Detailed Photo Review of Celebrity Eclipse 14 Night Southern Caribbean Cruise 3/4/18

Have really been enjoying your review.

 

We have done Eli's Eco Tour twice and recommend it to others frequently. Like Texed said, the love for Antigua really comes through. They provide a great day!

 

Look forward to the rest of your report.

Thanks for reading along!

Enjoying your review. We did this same cruise in December, nice reliving some of our favorite spots

 

 

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Thank you!

Dana. Loving your very detailed review. You must be so organized. How do you find the time? I’d like to read your Polynesia review but not too sure how to find it. A bucket list for me but I don’t think it will ever happen. We returned recently from a cruise that included your first 4 stops & have booked a 2020 one that will go to your other ports so following with interest. I decided part way through the cruise I’d like to try a review. My friends are getting tired of looking at my photos. Anyway, I’m now appreciating how much organization it takes to do a review. My pictures are in order anyway. :')

Maris

Haha, yes, guilty as charged, I am very organized! I've always just naturally been like this, and it definitely helps when trying to put together a trip review! As for finding the time, I try to take notes in my trip journal whenever I have time on the cruise. While most people are reading a book (like at the beach in port, or on their balcony or near the pool on a sea day), I am writing in my journal. It is just little sentence fragments and ideas, but it's enough to jog my memory when I get home and need to put the full review together. I also find it helpful to take a lot of photos as that helps remind me of what we did and when we did it. The data in my photos is also helpful for remembering things like how long it took the taxi to drive us from point A to B, or how long it took for food to be delivered at a restaurant after we placed our order. Practice makes perfect, so now that you've tried it for one cruise, you know what works for you and can do even better on your next cruise! :)

Here is the link to my PG review: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2545707

It is also in my signature below all of my posts :)

Maris,

To see Dana’s Paul Gauguin Cruise review, click on her username (next to her photo at the top of any of her posts) and use the drop down to select all posts by this user. Scroll down until you see her PGC review.

 

Good Luck!!

PS: I’m enjoying your review too- I was on the Reflection right after you.

Thanks for your reply :) You can also find the link to my old reviews in my signature below all of my posts!

After that, we made the 45-minute journey back to the cruise port.

We docked back in front of the Exotic Antigua Boutique at 2:45pm. Overall, I enjoyed the tour and thought the guides did a great job. Antigua is a beautiful island, especially as seen from the water, but I would definitely recommend doing some research and picking a tour in advance. The locals at the port are incredibly pushy and I would not recommend trying to book a tour right there when you arrive, nor would I recommend spending too much time walking around the port area. Our itinerary had many islands that are better for shopping where you don’t have to deal with the pushy locals. Sorry Antigua, but you were not my favorite island of this cruise.

We thanked our guides and went straight back to the ship, happy to find our afternoon cheese plate waiting for us in the cabin.

Yay! We finally got real crackers instead of saltines! Call me crazy, but it really did make the cheese taste better. After some quick showers, we headed down to the Gastro Bar because DH wanted to try some new beers (and we kind of needed a break from the Martini Bar lol) DH had a beer and I tried some champagne.

We could see a beautiful sunset through the windows, so we went up to the outside deck on deck 5 to get a better look. This is what cruising is all about!

Such a perfect night to lounge on an outside deck, watching the sun set over the ocean with some drinks.

At 7pm, we went down to the MDR for dinner. Here is tonight’s menu:

My favorite treat on cruises is escargot. I never eat this any other time besides on a cruise, so I love that Celebrity offers it as an every day appetizer. I ordered this many times over our 2 week cruise, but I’ll only post the photo this one time.

Spiced Duck Rillettes

Celebrity Signature Crab Cake

Penne Primavera

Oven Roasted Chicken Saltimbocca (this was the only dish from the entire cruise which I thought was a miss… it just wasn’t what I expected and I didn’t really enjoy it. We had planned to share the penne but I ended up eating most of it on my own.)

Dessert Menu

I don’t have a photo of the dessert but I am fairly certain that I ordered the Apple Tart. After dinner, we went upstairs to watch a few minutes of the evening hot glass show. We never got to do this on our 2016 cruise, but I really liked seeing the shows at night. The hot glass seems to glow brighter at night, and it was much cooler watching the show in the evening air instead of in the daytime sun. We only had a few minutes to watch the show because we needed to get to the main theater by 9pm, but it was worth it to see them make one piece.

Tonight’s featured performer was Savannah Smith, backed by the Eclipse Orchestra. She is a singer and performer in Las Vegas and she put on a wonderful, entertaining show. She sings songs by the famous female divas, and her voice is very strong. We really enjoyed it.

After the show, we went straight back to the cabin, tired from a busy day in Antigua but looking forward to tomorrow in St. Lucia!

Step Tracker Daily Total: 4,367 steps; 1.671 miles

Love the sunset pictures! Amazing cruise - thank you again for sharing!

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Love the sunset pictures! Amazing cruise - thank you again for sharing!

 

 

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Thank you! That was one of the best sunsets I have ever seen

Day 9: Friday, March 9 ~ St. Lucia

(Eddy’s pronunciation: sta – LUKE – ee – ah )

This was our second time visiting St. Lucia together, and my third time here. When we were here in 2015, we did a zip lining tour at the Treetop Adventure Park. We had a great time there and briefly considered just booking the same tour again, but I wanted DH to see some more of the island. My first time here, I took an island tour with Cosol, and I loved seeing the famous Pitons. I really wanted DH to see the Pitons and visit Sugar Beach, so I researched our options. The thing I didn’t like about Cosol’s tour was that we spent a lot of our day sitting in the tour van and driving around the island, so I wasn’t interested in booking that same tour again. Spencer Ambrose gets wonderful reviews both on Trip Advisor and on Cruise Critic. He offers a land and sea combo tour which takes a speed boat to and from the town of Soufriere, thus cutting out much of the driving portion of the day. His website offers a detailed description of the tour, and we could book a reservation online by paying a $10 per person deposit, with the remainder of the cost due in cash on the day of the tour.

Today’s daily schedule

Today was another early morning for us, starting with room service delivering our breakfast at 7am. We were happy to see that they delivered the smoked salmon today!

As we were eating, the Eclipse made a 180 degree turn before docking, so we had wonderful views around the port area.

We finished eating and headed downstairs as soon as the ship was cleared at 8am. Our instructions told us to find our group in the port shopping area, and it couldn’t have been easier to spot the lady holding a big sign with the Spencer Ambrose logo as soon as we stepped into the terminal. She checked our name off on her list, gave us each a wrist band, and collected the rest of our money to pay for the tour ($96 USD per person). We waited a few minutes for the rest of the group to arrive, then we walked a short distance across the parking lot to a dock where we loaded into 2 speedboats. I thought it was a little strange that each boat had half people for the tour we were taking (the Land and Sea Combo) and half people for the Beach Break Tour. Perhaps there wasn’t enough people on the beach tour to fill a full boat? The boats were fairly new with ample seating around the perimeter, but not very much shade.

All ready to go!

By 8:45am, we were on our way, and spent about 30 minutes speeding around to the other side of the island. The guides explained that we would make several stops along the coast on our way back at the end of the day, but for now, we just needed to get to Soufriere ASAP to beat the other tour buses.

First sight of the famous Pitons! They were just as majestic as I remembered them!

I thought we were the only cruise ship in St. Lucia today, but it turns out that we had company. There was a Silverseas ship anchored on this side of the island.

Absolutely loved reading this review so far and went and read all of your PG review. Wonderful!!!!! I really enjoyed it and the pictures are wonderful. I love taking pictures, not too good, but I have the memories in pictures just the same. I put mine in photo albums as I do love going through them that way. Thanks so much for doing such extensive writing. Love it all!

Tonight’s featured performer was Savannah Smith, backed by the Eclipse Orchestra. She is a singer and performer in Las Vegas and she put on a wonderful, entertaining show. She sings songs by the famous female divas, and her voice is very strong. We really enjoyed it.

 

 

After the show, we went straight back to the cabin, tired from a busy day in Antigua but looking forward to tomorrow in St. Lucia!

 

Step Tracker Daily Total: 4,367 steps; 1.671 miles

Savannah Smith is maybe the best solo singer I have heard on a cruise ship. Fantastic voice!

Norris

Absolutely loved reading this review so far and went and read all of your PG review. Wonderful!!!!! I really enjoyed it and the pictures are wonderful. I love taking pictures, not too good, but I have the memories in pictures just the same. I put mine in photo albums as I do love going through them that way. Thanks so much for doing such extensive writing. Love it all!

Thank you so much!

Savannah Smith is maybe the best solo singer I have heard on a cruise ship. Fantastic voice!

Norris

Agreed! She gave a very memorable performance that we both really enjoyed :)

I was a little surprised when we took a detour to look at the bat cave. I expected that to be part of the tour later this afternoon, but maybe we don’t pass it then? Anyway, the bat cave is a crack in the cliffs where hundreds of bats are hiding. The boat got pretty close to the cave and we could hear the bats, but it was hard to see inside. I tried using the zoom on my camera but I don’t think I can see any bats. Don’t worry though, they are in there and don’t seem to have much interest in flying out to see us!

We only stayed here for about 5 minutes- long enough to take a few photos and for the guides to tell us about the bats. Next, we continued to the dock in Soufriere where we got off the boat and loaded into a 12-person van for the land portion of our tour.

We drove for about 10 minutes to our first stop: the mud baths and volcano tour. There wasn’t enough time to do both activities so we had to pick just one, and everyone in our van except one couple opted for the mud baths. Here is a description of the baths from their website:

“The Soufriere Volcano (Sulphur Springs) last erupted in the 1700's - over 200 years! It originated from a weak spot in the crust of a collapsed volcanic crater, and is considered to be a dormant volcano - unlike the active Soufriere Hills Volcano in the island of Montserrat. One of the best features of the volcano is the ability to dive into the mud baths. The mud baths at Sulphur Springs attract people from all over the world because it detoxifies the body and helps heal sun burns, eczema, arthritis, sore joints, and more.”

These are the prices for the mud baths if you visit here on your own (it was included in the price of our tour):

The guides told us to leave all of our jewelry in the van because it would get ruined if exposed to the sulfur. I don’t usually wear any expensive jewelry off the ship in the Caribbean anyway, but I didn’t want to tarnish my costume jewelry so I discretely removed it and put it in a small pocket in my beach bag. Realistically, I doubt the driver of our van would try to steal anyone’s jewelry. It would be easy to know who took it since he was the only one left alone with our bags, and I doubt he would risk his job over petty theft. Just keep this in mind to leave any of your expensive or sentimental pieces of jewelry on the ship if you are planning to visit the mud bath!

As soon as I stepped out of the van, I was confronted with a strong smell of sulfur. It honestly wasn’t that bad, and I got used to it after a few minutes, but the air definitely did smell like rotten eggs. If you have a poor tolerance for bad odors, this might not be your favorite part of the tour.

Wearing just our bathing suits and flip flops, we walked down a flight of stone steps to a small area with 2 or 3 picnic tables. The guides told us to leave our towels and flip flops here, and to give them our cameras so they could take photos of us in the baths. They told us to step down into the pool of hot water and to soak there for a few minutes to allow our pores to open up. Be very careful here as the stones were slippery and the muddy water was too dark to see your footing as you climbed down the steps inside the pool.

The guides helped us to climb out the far end of the pool, and they directed us to the plastic tubs of mud. There were 2 types of mud: a light grey color and a dark black color. The guides told us to apply the light mud in thin layers all over our skin and to let it dry and harden. The dark mud can stain your clothing, so they said not to use it, but if you did want to use it, you could apply it on top of the grey mud as a decoration. It was a little weird that the tubs of mud hardly had anything in them. As you can see, we didn’t have much mud to work with, but we got it on as best we could.

You can barely see it, but I promise, we did have some mud on us!

After the mud was dry, the guides told us to get back in the hot pool of water to wash it off. There were some tiny rocks in the mud, so as we rubbed it off, it exfoliated our skin. It was slippery, but it felt nice, and the warm water felt great.

In the background of this photo, you can see the picnic tables where we left our stuff.

I did bring my towel with me, but opted to just air dry when I got out of the pool. We had 2 more stops that involved getting in the water and I wanted to keep my towel dry for as long as possible. Once we were all out of the baths, we walked back up the stairs to wait for our van to pick us up. In all, we were at this top for 30 minutes and were finished by 10am.

At the top of the stairs, there is a small “Vending Village” if you want to shop for souvenirs. I didn’t look closely so I don’t know how the prices were, but I can’t imagine it was any cheaper than you would find near the cruise port.

This was our van for the land portion of the tour. It had 4 rows of seat, with 3 people per row, and the air conditioning was cold and strong!

Our next stop was about a 10 minute drive away on the opposite side of Soufriere: The Toraille Waterfall.

This was one of our guides- she left the mud mask on from the baths so it would work a little better. She must have wonderful skin if she applies a mud mask every day she visits there with a tour group!!

We spent about 20 minutes here, with just enough time to hop in the pool of water below the waterfall. There were changing rooms available if you needed it, but we were all wearing our bathing suits already.

Just a warning: the water here is FREEZING cold! I guess some might consider this refreshing, but I just thought it was freezing… especially after soaking in the hot water at the mud baths! Also, the entrance is very rocky, so I would recommend wearing aqua socks if you have them. The guides encouraged us to stand under the waterfall for a “power shower,” but that was too adventurous for me haha

We only had about 20 minutes to spend here, but that was plenty of time because the water was too cold to want to stay much longer. On our way out, there were a few vendors set up on the street, offering samples of hot sauce, banana ketchup, and spiced rum (and of course they had bottles for sale if you liked what you tasted). They also sold a few souvenirs and crafts.

At 10:45, the guides rounded us up to get back in the van. That was the end of the land portion of the tour, so we drove back down to the marina to wait for our boat to pick us up. Given how steep and windy the roads are in St. Lucia, and how long it takes to drive from the cruise port to these popular tourist destinations in Soufriere, I much preferred the way Spencer Ambrose structures his tour over how Cosol did things back in 2012. It was now only 11am and I felt like we had already done so much today. We were the first tour groups to arrive at both the mud bath and the waterfall, so it wasn’t crowded, and it felt like a better use of our limited time in port.

We had a short wait when we got back to the dock because the person bringing our food for lunch had not yet arrived. No worries though, we had a nice view of one of the Pitons in the background!

Notice the orange stain all over DH’s bathing suit? Unfortunately, the sulfur in the water at the mud baths stained everything that was light in color. Not only did it ruin his bathing suit, but it stained the little white flowers on my bikini, the white band of my waterproof watch, and even the plastic band of DH’s snorkel goggles (and he didn’t even wear those in the mud bath! It must have rubbed off from his hair when we went snorkeling nearly 2 hours later!!). When we got back on the cruise ship at the end of the day, we rinsed out the bathing suits, and then we ran them through the washing machine when we got home, but it’s official… the stains are permanent. I honestly think the only bathing suit that would survive that mud bath is one that is solid black, and even that might show a slight orange tint!

When the food was delivered, the guides helped us climb back into the boat for the 5 minute ride around the bay to our next destination. I think this beach used to be called Jealousie Beach, but it is now called Sugar Beach. It is located between the two Pitons and has one of the only white sand beaches in St. Lucia. As we approached the beach, we could see several beautiful white buildings dotting the side of the hill. That was the Viceroy Sugar Beach Resort, a very fancy, high-end resort where rooms run for over $1000 per night.

Of course, we were not going to that part of the beach. The guides explained that all beaches in St. Lucia are public, and we were free to walk along the water for the entire length of this beach. However, the hotel owns the lounge chairs and thatched umbrellas on their side of the beach, and those are mostly reserved for hotel guests. If we wanted to use their chairs on the beach towards the right side of the pier, it would cost $50 per person. As pretty as they looked, that was more money than I wanted to spend for the 2 hours we would be here! I took this photo while standing on the pier, looking to the right towards the hotel property:

This was as close as I got to those fancy schmancy lounge chairs…

As a consolation prize, the hotel allows non-hotel guests to use a small section of the beach to the left side of the pier. These lounge chairs were free to use, even if they weren’t as fancy as the ones near the hotel, and there were a few umbrellas, plus tons of natural shade from the trees overhead. When we arrived, most of the public lounge chairs were occupied, but I spotted 2 vacant loungers up on the ledge in the back row which were perfect for us. Being up on the ledge meant we had a great view, and being in the back row meant we had full shade to hide from the sun. I circled our seats in yellow so you can see what I mean...

We arrived at the beach at 11:30am, and the guides said we would stay here until 2pm. Originally, I wanted to book the Beach Break tour to have more time to spend at this beach, but considering we had 2 and a half hours here, plus the experience of the other stops on the tour, I am glad we took this tour instead. Most tours that I have taken with similar itineraries to this where you make a bunch of stops and then go to a beach to eat lunch, only give you an hour or so at the beach. I was thrilled to have 2 and a half hours to spend here at this beautiful tropical beach! The guides said that it would take them about 15 minutes to set up the food for lunch, so I used that opportunity to walk along the beach and take some quick photos.

Looking back towards the pier:

Love St. Lucia. My wife and I stayed at Sandals for a week and had a blast. It's one of those Caribbean Islands that is rather well off.

Love St. Lucia. My wife and I stayed at Sandals for a week and had a blast. It's one of those Caribbean Islands that is rather well off.

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Love St. Lucia. My wife and I stayed at Sandals for a week and had a blast. It's one of those Caribbean Islands that is rather well off.

While I do enjoy visiting St. Lucia, I can't say I found it to be a particularly well off island. Sure, there's lots of tourism and high-end hotels, but the locals seem to live pretty modest lives from what I could see.