The Arizona Cruisers Invade the Southern Caribbean B2B on the Jewel of the Seas!

[AZ Karaoke Girl]

Ginny I just realized I never got an email from Gina at Calabaza with our pictures. They said they would email them to us. I changed email addresses since I booked so I'm wondering if you got pictures in addition to the recipe's Gina sent? Maybe I should email them. I know they were taking pictures of me.

[hipster1]

I don't remember how much the cab cost. It seems it was $4/pp each way but could have been twice that. I know I never paid more than $10/pp the entire cruise.

 

As for how to reserve, email "reservations@coconutbeachclub.com" and they will respond to you. Their website is http://www.coconutbeachclub.com/

 

Hi Lisa,

Thank you so much for this info ! Between you and Ginny, we will be set:)

 

Ali

[Sunny AZ Girl]

Ginny I just realized I never got an email from Gina at Calabaza with our pictures. They said they would email them to us. I changed email addresses since I booked so I'm wondering if you got pictures in addition to the recipe's Gina sent? Maybe I should email them. I know they were taking pictures of me.

 

The pictures were an attachment to the e-mail with the recipes. Check to see fi you have it. Otherwise I will see if I can find mine and forward it to you.

[Quilting Queen]

Ginny great Barbados review. We snorkeled in Barbados about 7-8 years ago. I wear contact lenses and purchased a child mask to fit my small head. I have no problems using the mask to snorkel with my contact lenses.

 

Norine

[Sunny AZ Girl]

Week One, Day Seven – At Sea & Week Two, Day One - Turnaround Day

 

As I stated in my previous post, we were really looking forward to relaxing these next two days. We were tired, but happy after our last few very busy days. However, my left knee was hurting whenever I tried to do too much and my foot was killing me. I have a long standing problem with my right foot and I had steroid injections just before the cruise. They weren’t working. I think too many days in sandals were aggravating the problem. I tell you, after age 50 it’s just patch, patch, patch! Because we were just relaxing I really didn’t take too many pictures compared to previous days, so I decided to combine these two days together into one part.

 

We slept in late on our last sea day. We had a couple of low energy commitments so we had to get out of bed at some point, although with the gentle rocking of the ship it was tempting to just stay in bed. We did eventually get up and went to the Windjammer about 9AM. I thought it would be empty that late, but there was hardly a spot to be found. I think everyone else had the same idea. We were actually getting tired of big meals by then, so all we had was cereal and fruit. There was a good selection of both.

 

Our first commitment of the day was the Consecutive Cruiser Meeting at 10AM in my favorite lounge, the Viking Crown Lounge, or the Vortex as it was being called. The meeting had about 75 B2B Cruisers in attendance. I was surprised by so many, but since the flight to San Juan is a bit of a distance for most people to travel and the two weeks are different itineraries it was a no-brainer for us and I guess for a lot of other people, too.

 

From the Vortex Lounge you have a great view of the Pool Deck and the party was already in full swing down below!

 

Conga, anyone?

 

Our instructions for the following day were given to us very clearly. We all received an envelope when we arrived with our new SeaPass cards and our In Transit cards. If you were staying in the same cabin the following week you left your cabin as you would normally and the attendants would just clean and make up your cabin as they would on a regular cruise day. You would have access to your cabin at all times. If you were changing rooms you would leave all of your hanging clothes in the closet and pack up everything else into your suitcases for the room stewards to transfer to the next room for you. However, since they disinfected the cabin you would not have access until 1PM, like the oncoming guests. We were glad we were staying in the same cabin. One couple who were sitting near us, found out while they were at the meeting that they had received a complimentary upgrade from an inside to an outside without their permission. Boy, were they mad! They did not want the upgrade unless it was to a full suite. They were promised it would get worked out for them, but their current cabin had already been sold. I wonder if they got the full suit? More than likely they upgraded the other people instead, but I really don’t know. The bottom line is, if you don’t want to have to change cabins be sure to mark “No Upgrade” in your preferences in the C&A page on Royal’s website if you are originally booked in the same cabin for both parts of the B2B. Chances are you won’t get that upgrade from an inside to a full suite.

 

The next day we were to meet in the Safari Lounge at 10 AM. We would then be ushered out of the ship as a group, after all the disembarking guests had left. We would “boink” out with our old Sea Pass cards and then proceed to immigration and show them our passports. Once the ship was declared empty we would be the first to board, “boinking” in with our new Sea Pass cards. A special lunch was to be prepared for those staying on board. Anyone wanting to leave the ship could, using their “In Transit” cards and bypass the lines both ways.

 

 

Later, we had a lunch with the Roll Call planned at noon in the Main Dining Room. It was well attended. I love the Tutti Salad available. However, the Main dining Room is only open for lunch on Sea Days, so on this particular itinerary it was only available today.

 

 

[Sunny AZ Girl]

After lunch we just walked around the ship a bit. Steve discovered Lattitudes with their complimentary cookies and pastries. The cookies there are fresher than at the Windjammer, so he was a happy boy. I wasn’t surprised when he managed to make a daily stop there every day the following week.

 

We passed by the Centrum just as they were beginning a Good Feet seminar on foot pain. OK, why wasn’t I issued a personal invitation? After all, I have spent a couple of thousand on my horrible feet this past year alone with little to no relief, so what is another half hour? They offered a free evaluation, so I signed up. We had an appointment for 4PM in the Fitness Center

 

We met with the trainer who was the expert on feet. My walking stride footprint showed no arch support – aka: flat feet. No surprise there. It also showed no little toes touching the floor. OK. So my feet are freaky. He put me in some orthotics that I could wear for the whole next week while I was on the ship. No charge unless I chose to purchase them at the end of the week. He was even able to put them in sandals. I really could feel immediate relief of pain in my right foot, especially while walking, so I happily wore them.

 

That night at dinner the waiters sang a farewell song, albeit a bit off key. It’s a good thing most are better waiters than singers, but it was fun anyway. I think our waiter had a bit of a crush on Nonnie. He gave her a special napkin. No one else got one.

 

We skipped the Farewell Show since we weren’t Farewelling and went to see Lisa sing karaoke one last time. We listened to some of the live music in the Centrum and called it a night.

 

 

[Susie51]

Can't wait for more. Your review is great and you have lots of pics to share with us. Amazing snorkeling pics.

[Sunny AZ Girl]

The next day we awoke and the ship was at the Pan Am Pier in San Juan. Breakfast was only being served until 8:30 in the Main Dining Room and in the Windjammer today and no Room Service, so we had to get up and get ready earlier than we would have had it been a true Sea Day. When we looked out we could see it was pouring rain.

 

We were glad we had no plans to leave the ship that day and grateful our previous week’s weather had been so wonderful. We chose to stay on the ship because we had been able to spend some time in OSJ prior to the cruise. Plus, we knew that after the busy first week we would just want to have a little down time. We headed down to the Main Dining Room for breakfast and were seated at a table for 10 where I was told that if I ordered an omelet that was on the menu it would take 20 minutes and hold up the whole table. Really? I had ordered one earlier in the week and it took less than 10 minutes, no longer than anything else. Oh well, I switched to the “Fast Breakfast”, scrambled eggs.

 

We went back to our cabin after breakfast and then headed to the Safari Lounge promptly at 10AM. When we arrived it was mass chaos.

 

Disembarkment had been delayed an hour and none of the groups assigned to the Safari Lounge had been called to leave. After a lot of searching we found a place to sit in the adjacent card room to sit only to be called back to the Safari Lounge as they wanted all Consecutive Cruisers to be kept together.

 

It wasn’t until 11AM that we were finally called to leave the ship. After a “Boing” on the way off the ship, a glance at our passports by the immigration people and another “Boing” back on the ship we were ready to begin Week Number Two!

 

Lunch for the Consecutive Cruisers was nice. It was a very limited menu with only three unmemorable entree selections and one dessert choice, but it was nicer than battling the crowds as all of the new cruisers filled the Windjammer. A couple of other B2B cruisers at lunch wanted to go into OSJ, but were concerned about the rain. They didn't bring any rain gear. So Steve ran to our cabin and got them our umbrella. When they returned it later that day they said they had a nice day, despite the rain.

 

With the rain continuing outside there wasn’t much left to do. We walked around the almost empty ship and I took a few pictures of some of the artwork I had admired the previous week.

 

 

 

The Centrum as ever changing sculptural art:

 

And, since we had full access to our cabin before 1PM, we chose to head that direction and did what anyone would do on a rainy day on vacation. We took a nap.

[Sunny AZ Girl]

At 5 PM we had another Meet & Greet so we could meet the new cruisers coming on. Again, it was well attended and a lot of fun. We were especially happy to see that Norine and Gene had made it safely on board and were joining the group.

 

 

 

By now Bev & Dave were getting tired of me sticking a camera in their face. Give it up, Guys. We still have a whole week to go!

 

Our dining was changing this week to My Time Dining. We had made reservations for a table of 10 for every night at 6:45PM online before the cruise. We had met another couple whom we had invited to join us so we went to the Head Waiter and asked if it could be changed to a table of 12. We were then told that we could not eat at 6:45 that night because the Muster Drill was at 8 PM and we would not be done in time. So, we changed, for that night only, to 6PM. Or so we thought. More on that later. Dinner went well. We had a waiter who was an improvement from the previous week, so we were happy. Since the following night was the formal night that we had decided to skip this cruise we let the Head Waiter know and confirmed our 6:45 reservations for the rest of the week. Party of 12. Some of had reservations at Portofinos and others were going to the Windjammer.

 

Steve and I decided to catch the Welcome Aboard Show since we had missed it the previous week. We had no karaoke singers to cheer on this week. There was only one show at 10:30. The Royal Caribbean Singers and Dancers were good.

 

We really enjoyed the comedian, Michele Balan.

 

 

Tomorrow we would be visiting our first port of this cruise, St. Thomas. We have been to St. Thomas several times in the past and usually made a beeline to Sapphire Beach but this time we were going to do something different. We were heading to St. John and Trunk Bay!

 

See all of our pictures for these last two days!

Edited June 1, 2014 by Sunny AZ Girl

[AZ Karaoke Girl]

The pictures were an attachment to the e-mail with the recipes. Check to see fi you have it. Otherwise I will see if I can find mine and forward it to you.

 

Thank Ginny. I changed email addresses so I never got the email. I emailed Gina today and she replied so I got the pics & recipes.

[Susie51]

Thank you for continuing to post. That was nice of you to lend them your umbrella. I usually pack a thin plastic poncho for rainy days in the Carib. I have only had to wear it once in Carib. All the time in Alaska.

[courtsavvy]

Loving your review...making me feel like I'm back on vacation! I wish! (although we did end up booking another cruise haha :) )

 

We loved Lattitudes throughout the trip...I would go there to get some Ranger cookies!

 

To the people posting about the catamaran tours upthread...if Calabaza is booked, i would 100% recommend Silvermoon (even though the Calabaza people will point out their boat run the race, boo!!). We couldn't get into Calabaza so Gina recommended Silvermoon to us, and we also had a great day! :)

[Sunny AZ Girl]

Thank Ginny. I changed email addresses so I never got the email. I emailed Gina today and she replied so I got the pics & recipes.

I'm glad you got it.:)

 

Thank you for continuing to post. That was nice of you to lend them your umbrella. I usually pack a thin plastic poncho for rainy days in the Carib. I have only had to wear it once in Carib. All the time in Alaska.

Yes. we always carry the same type of rain gear plus an umbrella, but seldom use it. I never even had to use it in Alaska (lucky I guess). Most of the time the showers are short and we just get a bit wet in the Caribbean, but in San Juan it never let up.

[Nana57]

Enjoying your review so much! I'm taking notes as I will be there in July on a B2B also. Was thinking of going to St. John thru Explore St John on your own thru RCCL tour. Was the ferry ride over rough? How was it on a Sunday? Heard most of the shops are closed. We're still deciding on St. Thomas. Been there a number of times also and always went to Sapphire Beach. Considering Emerald, but just don't know yet.

[Sunny AZ Girl]

Week Two, Day Two – St. Thomas/St. John

 

After a full day of rain in San Juan the day before we were hoping for better luck today. After all, we had a beach day planned and a day at the beach requires at least some sunshine. The forecast on our Compass was for scattered showers. We have spent enough time in the Caribbean at this time of year to know that is a pretty typical forecast. Most of the time the showers are a short burst and are over, not the kind of rain we had the day before, so we decided to stick with our original plans.

 

When we were doing our planning on how to get to St. John we considered all the options. The two that were the most feasible were to either take a cab over to Red Hook and take the ferry out of there on our own & back again or take the ship excursion STO-3 Self Explore St. John. We chose the latter. Even though we could have arrived on the island an hour or so earlier, we would have also had to leave the island earlier if we had taken the Red Hook Ferry. Because of the amount of time we were in port the ship excursion was 6.5 hours long, giving us 4.5 hours on St. John. The excursion left at 10AM which was a better time for us anyway on this busy itinerary and returned us to the ship at the all aboard time of 4:30. We weren’t worried about being late as it was a ship excursion.

 

The Arizona Cruisers on this excursion besides us were Norine and Old Gene, Sheila & Jerry and Young Gene. Young Gene planned to just stay in Cruz Bay and poke around in the shops, etc while the rest of us went to Trunk Bay. This was Mother’s Day, so I knew the day would be special.

 

I was a bit dismayed when I found out that while we were docked at the very furthest out Havensight mooring, the ferry was actually as far away from the ship as possible at the opposite end of Havensight. The Excursion Representative said it was a 10 minute walk, but both and Norine and I felt we would need more time. The Representative offered to drive us to the other end. We accepted gratefully.

 

We arrived at the ferry about the time the walkers arrived. We could sit on the top deck in the full sun or in the cabin. We chose not to sit in the glaring sun and sat inside. We had a scenic 45 minute ride first passing the ship

 

And then a variety of beautiful homes, resorts, and large homes on small islands

 

 

 

The ride over was choppy, but we had been told to expect that. It wasn’t horrible.

 

We eventually pulled into Cruz Bay in St. John.

[Sunny AZ Girl]

Once we arrived the six of us piled into a waiting open air taxi and asked to go to Trunk Bay. It only took a few moments before our taxi was full and we were on our way. Our driver stopped for a few photo ops along the way of various coves and beaches.

 

 

He stopped at the viewpoint we had been anticipating the most, Trunk Bay.

 

Our driver explained that during the heavy cruise season there would be so many people on the beach that you could not even see the sand. But since we were the only ship in port that day it would not be crowded at all. Just one more reason we love cruising in May!

Once we arrived at Trunk Bay we were greeted by a few of the locals

 

Following the signs to the beach we passed by the clean, modern restrooms and outdoor showers. We passed the concession stand and the snack bar that served the regular fare of hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, soda, beer and mixed drinks in plastic drinking glasses.

[Sunny AZ Girl]

Stay tuned! More will be coming later today. I have to get ready for an appointment with an Endodontist now. I'm hoping not to have to have a second root canal in two weeks, but things aren't looking good for that.:( As I sit in the chair I will let my memories of Trunk Bay carry me away. The song "Some Beach, Some Where comes to mind......

[Susie51]

Thank you for continuing to post. I'm gaining so much info from you thread. Trunk Bay looks beautiful. I can see why you would want to have it in your mind along with the song as you sit in the dentist chair.

[hipster1]

Ginny,

Good luck at the endodontist:o YOu really are giving me great new places to check out. I was just telling DH that we have to hit St John's for our upcoming Allure cruise in Feb. We have been to St Thomas many times ( actually got married there!) but never been to ST John.

 

How long did it actually take to get to Trunk Bay once you got off the ferry?

 

Thanks!

Ali

[Sunny AZ Girl]

Thank you for continuing to post. I'm gaining so much info from you thread. Trunk Bay looks beautiful. I can see why you would want to have it in your mind along with the song as you sit in the dentist chair.

You're welcome. Trunk Bay was beautiful and it was in my mind over the last few hours!:)

 

 

Ginny,

Good luck at the endodontist:o YOu really are giving me great new places to check out. I was just telling DH that we have to hit St John's for our upcoming Allure cruise in Feb. We have been to St Thomas many times ( actually got married there!) but never been to ST John.

 

How long did it actually take to get to Trunk Bay once you got off the ferry?

 

Thanks!

Ali

We are glad we diverted to St. John this time. It was a nice change.

 

The ride to Trunk Bay was probably only 10 minutes from the ferry. I really wasn't tracking it. I was enjoying the deep forest we were driving through and the beaches along the way.

 

 

I am back from my second root canal in as many weeks. I will try to get the rest of St. Thomas/St. John posted before the lidocaine wears off. After that I am not responsible for what I may say!:eek:

[Sunny AZ Girl]

The path through the lush forest opened onto the Bay which has been listed in many publications as one of the top 10 beaches in the world.

 

We found our spot to spend the next several hours. Steve went back up to the concession to get beach chairs. He got the last two unbroken chairs. I’m not sure why the shortages since there were so few people on the beach. Not good. There was a $25 deposit for the chairs.

 

The beach was well guarded. Some more pictures of the beach:

 

 

 

[beachluver9]

Ginny, Y'all inspired me...I just booked the Barbados route for 5/9/15 on the Adventure. It's 11 months away, but am already excited!!! Any of y'all Arizona folks want to go again?

[Sunny AZ Girl]

We were anxious to see the famous snorkel trail. We asked and found out the trail is marked by buoys near the little rocky island to the right as you face the water. So we donned our masks and snorkels and hit the water. Just as we were entering it started to rain, but stopped almost as fast as it started. I once was told that the best underwater colors are achieved on film on a cloudy day. Maybe that was the case. The colors we found here were brilliant and the fish abundant. Because of the storm that had also gone through St. Thomas & St John recently there was more silt than usual on the underwater markers we were told, but we still thought the water clarity was ideal. Here are just a few of Steve’s underwater shots.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Steve and I have snorkeled in many places in the Caribbean and Hawaii and this was some of the best we have seen as far as coral quality and fish variety and size. We had been led to believe that this was a dead reef, but found that not to be true. Hopefully the reef will be protected for years to come.

[Sunny AZ Girl]

We decided to head back to the ferry about 2:30PM. We thought we might do some shopping, but the shops near the ferry dock were closed so we just decided to wait until the ferry was ready to load. I understand that the shops in the little shopping plaza about a block down the street were open. We found the ferry docked next to the National Park Visitor Center where we had been dropped off. The seas were choppier on the way back than on the way going. About half way back the skies opened into a downpour and everyone who had been on the upper deck crowded into the cabin with us. We were crowded, but everyone was in a good mood and the conversations were pleasant. However, we did wonder about the trap door on the floor of the ferry!

 

As we got closer to the ship the Arizona Cruisers Banner on our balcony came into view. Isn’t it pretty? It was made by Norine (Quilting Queen) before our Allure cruise last year.

 

The Excursion Agent had arranged for a security guard to meet us at the ferry and take Norine and I back to the ship. I really appreciated it as my knee seemed to be getting worse with every pop. I was impressed by this as I did feel it was exceptional customer service.

 

That night we had reservations at Portofinos with Norine and Gene. I loved the Seafood Skewers. The menu said it was salmon, lobster and scallops. I loved 2/3 of it, but I don’t eat salmon. When I told the waiter he assured me I was safe when ordering as he would make sure it would be to my liking. When it arrived there was no salmon, but two nice big lobster tails. Yum!

 

 

Dessert wasn’t bad, either.

 

While we had a great time in St. Thomas, but we had another fun filled day ahead of us back in St. Kitts. This time we will be touring with Clay Villa. Stay tuned!

 

See all of our St. Thomas/St John pictures here.

[Quilting Queen]

Ginny your underwater pictures are great. I didn't see nearly that many fish because I kept getting water in my mask and in my eyes. Everything was a blure by the time I decided to end it all and go back to the beach.

 

Norine