MITSUGIRLY has a JEWEL of a time on my 1st RC cruise in years!

I am really enjoying your review. I just got back from a cruise last week and we went to St. Maarten and did a jeep tour around the island through the ship. I have a lot of the same pictures you do. It was so sad to see so much devastation. It was very humbling.

Lots of color just like the last place.

They really grow the feather dusters huge here!

I really love this color burst of orange and blues.

I was trying to get a shot of this beautiful little Dusky Damsel fish. This is a juvenile and as he ages, it will turn into a darker brownish-black color. They have a beautiful little round mark back by the tail fin, which almost looks like an eye.

Under the pier.

One thing that others on here mentioned was to look at the ferry times and then take note of when they were actually arriving each time. They are known to get off schedule some.

They seem to be running on schedule most of the day AND I noticed that there were always 2 running. One behind the other. You'd see one pull up and fill up and the other one would be sitting out a bit and waiting. Then when the first one pulled out, the next one pulled in and filled up.

Gotta watch yourself here...there was metal down there that could easily cut you.

There were a lot of kids jumping off the pier. There are ladders all around it...I guess just for those jumpers.

Sakari really wanted to try this.

Sakari tried it several times and loved it.

Here's a video:

[YOUTUBE]FUo4obDrwGk[/YOUTUBE]

It was around 2pm and even though we didn't have to be back on the ship until 4:30pm, I didn't want to take any chances of having issues getting a ferry back when everyone decided to leave at the same time. Truth be known, I really wasn't enjoying this beach so it wasn't a big deal to pack up and leave for me. I also wanted to factor in the 1/2 hour walk from the port to ...well...the OTHER port. Although, I was determined to grab a cab and save our legs on the way back. I mean we walked from one port to the other, walked from the dock to the first beach, swam and snorkeled, walked from one beach to another, then walked all the way down that beach toward the pier, then swam some more...then a possible walk by to the port. Whew...my legs were tired.

We packed up our things and noticed people were already starting to line up. By the time we got there, the line was all the way down the dock. Oh great.

But the ferry pulled up, people got off, people got on and it pulled away. Then up pulled the second ferry and we got on. It was about 2:50pm at the time we were making it across the water.

Although it wasn't raining outside, the people on the outside were getting soaked by the waves.

The water was splashing so bad that the water was coming inside where we were at. Someone got up and said "sorry" to those outside and shut the door. LOL

So just be aware that you could possibly get wet if you are outside during the ride.

Here are our tickets from the day. They rip a corner piece off of it each time you ride. I wonder if that means that you could have a total of 4 rides since there's 4 corners?

It was a longer ride back, since we were actually at a different beach that was further away from the beach we started at.

I want to say that we got back around 3pm. We headed off the dock and decided we would need something cold to drink for the way back to the port. We stopped at a little tent right off the dock and they said $3 each. Um ok...20 steps away back on the dock was a lady that we had bought off of prior to leaving on the ferry for $2 each. We walked back to her and save us $3! LOL

Ok, so where are those taxis?

The entire area around the port and ferry place is blocked off like a park. So that meant you would have to go out to the street area a little ways away.

Once we got out there...nothing. No taxi's around or anything other than the hustle and bustle of the city.

I guess that meant we were walking back. Sigh!

This time we took the sidewalk by the road. More beautiful flowers and blooming bushes along the way.

Back around the park area.

Sakari finding birds of course.

The fort was getting near, which meant we were maybe 1/4 of the way back...or at least at the end of the street.

Ok, found our next turn. Remember that area that I thought we had finally made it to the ferry only to find out that wasn't the building we needed to be at? That's where we were at this point.

A little bit of colorful artwork.

Down the street, cross the street. Up the hill...then the ship was finally in site!!!

Still following that darn blue road...

I seen the building (above) and thought "whew, we are finally there!"

Only we weren't there. That building wasn't at all what we were going to. We turned the corner and had to keep going all the way down this.

Poor Sakari. There's nothing worse than walking a long distance with a wet bathing suit on and your thighs rubbing together. By the time we made it back, her inner thighs were as red as can be and raw. These would later turn into bruises! sniff sniff

Almost there.

Finally to the terminal! We must have been moving a little slower than on the way there this morning. It took us about 40 minutes to actually get from the dock at one place to inside the cruise compound at the other.

We flashed our ship cards and then came out to this...what the heck! More walking and fencing.

Turn the corner and more...

We did a little shopping. I always try to buy a tee shirt with the name on it and a refrigerator magnet for Sakari. We made our purchases and then headed for home plate! There was a guy that made different things out of these "seeds" (maybe Zanzibar?), which were really neat and pretty. However, they were a little too expensive for the amount of money I brought ashore with me for the day.

We made it back on the ship and immediately headed for the room to shower and get dry clothes on. Even Sakari didn't beg to go swimming when we returned this time. I think we had had enough of the water for that day.

We headed up to the top deck to watch the sail away and I took some more pictures of the port.

Remember the seed guy? I think he was tired after we all boarded the ship. He's laying on the ground. LOL At least I hope that's what's wrong with him.

One of the other ships was leaving at the same time we were.

Sakari had been talking about wanting to do the rock climbing.

Almost there and studying her game plan.

It was finally her turn and she decided to head up one of the more difficult routes. I couldn't understand why.

She took her time...and by taking her time I mean there were 5 other kids on the other one that made it to the top and back down to her still being on there.

In the end, she didn't make it all the way up and she was disappointed. When I told her she should have went on the one on the far end because it had bigger rock steps to climb, I then discovered why she picked the one she did...the bell was closer and only half way down and she felt she could make it. She was SO CLOSE! Just pull up one more and she would have been there. She vowed she would try it again another day.

I didn't notice until later that when Sakari went rock climbing, they had punched holes in her card. They also did mine. I'm not sure if this is their "code" to let them know that when she returns her information and my authorization is already on file or what.

We walked walked around for awhile and the sun was setting.

Sakari decided she wanted some pizza and I decided what better time than now to see if this pizza really is as bad as everyone said it was.

They also had some cold sandwiches.

I gave both a try in hopes that it would tie me over until dinner.

We sat out by the pool deck and watched the skateboarding clips they had going on at the big screen by the pool. Since we own a company that specializes in this, it was interesting to watch some of the tricks and I recorded some of the stunts and was instant messaging my son back home with them.

The hubby went to get our pop containers refilled at the bar behind me. It took FOREVER! The person working behind the bar is SLOW! EVERY time we were there. It was ridiculous! Seriously. There could be only 2 people there and it would take over 15-20 minutes. I already had all of my food gone by the time he had our drinks. These guys act like they just don't want to be there.

The pizza was acceptable in my opinion. It wasn't bad at all and it wasn't the best I've had. But, I personally wouldn't complain too much about it. I think maybe the reason that others don't like it (and I do) is because there's next to no sauce on it. I don't like tomatoes and I always pull back the cheese and wipe off the sauce. There was hardly any on there...therefore, I liked it. Not enough to say "you just gotta try this pizza" but enough to have a snack whenever I needed something a little extra.

The sun became a beautiful shade of reds and yellows right before it went bye-bye.

Sakari mentioned that she really didn't want to go to the kids club and wanted to go to the show. I honestly don't even remember what it was about but it definitely had more singing and off beat dancers.

Since this was something that Sakari wanted to do, we were pretty much forced to stay for the entire show. I noticed about 20 minutes into the show that the hubby was sleeping and I was fighting to keep my eyelids open myself.

After the show, I laughed at "daddy" sleeping during the show and Sakari admitted that she didn't like it either and almost fell asleep.

We all decided we should probably go to dinner and then head back to the room for the night. We were all tired and it was a busy day that involved a lot of walking. It wore us out.

We decided the buffet would be best tonight. Quick, easy, and right away with no waiting.

Everything I had was delicious.

Sakari...I don't know what kind of combo this was, but she ate it all. LOL Missing from her plate are marshmallows, which she had already scarfed them down. That girl loves her marshmallows and I buy them all the time for her to snack on.

For some reason I crave salads when I'm sailing. I can get a plate of hot food and will end up going and getting a salad in the end.

I had also found out where Sakari got her marshmallows from and what they were to be used for...these waffle looking things with the powdered sugar, yummy icing cream that reminds me of NCL's cream they put on their crepes, and marshmallows. It was yummy!

We headed back to the room to find our towel animal for the night waiting with the remote for daddy.

I worked on my homework a little bit and I didn't even pack for the following day. Gasp! I just threw caution to the wind and decided I'd do it that morning. I did notice that our beach towels were nicely folded and laid on the floor beside the bed. HA! They do bring towels to the room and switch them out.

Sakari asked me what I would like for her to draw tonight. I said draw a picture of our day in port today. This is what she came up with. Her swimming in her mermaid tail, me snorkeling and taking pictures and daddy on his phone relaxing. She never was good at drawing people. Hey, she was probably 7 before I got her to stop drawing stick people with arms that came out of their heads! Let her draw you a bird or dragon with every little detail down to their talons, but she can't draw people.

I would check in with Kolin to make sure that Loki and my fish are still alive and then we would head to bed at 10:30pm!!! Can you believe that? 10:30!!!!

We sat out by the pool deck and watched the skateboarding clips they had going on at the big screen by the pool. Since we own a company that specializes in this, it was interesting to watch some of the tricks and I recorded some of the stunts and was instant messaging my son back home with them.

Kim: Do you know about mini logo (skateboarding)?

I had a dog named named loki. That was thors brother. Loki was the god of mischief and strife

 

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Haha! Love it!

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The sun became a beautiful shade of reds and yellows right before it went bye-bye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WOW! Those sunset photos are awesome! :cool:

The pictures from under the pier weren't too shabby either! Those colors were beautiful! :D

I think I'd like to go to Martinique, but without quite as much walking. :eek: No wonder you guys were so tired!

Lots of color just like the last place.

 

 

They really grow the feather dusters huge here!

 

 

I really love this color burst of orange and blues.

 

 

 

 

I was trying to get a shot of this beautiful little Dusky Damsel fish. This is a juvenile and as he ages, it will turn into a darker brownish-black color. They have a beautiful little round mark back by the tail fin, which almost looks like an eye.

 

 

The color in these pics are incredible!

I am really enjoying your review. I just got back from a cruise last week and we went to St. Maarten and did a jeep tour around the island through the ship. I have a lot of the same pictures you do. It was so sad to see so much devastation. It was very humbling.

Very sad to see. :(

I love birds and can identify a good handful. I don't know squat about fish, though. I'm fascinated by the fish names and characteristics you can offer in these reviews. I'm so impressed!

Sakari is a big bird lover and knows the names of birds that I don't even know. LOL

I've been a saltwater fish person since the 80's when I had aquariums. However, I got out of it for many years and just started getting back into the saltwater game about a year ago. That combined with all the snorkeling and scuba we do, the names and characteristics have come back to me. I did break down and buy a series of salt fish names books just in case I come across something that I can't figure out. I should look in them to see if I can figure out a few of these I haven't been able to identify.

Two critters you have been hoping to see in one day?! Excellent!

 

I love those cute little puffers! Their eyes are beautiful the way they sparkle. I haven't gotten the eyes to look quite as good in pictures as they do in real life though. I do have a picture of a puffer I met in Bonaire last fall as my calendar photo this month. I swear that fish was posing for me, and at one point it even smiled! It was so cute! I will hate to see this month come to an end because I'll have to turn the page. At least there will be another good picture from that cruise waiting for me.

I know isn't it amazing how long I have been looking for these critters and finally found them...at the same place!

Oh how cool...a calendar made with your pictures. I should do that some time!

I wonder if I can get off work early so I can come home and read the latest installment. As always, great review!

LOL :')

I know I won't :( I won't get home until 11:30pm my time (GMT) so that's what, about 6:30pm Eastern. So we shall see!!!

You guys crack me up.

Kim: Do you know about mini logo (skateboarding)?

It's not a brand that I personally know myself (just know the main brands) but my husband probably knows about it since he does have it listed on his website.

WOW! Those sunset photos are awesome!

 

The pictures from under the pier weren't too shabby either! Those colors were beautiful!

 

I think I'd like to go to Martinique, but without quite as much walking. No wonder you guys were so tired!

I know, I loved how the sunset pictures came out. They had just a smudge help from the "sunset" setting on my camera, which burst the colors a lot.

I loved all the beautiful and bright colors of the coral and sponges under the dock in Martinique. They were so pretty. Usually you don't see THAT many different colors (especially the blues and purples) in such shallow water.

The color in these pics are incredible!

Thank you! I thought so too.

Very interesting review with a good mix of land and water excursions. The Hurricane damage on land and to the Coral shows the strength of this damaging system.

Way to go with the snorkeling firsts: seahorse, porcupine puffer, and moray eel.

I like the way you move to the pier when the beach snorkeling runs out of sights. The orange, blue, red, and pink colours were spectacular. On entry 537 there were what looked like small Green grapes, any idea what they are?

Sakari has used mermaid tail, mono fin, and just goggles and no fins, as she keeps going when ever in the water.:)

Kim,

I always enjoy your reviews.

I don't want you to think I'm being judge mental in about what I'm about to say. My comments are for everyone's education. You may not be aware of how dangerous it is to swim near or under docks/piers due to electricity. People can drown from electrocution due to stray electric currents in the water. Many people are not aware of this risk. This risk is even greater in foreign countries where there may not be electric code standards and enforcement. If you goggle electric drowning you will see articles from even the USA where a day of fun swimming near docks turns tragic. Please stay safe so you can keep writing your great reviews.

Kim' date='

I always enjoy your reviews.

I don't want you to think I'm being judge mental in about what I'm about to say. My comments are for everyone's education. You may not be aware of how dangerous it is to swim near or under docks/piers due to electricity. People can drown from electrocution due to stray electric currents in the water. Many people are not aware of this risk. This risk is even greater in foreign countries where there may not be electric code standards and enforcement. If you goggle electric drowning you will see articles from even the USA where a day of fun swimming near docks turns tragic. Please stay safe so you can keep writing your great reviews.[/quote']

 

Wow, I had never heard of this before.

 

One thing to note is that the nature of salt water mitigates the problem. According to Wikipedia lower resistance of the water tends to divert the charge around the body. Wikipedia claims that almost all drowning due to electric shock occur in freshwater. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_shock_drowning

I almost forgot to write up my final thoughts on our day in Martinique!

So, you can probably guess that I was blown away by the first beach at Pointe de Bout. Absolutely loved it there from the beach, water, snorkeling, landscape and over all layout of the place! When we return...I will definitely go back there! I will also explore a little more on down along the walkway as well. I definitely want to return.

As for the second beach Anse Mitan...didn't care for it. I know some like the bigger beaches because it feels less crowded and more room to spread out, but it just wasn't my thing.

Hopefully some day, when we return, I'll get to check out the third beach and then end our day back at Pointe de Bout.

As for the place we ate at and even the stores/shops we stopped at along the way...I'm not sure if it's just their nature or what, but they came across as rude. I know for a fact the lady who tried to deny my daughter cheese, was snotty about the situation and the way she talked (by looking at her facial expressions and tone of voice). The stores/shops in town didn't take US dollars and a lot of people acted as if they didn't speak English either (even though someone else once mentioned this in a thread and someone else debunked that myth saying they all do but decide whether or not they "want to" speak it to you). Hmmm

However, I hope to return again some day if only to go back to PdB or explore other places, which everyone knows I'm always game for. :D

Day 5: A day in Barbados.

This will be our second time in Barbados, so it is a repeat for us, which is perfectly fine.

Got up from the alarm going off at .....yep, 6:30am. Hey at least there's some consistency in this cruise and I never have to reset the alarm time daily.

I figured I would start to pack our beach bags since I hadn't done it the night before due to extra fatigue, shortness of breath from so much walking, numbness of fingers from typing my homework up, headache from my sinuses and gulping water all day and yes, it was a really good day!

But back to packing. I knew we were going to a place where we were going to be able to swim with the turtles, so snorkeling stuff in the bag first, then the beach towe.......ls? Wait, those nice and neatly folded beach towels the room steward had for us are OUR WET ONES FROM YESTERDAY!! What the heck! Why would you bother to fold those? He tricked me. I'm a little salty about that now. That now means I have to lug around wet towels with me up to breakfast. Yuck.

So remember the fruit and cheese plate we received on day one of the cruise? Well, we had been nibbling off of it nightly, but the small table they had it on was also the table they put our ice bucket on and cups and anything else they could throw on there. The plate was constantly sticking out. I kept taking it off of there and putting it on the couch and the room steward would put it back. This morning, I would run into it and take a chunk of skin out of my leg (I know you are wondering how does she get cut on a plate....it's a square plate). Ouch!

Sakari and I headed up to the buffet to get me some caffeine and like always, the doors were closed. I'm getting really tired of the buffet doors being closed and it's the ONLY place on the ship that you can get pop from the pop machine and bars aren't open yet. This is ridiculous! I had to go around to the glass doors and weasel my way in and endure all the dirty looks I got from those inside preparing for breakfast. The solution would be to move the pop station OUTSIDE of the buffet which is only open during certain hours!!!

The hubs was finally up when we returned and getting dressed.

We headed back up to the pool deck to get some fresh towels. I guess I would rather carry dry fresh towels around with me at breakfast than wet heavy towels.

Towel station opens up at 7am. Only it was 7:20am and no attendant available. Huh? I ask someone near by working on the pool deck and they said "I think he went on break". Wait what????? The first thing out of my mouth was what came to my brain, which was "It's 7:20am! They open at 7am! He needs a break 20 minutes after opening?!?! Seriously???" I guess he didn't like that reply and he walked away. I couldn't believe it. Especially on a port day. I just don't like this towel exchange thing they got going on.

We headed on into the buffet with my heavy wet towels. The hubby waited quite some time on the kind of omelette he liked to come out and I settled on what they had out already.

I also decided to try some french toast...but the bread was to hard to eat. Hmm, first complaint of food on RC. I tend to think it might have just been a fluke that day or the piece I grabbed. Mt Bacon was good like always. But I just wasn't satisfied this morning for some reason. Maybe I needed something sweet instead.

Sweetness and fruit hit the spot!

P&O cruises was already in port and we were docking. The towel guy was there now and we were able to get fresh towels. I bit my tongue about his break 20 minutes after he opened because my belly was full and I wasn't hangry anymore.

Back to the room to grab our things and change and we were off the ship a few minutes after 8am.

It's not a brand that I personally know myself (just know the main brands) but my husband probably knows about it since he does have it listed on his website.

Just curious. Our son is the brand manager for mini logo (a division of Powell (Skate One Corp.).

Game plan for the day.

Last time we were here, we went to The Boatyard for the day. Their admission (I think it was $20) included your chairs, umbrella, a drink, and a boat ride out to swim with the turtles. It also included their water trampoline and a ride back to the port! Great deal and beautiful place!

But, this time I decided I wanted something different. Gotta experience everything right? After checking multiple places, I decided to head to Pirates Cove. It's right down the street from The Boatyard and closer to the port. It didn't include the snorkeling out to the turtles in the price, but you could add it on to the price.

There wasn't a entrance fee, but if you wanted a beach chair and umbrella, it was $8/pp. There was free wifi.

You could take a ride out to the turtles AND to some shipwreck as well for an additional $20.

They had a package for $30 for all the above and included a drink.

After looking at pictures online and following them on their social media site, I decided this would be our place! I had informed Kia of the place and she said her and the kids would be joining us. Yippee! She had previously tried out The Boatyard as well.

I don't remember any of these paintings last time. Either they were new or we didn't "park" here.