FINALLY! My really long Victory review 1/17-1/24/10 with MEGA pix!!

[scraphappylady]

For our excursion this day, I had taken the advice of many of my fellow CC board members, and booked an island tour with Cosol tours, and we did not regret our decision.

 

An email from Cosol before we left directed us to meet up with him right outside the main port area, near the shopping. We had no trouble finding the right group, as one of his helpers was situated nearby holding a sign.

 

What did shock me was the size of the group gathering to go on this tour. I estimated that there were close to 150 people waiting, by the time we finally set off for the taxis, at about 8:45am. I guess I had been envisioning a small little group, and to find that his tour had grown so popular (and big) was a little troubling.

 

In the long run, we were divided up into groups (I think I counted about 12 or 13 vans of around twelve people each) and we each took a slightly different route around the island. With the exception of maybe our meal time, we were not all bunched together at any given time. It was really pretty well coordinated.

 

Our tour took roughly six hours and thinking back now, I cannot believe how many things we fit in during our ride around this beautiful island. Certainly enough to make the $65 pp fee very worthwhile! While there was more of a party type atmosphere than I was expecting, we just went with the flow, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. I know many people have done reviews on Cosol’s tour, but if I fail to mention something and you have questions, feel free to ask.

 

Our driver was Baptiste, a native of the island, and I think a relative of Cosol’s. As we went along, he gave us a little background on himself. Before coming back to the island to help out on the tour he was once a deliveryman in New York City, a paratrooper for two years in the U.S. Army, and was a police officer for six years in Charlotte, NC. Fascinating man and very low key.

 

Baptiste with us at the end of our tour

 

As we drove along, he never kept up a constant stream of talking, but would take the time to point out interesting sites on the island and was always willing to answer any questions we had. Along the way, there were many times he would stop, just to allow us time to take pictures without having to try and get them from a moving taxi.

 

 

 

 

[scraphappylady]

Our first “touristy” stop was on the side of the road, at a banana plantation. We saw it from a distance first, then came down into the valley where all the plants were growing.

 

 

 

We learned a lot about bananas in just a short time, including how long it takes plants to become full grown to where they are producing bananas (just 9 months) and where the bananas grown there were headed. (to Sainsbury grocery stores, in the UK)

 

Bananas covered with blue plastic as protection

 

Baptiste shows us little baby bananas

 

 

 

Also, as others have mentioned, we were not left wanting for something to drink along the way. Whenever we stopped, our personal drink van (yep, an entire van just for the drinks) would pull up pretty soon afterwards, and we were always being encouraged to get something from it, whether it was water, soda, beer or rum punch. (Look, honey, it’s 9:30 in the morning – time for some rum punch!)

[scraphappylady]

We passed through two island villages, Anse le Raye and Canaries, very picturesque from higher up, but not so much as we were driving through them.

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately, unemployment is very high in these areas, almost 25% in the one village, we were told. The islanders we did get to talk to, though, were for the most part very friendly and happy to talk with us.

 

We stopped for breakfast around 10:30 am, at one of Cosol's relative's houses. Here we were treated to a delicious buffet of, among other things, fish cakes, coconut cookies, banana ketchup, sugar cane candy, and several types of fresh fruit native to the island. I neglected to take pictures here, as my hands were quite otherwise occupied at the time.

[Sandpiper10]

I hope my review, now and when finished, can help you! Hmm, with teen boys, that's a hard call. Do they like what I would call slightly more "educational" things, like touring an old fort, or more adventurous, like say river tubing? We did two land based driving tours - St. Lucia (coming up) and St. Kitts - and it might take a certain type of teenager to be able to put up with that much driving, and not much active/beach time.

 

Of all the tours we did, I can definitely recommend the snorkeling with turtles for any age (assuming they're ok in the water - not necessarily awesome swimmers but just comfortable at least with snorkeling with vests on). You'll really get your money's worth there! After that, it would kinda be based on their personalities.

 

We only booked two tours thru Carnival, one of which was for Dominica because of the state of the roads there. Otherwise, I booked independent places, but ahead of time online. I did online research, mostly on CC, and picked well recommended, highly praised tours. These companies rely on good feedback to stay in business, and the ones that we chose were indeed top notch.

 

It would worry me to pick up a taxi in port, without knowing anything about that person/company, and then expect them to give you a decent tour, especially if you need to rely on them to get you back to the ship in time. On the other hand, if you're just taking a taxi to get to a particular beach, try and find out ahead how much the estimated cost would be. We took one to Orient Beach, on St. Martin, and pretty much knew cost, pickup location, etc ahead of time, so we felt comfortable.

 

When were you on the Destiny? I think I heard that they only change the menus company wide every one or two years. But don't let one ship's food worry you. We had food on our July 09 Legend cruise that was not so good there, but awesome on Victory, and vice versa. More depends on the particular chef, I think! (And try the made to order breakfast omelets on the Lido - I think they're to die for, myself!!)

 

With how much I love the computer and digital photography, I have a feeling I'm going to go to digital scrapbooking in the not too distant future! Might be a way to get caught up on some of my vacation scrapbooks, at least!:rolleyes:

 

question for you..........

do you know what happens if you book a private excursion not associated with Carnival and the boat can't stop at that port? We wanted to rent a golf cart in Grand Turk and you can call ahead and they charge your credit card, but what happens if we don't make it there due to weather? I think the golf carts there are very limited and just wanted to make sure we got one, but worry that we'll be paying for something that we won't get to do if we wouldn't make it there :eek:

Thanks,

Jolene

Sandpiper

[scraphappylady]

Sandpiper -

 

I personally have only ever had to put down a deposit for one private tour (Silver Moon) and that didn’t worry me, since I had heard positive things about their refund policy ahead of time. For all other excursions, I ended up paying at the end of the tour, something we prefer if possible.

 

In your situation, though, I would try to go on the Grand Turk section of CC and ask for responses from people who might have done in the past the same thing that you want to. From my limited experience, if a business is legit and wants to maintain a good reputation, they will be more than happy to refund your deposit if the ship can’t make it to port. Most seem to understand these things aren’t in your control and do their best to work with you.

 

At the very least, it’ll be on your credit card and you might have some recourse in disputing a charge there if it comes down to that.

[scraphappylady]

Several times during our drive, we stopped at roadside stands, where locals were selling souvenirs. DH and I ended up buying two necklaces, made out of native beads and seeds, more to stop from being asked over and over to buy some at the other stands, than from actually liking the necklaces themselves. We ended up giving the necklaces to the kids when we got home, though, and they were thrilled!

 

More stops for photos

 

 

including one of the distant Pitons, which we would see close up later on

 

 

and then we were off to the “drive-through” volcano, at Sulphur Springs.

 

I guess the site was technically a volcano, though not in the “huge smoking cone coming up from out of the ground” idea that I had in mind.

 

 

 

Doesn't look too bad, until you realize that that's not the stream meandering down the mountain that makes the water move . . . it's the extremely hot bubbles coming out the ground up through the water.

[scraphappylady]

Even before we got close, we could tell the volcano was there, from the very strong “rotten egg” smell. Evidently, though, from what the guide there said, if you don’t smell anything, that’s when it’s time to run, since you are most likely in for an eruption. And you do get used to it quite quickly.

 

DH with his souvenir necklace

 

While I wished we could have taken a bit more time here, to wander some of the trails around the site, we were on our way after about 15 minutes.

Once back in our taxi/van

 

 

 

we were off to the Toraille Waterfall. The site here was again very beautiful, but also rather crowded. We had the chance for a bathroom break, and one or two people in our group went for a swim in the pool under the waterfall, but Jon and I were content to just relax and take pictures.

 

 

[scraphappylady]

Lots of scenic vegetation nearby as well!

 

 

 

 

 

Next up - the Pitons! We met with water taxis at Souffriere Bay (I think that’s where it was)

 

 

and were taken by speedboat over to Jalousie Beach, right next to (or part of, I couldn’t tell) the Anse de Pitons marine reserve.

 

 

[scraphappylady]

 

Although there was a hotel right off the beach area, apparently all the beaches on St. Lucia are considered public. One side of the beach area is designated for swimming, and the other for snorkeling.

 

 

 

Since we would only be staying for about an hour to hour and a half, we didn’t bother renting chairs, but instead put our (Carnival) towels down on the snorkeling side. If you decide to snorkel here, I would strongly recommend water shoes of some sort. While the rocks aren’t sharp, it was uncomfortable to have to walk any distance on them, and you need to in order to get far out enough to snorkel. If you wear fins, you’re set.

 

 

 

[scraphappylady]

The area where you could go snorkeling was conveniently roped off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was incredible to be so close to the Pitons and pictures just don’t do them justice, although it didn’t stop us from taking some. We got better ones, I thought, on our way back to the water taxi area.

 

 

 

[scraphappylady]

More Piton pictures

 

 

 

 

 

[scraphappylady]

Another quick beverage break, and we were again on our way. As we passed back through one of the towns we had been through earlier, Baptiste pulled over to the side of the road and went into a rather nondescript building. Re-emerging, he was carrying fresh, hot bread and cheese, which he passed around the van. Absolutely delicious!

 

On the way back to Castries, the city we had started from, we stopped at one more overlook, this time to take check out the ships in port that day.

 

 

 

After getting back to town, we paid for our tour then took a half hour or so to meander through the port’s shopping area. While our day on St. Lucia was very full, I felt we almost always had enough time wherever we stopped, and never felt rushed.

[scraphappylady]

We got back on Victory around 4:15 pm (final boarding was supposed to be 4:30 and we took full advantage of every minute in port), went to our room to drop off our packages, then went up on deck to watch sailaway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was our second cruise elegant night, and we didn’t want to miss another one, so we made sure we didn’t end up taking a nap. It was also the night for our past guest party, at 5:15pm, so as soon as we left port, we grabbed our invitations and headed for the Caribbean Lounge.

 

It wasn’t too bad. We stayed for about half an hour, sampled a few (free!) drinks and some hors d oeuvers, and watched a film clip of all of Carnival’s past and present ships, then went back to our room to change for dinner. On the way, we snapped yet another sunset photo.

 

[scraphappylady]

We had a few minutes to spare before dinner this night, and used the time to go through the photo area, and put all of our pictures to date together into one spot. We actually ended up buying the pictures that were taken as we got off in each port every day, but didn’t feel we needed any others.

 

Now, here’s where it gets a little fuzzy with regards to dinner. :o I forgot to write down what we had on two nights, this being one of them (the other was after St. Martin). Must have been all that rum punch on our tour today!

 

I think this was the night we both started with escargot, and I also got the bing cherry soup. Yum! The escargot tasted different than when I had eaten it on the Legend in July; it was just as good, but the chef had prepared it using a different herb, I believe. From there, I went with the salmon and Jon opted for the flat iron steak, and both were cooked very nicely.

 

And if I’m not mistaken, this was the night we helped celebrate our tablemate, Diana’s, birthday with a special dessert. She loves Carnival’s crème brulee, but we had already had it for dinner the first night. Well, her husband went to our maitre ‘d and was able to arrange for the chef to make it again for her and the rest of us. Our waiters even sang happy birthday to her. We could have picked another dessert from the menu if we wanted to, but we were more than happy to have the crème brulee again! What a great guy her husband was!

 

For entertainment this night, we watched another broadway-type show, called “Vroom,” featuring the ship’s singers and dancers. The costumes for this show were much wilder, and the music had a really lively beat. It was a fun way to end our evening. Our towel animal was waiting for us when we got back to the room – I think it was supposed to be a dog!

 

 

Two more islands to go! Next up, St. Kitts - our second favorite of this trip!

[CruiseLover824]

I am so glad to hear you enjoyed your tour with Cosol! On my previous cruises, I have stuck with Carnival excursions. This time, we are venturing out and trying Cosol on St. Lucia and Bernards Tours on St. Maarten. The Cosol tour is one I am looking the most forward to!!

[scraphappylady]

I am so glad to hear you enjoyed your tour with Cosol! On my previous cruises, I have stuck with Carnival excursions. This time, we are venturing out and trying Cosol on St. Lucia and Bernards Tours on St. Maarten. The Cosol tour is one I am looking the most forward to!!

 

It was certainly one excursion after which I could have used a nap, but definitely a lot of fun! And really, you can participate as much or as little as you want, and you're still going to come away with a really good appreciation of the island and what it's like.

 

We thought about Bernards Tours in St. Martin, but by then a quiet day at the beach was what we needed. You'll have to do a review when you come back, and let us know how that tour was. I need to know for the future! :D

[scraphappylady]

Day 6 – St. Kitts

 

Ahhh, the misery that we had to go through on this trip! Here it was, our sixth day at sea, and we were chugging toward yet another gorgeous sunrise and more stunning island views.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[scraphappylady]

We followed pretty much the same routine again today, with breakfast on the Lido deck and then watching as we pulled into port (not that I’m complaining in the least, mind you!)

 

 

The Thompsson Destiny was already in port when we arrived. We kinda towered over her!

 

 

 

I love watching them tie up our big boat!

 

 

By early afternoon, almost all these clouds had disappeared, only to start coming back before nightfall.

[scraphappylady]

Today’s tour was with Thenford Grey (Grey’s Island Tours, I think it’s officially called), and while it was an island tour by taxi/bus like the previous day, it was much different than St. Lucia.

 

We started out the same, by meeting up with our guide, Mr. Grey himself, right inside the port area.

 

 

 

This time, though, we only had about 12-14 people in the whole tour, and we all fit very nicely into his super clean, air-conditioned taxi. Mr. Grey was a very polite, well-dressed, and somewhat more reserved man, and his tour was much more, I guess the word that comes to my mind is “refined.”

 

There was no beverage taxi following us, but instead we got a very good feel for what his island was like as we went along, from a man who was obviously happy to show it off.

 

He never needed to shout, as his taxi was equipped with a microphone, and he was quick to point out interesting sights as we went along. Compared with our day in St. Lucia, this tour was just as much fun, but in a much more relaxed way.

 

As we waited in the port area before our tour began, we met up with two women from the roll call, and their friend. (Hi, Mollycat and Katiecat!!) My DH is not one to hang around the CC boards, so I was quite surprised when I came out of the restroom and he was talking to these women as if he had been on the roll call himself. I guess he knows more about the website than I figured! Our newly met (in person) friends were on the first leg of their B2B on Victory – I was a little jealous, I can tell you!

[scraphappylady]

By 9 am-ish, we were heading out of the port area, through the main city of Basseterre. Along the way, Mr. Grey pointed out Independence Square, the main park in the middle of the city, complete with a British-style phone booth;

 

 

 

several old churches;

 

and some government buildings and officials.

 

The island was getting close to governmental elections, and signs were up all over, touting the main political parties, and he also touched briefly on that. He also described a brief political history of St. Kitts itself and how it had gone back and forth many times between French and British occupation, before finally becoming independent in the early 80’s.

 

We paused for the first of many roadside photo ops, and also caught a photo of our ship in port.

 

 

[Gina477]

I am LOVING your review and all your pictures!! So much so that I went out and bought the Canon SX20 IS. As I see more of your underwater pics, I am very tempted to pick up the Canon D10. I was hesitant to book some excursions because I wasn't sure on how I would feel, each day at a different port. But, I am super excited for each port now! I need to make sure that I have something to do for each port!

 

I can't wait to read/see more of your review!!

[silvercrikhix]

Thank you, scraphappylady, for sharing your cruise with everyone here on CC.

I know it takes a lot of effort and I, for one, truly appreciate the time, enthusiasm and consideration you put into your reviews!! :D

It is so helpful to see other ships and ports when planning future cruises or just plain "going along with you for the ride". Thanks again, another great review!!

[scraphappylady]

I am LOVING your review and all your pictures!! So much so that I went out and bought the Canon SX20 IS. As I see more of your underwater pics, I am very tempted to pick up the Canon D10. I was hesitant to book some excursions because I wasn't sure on how I would feel, each day at a different port. But, I am super excited for each port now! I need to make sure that I have something to do for each port!

 

I can't wait to read/see more of your review!!

 

 

Yay! Another Canon convert! :p I hope you'll like your SX20 as much as I love mine!

 

When DH and I were first talking about excursions, we worried that one per day would be too much. With many of them, though, it's usually only the morning or the afternoon that you spend touring and much of that time for us was relaxation. Of course, we knew Cosol's and Grey's tours would be longer, with more driving, but we tried to nap as much as we could and it worked out well. Of course, we do cruise mostly for the ports . . . . :D

 

Thank you, scraphappylady, for sharing your cruise with everyone here on CC.

I know it takes a lot of effort and I, for one, truly appreciate the time, enthusiasm and consideration you put into your reviews!! :D

It is so helpful to see other ships and ports when planning future cruises or just plain "going along with you for the ride". Thanks again, another great review!!

 

Just trying to help out others who will sail Victory in the future, as other reviewers helped us out when we were planning! Plus, who doesn't like to talk about themselves . . . ?:rolleyes:

[scraphappylady]

St. Kitts (cont'd)

 

Then it was back in our taxi and on the road again.

 

 

A little further up the road we pulled over for some wildlife. These were cattle egret nesting in the trees with their young.

 

 

 

Our first planned stop was at Romney Manor – Caribelle Batik. This estate used to belong to Capt. Samuel Jefferson, the three times great-grandfather of Thomas Jefferson. We drove through some of the estate, through cool, dark woods and past some stone structures, and I was dying to get out and take a look at the old buildings, but it was my understanding that they were privately owned at this time. We did stop at what I believe was the main house, and where there are now extensive gardens and a batik factory.

 

We were here for about an hour, and as we walked first through the gardens, Mr. Grey would stop and point out an interesting flower, or give us fascinating information on the various plants that grew there.

 

 

This pointsettia bush was probably about four feet tall, but very spindly.

 

[scraphappylady]

More plants and flowers