aleeturk

How many people total were on the tour with Louis VIP Tours?

There were a total of 10 in our group but his van can fit up to 14, I think.

Warning: Very long and detailed. Skip to relevant sections of your interest. Will answer questions as posted. Thanks!

The Cruise

I cruise mainly for the ports and I consider the ship as a moving hotel. With that, this cruise met my expectations. However, since this is my 9th cruise, I have come to have certain expectations based on previous experience. This one certainly fell short of those expectations. The food was not worth the calories. The service was adequate but not impeccable. Seems like most staff were on their first or second week on the job. The lack of experience was obvious. Some clearly are trying but appear to lack adequate training ( not knowing what to do or how to do it) while others clearly try to shirk responsibilities ( spending minutes to put on plastic gloves while dirty dishes were piling up around us in the buffet area.) One night at the buffet, we witnessed one of the supervisors hitting on two female staff members. This is simply unacceptable. Dining room service was extremely slow. We had early seating in the Strauss dining room at 6 pm. By 7 pm we had just finished our appetizers. I suggest sticking with something simple like a salad or pasta. Meat dishes are hit and miss. Whether you request medium rare or medium or rare is completely irrelevant. It will come out the way it comes out. Medium may come out as rare. Medium rare may come out as medium. The wine menu at the bars is a complete joke. Whatever is on the menu is not available. The staff is quick to recommend an alternative, which is not found on the menu. A wine that is available at the bar may not be available at the dining room. To get the wine we like, we had to get it from one of the bars and carry it to the dining room. When I was on Norwegian, it does not matter where I ordered the bottle or where I dined, all I had to do was present my wine slip and they would be able to bring my wine to me. Food in the main dining room varied but most of the time just adequate. On day 5, it was so bad that our whole table walked out in the middle of the main courses and headed up to the buffet. The quality of the buffet was as you would expect, at least you get to see them first and you can try a little bit of everything and go back for more of what you like. We did not eat at Giovanni's Table but people who dined there seem to give very favorable reviews. The menu clearly seems superior and it appears that they were also prepared and served well. This further confirms the theory that cruise lines now lower the quality at the main dining rooms in order to drive business towards the specialty dining rooms.

Our stateroom attendant did her job and we were grateful that our room was kept clean. However, little things that I have come to expect, such as towel animals, were lacking on most nights. We had one big suitcase and it won't fit under the bed. We had to put it by the side of the bed which the attendant had to move in order to make the bed. Very often we came back into our room to find the big suitcase sitting on the couch, which we had to move back to the side of the bed. Dirty dishes stay on the hallway for half a day before they get picked up. No big deal but small unpleasant surprises that we never experienced on other cruises.

For the shows, the only two I recommend are Earl Turner and Steve Smith. The others are not worth the time. The most laughs we had was watching the Love and Marriage Game Show and that tells you something. There was only one welcoming show in the evening of day 1 and we were too tired to stay up for it. On day 2 it was action comedy by Michael James. His juggling and other acts were not that great, with a few misses here and there. His jokes were too adult-oriented for my taste and most of the time I don't find them funny. There were more eye rolls than laughs from the audience. The show for day 3 featured Earl Turner from Las Vegas. To me this was the best show of this cruise. He sang a lot of beloved oldies and got the audience extremely engaged. He was a lot more entertaining than the comedian the previous night. For day 4, it was the much acclaimed ice skating show. Doors open 30 minutes prior to show time and it was pretty much filled within 10 minutes. Unfortunately, the show itself was not really worth the wait. The primary skaters are fine but with a few missed jumps and turns. The highlight was the Ukrainian couple. But their portion was only about 5 to 10 minutes long. The rest just wasn't that spectacular. If you didn't get a seat, you didn't miss much. Day 5 was a tribute to Elton John starring Jeffrey Allen. I am not an Elton John fan. I like some of his songs but Jeffery started with a few that I am not familiar with so I walked out after 3 songs. Day 6 was rock and roll music with singers and dancers. Just an ok show to kill an hour in the evening if you have nothing better to do. Finally, on day 7, the farewell show featured comedian Steve Smith and he was hilarious.

Movies were shown in the screening room and on the big screen by the pool at night. The movies are not current. These have been available for streaming for awhile and are of the lower ratings according to the reviews. There was too much noise by the pool so it was hard to follow the dialogue for those movies shown on the big screen. The rock climbing wall was only open for limited hours and there was always a long line of teenagers.

The cumulative result of mediocre food, unenthusiastic service and underwhelming entertainment is a lot of disgruntled customers. We heard various complaints around us. Instead of happy vacationers we saw cranky cruisers.

Our favorite spot on the ship was the Blue Moon Bar on deck 14, with a view of the pool on Deck 11. It is also a good place to see the sunset on most evenings. The wait staff was courteous. It has live Latin band on most nights and we enjoy doing salsas and other Latin dances there. I think about half the passengers on our cruise are from Puerto Rico. This bar gets filled up when the Latin Band plays and there are plenty of good dancers on our cruise. This is the place where you find people enjoying themselves and having a great time.

Pre-Cruise

We arrived in San Juan two days prior to departure to tour Old San Juan, El Morro and get in some beach time. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express in Condado which is quite good value. I will consider staying there again. Walgreen's and CVS are within short walking distances if you need sundries. The cruise ship provides shampoo and small bar soaps in the staterooms with no conditioners or moisturizers so you may want to stock up before getting on board.

This is my third trip to San Juan and I still enjoy El Morro. Old San Juan still has those narrow streets with colorful buildings. But the stores have changed so much. Gone are the hole in the wall restaurants with fired pork chops and plantains. Instead you now you find Subway sandwiches amongst jewelry stores with souvenir shops in between. In that regard Old San Juan has lost its neighborhood charm and have become commercialized with tourism.

We had some good meals in San Juan. The Condado area has a variety of restaurants. Oceano is a beach front bar and restaurant with spectacular views, high quality food and good wines. Not cheap but you get your money's worth. We ordered an ahi tuna tartar as appetizer and their famous Palermo pork and the churrasco filet as main courses. Everything was great. In Old San Juan, we had lunch at Aji Dulce and it served good mofongos.

There is a small concierge desk in the lobby of the Holiday Inn where we booked a Bioluminescent Bay Kayaking tour with GSI. The kayaking was very good but there were not many glowing planktons to be seen in the river. They have a 4pm tour and a 7:30 tour. We recommend the later one as it becomes colder later in the evening there are fewer mosquitoes in the mangroves.

Day 1 - Embarkation

It is a $20 taxi ride from Condado to Pan American Pier. Be sure to agree on a price before getting into any taxi. Meters are installed on cabs but they are never turned on. We arrived early at around 10:30 am. Disembarkation was still going on and it was chaos at the pier. We ended up standing in line till after 11 am before the gates were opened. There was not enough staff for checking in and as soon as the gates opened there was already a line. After we checked in and got our room keys we waited some more before we were able to get onto the ship. Some technical difficulties made us stood outside the ship in the heat for another 15 minutes. The rooms were not available until 2 pm so we headed up to Windjammer Cafe for lunch. If I were to do it again I would not have gotten to the pier so early, especially after going through disembarkation, which I will elaborate later on.

Day 2 - St. Croix, USVI

We booked the Big Beard's Half Day Buck Island snorkeling. They are very organized. Two days before our tour I received an email with detailed instructions on where to check in. They have arranged for taxis to take us from Frederiksted to Christiansted with a voucher for the return trip, for $16pp. The captain and the guides were helpful although the narratives seem very rehearsed. They did what they were supposed to do, providing lessons and safety precautions but they are not entertainers. We first went to a beach on the west side of Buck Island where we had detailed snorkeling lessons and to test out our snorkeling equipment at the beach. The beach was absolutely gorgeous although the waves were stronger than normal on that day so it was not particularly good for swimming. There are some small fishes in the water but this beach is not known for snorkeling. We then went to the snorkeling site on the southeast side to snorkel for 45 minutes. Even though we read that the coral is mostly dead, there are still a lot of colorful sea creatures to be seen. The guides led us on a snorkeling trail before letting us snorkel on our own. The waters were very choppy that day. Even though it was a Sunday it was not too crowded. We only saw one other boat besides ours and it was Big Beard’s full day tour. We got back to Christiansted by around 1 pm and spent about an hour to tour the small town of Christiansted. The small yellow Fort Christiansvaern on the waterfront is not as spectacular as El Morro but still have some good views on top. We then had lunch at one of the restaurants on the waterfront before using our voucher to take a taxi back to the ship.

Day 3 - St. Kitts

We wanted to see the Brimstone Hill Fortress so we hired a taxi. We got there before all the tour groups and virtually had the fort to ourselves. The views are breathtaking and worth the climb. After that the taxi took us around the island. We stopped at the lava rocks for some pictures, cheap beer and souvenir shopping. One of the shop keepers had a monkey in diapers in her shop. We went back to Bassatere for lunch and a walk around town. We had lunch at Ballahoo which is on the second floor and has a good view of the town square for people watching. We tried conch fritters and conch chowder in a bread bowl. The service was slow but the food was very good.

Day 4 - St. Maarten/St. Martin

For this day we booked the Island Tour with Twin Island Excursions. Again the tours are very organized. We first went to Marigot on the French side. Most people chose to shop whereas we climbed Fort Louis, which is only 92 steps above the shopping area of Marigot. We then walked around town a bit and it reminds us of France a lot. This is our favorite place visited on this itinerary and we want to come back on our own and spend a few days here. From Marigot you can take ferries to nearby St. Bart's and Anguilla. After Marigot the driver drove us around the island and dropped off most passengers at Orient Beach for 1.5 hours of beach time. There are restaurants on the beach for those who want a drink and some lunch. There are restrooms where you may rinse off and use as changing rooms. We opted to go to the Butterfly Farm which took 45 minutes off of our beach time. In my opinion it was well worth the detour. The guide at the Butterfly Farm was very knowledgeable, educational and humorous. His passion for butterflies is really apparent. As an adult I find it interesting so this is not just for kids. There were plenty of butterflies of various types therefore no lack of photo opportunities. We were really glad that we did it. The driver took us back to Orient Beach where we had a guavaberry colada at the Kakao Beach Bar and Restaurant. Since this is the last stop of the tour, you may choose to spend more time here and just take your own taxi back to the ship. There are taxis waiting around and we were told that it costs about $7 to $9 pp. We opted to follow our tour back to the ship but asked to be dropped off at Philipsburg where we walked around town, had lunch at Blue Bitch Bar on the beach and walked back to the ship which took us about 15 minutes.

Day 5 - Fort-de-France, Martinique

This was the most disappointing port of all. Based on my reading it appears that the ship docks right in town and there are several sights nearby. Unfortunately, the town is not really developed for tourism and there aren't any sights in town worth seeing. Taxis are very expensive. We took a ferry across to Pointe du Bout. Knowing what I know now I would have just spent the day at one of the beaches at Pointe du Bout. The beach behind Hotel Bakoua is only a 5-minute walk from the pier. It is small but well protected from the waves. Even kids can swim there. There is a bigger beach further away, about a 10-minute walk from the pier. Wish we had just stayed but instead we took the ferry back to Fort-de-France. The best part of our walk through Fort-de-France was having lunch at Marche Couvert (the Indoor Market.) The Indoor Market has various souvenir stalls in the front and several “restaurants” in the back. The “restaurants” are really food stalls with tables and chairs in front. We picked Chez Hector where we had a three course set menu lunch with a salad/appetizer, main course of either fish or chicken and dessert was coconut ice cream with actual coconut bits in it. I had the chicken with coconut milk and my boyfriend had the fish curry. Everything was really good. The language here is French with virtually no English spoken. I took a French phrase book and it was sufficient to help me order lunch and asked for the check. Having some Euros leftover from our last trip to France helps too. Other than that there was not much to see. The cathedral was under repairs and we could not go inside. The library building itself has an impressive facade and worth a picture but the so-called free WiFi is nonexistent when all tourists converge in one spot to access it. We got back onto the ship by 2pm to find that it was extremely crowded. It appears that others also decided to spend their time on the ship instead of the port as well.

Day 6 - Barbados

After a bad day in Fort-de-France we had a good day in Barbados. We booked Glory's tours which started with a visit to the Harrison's Caves, followed by a photo opportunity at Barclay's Park, then lunch at Sand Dunes bar and restaurant, then a visit to the Wildlife Reserve with the finale at Carlisle Bay to swim with turt!es and relaxing on the beach. Everything was great. For the caves it is best to bring a camera that takes good pictures in poor lighting. Flash photography does not work well in the caves. Lunch was tasty which includes a small green salad, choice of either roasted chicken or fried fish, potato salad and a pasta, all piled on one plate. It was tasty and filling. The wildlife reserve has plenty of tortoises, deer, some peacocks and turkey. There is an aviary and snakes in cages (separately). The highlight was these monkeys which you are allowed to feed with peanuts. For the final stop we were handed off to Black Pearl Party Cruises which took us to Carlisle Beach on a boat. We were provided with snorkeling gear for the swim with turtles. The guides were great. The fish here is not as colorful as those at Buck Island but there were enough turtles that you will certainly see some up close and personal.

Day 7 - At Sea

We used this day to relax, enjoy the pool, watch the games by the pool and pack. Dinner this evening finally had prime rib and lobsters on the menu. Even the starters were better, with seafood salad and duck terrains.

Day 8 - Disembarkation

We were not in a hurry so we just allowed the ship to assign us a time for disembarkation. We were supposed to get off the ship at 9:35 but for some reason they stopped calling the group numbers after 8:45am. They blamed it on the immigration office but we are not sure about the real reasons. We did not get off the ship until 11:30 and about one third of the passengers were still behind us. Now I understood why it took so long for them to let us get on the ship on day 1 and why it was so chaotic at the pier. That's why I would advise against getting to the pier early. I suspect by noon there were still passengers trying to get off the ship.

Post-Cruise

We stayed at the Embassy Suites in Isla Verde by the airport. The hotel is about two blocks away from the beach. There is a small Embassy Suites sign on the beach where you get complimentary towels, chairs and an umbrella. The waves were too strong for swimming but adequate for just relaxing. The hotel pool is quite sizable and not crowded. Despite its proximity to the airport, there is no complimentary airport shuttle. A taxi ride to the airport still costs $15.

On the day after we disembarked, we took Louis VIP Tours to the El Yunque Rain Forest. Louis is very knowledgeable and can talk your ear off. But if you like history and want to learn about Puerto Rico or the plants and animals in the rain forest then he is your guy. We were picked up at the hotel and first stopped at the visitor's center for an orientation video. We then stopped at one of the waterfalls and the Yokahu Tower for photo opportunities. On a clear day you are supposed to be able to see all the way to St. Thomas or even Tortola from the top of Yokahu Tower. But we went on a cloudy day with light rain so we couldn't see much. We were then dropped off to hike the La Mina falls. The hike was on paved trails and mostly downhill. But it was very slippery and it would be best to do it in hiking boots. The La Mina falls is about half way through the hike. Obviously there are no changing facilities so if you want to swim in the pool wear your bathing suit underneath. It took us an hour and a half to complete the hike without stopping to swim in the pools. There may be a lot of wildlife in the forest but most of them are not visible from the trail. We saw a few snails, some small lizards and some caterpillars. If you expect to see a lot of wildlife you may be disappointed. After the hike we had a lunch stop at La Muralla which serves your usual Puerto Rican fare.

We had an excellent dinner at Metropol in the Isla Verde area. It is authentic Cuban and Puerto Rican food in sizeable portions, at reasonable prices and with attentive service. It is about a 10-minute walk from Embassy Suites and I highly recommend it.

Interestingly, when a buddy (female) of mine went on a cruise with her friend, she said that there was almost no one to dance with, so they ended up dancing together on most nights. Since cruising, especially solo, is more popular among women than men, the odds were ever in my favor (to slightly paraphrase a line from "Hunger Games").

I see that you call yourself a Latin dancer. Wish I was on your cruise! Anyway, when I was on the Norwegian Wind cruising with my parents, who always go to bed early, I went up to the bar one evening to have a drink. One guy came up and started chatting with me and asked me to dance. He was wearing a Norwegian badge so I know he was a staff member. Turns out he is a "taxi dancer" whose job is to dance with women without partners. After he danced with me, he moved on to another table with several women together and started chatting up with them. I think it is nice of the cruise lines to recognize that there are more women traveling alone than men and that we can use some dance partners!

I (female) was cruising solo on Carnival and I chose to be seated at a 10-person table. I am glad I was seated with many amazing women and most of them were traveling in pairs. There was only one other solo cruiser at our table who also happens to be the only male at the table. One evening, the cruise line’s professional photographer came to our table and took photos of each pair of travelers. When he came to me and this other male solo cruiser, he asked if “we” would like to have a picture taken. All eyes were on us to see how we were going to handle this awkward situation. I leaned over to the male solo cruiser, smiled, and said to the photographer, “Sure!” Picture was taken. Awkward moment came and went. I did not purchase the photo and I don’t think our solo male traveler did either!

Just want to say thank you for posting this and I really enjoyed reading it, even though I am not planning on sailing on this ship or this itinerary any time soon. I have cruised solo a few times but rarely do I see men cruising solo. Most of the time I meet other women cruising solo or cruising with girl friends. Glad to see that a guy feels comfortable enough to do this alone and meet friends along the way.