OhioCruiseDog

DH here with some more photos to wrap up DW's review:

View back across the beach in St. Maarten, to four of the ships in port that day (from right to left, Regal Princess, RCL Freedom of the Seas, Holland America Nieuw Amsterdam, and our home, the Celebrity Summit

Typically irreverent establishment along the St. Maarten beach:

Tranquil harbor in St. Thomas:

Canopy of the rain forest in Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico rain forest waterfall:

And, as we wrap this up, a view of RCL's Freedom of the Seas sailing off into the sunset off St. Maarten

Cheers!!!!

We did Tours by Locals in Dunedin and it was wonderful. Our guide was Claudie and she goes all over New Zealand, I think. We saw the sights, hiked past sea lions to the beach, visited the castle at Larchmont, etc..

In Tauranga, we had a group and used Zealandia and they were also exceedingly good. We saw the Kiwis, the glow worm caves and took a short nature walk.

I strongly recommend both.

Some ports had vendors lined up as we got off the ship.

There were other tours that looked good on Trip Advisor, but those are the ones we took.

Ohiodoglover

St. Lucia (continued)

The pool area at the Sugar Beach Resort, situated between the Petons:

Another view of the resort, with one of the private Cabanas, the pool and beach just beyond. Bond . . . James Bond.

[

Finally, the dreaded St. Lucian Chicken. Who knew?

Antigua

The beautiful green waters of Antigua:

A graceful old church in town, now abandoned:

This little guy was guarding the gate to the church . . . in between naps:

DH here once again, to provide the photo supplement for the review.

St. Lucia

Here, Bombi provides the details of raising bananas in our visit to the banana plantation:

An intriguing rock formation on the St. Lucia coast, dubbed "Stiletto Arch", for obvious reasons:

One of the resident goats that the guides tend to by providing banana peels from the plantation:

Dramatic view of the Petons:

The mud baths at the "drive-in volcano"

. . .and the waterfall that cleanses the mud.

We were on the Summit last week, and at the CC function attended by the Captain, Cruise Director, Hotel Director, etc., the topic of luggage tags came up. When the woman first asked, they thought it was an isolated problem, and then asked if anyone else had experienced it. When 2/3 of those present raised their hands, there was obvious dismay.

They got back to us later in the cruise indicating that it was a malfunction in the back end of their web site. According to them, the web site is undergoing a massive re-design and it will be addressed as part of that. No commitment on roll out date however. Bottom line, status quo, so we'll go through Captains Club until we hear otherwise.

My wife and I are firmly committed to booking on board, and just booked cabins for a Baltic cruise on Silhouette next summer while on the Summit last week. My wife is meticulous about tracking cruise costs, including perks, and we have saved significant money -- either directly or through perks -- by booking on board. On last week's cruise, we had free tips, drinks packages and good onboard credit, and selected an aft facing balcony cabin. Even though I do not drink, the drinks package is fantastic for the variety of non-alcoholic drinks (including NA wine and beer), and feeds my espresso addiction as well.

My wife opened a travel agency business last fall, so this new booking was assigned to her agency. However, we have done this for years and have always come away with a better deal than we could get elsewhere. Just our experience.

Cheers!

Just to prove that DW was not hallucinating, here is one of our monkey friends who chose to accompany us on the course:

And another member of the gallery:

Finally, a shot of the course itself -- clearly not Pebble Beach, as DW says, but made for a fun, low stress round.

View of the Barbados port/harbor, taken from our stern balcony, with the Maltese flag prominent:

DH here, with some photographic evidence to accompany DW's review.

This is the Puerto Rico Convention Center, situated a block or so from the Sheraton, and right across from the Mexican restaurant referred to. In fact, this photo taken from dinner at that restaurant. Neat architecture: