Caribbean Vacation '12 Part III

After St. Maarten and St. Kitts we came to the island of Guadalupe. Guadalupe is a French island. The people speak French, the signs are in French and, unfortunately, I do not read or speak French. I wish I had something nice to say about Guadalupe, but our experience (which was not unique we later found after speaking to other cruisers) was one of frustration and annoyance.

We got off the boat and while there were taxi drivers to take us places, they only wanted to speak French and the prices were outrageous! One driver said $150 to take two people 30 minutes across the island to a botanical garden. For comparison, the previous day on St. Kitts Chris and I paid about $40 total for a taxi tour that lasted about 5 hours. Ridiculous. We tried to negotiate with the drivers, but they still wanted $60 for a 15 minute drive to the nearest beach and they would only go for 2 hours.  Very frustrating.

We headed off to walk into the town a bit. We found a plaza area with a spice market, which was cool, but everyone spoke French and didn't/wouldn't speak English so we couldn't engage with anyone. Ultimately, we ended up going back to the ship. We didn't spend a single cent in Guadalupe, which is too bad for them. Instead, we spent the day by the pool on the ship. It turned out to be a lovely day.

We had been brought breakfast in our room that morning, which turned out to be a massive amount of food including a fruit platter, cheese platter, pastry platter, plus the breakfasts we actually ordered. We ended up bringing the fruit/cheese and pastry platter to the pool with us and snacking on those during the day.

Later it was time for nap, dinner and bed.

Next up was our final destination, Heaven on Earth, the amazing island of Barbados. Chris had scheduled another dive for Barbados so after we got off the boat we caught a cab to the Hilton where the dive shop was located. He checked in with them and I went and found myself a beach chair.

The weather in Barbados was a little stormy. It was still 85 degrees out, hot and mostly sunny, but we had a few tropical rain showers come through as well. I didn't mind. It was kind of refreshing although it was very humid after the rain. I hung out on the beach and played in the water at the Hilton until Chris came back from his dive. Then we headed to The Boatyard, a very cool beach bar that we spent the entire day at last time we were in Barbados.

For $12 a person at The Boatyard you get beach chairs and umbrella, free transport back to the ship, use of all of their water equipment (trampoline, rope swing, etc), and a free drink. They have great music, friendly staff, and super cheap happy hour rum drinks.

We had some lunch and cocktails, then spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing on the beach in Barbados.

If you are ever in Barbados I can't recommend The Boatyard enough!

Late in the afternoon we headed back to the ship, did a little shopping and then stopped for a couple of photos. Chris was going to take a picture of me in front of the ship but these nice guys stopped and took a picture of both of us together. They told us to kiss...and I the resulting picture I just love it!!

I don't know...it is just so "us."

We also took this one:

When you get off the boat at each island they want to take your picture...sometimes with a pirate but often with a life ring that says the name of the place you are at. Of course, those life rings are white and pretty and meant for photos. This is a real life ring and we thought it was funny to take a picture with it instead.

Back on the ship it was time for a shower and a nap. It was formal night again, so we got fancied up and headed out to dinner.

We really did a horrible job this time of taking good formal night pictures. Oh well. Dinner was delicious and then it was time to head back to our room.

The last day of the cruise was spent at sea getting back to Puerto Rico. We were off the boat with the first group of people because we *thought* we had a 9:30 flight. Turns out that sometime in September our flight had been rescheduled until noonish. I had no idea. I guess they sent me an email but I never saw it. They did have a flight out at 9 something and we still had time to make that, so American Airlines was kind enough to put us on that flight. It meant a loooong layover in Dallas, but we didn't care. We would rather have a long layover in the Dallas Fort Worth airport than the Puerto Rico airport.

Our long layover ended up being an overnight layover. American had overbooked their flights and because it was the busy pre-Christmas weekend they asked for volunteers to take later flights or a flight the next day. Chris and I had no rush to get home so we decided to take American up on their offer and take a flight the next morning. They gave us travel vouchers for a future flight, put us up in a nice hotel and bought us dinner.

All in all it worked out very well because we would have gotten home very late and had to drive over the snowy, stormy passes in the dark. As it was, we landed in Sacramento on Sunday around noon and were able to drive home in the daylight. It was a long and yucky drive, but eventually we made it safe and sound.

 Quite the difference from white sandy beaches, eh?

And so, another glorious, sun-filled vacation comes to an end. We had a fabulous time. Chris and I agree this vacation was probably one of the best we have ever taken.

Now, where should we go to next??

Caribbean Vacation '12 Part II

Where did we leave off? Oh yes, we had visited Puerto Rico and Tortola, had formal night and gone to bed.

The next morning we woke bright and early in beautiful St. Maarten. St. Maarten is both a Dutch and French island. We stayed on the Dutch side of this island this time around. Last time we ventured to the French side of the island and, well, it was very....French. Not our style.

Chris actually had booked a diving trip on St. Maarten so from the pier we hopped in a cab that took us through town to the dive shop. He was excited and a little nervous. We got him all checked in and then I headed across the street to a little French cafe. I know...French cafe on the Dutch side of the island, whatever. The coffee on the ship absolutely sucked. They serve Seattle's Best Coffee, which I don't care for at all. It is so bitter. Anyway, I hit up the cafe for a real cup of coffee and a danish. I read in there and enjoyed my coffee for about an hour before I headed down to the beach.

St. Maarten is really beautiful, with the gorgeous white sand beaches (and lots of them), crystal blue water, amazing sunshine and the people (for the most part) are very friendly and welcoming. This beach was not at all crowded and the little bar next to the dive shop let me use this beach chair without having to rent it. So great!

As I was laying there soaking up the sun this woman came and asked if I wanted a beach massage with aloe. Uhm....hell yes! It was wonderful! She did a full body massage (she was really good) using fresh aloe right out of the leaves. My skin was so soft after that. Plus, I had gotten a couple of bug bites from somewhere and they healed up super quick after that and stopped itching. Bonus! Getting a massage on the beach in the Caribbean is pretty much my idea of vacation perfection.

After a few hours, Chris was back from his dive. He had a great time and saw lots of cool stuff. He is so glad he got certified to dive when we were in Jamaica a few years ago.

There he is (in the water) after the dive.

We hung out there a bit longer until our cab came back to pick us up (one of the great things about cabs in other countries, they will come back to get you whenever you ask them to!) We headed back over to the boardwalk near the pier to get some lunch at one of the many restaurants along there. We went to Captain Jack's (OF COURSE!!) and had a very lovely lunch and some beverages. It was time to get a little party on.

I had to get a Captain Jack's tank top...for those who might not know I LOVE the Pirate movies with Johnny Depp (except the fourth one which was just dumb). After lunch, some beverages and a little shopping it was time to head back to the ship. We had a nap and then went out for a pre-dinner cocktail.

Next morning we arrived in another new to us island, St. Kitts. We decided to take a half day taxi tour of the island, which turned out to be a really great way to see a lot of the island and learn some of the history. St. Kitts used to be a sugar cane island, but when the price of sugar changed the cane growers quit growing. The main industry on St. Kitts now is tourism.

St. Kitts is a very poor island in most places. I was so surprised at some of the "houses" that people actually lived in. Little more than falling down shacks. It is a beautiful island with a Volcano, so the soil and the beaches are volcanic. Here are some of the beautiful things we saw in St. Kitts.

Of course, we did a bit of shopping and eating after the tour, then back to the boat where we had a bottle of wine and a bowl of fresh fruit waiting for us. Lovely!

Another nap, some dinner and then to bed for tomorrow we awake in Guadalupe!

Caribbean Vacation '12 Part I

I'm baaack!

It has been a great couple of weeks, and I will tell you all about it, but really, as far as our vacation goes this is all that you really need to know:

Ahh...bliss! This was on the beach in St. Marten. I am drinking a blended mojito and soaking up the sun. Ahmazing!

We'll rewind a bit to the beginning. We left on Thursday the 13th of December and drove to Sacramento. It was an easy drive in the dark and because the sky was clear we saw tons of shooting stars due to the meteor shower that was going on. It was great.

We stayed in a dive of a Super 8 in Sacramento. It was fabulous. The walls were so thin we got to hear the couple in the next room enjoying themselves very early in the morning. Personally, I think she was faking, but whatever.

Early in the morning we headed off to the airport and started what ended up being a long day of flying. First stop Dallas Fort-Worth airport where we had a long layover that turned into a longer layover. It was okay though, because we stopped at the Reata Grill in Terminal D and enjoyed a bottle of wine, some amazing guacamole and a delicious lunch. Onward to Puerto Rico! We didn't end up getting to our hotel in Puerto Rico until about 1:30 AM Puerto Rico time, which was about 2 hours behind schedule.

We stayed at The Best Western at the airport, literally inside the airport. It was SO quiet! We slept well and were ready for our first day of vacation. We grabbed a cab and dropped our luggage off at the ship and then grabbed another cab and made our way to Old San Juan, where we spent the day walking around the town.

Old San Juan is basically surrounded by this fort and fortified rock wall. It goes all the way around the town. It is very amazing to see and to think how long it has been there and in what kind of conditions it had to be built. No backhoes or cranes to move the rocks, just people and horses.

Within part of the fort is a cemetery. It was really beautiful. After walking all around town and stopping for a delicious lunch, plus a bit of shopping, we headed back to the ship to get checked in. Then we took a nap. This is a theme.

The view from our balcony as the sun sets in Puerto Rico.

The next morning we woke to find ourselves in beautiful Tortola, British Virgin Islands.

This was a new island for us. We decided to take a short taxi tour of the island that ended up delivering us to a lovely beach, where we spent the rest of the day relaxing.

Peaceful.

After a day of relaxing we did a bit o shopping back in the town and went to Pusser's for lunch.

Ah...jerk chicken with "rice and peas." Such a simple meal but so delicious. After lunch we went back to the ship and took a nap.

That evening was the first formal night aboard the ship so we got dressed up and went to a lovely dinner. Unfortunately, we will still full from our late lunch of jerk chicken, but it was fun to get dressed up.

Somehow we didn't really get any good pictures of us dressed up on the first night. The first couple days of vacation were great and fun!

The next installment of vacation coming soon!