your own snorkel equipment (or I suppose you could go without the snorkel equipment but you might not enjoy that as much). More on that later.

• The boatyard mentioned something about not touching the ropes that designate the swimming area due to concern that the algae growing on it could give you a rash. I have no idea whether or not they were just saying this to keep kids away from the boundary line for safety reasons but it’s worth noting just in case!

After finishing our drinks we decided to head out to enjoy the ocean water. It was cool but lovely. I’m always surprised how buoyant salt water is. I grew up on the east coast of Canada but the ocean near me was always freezing cold (the Bay of Fundy almost doesn’t change temperature between winter and summer) so I never swam much in the ocean. The water was busy and there were lots of children swinging off the Tarzan rope but it wasn’t too crowded in the designated area.

After putting on some more sunscreen and grabbing our sunshielding shirts we decided to make our way in the direction the bar staff had pointed us to find sea turtles. It’s not hard to find. It’s about a ten minute walk down the beach away from the pier. When you get to the area with all the catamarans you’ve made it. The swim out to the area wasn’t too far in distance but the waves really push you in toward shore so it took a while to get out there. I had brought my life vest with me because not being able to touch the bottom freaks me out. DBF however isn’t a particularly strong or experienced swimmer and he had no problem making it to the boats without a vest. Unfortunately once we got there…. There wasn’t much to see… at all. The visibility in the water wasn’t great and we didn’t see a single sea turtle.

I should let you know here that I didn’t bring an underwater camera with us. I looked at the prices and they were a little high to rationalize spending given that I have no idea when we’ll get the chance to be back snorkeling. So no underwater pics from me. However there are plenty of other reviews on Cruise Critic that have nice pictures of fish if you want an idea of the snorkeling in various areas.

We had decided that we wanted to get back to the ship sometime around 1pm. We didn’t want DBF in the sun (even shaded) for too long and we wanted to take advantage of the paid for food on the ship. The taxi ride back to the port isn’t a bus or a van but rather is some employee’s car. It was fine though, about a 5 minute drive and we were back.

After a quick lunch (I believe I had a burrito and DBF went for the grill, French cooking if I recall) and some down time in our room DBF decided he wanted to try to see if we could get our passports stamped. So we headed to the port again and found signs for immigration. We asked if it would be possible and they told us it was!... well, sort of true. They gave us “souvenir” stamps so mission… sort of accomplished? DBF was less than pleased though I’m sure it’s for legal reasons since we didn’t need to go through customs or immigration ourselves.

Afterwards we wandered around. The Equinox was also here in Barbados but they docked a little farther away than we were. DBF is in the reserves so when he saw a British Naval vessel in the port he wanted to go check it out. We never really got any more information about exactly what it was doing there but DBF had fun looking around. And we loved just staring at the water. Even in the industrial port the water was so beautiful you wanted to just jump right in!

This camera doesn't come close to doing the water justice!

My mushrooms

My prime rib... forgive me, I forgot to take a picture until after I started in on it!

Looking at the clock and seeing it was already almost 9:30 and that the mardi gras parade started then we decided to skip dessert (blasphemy I know) and head down a floor to the festivities. We ultimately arrived as the parade was ending, but in time for the mask contest. Although DBF was selected to compete, this was one of the few occasions where the room was crowded and he simply didn’t make it to the stage on time. He considered it to be close enough to a win though!

Here’s a pic of us from after the mardi gras party… we left as soon as the dancing started because it was too crowded and we didn’t know all the moves and had no ability to see the Cruise Director

After the (brief) mardi gras party we went back to the room to mix some drinks to take with us to the comedy club. This meant that we were not early enough to the comedy club to get a seat. It was worth standing to see Jim Brick again though, he even tied in jokes from the night before! In the time between the first and second set we were able to find seats to enjoy the second show even though we headed back to our room to change into less formal clothing. After the comedy club we attempted to check out both the piano bar and the one small step (the night club) and they were both totally empty. We were greeted back in our room by a new towel animal (I think it was a lobster, see my room review above for the picture) and the Fun Times for… Barbados!

Up next: A beach day... in the shade?

After making sure we put on lots of sunscreen, we basked in the sun while getting some reading in. After a while, I decided to go get us some drinks. We were hoping that if we purchased some souvenir glasses that we could bring our own drinks up from our room without many questions (turns out this would have been easy enough just using the glasses provided in our room). Knowing that DBF had commented on how cool he thought the blow fish cups were I decided to ask for the drink of the day (hurricanes for Mardi Gras! Only $6.95) in a couple of those cups. Well, let me tell you not to make that mistake. I figured the cups would be a few dollars but I was pretty shocked when they had me sign the receipt for $38.99. :confused: I knew DBF wouldn’t be happy about it (and the cups had barely any room for drinks in them either due to their awkward shape). It was a stupid thing to have done because we didn’t even have enough space in our carry on to take them home with us. Oh well, live and learn! :rolleyes:

I was in a bit of a grumpy mood over my mistake and DBF realized that some food might cheer me up so he headed off to grab us a couple of sandwiches while I lay in the sun for a bit longer. After eating the sandwiches we both decided it was time to reapply sunscreen. Eventually I fell asleep out there in the sun, it was very relaxing! DBF finished his book and was ready to head back to our room for a bit. By this time, I was actually starting to feel a bit sea sick and decided it would be best for me too. As soon as we were back in the room, I knew DBF was in trouble. His arms and legs were very, very red. We had applied sunscreen twice in a 2.5 hour period but apparently it wasn’t enough. Beware the Caribbean sun my fair skinned friends! I, on the other hand, don’t burn, but I don’t tan either and I was still looking pretty pasty.

After a quick nap we decided that we wanted to give the mini golf a try. We carefully re-applied sunscreen and we headed up to the highest deck (you have to go through the caged in sports area to get there and it took us a while to figure this out) to find that although there were only two families playing, and there were plenty of clubs available there was not a single ball left. Accordingly, we had to wait for one of the groups to finish before we could start. It’s only 9 holes so it wasn’t that long of a wait. Once we got a couple of balls we started to question whose brilliant idea having golf on the highest (most windy) deck it was anyway?! It was extremely difficult to play. We went for it anyways, playing with accommodated rules since the balls wouldn’t stay where they were put) and actually had a good time. In the end I won by a few points though who knows what role the wind played in that.

DBF got a hole in one but this was the closest I came... pretty darn close though don't you think!

By this point in time it was probably close to five. Knowing I would need a while to ready myself for our first elegant night, and realizing we should have DBF out of the sun, we headed back to our cabin. I did some studying, we watched some tv and each had showers in preparation for dinner. It wasn’t until around 7:00 that DBF pulled out his white shirt for ironing only to discover a stain I had missed when I packed it for him. We managed to wash the stain out (to the best of our ability) in our bathroom sink using some detergent in bar form I had brought with me, and he managed to get the shirt ironed in time.

here we are, all ready for our first elegant night

Although I had said above that we were embarrassed by our dress the first night, and although that was true, we didn’t let it stop us from going all out this evening. We figured the mardi gras occasion might make us stand out a little less. It didn’t, but I think we looked pretty good anyways, so who cares right? For dinner tonight we opted for stuffed mushrooms and the alligator fritters for starters and prime rib for the main course. The mushrooms were ok, but so tiny there wasn’t much to stuff. The alligator was mostly fried breading so it couldn’t have been less offensive if it tried. The prime rib was… well DBF who prefers medium rare found his to be very overdone. Mine was ok, but nothing particularly special. A note re the baked potato, they come around after with the toppings (I was very confused and had already started putting butter in mine by the time they got to me, oops!).

I just wanted to start by saying thank you so much for the kind words, I'm really glad that you are enjoying the review, and I hope that for those of you soon to be on the ship or the itinerary that it might give you a few tips or ideas!

As anyone familiar with this itinerary will know, this was the only sea day on the entire itinerary. I understand that there are mixed views on packed itineraries like this (some people really prefer to spend their vacations simply basking in the sun on the decks), DBF and I were very satisfied with having only one sea day because it meant having the ability to explore more new places, and also since I was a bit worried about sea sickness. Although I had been doing alright so far, I could definitely feel the motion of the ship when it was at sea and so far most of that time had been while I was asleep.

Looking over the Fun Times the night before, DBF and I had highlighted all of the activities we wanted to hit up for the day. We knew we definitely wanted to get to the Sea Day Brunch as I had heard great things about it here on cruisecritic. I can’t remember exactly what the hours of the brunch were but it was open seating and we knew we wanted to be in and out before the Mardi Gras Mask Making started at 11:30. We planned to let ourselves sleep in but… the cleaning staff started at it around 8:00 AM and it was simply impossible for us to sleep with a vacuum running. This was pretty disappointing to us. Although we were on a port intensive itinerary, we had planned to let ourselves sleep in as long as our bodies wanted on days that we didn’t have explicit plans. Every morning without fail the cleaning started to early for this to really be a possibility. It wasn’t the end of the world, but had we been on a cruise with more sea days I think this would have been much more frustrating. I’m not sure whether it was because we were on deck 1 or what but I had wished they would wait until at least 9 to get started.

Anyways, despite being awake, we lazed around getting ready that morning, watching a little bit of TV (we really enjoyed watching the channels that showed our GPS location and gave information about speed etc. No sunken ship locations were pointed out on these maps though!). We got to breakfast with enough time, we thought, to ensure that we could be out of there by 11:30. Be prepared for the service in the MDR during brunch to proceed at about the same pace that the dinner service proceeds, it was pretty slow. Below I will attach the menu from the sea day brunch since it was the one time I thought to take such a photo.

I opted for the huevos rancheros and DBF went with the eggs benedict and the steak option too.

By the time we got through our main courses (they didn’t serve the steak until the eggs benny were done which meant we had to wait a lot longer – they also screwed up DBF’s egg order but it wasn’t that big of a deal) it was almost 11:30 so we decided to skip the desert and head to the Capital Room for the activity. It seems a bit childish to want to do arts and crafts but it actually ended up being a lot of fun and there were plenty of other adults there (Ok, Ok, so they were mostly parents, don't judge us!). DBF was very determined to win the mask competition that was going to be held later that evening so he took his mask preparation pretty seriously. DBF commented toward the end that it was the most fun he had had doing arts and crafts since elementary school! Success!

My mask

DBF's sun and moon themed mask

I don’t have many photos from this afternoon. I know that we took our masks back to the room and got dressed for sun bathing. After grabbing our reading material and sunscreen we headed up to the Lido to see what was going on. The deck was pretty crowded because… no rain! The weather was beautiful on the sea day all day long! Although there were lots of people out there it actually wasn’t very difficult to find a chair, the only challenging thing was finding one where the wind wasn’t blowing insanely strongly. It gets windy 10 decks up from sea level even if the ship is only moving at about 11 knots. I was glad that I hadn’t bothered to bring my beach hat with me because it surely would have been blown off the ship.

Before picking a set of chairs we opted to try out the hot tubs on the serenity deck. For once they weren’t full. Well we found out why! The wind was blowing so hard it blew the water into your face all the time and the water was barely warm at all. To make matters worse, DBF, who is 6’4, couldn’t even get his chest close to covered by the water because the seats weren’t very deep. It wasn’t a very relaxing experience so after only a few minutes we moved on with our day.

What nice pictures of the 2 of you! FYI, shorts on men are NOT "supposed" to be allowed in the MDR. I noticed on our Liberty B2B last month that this rule was not enforced. I will tell you: I dress up EVERY NIGHT for dinner. A pretty outfit, sparkly (fake! :p) jewelry...do NOT be embarrassed by looking nice. As far as the table mates, who knows what their problem was. Maybe it was even the wrong table? And NEXT TIME try strawberry ice cream with your WCMC. Strawberries and chocolate are supposed to be together! ;) I am thorougly enjoying this!!! :)

Thank you so much for your kind words and for following along! I may have been a bit over-dramatic in describing how embarrassed we were. I certainly dress for myself I had just been hoping that others would have done the same! I will have to keep that in mind for the WCMC. My favourite lava cake involves raspberry coulis and fresh raspberries and it's always delicious!

I live in Mississauga and understand about leaving our frigid Canadian temperatures for the Caribbean. We will be on the Liberty in May out of San Juan and am looking forward to the rest of your review. My layover is in Philadelphia as well but nearly as long as your is!! Great review so far!!

A fellow GTAer! I certainly hope, and expect, you will enjoy your time on this itinerary and I imagine the ships are fairly similar too (although I think you get some of the extra 2.0 upgrades!). If you have time in the airport you should check out the restaurant I mentioned, it was really good! Enjoy your vacation!

DBF's thai soup, we both realy enjoyed it and were disappointed that it didn't pop up on the menu again. Grab it while you can!

The duck. The didja evers really got me on this trip trying everything from alligator to frog's legs but I had also never had duck before! It was the best of the three I can tell you that much!

It was good. You can't really screw up shrimp cocktail, but it did leave me wondering about the etiquette around eating shrimp. Fork or hands? I very awkwardly went with the knife and fork in the end.

DBF's lamb. He actually said he was pretty disappointed with it

Warm chocolate melting cake! DBF got the tiramisu but it wasn't nearly as good as the tiramisu we had later in the week... more on that later!

I don’t remember exactly all the things that we did that afternoon back on the ship. I’m fairly certain we had a nap before heading up to the Lido to find some more food (we had shared the appetizer at Green House and were still a little hungry). I think we had planned before we left our cabin to go swimming and were already in swim gear (with cover-ups). At Rosie’s we decided to go for the Fish & Chips. I wasn’t quite sure where it was located though I now realize it should have been more obvious (see the picture of Rosie’s above and you might notice a logo on her arm pointing up the stairs!). At any rate, I got the fish and chips, DBF got some fritters and some seafood bouillabaisse. It was really quite good!

My fish and chips

A quick note on drinks in the Lido: the guava punch is amazing but only offered at breakfast (the apple and orange are also only offered at breakfast). DBF and I would often fill up a water bottle of it to bring back to the cabin for later. The lemonade was also pretty good but strong (both sweet and sour somehow) so we would always water it down about half and half. Neither one of us care in particular for American Iced Tea so we never bothered trying it on board. I’m sure most of you are aware that there are a relatively limited number of drinks included free of charge with the expectation being that you can purchase a soft drink package (Bubbles) or a Cheers package for alcohol. Once again, attempting to save money, we did not opt for either of these packages and it’s a good thing. Although we did spend some money on drinks on board, it wasn’t enough to justify even $10 per day each on such a package, let alone $50. Although, as you will hear more about later, I did make the mistake of purchasing a souvenir cup at one point; more on that later!

After eating we grabbed our reading material and headed off in search of the pool. We weren’t yet quite used to the lay out of the ship yet and although I had been aware of the adults only pool, we hadn’t spotted it yet. Luckily for us, I made a wrong turn leaving Rosie’s and headed for the aft where the Prometheus pool is located. Probably due to the weather it was covered for the moment so that made it the perfect spot.

It was pretty empty (we soon found out why) so we grabbed a couple of chairs and headed for the… nope! The hot tubs were closed for cleaning (this seemed to happen a LOT given that most of them weren’t accessible after 10pm). So, we decided to try the pool instead. There was just one older woman in the pool and as we jumped in we found out why. It was freezing! I’m not sure whether they had just filled it up or what but it was almost intolerably cold. This was kind of ironic to me because when we did eventually manage to get into a hot tub it was luke-warm at best. I know others who have complained that the pools are too warm and I can’t really comment on the other pools as this was the only day we got in one but it was definitely far from warm. We swam for a while anyways and then read by the pool, and I managed to send off a couple of last minute messages to friends and family as I had purchased an American text package that was not going to be any good once we hit international waters. DBF did note that after we got out of the pool a child of probably age 10 did sneak into the adults only pool. Since it wasn't really in much use anyways I don't think it really matters, but the bottom line is they didn't really seem to be policing the adult's only rule and I guess that could either be a good thing or a bad thing depending on who you are!

Eventually we decided to head back to the room and get on some clothes to go and watch sail away. When we came out on the deck we were disappointed to note that it had started to rain again. We took a few pictures of the port (the filter makes it look like the weather was better than it was). It was interesting to watch the two other ships which were behind us leave first as getting out of the port required backing up sort of into the port to get headed in the right direction. Sometimes the ship was backed into the port and this wasn’t necessary. We watched as we sailed away and waited almost until we were out at sea but it had started to rain a little harder to we decided to head back to the cabin and relax while we waited for our late dining time. I will note that as the evening went on I did feel a little off... not terribly nauseous but a bit unsettled so I was very relieved to have the bracelets as I found they worked wonders for me!

We were looking forward to dinning in the Washington Dining Room for the first time and weren’t quite sure how to dress. I had somehow been left with the impression that shorts weren’t allowed so we opted for DBF wearing a blazer and jeans, and me wearing a cocktail dress. This was major overkill. I honestly felt ridiculous once we got there. Many if not most people were wearing t-shirts and shorts. At any rate, worried about being late and annoying our table mates we headed up a few minutes early and found a rather long line (one of few). It didn’t last long as people were rapidly seated as soon as the dining room was opened for the late seating. We were extremely disappointed to be seated at a table of four, worried about what would happen if we didn’t like our table mates and afraid it would make it more awkward. After waiting for quite some time it seemed apparent that they weren’t going to show anyways. We ordered our food and had eaten our appetizers (duck, a thai soup which was spicy and delicious and shrimp cocktail) when a couple showed up with one of the wait staff. This was one of the more mortifying moments of the cruise as we watched the man whisper something to the hostess and then head off in another direction. It was obvious that they were supposed to be seated with us as the hostess had brought them there. I don’t know whether we were over dressed, or whether they didn’t want to bother us half way through our meal, or whether they just really wanted a table for two but I thought this was beyond rude. The least they could have done was sit with us for one meal, see how it was, and request alternate seating the next night!

DBF was extremely disappointed as he had hoped to meet some new people so it wouldn’t just be the two of us conversing all week long (I tried not to take too great of offence at this!). I feel like this is really something worth noting. Maybe on a ship that was filled to capacity we would have been seated at a full table for 8 and have met plenty of people but I found that people weren’t really willing to add new people to their groups and lots of people seemed to travel as families or groups of couples. If I were to cruise again I would want to bring some friends or family along with me to avoid this feeling.

At any rate, flustered though we were by the interaction we managed to finish the rest of our meal (lamb for DBF and pork chop for me, I’ll post pictures of the food below). I was particularly excited to try the warm chocolate melting cake everyone raves about because it sounded really similar to my favourite desert at one of my favourite restaurants (the molten chocolate lava cake at Joey for any Canadians wondering). It was really good, but it wasn’t as good as my favourite! Later in the week I would learn to request it with the butter pecan ice cream (awesome combination!).

After dinner, we decided to head for the Punchliner comedy club and we managed to snag a table for two near (but not too near) the front. We splurged on a couple of drinks here. DBF had never really been to a live comedy show so it was a first for him. We opted for the adult only versions, knowing that comics aren’t usually at their best with PG-13 jokes. The first comic. Kelly Terranova was pretty good. We laughed about our uncertainty over whether it would be a man or a woman (made funnier by the fact that this was his opening joke) but that was mostly because my father’s name is Kelly so I know better than to make assumptions about gender & assignment of names! The second comic, Jim Brick, was amazing! His entire set was based on picking on the people sitting in the front row. His timing was hilarious and DBF loved it! I really appreciate improv ability in a comedian as well as the ability to string along some sort of continuing narrative throughout the set and he did both. We enjoyed it so much that we came back the second night! (The comedy club has two different sets of two performers, the first are on the ship from St. Thomas until Barbados and the next two from St. Kitts until San Juan so there are two nights in the middle with no comedians).

After the show we headed back to our room to review the Fun Times for the Fun Day at Sea and were surprised to be reminded that the next day was Mardi Gras! I had completely forgotten and it was nice to know that there would be a theme for our sea day. We were also greated by what turned out to be my favourite towel animal of the trip, an adorable elephant!

Next: Mardi Gras at Sea!

We didn’t worry about getting up bright and early in St. Thomas (although we still woke up well before 9), because our plan had been to laze around on the ship before grabbing lunch in downtown Charlotte Amalie and then heading to the beach after that. I was glad we hadn’t bothered to rush either because… it was raining! :( I’ve been to Charlotte Amalie a few times and it’s always been stunning weather so I was a bit bummed that the weather hadn’t cleared since leaving San Juan.

Omelet my way, plus sausages and hashbrowns

It was really only sprinkling so we decided to get our things together and hope for the best. After grabbing breakfast and packing our beach bag including towels and snorkel gear, we headed off down to 0 deck to de-board. We managed to avoid all of the taxis and walk toward downtown ourselves. This is completely do-able and a good way to save a few dollars. It was about a 20 minute walk to the downtown area. If you walk along the port you actually avoid most of the tourist targeted shopping. Like I said above, we weren’t here to shop but to sight-see so we were happy to attempt to avoid these areas. Within seconds of being downtown however, we came across a man who was obviously trying to direct cruise ship passengers up a street toward the jewelry stores etc. Upon viewing my bare hand the man exclaimed that he saw an engagement ring in my future and tried to point us, too, in that direction. DBF laughed (maybe a little too hard I later told him) and we carried on. To be honest I don’t like to get “harassed” by those trying to sell me expensive things (DBF says it’s because I’m too nice) so I was happy to try to avoid them.

Two other ships were in port with us, a Royal Caribbean and the Celebrity Equinox

By the time we got down town it was barely after 10am. We needed to kill some time. I knew of this neat little antiques store which specialized in ship wreck themed items (old coins, maps form the 16th century etc.) and I wanted to drop in. To my surprise it was still closed! I was worried about what this meant for our day, thinking that this must be a holiday of sorts. Luckily we saw that the Green House was still open but we wanted to wait a while more for lunch so we decided to walk up a random street, away from all the vendors and towards signs for “Bluebeard’s Castle” which we had seen while walking toward downtown. I was less than thrilled with the amount of stair climbing that this route involved but we figured it would be a good view at the top. However, Bluebeard’s was not the tourist location we thought it might be. So, we wandered back down local streets toward downtown.

Even after giving in and wandering the streets with the vendors it still wasn’t 11 am so we decided to walk a little further away from downtown and see what there was to see. The answer was not much, but by the time we made it back to the Green House, it was almost noon. So, we ordered what I consider to be some of the best chicken wings in the world (go with the jerk wings) and pina coladas.

With our waitress Petra

Quick note: the Green House has very very good food and drinks, and GREAT happy hour deals (1/2 off some apps and 2 for 1 drinks). Unfortunately we weren’t there for happy hour so it ended up being a bit pricey. For those who might visit (they also have locations in St. Maarten) keep them in mind for happy hour though it likely won’t work for most cruisers since happy hour doesn’t start until 4:30.

Looking out toward the ship we knew that the weather was not brightening up. We weren’t sure we wanted to waste the money to go to and from the beach only to find bad weather (plus we were still pretty tired) so we decided just to head back to the ship. Luckily the antiques store was open by this point so we took a quick peek in there before moving on

Along the way back we had our first close encounter of many with wildlife on the trip and every time we saw so much as a chick I cooed about how cute they were which prompted DBF to remark that we should have saved the money and gone to a petting zoo instead! What can I say, they were cute!

Up next: Afternoon on the ship!

To the OP, I'm curious if you had the same experience. I was midship on deck 8 and while the room was comfortable during the day, it would never sufficiently cool at night. Not unbearably hot, mind you, but definitely warmer than I'd have liked. Was it just our cabin?

I'm not sure if it was just your cabin, or whether you might prefer for it to be more cool than I do, but I definitely never felt uncomfortable in the room. If anything, I seem to recall turning down the A/C at one point (and remarking that I didn't notice much of a change). Honestly, I found the ship in general to be a little too cool. It's funny, people assume us Canadians deal well with the cold but the reality is that I'm pretty used to wearing long sleeves and sweaters when it's cold out, so walking from the deck into the A/C'd parts of the ship when in shorts and a t-shirt was often pretty shocking for me.

Thank you for writing this and appreciate your photos too! Question, you mentioned the buffet lunches to be "meh" can you please elaborate, such as what main dishes did they offer, did they have a meat carving daily, how was the salad, bar what other items were available at the lunch buffet?

No problem! I'm glad you're enjoying it so far. I can't elaborate too much on the buffet because I frankly kind of avoided it. We (trying to save money) often either chose excursions with lunch included, or otherwise waited until we got back to the ship which often meant nothing but the sandwich bar and pizza bar were open by then. I agree with what iambumbo had to say above in regards to the themed food. One day DBF had the buffet while it was French themed (chicken, potatoes and the like) and he found it to be pretty good. I think the themes for the day (American, Italian, French, Caribbean) could be found on the back of the Fun Times where the hours of the restaurants were listed.

In terms of other foods available there were always sliced meats and cheeses, plenty of vegetables and salads (these were all ok). As far as I could tell there were carved meat options most days if not every day. Once again, the food wasn't bad, it just wasn't great. There should be no reason that anyone traveling on this ship wouldn't be able to find something that they were more than willing to eat at the buffet. I can honestly say that I don't know too much about the buffet for dinner other than partaking there the first night and that food seemed to be similar to the lunch buffet food.

It must say something about the food to know that I can't even tell you what all of the options were! I certainly felt like there was enough variety that there were plenty of options, but enough repeating that you could enjoy things you liked in the past.

While planning our cruise DBF’s mother had mentioned to me that when she had cruised the year before she really didn’t like the feeling of being one of thousands leaving the ship. We never once got that feeling on the Valor. Turns out, I’m pretty sure that was because the ship was no more than half full (which would explain the good prices we got). Nevertheless, we barely ever had a wait for anything on the ship and that was an appreciated surprise.

After unpacking our room, we decided we wanted to head to the CVS for our soft drinks and permitted alcohol. We weren’t sure where the CVS was but we guessed and we were right. Take a left leaving the port and walk past Senor Frogs and you’ll eventually see the sign. We purchased our allowed limit of Dr. Pepper and two bottles of Champagne. Note: we couldn’t bring a cork screw with us as we were only bringing carry on and there were very, very limited screw top options there. Just something to keep in mind for those of us who are purchasing our own alcohol not because we’re picky but because we’re trying to save a few dollars. Another dollar saving suggestion… check here for sunscreen if you didn’t bring any with you! I’m not sure it was cheaper (we forgot!) but in many of the ports it was upwards of $20 US for a medium sized bottle and that price made me choke.

photo of ship coming back from CVS

For those of you who are wondering, the rumours about the port are still 100% true. I never once saw anyone at security attach those little orange plastic taggies to anyone’s bag, and even if they had it would be easy to get your bag into a backpack without the security at the ship noticing. Even though there were several women who were bringing on bags that were clearly from the duty free shop they were never questioned even by the Carnival staff as we were re-boarding.

With that last chore accomplished DBF and I decided to explore the ship.

We weren’t really keeping a close eye on the time and eventually we realized we were going to miss the MDR dinner for the evening. Due to the muster drill on the first night, they have open seating in the MDR (like breakfast most days) and the last seating was some time around 7:30. We were disappointed but decided to try Rosie’s. I didn’t even end up taking pictures because honestly the food was pretty boring. DBF was unimpressed as I had told him that most reviews said the food was really good. It was fine, especially by buffet standards, but it wasn’t great by any means. I had pasta, he had a little bit of everything (pasta, chicken, tilapia, beans etc.). We also tried dessert here and I sadly learned that what many had said about desert on board was true. It’s incredibly hit or miss. It all looks fantastic but even the cheesecakes were very very bland. In fact, this was DBF’s main complaint about the food on board. We both reasoned that it makes sense that food is more likely to appeal broadly if it is not too strongly flavoured but there certainly could have been a healthier use of seasoning on board.

Since I mostly took pictures of our MDR food I will quickly put in my two cents about the rest of the food options on board (save for Scarlett’s as I will get to that later). In our opinion the breakfast buffet was always decent, especially the omelet’s your way. I was always very satisfied with breakfast. The grill for lunch was pretty meh with the exception of the Chocolate Buffet on the last day which made up for all the other terrible desserts we had experienced on the lido. The fish and chips (upstairs in Rosie’s) was very good with a decent selection of sea food. The burrito bar was also pretty darn good. The pizza was fine in our opinion but nothing exciting and there were often the longest lines here as they seemed not to be able to keep up with demand even with a half full ship. We often frequented the sandwich bar for mid-afternoon snacks and it was basic but pretty tasty. DBF’s favourite sandwich was the vegetable and arugula one with added pastrami. As far as we were concerned the Mongolian Wok was the worst of the food. I don’t know whether we just have better Asian food up here in Toronto, but the stir fry was all but completely tasteless. I don’t mean to say these things to be overly critical, just honest. I will get to the MDR and Steakhouse later, and for the most part they made up for the rest of the dining experience.

Slightly disappointed we headed back around the ship for some more exploring before going back to lido for the sail away party. By this time, it had started to rain. Little did I know this would be a bit of a continuing pattern on this cruise. We weren’t too keen on sticking around and getting soaked and we were still pretty tired from the night before so we just watched the line dancing from deck 11 for a bit (and there were even a few apparently well experienced Carnival cruisers up on our deck dancing along to every dance). We then headed back to our cabin with thoughts of reviewing the Fun Times for the next day and ordering room service since I didn't eat much on the Lido.

For first time cruisers who are wondering, oh yes, you can definitely tell that the ship is moving. This is not to say that (especially during a show) you won’t occasionally forget where you are, however those individuals who say they can “barely tell they’re at sea” are either full of it or they have some sort of inner ear problem because the seas were pretty calm while we were on the Valor but you could still definitely tell that it was moving. While we did end up ordering room service, the food was also very meh and we didn’t end up ordering it again since, in our opinion, it wasn’t worth paying the tip. Exhausted, we didn’t have a hard time passing out that first night.

Our first towel animal

Next!: A rainy day in St. Thomas

A quick review of the cabin. We were in room 1349 on the Riviera Deck. Since it’s the lowest passenger accessible deck, DBF liked to joke that we were in steerage. We had purchased a guaranteed interior cabin and I had been a bit worried about where we would end up but I was very pleased with this location. It was at the very centre of the ship, and low down which I knew would minimize the feeling of rocking while at sea. It was also below another deck of cabins so I knew there would be little to no noise from above. We were very satisfied with the interior cabin and although we actually spent more time in there than I had anticipated, I probably wouldn’t bother upgrading from an interior in the future. A quick note on the lighting situation: some people recommend night lights or glow sticks on here. In my opinion it’s entirely unnecessary. You can either leave the bathroom light on and close the door and the light glow will guide you at night, or, you can literally just lay there in the dark. It’s not that bad. And I live in a big city on a busy road with lights blaring in my bedroom window all night so I’m used to a bit of light. Most nights we slept without anything and neither of us ever had any problems. If you need to get up in the middle of the night the bedside lamps are actually quite dim and would be unlikely to wake your partner.

Storage: There was plenty. I’m not sure whether anyone has ever complained about this but there are two closets and a cupboard with shelving plus a few drawers by the vanity in the main room. In the bathroom there are about 6 shelves for you to empty your products into and we had no problem with that much space given our liquid restrictions. There was also room under the bed to put your suitcases to keep them out of the way.

This pic was actually taken on the night of the Sea Day since every time I tried before then to take a picture DBF was on the bed and messing it up before I was able to get a shot of things looking presentable!

Comfort: Upon first sitting on the bed DBF commented that it was indeed quite firm. BUT neither of us ever complained once about the bed. I had no trouble sleeping whatsoever and though I often wake up with a sore back when I sleep on a hard bed I never did on this trip. Maybe it was the adrenaline from excitement throughout the cruise but I’m here to say that those egg crates aren’t strictly necessary!

Bathroom: Yes, it was small, but it was very functional. There wasn’t room for both of us to be in there at the same time but there was a vanity in the main room so that wasn’t really necessary anyways. The water was a good temperature in the shower, there were no draining problems, and of all the aspects of the room, the bathroom probably showed its age the least.

Another bonus: the clothes line that you can pull out in the shower allowed us to dry our suits every day.

Condition: Yup, you can tell it’s not the maiden voyage of the Valor. There are a few scuff marks here and there and the edges of some of the wooden furniture are worn. Probably the worst sign of age was on the nightstands where the laminate edging was peeling off. But it really wasn’t that bad. It certainly didn’t take away from our enjoyment of the cruise.

Service: our steward was polite and friendly but we honestly only saw him once and I didn’t even catch his name tag in that time so I can’t say much about him. We didn’t get turn down service on the first night, and there were a few times that they didn’t replace the beach towels which was a bit distressing as I was required to rent them from the lido deck and I was afraid they would think we had extras and charge us for them when they didn’t find them in the room later (they didn’t). Overall the service wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t outstanding either. Probably about what I would expect given gratuities were included.

Coming up: our first night on the ship!

I should mention now that it is likely obvious, we had planned for our flight to arrive in Peurto Rico on the day the cruise was to depart. Many have warned against this and it is especially understandable given the unpredictable winter weather we experience up here, but we simply couldn’t get there any sooner at an affordable price given that we both had to be in class on the Friday. I will say that we had a 12 hour lay-over (with the ability to pay a small fee to change our flight to an earlier time) and our flight was scheduled to get in more than 7 hours prior to embarkation. It was a risk, but having looked at the cost of flights from San Juan to St. Thomas (and noting that they cost less than travel insurance would have) we decided to risk it. In the end it paid off as you will see below.

We woke up quite early on the day of embarkation mostly because I was tired of pretending to sleep. DBF actually did pretty well though getting 4 or 5 hours of sleep total. It was an effective way to save $100 but not necessarily one I would recommend on the eve of a cruise. We decided to try to find somewhere to get breakfast. DBF wanted to go back to the bakery we had gone to the night before (we had eaten these chocolate filled croissant-donut things and they were delicious!) but we knew we had enough time to kill to eat at a sit down restaurant so as soon as 6 o’clock rolled around we found one. We ended up having breakfast burritos at a place called “The Legal” (which struck me as an almost concerning name, like why do you need to specify that you’re legal, was there question?). It was delicious! Some of the best food we had all trip… or maybe that was just the overtiredness speaking? Regardless, they apparently have lots of locations along the east coast so if there's one near you I would highly recommend.

Mmmm breakfast burrito

As soon as we were done eating we decided to head back to terminal A, after verifying that despite the continuing wind warnings the flight was still on time! We actually managed to get a couple more hours of sleep in at this point which was surprising considering the stupid benches had arm rests after every other seat, but in the end I think I would have gotten more sleep there than I had in the rocking chair. Eventually they called our flight! We were literally the last zone to board but people on this flight were efficient and everyone got on and settled quickly.

De-icing yet again

After another (apparently purely precautionary) de-icing we were off! DBF had unpacked his headphones prior to leaving so he could play some last minute video games so we ended up sharing the pair that I brought. Being the nerds that we are, we selected a documentary on the Roosevelt family as our in-flight entertainment. It turned out to be pretty good. Meanwhile, our flight path was playing on DBF’s screen and he noted something funny: they actually showed the locations of notable sunken ships. He remarked that it was surprising to him that they would want to remind passengers of major accidents in transportation at a time like this and we both laughed.

This flight was actually relatively smooth, but due to the wait for de-icing we arrived a bit behind schedule in San Juan. Both DBF and I (having never been to Peurto Rico before) were surprised to see how huge and industrial the San Juan area was. Unfortunately we didn’t have the pretty coast line views coming in but we were excited to be there anyways! Added bonus to not checking bags? No wait at the carousel! Within 15 minutes of landing we were out waiting for a taxi. We could have booked a shuttle bus but the cost was $16 per person and the taxi cost us only $27 including the tip ($19 plus fees for bags). Our driver asked if we had ever been there before and upon finding out we had not, he pointed out some aspects of the city on our drive to the port.

First view of the Valor!

By the time we were at the port I was tingling with excitement. We quickly filled out our health forms and in mere minutes we were upstairs and standing in line for check in. By the time we arrived at the port it was after 3:30 (our flight arrived after 3). I knew from what I had read that the lines would likely have died down by this point but it was better even than I had imagined and we were in our cabin and unpacked before 4:30.

Up next: a quick cabin review!

Yay! I'm glad to see that some people are already following along! I can't guarantee how fast I'll be able to get through this because it's the height of midterm season for me but I'll do my best.

I won’t lie to you; I spent the majority of the three weeks between booking and leaving for our cruise planning. It was too exciting to resist. For those of you unfamiliar with the itinerary, the Valor (though I understand it switches with the Liberty in the next few weeks) runs the Southern Caribbean tour leaving from the port of San Juan and stopping off in St. Thomas U.S.V.I. before heading down to Barbados (one day at sea) and then hopping back up to San Juan with stops at St. Lucia, St. Kitts, and St. Maarten. I wanted to have some things planned, but I know myself, and having things too well planned leaves me very disappointed if things don’t work out, so I mostly had ideas in mind. We knew we weren’t going to book too many of the excursions through Carnival as they were largely out of our price range, but in the end, I had only booked one tour ahead of time.

The plan before leaving was to head to the Green House in Charlotte Amalie (St. Thomas) for lunch (my family have been there multiple times and we love it but DBF had never been), before getting a bus/ taxi to either Sapphire or Coki Beach (hoping to avoid the entrance fees of Magen’s Bay). Nothing planned for the Fun Day at Sea other than a bit of studying (midterms coming up) and some tanning (weather provided). In Barbados I had planned either to go on the Tour of Mount Gay Rum Distillery and then to a beach within walking distance, or to the Boatyard. In St. Lucia, we just knew we wanted to get to the Pitons. In St. Kitts I had booked our only tour, an Island Tour with Royston Tours based on the incredible reviews I had read both here and on Trip Advisor. For St. Maarten I was wide open (this would turn out to be a mistake as you will hear later) with thoughts of either Maho Beach where the airport is, or perhaps some sort of biking around Phillipsburg (it felt appropriately Dutch). I feel like I had done the right amount of planning: heavy on the research, light on specific bookings so that we had some flexibility based on things we heard while we were on the cruise and also depending on the weather.

In the last couple of days leading up to the cruise I developed an obsession with packing. Wanting to save money (and also knowing that everyone on here says over-packing is an epidemic among new cruisers) we wanted to bring only carry-on if at all possible. So I did several “practices” of the packing – putting everything I thought we would need into our carry-on to see if it would fit and also meet the weight restrictions. In the end it worked, and we each even had a few items we never wore!

Here’s a quick list of all the things we brought with us for those first time cruisers trying to get an idea, and also to prove to those who have each family member bring a gigantic full sized suit case plus carry-on that it’s entirely unnecessary! I’ve also included a few tips on things like toiletries which all have to meet the carry-on restrictions and some other items we found useful to have while on the cruise.

• Various personal electronics including their chargers and a splitter as the rumours are true, only one North American outlet in the room!!

• Two empty water bottles for excursions (and to bring mix back to the cabin) (hint: make sure these are empty for the actual flight part!)

• I brought a small foldable beach bag with us which was convertible into a back pack – though of course, if you were willing to completely empty your carry on back pack it would serve mostly the same purpose as well

• Toiletries: this one was a hard one (especially for a woman!) but as a woman with fine curly hair I knew better than to bother with bringing hair products etc given the fact that I tend toward looking like Monica from Friends when I’m in a humid environment and I knew I would likely wear my hair up most of the time. We brought a couple of small things of toothpaste, my liquid makeup (e.g. mascara and liquid foundation), conditioner (they have shampoo and gel in the showers but it certainly could be better quality so you may want to consider bringing these as well if you have the space), hair gel for DBF, small sunscreen and bug spray (we knew we might need to buy more but wanted to at least bring some), hand lotion, hand sanitizer, and my contacts. With all that, we still had room for some hot sauce souvenirs on the way home. Things like deodorant don’t need to go into the airport quart baggies as long as they are solid. We also learned that safety razors are acceptable in carry-on! Who knew?! I might be missing something but I think that was the gist of it. I also brought a few hair accessories, extra makeup items (though with the amount of time you spend in the water you don’t need much really) and some costume jewelry (I left the expensive stuff at home for fear of losing it).

• I also brought a small pharmacy including Gravol for motion sickness, Pepto Bismol, Advil and Benadryl as well as band-aids.

• Formal wear: full length gown, and three cocktail dresses for me; tux, and a suit plus three dress shirts and two polos for him (this was incredible overkill for even the elegant nights and by the end he was wearing shorts and polos to dinner and I was wearing jeans BUT it serves the point of showing how much we brought with us!) Additionally he brought a tie and a bow tie. He never wore the tie.

• Shoes: dress shoes, runners and flip flops for each of us (I also brought a pair of wet shoes in anticipation of rocky beaches near snorkeling areas)

• 5-6 T-shirts each

• 3 pair shorts for him, 2 capris, and 2 pair shorts for me, 1 pair jeans each

• 2 swim trunks for him, 3 bikinis and a 1 piece for me

• 1 sweater each

• 1 rain jacket each

• ALSO: 1 life vest (inflatable), 2 masks and 2 snorkels

We fit all of this into our carry-on meaning one small back pack each plus a duffle bag for DBF and a hard case on wheels for me.

Here's a picture of our stuff from the Philly Airport. It actually looks like a lot but though we occasionally had to sky check my bag, they never tried to stop us! That's $100 saved ($25 per bag each way)

On Valentine’s Day we would be flying out of Toronto in the evening on the first leg of our trip headed for Philly (yup, those 12 hour lay overs were overnight!). On the Friday before both DBF and I finished up our last assignments due before we left. I (struck by who knows what kind of bizarre desire, probably a romance inspired one) decided to watch Titanic while I finished up packing, validating our travel insurance and going to the spa to … ahem… “prepare” for a week of bikini wearing.

The next day was going to be a whirlwind. DBF had planned a brunch date with some friends of ours, and then we were to pick up my parents at the airport as they were randomly coming into town as we were leaving.

Side story – I’ve always gotten a little motion sick, ever since I was a child. It has been much more mild lately, but the last time I had been on a boat the sea had been rough and I got a bit sick. I was a little worried about this on the ship so I ordered motion sickness bands online since they had always worked for me when I was a kid. 2 weeks later… still no sea bands. Luckily, my mom thought to pack my old ones and brought them along with some snorkel gear for us to borrow.

The day seemed to fly past. After a quick early dinner with my parents near the airport (including Margaritas for DBF and I to get us in the vacation mood) we were on our way to Terminal 3 at Pearson International as we would be flying US Airways for our first time as well. Quick note: We actually thought the service was pretty good on this airline. The staff were friendly and professional, and even though a couple of our flights were delayed (mostly for de-icing reasons as those of you from the north will be able to relate to). I would fly with them again although it was a bit frustrating to find our flight home from San Juan had no in-flight entertainment. It sounds like a petty/entitled thing to complain about but I am terrified of flying and I find the video really helps to distract me.

Anyways; back to our main story. We had to arrive quite early at the airport for customs so we sat around for a while (~2 hours) at our gate before they were ready to board. It was a particularly cold day on February 14th and we were taking a regional jet so we were boarding from the ground and the doors had to be opened directly to outside for us to reach the aircraft. The staff person responsible for scanning tickets was wearing a full on parka and was rushing us all along to get on the plane saying that she didn’t want to freeze for any longer than she had to (I don’t blame her! I was wearing a rain jacket because we didn’t want to have to deal with our winter coats while in Peurto Rico on our last day).

After a lengthy wait for de-icing (see picture below; strangely they sprayed us with green foam which I had never noticed before though it makes sense as a way to ensure the entire plane is covered) we were off! Philly was in the midst of a high winds warning so the flight was quite turbulent. I was less than pleased knowing I still had at least three flights ahead of me over the next 8 days. When we arrived at Philly we had to decide something: spend the night in the airport, or find a hotel. Well, turns out the decision was made for use because according to booking.com 95% of the hotels were booked in the city and none of the ones near the airport had any rooms left. Sounds hard to believe but it must have been due to the romantic occasion.

Knowing our fate was likely to be a sleepless night we headed over to our terminal (A) to see if we could find anywhere to get comfortable for a few hours. I found an utterly abandoned row of massage chairs and we soon found out why; if you sit on them without paying they push something hard into your back. Foiled, we decided to head to terminal C which someone had recommended to us for having comfortable rocking chairs. Rocking chairs didn’t sound very comfortable to me but I was getting desperate. Eventually we located an information desk where they were giving out pillows, and toiletry bags including masks, mouth wash, tooth brushes and tooth paste. After eventually finding a 24 hour bakery for a late night snack and locating some prime rocking chairs we managed to get some (and I do mean only some) shut eye.

Up next: Embarkation Day! (and more photos this time I promise!)