“Suite!” Just Retired to be a pirate at sea with Sea Dog and Polly The Pirate Semi Live Explorer Nov. 7th

[bobmacliberty]

45 minutes ago, Chauncey Picklepants said:

There is an ongoing sargassum problem in the Caribbean.

 

This was a real problem for us a couple of years ago at Maya Chan in Costa Maya.  They did their best to rake up the seagrass every day but you could still smell it.  No problems at Magens Bay in September.

[Chauncey Picklepants]

6 minutes ago, bobmacliberty said:

 

This was a real problem for us a couple of years ago at Maya Chan in Costa Maya.  They did their best to rake up the seagrass every day but you could still smell it.  No problems at Magens Bay in September.

I’m on Magens as I write this! 

[jmklade]

20 hours ago, beshears said:

It just dawned on me to ask after I just posted to you a few minutes ago. The MAIN reason I am doing this trip is to go to St. Lucia, which is my favorite port/island and I want my children to see/feel why I enjoyed being at this island. My question, even though I have checked with Cosol tours in St. Lucia, which I have done twice before and they say I should not have any problems, will RCL KEEP us from doing the tour with them, and have to do something through RCL?

Cosul tours out of St. Lucia was the best excursion I have ever taken.  Was Bumpy your tour guide?

[bobmacliberty]

5 hours ago, jmklade said:

Cosul tours out of St. Lucia was the best excursion I have ever taken.  Was Bumpy your tour guide?

 

If you do a Cosol tour, pay a little extra for a private tour.  While everyone else stopped elsewhere for a breakfast break, we went to Cosol's house.  He has a beautiful house with gorgeous views!

 

 

 

[Sea Dog]

On 11/20/2021 at 10:38 AM, Chauncey Picklepants said:

I’m on Magens as I write this! 

Love Magens Bay!

[perfect match]

On 11/20/2021 at 11:38 AM, Chauncey Picklepants said:

I’m on Magens as I write this! 

Although we’ve been to St Thomas a number of times, we’ve never been to Magens Bay. I think it just moved way up on my list of places I want to go there, possibly even to the top of my list for our Harmony cruise next year! 

[Chauncey Picklepants]

14 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

Love Magens Bay!

Our condo here on STT is in Mahogany Run overlooks Magens. 2-floors and crazy beautiful.  Driving here is not for the feint of heart as it’s left-side of road and very hectic but it’s keeping the ticker ticking.  
 

I just booked a cruise out of San Juan in April thanks to this spectacular documentary. I believe it’s the same itinerary we had booked for Nov 14.
Explorer looks like a not-to-be-missed adventure.  

 

Loving every second of our stay here on STT but have been showing Mrs Picklepants your photographs and she’s set on doing this thing up right.  Interestingly enough, they never cancelled our cruise booking reservations “officially” and our aft Jr. suite cabins were not resold. I was told when there’s a late cancel with cruise with confidence, they wait until after the cruise ends to initiate the refund.  We shall see. 

 

 

 

Here’s a few snippets of the condo overlooking Magens Bay that my daughter took. It is a five-minute drive. Smith Bay/Lindquist was a 12-minute drive, and we popped over there last evening for a sunset barbecue and champagne, and not a speck of seagrass anywhere, clean as a whistle. I still feel Lindquist is my favorite beach, even if she’s a little finicky. 
 

It was not a bad backup plan considering I planned it in 2 days. 

   

 

 

Edited November 22, 2021 by Chauncey Picklepants
Spelling errors!

[Chauncey Picklepants]

7 hours ago, perfect match said:

Although we’ve been to St Thomas a number of times, we’ve never been to Magens Bay. I think it just moved way up on my list of places I want to go there, possibly even to the top of my list for our Harmony cruise next year! 

It has a great deal of space to wander. We love it.

[Sea Dog]

59 minutes ago, Chauncey Picklepants said:

Our condo here on STT is in Mahogany Run overlooks Magens. 2-floors and crazy beautiful.

Wow that looks awesome. May I ask the name of the condo? We are looking to maybe get a place in the Caribbean. I'm glad I could inspire you to take this itinerary. It is really fantastic but you have to be ok with not having sea days. I really wish we had one just to relax but it was still an amazing group of islands to visit.

[Chauncey Picklepants]

31 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

Wow that looks awesome. May I ask the name of the condo? We are looking to maybe get a place in the Caribbean. I'm glad I could inspire you to take this itinerary. It is really fantastic but you have to be ok with not having sea days. I really wish we had one just to relax but it was still an amazing group of islands to visit.

We’ve done these island heavy itineraries out of San Juan on Celebrity Summit twice and Caribbean Princess three times. We prefer no sea days, although they used to have 5 stops and one day at sea.  Princess no longer offers San Juan departures. I’ll send a link to the exact when I get back home tonight, I don’t have the apps on my phone. Search Airbnb or vrbo for Mahogany Run St Thomas. 

[Sea Dog]

@Chauncey Picklepants Thank you. It looks like a great place. I remember the open air taxi on those roads going to Magens Bay. I was gripping the seat pretty good.

[Jimbo]

On 11/20/2021 at 5:24 PM, bobmacliberty said:

 

If you do a Cosol tour, pay a little extra for a private tour.  While everyone else stopped elsewhere for a breakfast break, we went to Cosol's house.  He has a beautiful house with gorgeous views!

 

 

 

Do you know for sure it's actually his house, we have been on private tours before when we have had stops at beautiful houses like that were not actually owned by the tour guide.

But by someone on the island that looks after the house where the owner actually lives on the Mainland in the US.

I know it's weird but I bet a lot of those houses are looked after like that by owners that don't live on the islands full time.

[bobmacliberty]

1 hour ago, Jimbo said:

Do you know for sure it's actually his house, we have been on private tours before when we have had stops at beautiful houses like that were not actually owned by the tour guide.

But by someone on the island that looks after the house where the owner actually lives on the Mainland in the US.

I know it's weird but I bet a lot of those houses are looked after like that by owners that don't live on the islands full time.

 

I'm fairly certain that it's Cosol's house, but not 100%.  We met Cosol at the start of the tour and he told us that it was his house.  He might have been saying that though to make us feel like we were getting something special.

[Chauncey Picklepants]

1 hour ago, Sea Dog said:

@Chauncey Picklepants Thank you. It looks like a great place. I remember the open air taxi on those roads going to Magens Bay. I was gripping the seat pretty good.

We never ride in any open air or large vans or buses anymore, one of the reasons we will not do ship run excursions.  
 

In 2015, on a back-to back on Celebrity Summit, we were on a stop in Tortola.  We were debating between going, I believe, to Cane Beach

or heading over to Peter Island for the day (we honeymooned there.) We decided on the beach, but last minute changed our minds, as it was lightly raining, and we decided on Peter Island we could have a nice lunch and perhaps see the room we stayed in.  

 

When we got back to Tortola, we heard and saw the commotion.  The vehicle we would have been on was heading down a very twisty road close to center of town, slid and flipped over, killing two passengers from the Summit and injuring many others.  We were spared.  This is the reason we will only do private taxi of our choosing since then.  This is our photo of Peter Island taken that day. We stayed in one of the beach units in the photo.  Very swanky back in the day. 
 

https://www.cruisehive.com/celebrity-summit-passengers-in-tragic-tortola-bus-accident/9327

Edited November 22, 2021 by Chauncey Picklepants

[Sea Dog]

22 minutes ago, Chauncey Picklepants said:

The vehicle we would have been on was heading down a very twisty road close to center of town, slid and flipped over, killing two passengers from the Summit and injuring many others.  We were spared.  

I remember reading about this. So tragic. I am surprised it doesn't happen more often.

[Chauncey Picklepants]

3 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

I remember reading about this. So tragic. I am surprised it doesn't happen more often.

Accidents happen much more frequently than we might think.
 

Drinking and driving is actually legal in St Thomas. On the car ferry to/from St John, they sell alcohol, they’ll take orders and deliver it right to your car to the driver.  People drive off the boat with beer or cocktail in hand.
We’ve done three days on that ferry. The last one we took, it was 6:30 pm.  We saw several very young ladies in a rental Jeep drive on. We noticed them because you have to back onto the ferry and they were unable to do it.
 I was up on the observation deck.  The driver came up looking for a restroom and could barely stand up. I inquired whether she needed help back to her car. She laughed as she stumbled down the stairs.  
 

Last I saw her, she was laughing, sitting in the driver’s seat with a cocktail as she drove off the barge. 

[Ocean Boy]

7 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

I remember reading about this. So tragic. I am surprised it doesn't happen more often.

I remember reading about that also. I have always rather enjoyed those open air taxis.😐

[jmklade]

7 hours ago, Chauncey Picklepants said:

Accidents happen much more frequently than we might think.
 

Drinking and driving is actually legal in St Thomas. On the car ferry to/from St John, they sell alcohol, they’ll take orders and deliver it right to your car to the driver.  People drive off the boat with beer or cocktail in hand.
We’ve done three days on that ferry. The last one we took, it was 6:30 pm.  We saw several very young ladies in a rental Jeep drive on. We noticed them because you have to back onto the ferry and they were unable to do it.
 I was up on the observation deck.  The driver came up looking for a restroom and could barely stand up. I inquired whether she needed help back to her car. She laughed as she stumbled down the stairs.  
 

Last I saw her, she was laughing, sitting in the driver’s seat with a cocktail as she drove off the barge. 

I had heard from an ex-pat down there that is was legal to drink while driving.  I'm pretty sure it is still illegal to be intoxicating while driving.

[Chauncey Picklepants]

7 minutes ago, jmklade said:

I had heard from an ex-pat down there that is was legal to drink while driving.  I'm pretty sure it is still illegal to be intoxicating while driving.

Yes, over .08 you aren’t supposed to be driving with that beer in your hand.  But it’s hard to tell if you’re intoxicated when you are intoxicated, and there’s a culture of buzzed/drunk driving being acceptable. We saw a lot of it happening at various places.  Scary. My kids are millennials-  and they were horrified to see how acceptable it was. My son’s college roommate was permanently injured in a drunk driving incident at Duke years back, and he is wheel chair bound now. 

Edited November 23, 2021 by Chauncey Picklepants

[jmklade]

Just now, Chauncey Picklepants said:

Yes, over .08 is frowned upon.  But it appears there’s a culture of accepted drunk driving, and we saw a lot of it happening at various places.  Scary. 

Hard not to with the rum and sun combo.

[beshears]

Thank you for your response to my posting. Yes Platte Woods is not to far from Gladstone (we originally live in the NE area of KC before moving north of the river) where we live. When you mentioned In-A-Tub, oh yes,  you may remember when they used to be DOWN the hill, and in the summertime they were always busy, but now they are on the main drag of N. Oak Tfwy. When you mentioned Hayes Hamburgers which has been on Vivion Road for many years, my husband has just started going back to Hayes over this past month, as he likes the "old fashion" way they do their hamburgers. 🙂

[dianajo67]

On board now.  Plan to post a supplement to sea dogs fantastic review as we have different room type, excursions etc.  Internet is the worst, so it’s going to have to wait a bit. 
 

In the meantime, taking Sea Dogs recommendation to find Nover in the schooner bar and trying a Baton Rouge 2.0!  We’re regulars there now!  Nover really is excellent.  Made best craft margarita I’ve ever had!

 

[Sea Dog]

That is so awesome. Tell Nover hello from Greg and please have another Baton Rouge 2.0. He is the best.

[Sea Dog]

1 hour ago, dianajo67 said:

Plan to post a supplement to sea dogs fantastic review as we have different room type, excursions etc.

Please do. I will love hearing all about it.

[Sea Dog]

SLIDESHOW

I put together a fairly long slideshow of our entire cruise. check it out.