skidawg79

Haha, that's what I thought. Yes it is airplane time! (as soon as I get to the post)

Airplane time?

Not quite sure what you mean, but yes, St. Maartin is airplane time (Maho Beach was fun). Hope that's what you meant....

ST. KITTS CONT….

St. Kitts is the late day as we didn’t have to be back on the ship until 5:30 for a 6pm departure and sure enough, we took every min as we got back on the ship right at 5:30.

Pic of the Valor tied to St. Kitts pier….

Since we had early seating for dinner and we knew that we weren’t going to want to rush around to get to dinner, we had booked Scarlets Steakhouse for this night. This is my 3rd cruise and I’ve always gone to the specialty steakhouse on each cruise…what can I say, I love a good filet. HA that rhymes, I’m a poet and I didn’t even know it….ok ill stop (see I told you I don’t know how Emily stayed friends with me for so long haha).

Anyway, I was all dressed and ready to go to the Steakhouse. So as I was waiting for Emily to get ready, I went up to the Lido deck to take some pics as we sailed away from St. Kitts….

This one was before I got changed from my balcony…

More of St. kitts sailaway…

Guests enjoying the drive-in movie of the night as we cruise into the sunset….

Emily was all ready and it was time to go to the steakhouse. Overall our experience was very good, the service was excellent and we enjoyed the experience. Emily’s parents told her that they had the “cowboy cut” at a steakhouse in the past and it was better than a filet, so we decided that she would get that and I would get the filet and we would split them. Well my filet was amazing, however I was not a fan of the “cowboy cut”. I’ve never had it before, but it was a very tough cut of meat. Much different than the filet that basically melts in your mouth. As I said, we enjoyed the steakhouse, but I will just stick with the filet from now on and not agree to share it! lol

After the steakhouse, we stayed up for another drink and were going to try our hand at the casino but we were pretty much ready to be rolled down the hallways and into bed. All that food we just ate, made us both a little sleepy. So we decided to call it an early night (it was around 10:30pm) and get a good night’s rest to get ready for our last port of call tomorrow.

Here’s what you have to look forward to in St. Maartin, beautiful beaches, airplanes, more awesome times with friends, a lost person and an escort through the pier by the St. Maartin police (it’s not what you think lol, it’s actually a funny story) so stay tuned!!!!

ST. KITTS CONT….

Some more pics form the little boat pier that separated two of the beach bar areas…

A pic of Nevis…

So they had some activities on the beach such as jet skis and stuff, but this was pretty cool. I was going to try it, but they would need a lot bigger engine to produce the water pressure to get this guy out of the water! Now I lost 23lbs in the 3 months prior to the cruise, but I don’t think that would have been enough…..regardless, it was cool to watch.

So as I’m walking back off of the pier, what do I see in the distance but a cowboy hat walking down the beach…we found the Texans, Toby and Rona!!! I ran down the beach to get them and they came over and joined us, after all they have been following us around since the sea day haha. So from this point on, let’s just say that we kept our waitress moving.

Well we spent the majority of the day in the water again, just talking and drinking some beer. At one point a sting ray was swimming around and someone else said they saw an octopus over along the one area where some people were snorkling. I personally didn’t see it, but we did get invaded by some wild goats!

As we stand in the water, Emily comes in and is like I need to get away from the chairs. There was this one girl who was INCREDIBLY intoxicated and giving people a hard time on the beach. She was mostly giving the locals who were selling stuff a hard time. Now Emily has a low tolerance for stupid (im still trying to figure out how she has been friends with me for 17 years lol), so instead of saying something to her, she removed herself from the situation and came out to us. So we look back and I’m like, “what is she doing?” Emily said that she was eating. No joke, she was eating in some sort of yoga position that one can only describe as the downward dog with legs tucked underneath her. Seriously…. butt in the air, legs underneath her, shoveling food in her mouth. I was somewhat speechless….(no this was not even picture worthy…and as I said before , I take pictures of everything!) Well she ended up being the second trash can hugger I saw for the week and thankfully they left on a cab.

So as we sit there, the day was getting late and it was time to clean up so Rona decided to clean up after the boys…isn’t she nice?

I was the one stuck cleaning up after Rona……I think she has a problem ;-)

We all hopped in the cab and headed back to the cruise terminal….(Emily took the pic)

One thing I want to mention about the Reggae Beach Bar, there is a wonderful lady who was giving Aloe massages on a little table back in the shade. Rona got a massage before we left and said it was one of the best massages she ever had. So my advice would be to give her a shot if your ever at that beach. I feel really bad that I can’t remember her name, but she said she’s there most days.

As we were heading back to the cruise terminal, Emily wanted to stop by one of the many grills you pass while driving around town. She loves her magnets, but she loves local foods even more. She always tries to eat something “local” when she goes somewhere. So as we are driving, we stopped at one, but there was no chicken ready. So our cab driver stopped at another and there was no one there, she started yelling, (imagine an island accent here) “Hey chicken mon! Where are you chicken mon?!? CHICKEN MON!!!” he peaks his head out and says there is nothing ready, so the cab driver turns to us and is like, “no worry, I take care of you” She ended up finding one that had chicken ready and man was it good…. The whole van ended up getting some chicken lol.

Ill finish up St. Kitts in the next post……

ST. KITTS CONT….

After we escaped the aloe monster and made our getaway in, what one could only describe as a 1970 VW Bus (there was no peace sign), we kept on our way to Cockleshell beach. Before we got to the beach, our driver entered another pull-off area and slowed down so I could take some pictures out of the window. As I said, St. Kitt’s really is a beautiful island…

Looking back towards the cruise ship (you can see the ship waaaaaay in the distance)

From the same place, just zoomed in a little…

Looking the other way towards Nevis…I always heard, much like my head, there is a constant cloud around it…

It was only a few more minutes to Cockleshell beach. When we arrived we didn’t see any of the friends that we had planned on meeting there (we found out later they spent the day on the ship due to not feeling so “lively” in the morning haha). We did however see familiar faces….THE MUSTER PEOPLE!! Remember earlier in my review that I had said we were thoroughly entertained by a couple at the muster drill? Well there they were and we got chairs and an umbrella right behind them! The beach was nice and the bar was pretty cool, but we weren’t overly impressed. We had heard that friends of ours went to South Friars Beach and we had thought that maybe we would spend some time at the Reggae Beach Bar and then maybe head over there, but for now we were content.

Here are some pics from around the beach…

Reggae Beach Bar...

Looking the other way, towards the rest of the beach. There were two other little areas with their own bars, but can’t remember their names….

One more pic of the Reggae Beach Bar area from out on the pier…

Next up, a semi quiet morning turns into a…well…not so quiet afternoon ;-)

Loving your review and glad to hear you say this because we're spending one day before and 2 days after in Puerto Rico! Figure if we're flying all the way there, might as well stay a while. CAN NOT WAIT!!! :D

Where are you staying in Puerto Rico? You figure that out yet?

I'm going on this cruise in November and reading your review has me super excited!! Ps.im from Pgh too :-)

 

 

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You are going to love this cruise! A fellow Yinser huh? Actually I cant even call myself that, I just moved out here 2 years ago from the other side of the state. I did go to Pitt though ;-)

Great review!!

We are doing this cruise in a couple of weeks - can't wait. We have been to all the ports except St Lucia & St Kitts; do you have a couple of 'Must See/Must Do at those two?

Do you remember when they started letting 'self assist' off the ship when returning to San Juan?

Thanks, and thanks for the great review.

Thanks for reading! As far as disembarkation, we had a late and slow one. I don't believe they called fir self assist till around 8(don't quote me on that). I do know they didn't get through the process until almost 10:35-10:40. The one carnival employee said that they only had one customs agent. Eventually more came, but was a slow disembarkation.

St Lucia, I would say to go see the Pitons, they are pretty amazing. One thing I would NOT do, is rent a car. Those town roads are scary small with huge drainage ditches on either side of the road. I would have been stuck in one in a matter of 5 min driving those towns (and I'm a good driver lol).

St kitts, make sure you stop at Timothy Hill, it's beautiful and very close to the cruise terminal. I heard south friars beach was really nice (getting to the beaches in my next post). Some people we talked to went zip lining in st kitts and said it was awesome. If I think of anything else I'll get back to you.

Great review! I can't wait until our next cruise. We are doing this cruise in April.

 

 

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I would do this itinerary again in a second. Only thing I would do differently is to possibly spend two days before the cruise or one day before and one day after. Love Puerto Rico

ST. KITTS…..

So getting up this morning it was hard to believe that it was Friday already! We had done so much and saw so much that it felt like we were on vacation for 2 weeks, but it was still hard to believe it was Friday. BUT….we still had two more awesome islands to explore before it was all over.

So, after the long day in St. Lucia, we were in no hurry to get off of the ship. We woke up and got down to the dining room for breakfast at around 8:30, and it’s a damn good thing we were in no hurry. Apparently everyone decided to go to breakfast at that time because we ended up waiting for our food for almost 45 min. The Maitre D came over and apologized a few times for the delay, they said that about 500 people came into the dining room in a matter of 15 min, so they were a little backed up. Again, Emily and I were in no hurry so it wasn’t a big deal and we ended up having a great table of 10, so we made the best of it. The whole breakfast took over about an hour and a half, but afterwards we were ready to go.

Our plan for today was to go to another beach, relax and hopefully get some pictures of the island on the way. Getting off the ship, I took a pic of St. Kitts, my initial impression was that it was a beautiful island and it looked like it was going to be another beautiful day….

One tip while at St. Kitts….taking pictures of the monkeys aren’t free! We knew this before we got there, so we kind of avoided them. They make great pictures, but I heard people were taken for up to $20! I heard they were mostly asking for around $10. Well we weaved our way around the monkey in diapers and leashes and started looking for a cab to head to Cockleshell beach and the Reggae Beach bar! Once again we made tentative plans with all of our friends to meet us there, but we knew some of them were out pretty late the night before so we weren’t counting on it haha.

We did a little shopping, got a magnet (got it early today haha) and met a gentleman ready to take us to the beach. We ended up getting the whole cab to ourselves, paid a little more for it, but we pretty much had a personal tour of the island! (Rates for cabs to cockleshell beach are as follows: 1-3 people $28 for the cab, 4+ people is $7 per person). While waiting for the guy to get his cab I took a pic of the ship in port…

We hopped the cab and the first stop was Timothy Hill, and what a beautifl area of the island. On the way there, our driver was telling us about the different houses and areas of the island. He explained that tourism is very new to the island and that it has only been a major part of their economy for the past 10 years or so. You could tell that it was up and coming and they were really starting to embrace tourism. Here are some pictures from Timothy Hill…..

Now I know you see pictures very similar to this anytime you look up pictures of St. Kitts, but it really doesn’t do it justice until your actually standing there looking at it. This is the famous pic of the Atlantic Ocean to the left and the Caribbean sea to the right with Nevis in the background….

Here is a pic looking back the other side of Timothy Hill, this is of the beach by the Marriott resort…

So as we are standing there taking pics, this guy comes over and asked if I had sunburn and wanted to put aloe on my skin and I politely said “no thank you”. I was trying to take a pic of Emily and he kept trying to rub it on my neck as I was taking the picture. I’m like, “Dude! I don’t have sunburn!” Well he wouldn’t give up and finally Emily was fed up and she wasn’t as nice as me and was like, “HE SAID HE DIDN’T WANT ANY!” If you read my whole review, do you remember me saying waking her up from a nap is like waking a hibernating bear? Well this aloe guy just woke her up from a nap (not literally, but it was the same result)…well……he left me alone after that….haha…thanks Em!

Have to get back to work, ill post more later…..

Good Morning!

 

I've been looking at purchasing a new waterproof camera and was wondering which one you recommend? Any help would be appreciated.

 

Jen :)

Hey Jen! Here is a link to a thread that I am in the middle of posting my review. Look at the bottom of page one and the top of page two. Those pics of the turtles and fish were taken with an Olympus TG-850. I highly recommend....

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2050756

ST. LUCIA CONT….

Im getting there....very slowly...but ill get this done. I promise!

So after the excitement by the pier we got back in the van and headed towards the waterfall. On the way, Baptist said, “none of my guests will ever buy from him again” haha. I do want to stress that they were very professional, and although it’s not a situation that might be ideal on a vacation, they handled it as best as I believe was possible. Also, none of the guests safety were ever in question.

So anyway, we got to the waterfall to take a swim (if you wanted to). The waterfall was beautiful…but much colder than any water that we swam in all week long…..

The bottom was kind of rocky, so if you have sensitive feet, either walk carefully or bring shoes to wear in the water….

I told you it was cold! Haha

One thing about going under the waterfall….be careful if you have sunburn, the water will sting! However, if you don’t have sunburn, it feels like a massage. As I did the rest of the tour, I enjoyed the waterfall!

After the waterfall it was time to start making our way back to the pier, with a stop to get some lunch. We stopped along the road and had fresh bread and some sort of cheese that you put inside the bread. It was actually pretty damn good! I am not sure if she was relation to Cosol, but he has a woman make all of the food for the entire day and she is good. While taking our lunch break, from all of the water and Piton beer, I started to have to go to the bathroom. From what Baptist said, it was almost an hour back to the cruise terminal so I asked if there was a place nearby to go. Well as it turned out, the woman who cooked and baked everything lived right there and she allowed myself and a few others to use her bathroom. Her house was absolutely beautiful, it was on the side of the hill with a big deck with views to kill for.

After about an hour of twists and turns we made it back to the cruise terminal. It was about 3:45 and Baptist asked us if we wanted one more beer before we got off the van, so of course we all said yes please! He pulled into a little area with some other vans, got out and got us one more beer as we went into the terminal. We had to take a pic with him to remember such an amazing day. I would HIGHLY recommend Cosol tours and if anyone would like more information, I will be happy to answer any questions.

Emily, Baptist and Myself…

After that, it was time for Emily to get her magnet! While I was waiting for her in the terminal shops, I took a pic of the Valor towering over the terminal…

We got back on the ship and since it was formal night, we enjoyed sale away from our balcony. I took this pic with my cell phone and Its one of my favorites of the trip actually. It’s nothing spectacular, but I love the way the bridge is lit up by the sun and the silhouette of the guy in the bridge…I don’t know…I just like it! lol

My overall impression of St. Lucia was a little mixed. Yes, it was an amazing tour. Yes, I thought it was a beautiful island. However, I know I only saw one beach (Jalousie Beach) and although it was beautiful, it was a little rocky in the water and just wasn't the pristine beaches that we saw at Barbados. Also some of the locals were very pushy with buying their crafts. I have a very high tolerance for this as i understand that this is how they make money. However, I think I would get a little frustrated if that was every day. I was very happy that I was there for a day, but I'm not sure I would want to spend a whole week there. But if faced with the opportunity, i wouldn't turn it away either haha.

Tonight was the second formal night on the ship, so we got dressed up and enjoyed another wonderful dinner. I do have to say that most were dressed appropriately and although I don’t have any strong feelings on getting dressed up or not while on a cruise, it was fun and it was nice to see everyone looking their best. As always our food was excellent as was the service.

After dinner, we tried our luck in the casino again. Make a long story short….didn’t go well. We checked out the Piano Bar for a while, and I was a little disappointed. It was kind of dead in there. So we called it a night and headed to bed, tomorrow is St. Kitts!!!

Thanks so much for the info! We've decided Feb over Jan. With our schedules there's only certain days in the month we can go, and I don't want to get caught up in a festival crowd! Sorry for hijacking ur thread!

 

 

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No problem!

ST. LUCIA CONT….

Once on shore, we met up with some of our friends that were taking the Spencer’s tour and they said they were having a great day at Jalousie beach. We had about an hour on the beach and I didn’t realize it, but was taking beer from the Spencer’s tours haha….oops. Did some snorkeling under the Pitons and although the snorkeling was decent, it didn’t live up to what we did in Barbados. I’m kind of glad that it wasn’t that great since my camera broke the day prior. We enjoyed our time on Jalousie beach and it was time to head back to Soufriere to get back on the vans. Took a pic or two before I left…

Once back by the vans, things got a little interesting. Getting off the boat and off the pier, we could hear a local yelling. Aparently, one of the guys on our tour bought two necklaces for his wife. This other guy was trying to sell stuff to the wife and she politely said no thank you 3 times. Our driver, Baptist, came to the woman’s rescue and told the guy to “back off” (It was in another language and he told us later that it wasn’t exactly “back off”, he used other choice words he didn’t care to repeat to us). Well this made the local irate and he started forcing his way through some people and wanting to fight Baptist. Meanwhile, there were about 15 of us standing there (having a beer) watching this all unfold. In the middle of it, Cosol looks at us with a big smile and yells “Is everyone having a good time?!?” lol The local then goes and picks up a rock the size of a softball and threatens to throw it at Baptist. Baptist handled it like a professional and the situation difused and we were on our way. It was definitely very interesting and although it got a little weird for a min, my safety did not feel threatened. On a side note, if there was a fight, my money was on our driver…he’s former military AND police… lol. Well that was over with and we were on to the waterfall……

ST. LUCIA CONT….

Been a loooong week and weekend of work, so I apologize for the lack of posts. Thanks for bearing with me! Going to finish up St. Lucia….

We left off with the volcano, so after we left the volcano it was time to go see the Pitons and eventually Jalousie Beach. As we are driving through these mountain roads, I don think there was more than 20 feet of straight road. I’ve heard from people that have taken tours in St. Lucia that people were getting motion sickness on these roads and I can easily see how that is possible. However, our driver was very deliberate and did not rush through these roads. He took his time, conversed with us, laughed with us and no one in our van got motion sick on this tour.

Here is a pic of the beautiful rainforest…..

As we drove through the rainforest it started to drizzle…imagine that…haha. It was the only time that we actually saw precipitation the entire cruise. But that didn’t last long, the drizzle stopped and it was time to get our first look at the beautiful Pitons. We stopped at a lookout to get some pictures…

They really are impressive….

After we stopped for a few pictures, it was time to head down to Soufriere and get on a boat to go to Jalousie beach. On the way, I took some pics..

The same thing happened with my pictures on photobucket. I was 572 posts into my review and I lost everything....that was very frustrating. I started a second thread with mine as well. Hopefully you wont have any more issues with your review ;)

Yeah it's frustrating! Yeah well. Hopefully all is fixed and I won't have issues with this one.

Been working 15 hour days the last two days at a convention for work, so I'll try to get back to the review tonight.

The rest deserves some time and I don't have it right now. I have to get up in about 6 hours, so I'm calling it a night. again, thanks for following along!

ST. LUCIA CONT…..

Back from my work conference, have to get up at 7am tomorrow for about a 15 hour day so I’m going to make a post or two and call it a night. So Im going to backtrack a min, here is a pic of the governor’s house; I forgot to post it before….

Back to the review! So after our great lunch and some beers we hopped back in the vans and headed out towards the drive through Volcano and mud bath. I was weary about the mud bath and wasn’t sure if I was going to do it, but when we got there Emily basically questioned my manhood (I don’t think posting her exact words would be ok with Cruisecritic monitors) so I decided to do it. My first impression when I got out of the car was,holy crap who farted…seriously, it smelled like a nice rotten egg fart. Lol We walked down a few stairs to an area to get changed and this was the process. We got into a natural hot spring “tub” then got out and they brought buckets of volcanic mud down and you rubbed it all over your body. You then let it dry, then get back in the hot spring tub and wash it off….they say it takes 10 years off of your skin. Here are some pics…

This is the hot spring “tub” and on the backside of the tub is where you rub the mud on.

Getting all mudded up..

Our van mates, notice Rona didn’t put any on her face…something we gave her a hard time about the rest of the trip…

See….they know what’s up! haha BOW DOWN TO THE MIGHTY VOLCANIC MUD KING…lol. I don’t know, we were trying to have fun waiting for the mud to dry lol.

After we the mud dried and we got all washed up it was time to check out the volcano (you can walk up to it). One last thing about the mud bath…holy crap it worked wonders on your skin. Emily and I both had sunburn on our foreheads to the point where it was peeling pretty badly (I’m always wearing a baseball cap so I tend to burn there and, well, Emily is Irish…nuf said). After washing the mud off, neither of our foreheads were peeling any longer. I don’t know what it did, but I didn’t peel the rest of the trip….

Anyway, here is a pic of the Volcano……

Next up…Pitons, Jalousie Beach, an almost fight with some locals and the waterfall!

skidawg79: Was there any shade available at The Boatyard beach? We sail on the Valor in October. Still trying to decide what to do in Barbados. We've been there several times before, but not to The Boatyard. Thanks!

There were plenty of umbrella's, but we were also the only ship in port. With other ships, I could see them running out if you don't get there semi early. There was also a covered bar/restaurant area to escape the sun. There really wasn't any areas that were shaded by trees, but like I said, they had a lot of umbrella's.

Have a thing for work tonight. I'll try to finish up st Lucia when I get home tonight.

One thing to note about St. Lucia, it is a very depressed island. Much of the Island makes their money off of tourists and selling their handmade necklace’s and bowls, so they can be somewhat pushy at times. I personally didn’t have an issue with any of them, but there was a “situation” later in the tour that I will get to.

Right next to the lookout was the Governor’s house. As we were standing there, the gates opened up and out walks a guard, as he’s walking closer Kelsey was being really friendly and starts waving at him, I mean waving like you’re seeing a long lost friend for the first time in like 10 years. I look at her and was like, “I don’t think he’s here to say hi” lol. Well as it turned out, the governor was on his way home and he asked us to clear the driveway. So on to the next stop! Next stop on the tour was the banana plantation…..

(I cant get my banana picture to load, maybe ill add it later)

We learned a lot about bananas, even if we were only there for a few minutes. A few things that surprised me were that banana trees only grow bananas once in their lifetime, then they chop the tree down and grow another one. It only takes 6 months for a banana tree to grow to full size and 9 months to produce banana’s. 1 tree can produce 100-200 bananas. So there is your banana lesson for the day ;-). Also, these bananas were really sweet, seemed sweeter than what we get back here in Pittsburgh.

We then went to another lookout, when we got there there was a local playing some Bob Marley, “We be Jammin’”. All I can say….he was trying… so I tipped him anyway.

Next they took us to a place in the hills to have some breakfast. There was about 8-10 tables of all different kinds of local food for us to sample. Most of it was very good and here is where we had our first chance to try the rum punch and Piton Beer…

Our view from where we had lunch. Baptist told us that it was the end of the dry season which is why a lot was brown. In a month or so (June) they start getting more rain and everything turns green. Nevertheless it was still beautiful….

ST. LUCIA!!!

Today was our one and only booked tour during this trip. With such a port intensive trip, we didn’t want the vacation to feel so “scheduled”. We looked at Carnival’s excursions and weren’t overly impressed, so we took to TripAdvisor and found Cosol Tours. Look it up, they get rave reviews…for good reason.

We woke up early and went to the buffet as we didn’t want to get stuck in the dining room when we needed to be off the ship and with our tour by 8:30 (told us to meet at 8:15am). As always I took a few pictures before we got off the ship.

Upon getting off the ship, if you couldn’t find Cosol tours….you had your eyes closed. Right as you entered the cruise termina, there were people with signs. We gathered in the middle of the cruise terminal, Cosol introduced himself and started to devide people up into their vans. Originally it was only going to be Emily and I on this tour. However, the friends we made from Texas (Rona and Toby) asked us the day before if they can join. We were not sure if they were booked, so we told them when we were meeting them and sure enough by the time we got off the ship, Toby had already spoken with Cosol and told them that they could join. So as the 4 of us were standing there, the girl who challenged Emily to the chugging contest in Barbados (Kelsey) and her boyfriend walked up next to us and suddenly we became 6! The six of us were put in a with 4 other people and we were on our way. It was very easy and very organized. The vans were air conditioned and very comfortable.

We got our first interaction with our tour driver, Babtist, and he was just plain awesome. He was entertaining, talkative, informative and made the tour worth every cent. Our first stop on the tour was a lookout to look down on the ship….

Thanks. I know exactly where Greentree is. I'm from Greensburg and DH is from Murrysville. Funny how many people not familiar with the Pgh area get Greentree and Greensburg confused. :)

Haha, yes...two very different areas.

skidawg - did your cabin have a mini frig in it? And if so, did it do pretty good at keeping things cold?

Yes it did have a mini fridge, it was stocked with a mini bar. We asked our room steward if he could remove it, he just asked us to put whatever we didn't want on the counter and when we returned a few hours later it was gone. It did keep things cool, but it wasn't the coldest fridge I've ever had.

Another Valor review!!! I've been waiting for one. :) We were on the Valor out of San Juan to the Southern Caribbean last May and LOVED it! I think it was our favorite cruise ever. I'm enjoying your review and beautiful pictures and looking forward to the rest. BTW, we're also from the 'burgh (well, just outside). :)

I read your review prior to our cruise, I enjoyed yours as well! I live in the Greentree area of Pittsburgh. :-)