Honneymoon on the Serenade- S.Caribbean 04/30/11- My first Trip Report w/ pictures

[Venusleo1]

Well I guess it's about time to give my first trip report a shot, since I've been reading everyone elses and have recieved such valuable information from my fellow cruise critic members. I hope to not to too long winded, but would love to share our amazing honeymoon trip with you all. Most of my pictures and review will be of the ports we visited.

 

First let me start by telling you all a bit about us. My name is Stephanie 28 years old and a certified cruis-a-holic. I'm an account executive for a legal finance company, but I'm better known to all of my co-workers as the cruise queen. I went on my first cruise in 2005 on an organized singles cruise and was hooked! I went on alot of solo cruises after that and made some great C.C. friends that I also cruised with but it wasnt until last year that I met my life cruise partner and now my husband, Shane. Shane is 38 years old and before he met me, he had no idea that the world was out there waiting for him! Shane is from Oklahoma and is a golf pro and it was love at first sight!

 

 

Shane and I were married aboard the Grandeur of the Seas Oct 28th, 2010 and that was his first cruise. We had our wedding right before golf season started and the cruise was just a short 4 nighter to Key West and Cozumel. I loved our cruise wedding and if given the choice I would have done it all over again the same way, but we wanted a nice long honeymoon. We started planning this Serenade cruise as soon as we got back from the wedding cruise.

 

 

If anyone's interested lots more cruise wedding photos in my signature.

 

This first 6 months of marriage have been a whirlwind, but that's been our love story too. We met in May engaged by June and married in October . Since our wedding we closed and moved into our first house and we adopted our baby!

That's Schooner (we named him after RCI's signature Schooner Bar. Schooner gets to stay at his grandpa's house while we are on our cruise.

 

Due to Shane's hectic work schedule while Golf Season is on we really didnt get to just enjoy each other. Between trying to move, furnish and decorate a new home and having a crazy attention hungry puppy who demanded every free second we had we felt we really need time to reconnect, slow down, and enjoy each other as newleyweds.

 

We did alot of extensive planning for the Serenade cruise and I recieved some really great info from the port of call boards and other people's reviews. Neither of us had been to any of the islands before. This was to be our biggest bestest cruise!

 

Some important info:

 

Ports: San Juan Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, St. Croix, Antigua, St. Lucia, and Grenada.

 

Room: Ocean View room 7031 forward port side.

 

Hotel: Post-cruise - Marriot San Juan Resort & Stellaris Casino

 

The rest of the trip report will be done in Days. Day 1 being embarkation day. If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask. I'm hoping to get this whole trip review up by tomorrow.

[cruisebabe50]

Congratulations on meeting and marrying your soul mate. It is wonderful to here in this day and age that wonderful things are still happening for people. I can't wait to hear about your wonderful trip. Btw, Schooner is very cute. :)

[Venusleo1]

Well today we had planned on flying out of Fort Lauderdale International Airport on a direct flight to San Juan arriving in San Juan at 1:20pm on Spirit, planned being the big word there.

 

We woke up early in the AM to get the last minut things packed up and get Schooner's stuff loaded into the car along with the rest of our bags.

 

We left the house in Boynton Beach at about 7:30am and were at my dads by 8:00am. Schooner was staying with him, and my dad was going to drop us off at the airport.

We arrived at the airport on time two hours before our flight was to take off and it was a mad house in there! People where lined up out the front doors!! Thankfully a porter asked us if we had already checked in and he could just take our bags. We had done the on-line check in and I pre-paid our bags and seats were already assigned. I have no idea how long we would have been there if I hadn't done the on-line check in the day before.

 

We were so excited to start our vacation!!! I had booked us for a 3pm segway tour of San Juan, so as soon as we landed I knew we'd have to rush over to the pier to get on our tour. So the plane was suppose to start boarding at 10am. 10am comes and goes and now its 10:30am. There is a plane parked at our gate which we are assuming is ours and we're all starting to get a little anxious as to why they are not letting us board. Finally around 10:45 they tell us that our plane has been delayed due to weather and to go to a different gate. :eek:

We move us and all of our stuff to the gate across the way where there is no airplane and no one is telling us anything. I'm having a mini-panic attack at this point. I get on-line on my iphone and start searching alternative flights to San Juan. I found a 1:30pm JetBlue flight and we were tossing around the idea to just abandon Spirit and just get over to Jetblue but what about our luggage? Finally after over an hour someone came on to tell us that our flight had been diverted to Miami due to a storm that was sitting over the FLL airport. Now we get some crazy thunderstorms down here like end of the world looking stuff and it was not even close to our typical summer afternoon thunderstorms. It was raining yes, but the sun was still pouring through the clouds and it did not in any way look like a crazy storm. It is what it is but I have having a hard time believing their story.

At this point we've come to terms that we will NOT be making our segway tour so I call Jose at Segway Tours of Puerto Rico: http://www.segwaytourspr.com/ and tell him we're stuck at the airport in FL and wont be there in time. I'm so happy that they didnt ask for a deposit when we made our reservations.

 

At about 1:00 we finally see this:

 

YAY! I dont think I've ever been so happy to see an airplane.

 

We boarded the plane and were off to Puerto Rico!!

[Venusleo1]

We land in San Juan and are out of the airport by 4:30pm. We get in the taxi line and ask to be taken to the PanAmerican pier by the convention center. I believe that it was around $20 plus a $1 extra per bag. When we pulled up to the pier it was empty there was not 1 other passanger trying to board. We litterally got our luggage tags and left our bags with the porters walked right through security up to the check in desk and were on the ship within 10 minutes. Most of that was just the check in process.

I booked this trip under my married name and we did not have time to get a new passport. So I brought my driver's license which has my new married name, my birth certificate which has my maiden name of course and a certified copy of my marriage license. There was no problems at all and I'm very glad that I came prepared (thanks cruise critic!).

 

We boarded the ship and went straight to our stateroom to unload our cary-ons and then it was up to the Sky Bar just in time for our 5:30 informal C.C. Meet & Greet. Not a big turn out for this like I thought but it was so nice to get to meet a few people and finally just take a breath! We had such a stressful morning and I needed a drink! ASAP! Afterwards we wandered the upper decks and had a snack in the windjammer.

 

Welcome Aboard!

 

 

You can take a golfer on a cruise, but you can't make him stop golfing.

 

Sports Court

 

Adventure Ocean Slide- had weird hours that were posted on the slide enterance, not in the compass.

 

Rock Climbing wall: we didnt really get to use any of these activities as the cruise was so port intensive

[Venusleo1]

 

Looking down onto the centrum

 

After wandering around we went to the Schooner bar for some TV theme song trivia. We had so much fun playing this! We Shazamed it... if any of you can guess what that means! We won 1st place. Now on our wedding cruise this was our favorite bar. We spent alot of time in the Schooner bar but unfortunatly for me, or I guess fortunately for most of you they made this bar a non-smoking venue on the Serenade. So we didnt spend very much time here. Yes I am a smoker, hubby is a non-smoker. There were very few inside venues that allowed smoking I think it was just the casino and the sports bar called The Pit Stop. We ended up making lots of Pit Stops to the Pit Stop and the bartender there was Kendrick and he was great but there wasnt alot of action in this room so we didnt ever just hang out there.

 

Okay so after "Shazam" trivia we had to go to muster. I LOVE night time muster! No lifejackets of course but its not blistering hot outside. Yay! After muster we went up to the helipad for sail away. This was one thing that we werent so fond of. No big sail away party, and it was really dark out so we couldnt see much.

 

We had late seating and where at a large table. There ended up being 3 couples from cruise critic at this table! Along with two other couples who were not from C.C. We enjoyed our table mates very much and our waiter and assistant waiter were good, not GREAT but good. The food was good, not great, nothing was bad.

Our table:

 

After dinner we went to the welcome aboard show. Ricky Matthews was our cruise director and he was probably the best CD I've ever had. He was always full of energy and was not corny or over the top. Really a great CD and his staff was really very good too.

 

After the show we were spent and it was time to head back to the room. Now I knew there was a surprise for us waiting, or at least I was keeping my fingers crossed that it was there by now! Hubby had no idea and I had him go into the room first. (OHH I said the wrong room # I had confused it with our wedding cruise, we were in room #3036 and we LOVED it!)

Our room steward was Bennie and he was super friendly. He was everywhere whenever you turned around there was Bennie!!!! And he Bennie liked to talk.. alot. Which was sweet but he just loved to come in our room and just hang out for what seemed like forever. We got a kick out of him though and made sure to tip him extra... okay so back to the surprise in our room:

 

 

 

I had pre-ordered the rose pettals and champaigne. It is our honeymoon!!!! Needless to say we're in for the rest of the night!

[Venusleo1]

Congratulations on meeting and marrying your soul mate. It is wonderful to here in this day and age that wonderful things are still happening for people. I can't wait to hear about your wonderful trip. Btw, Schooner is very cute. :)

 

Thank you! Shane and I met at a local restaurant/bar through mutual friends. We met on a Tuesday night, went on our first official date Wednesday night, had a movie night Thursday night and went on another date Friday night. Saturday morning I was going on a solo trip to Puerto Rico and I fell in love with him while I was on that trip. Even though he wasnt with me, I knew he should be with me and thats how I knew he was the one. He felt the same way while he was back home and we were both done for the count. K.O. Head over heals in love.

 

Schooner says Thank you very much! :)

[danglish]

Congratulations on your wedding.

 

Loving the review so far. My boyfriend is also a huge golfer. We're off on our first cruise in less than three weeks and I'm sure he'll be using the mini golf courseva lot!

[Venusleo1]

Shane and I had a hard time deciding what to do here. We normally book our excursions with outside companies and not with the cruise line but I just couldnt quite figure out what to do. This was our first time in St. Thomas and I knew that we would probably be back many many more times in our lives so I kind of just wanted to get a feel for the island so that next time when we go back we can really know what to do so I booked Lovely Island and Beach Tour through RCI. We were to meet outside the ship at 9:30am. So this was the start of some early mornings for us. We got up and got ready and went up to the windjammer for breakfast. We had breakfast in the windjammer almost every morning except for the last two days. The selection was good. I would sometimes get some made to order eggs from the omlet station. They also had bagles and lox, my favorite! The coffee was horrific but we always have to have coffee so we put up with it, but it was strong and I'd liken it to mud.

 

We boarded our saffari bus

 

We made a few stops along the way for some scenic views

 

 

We stoped at these botanical gardens where they had rum punch and really beutiful grounds

 

 

[Venusleo1]

The botanical gardens also had some great views of Magen's Bay

Magen's Bay looks alot pretier from afar.

 

 

 

We went to Magen's bay to spend a few hours.

 

I honestly do not understand why it is considered one of the 10 beaches in the world... I was not impressed. Yes its set in between mountains and the mountains are beautiful but the beach was dirty and the water was full of slimmy sea weed. It looked like algea. It reminded me of a lake rather than an ocean. Anyways after about 30 minutes of trying to wade through the water we decided or I decided I had enough of the slimmy sea weed and we up to the bar. There is a bar and snack bar at the beach. We each ordered some sandwiches its a counter service type deal and we brought them over to the bar where we stayed enjoying some coronas till the safari bus was ready to head back to port. We enjoyed the tour so-so. I had higher expectations of St. Thomas. Next time we visit we plan on taking the ferrie over to St. John.

 

After the Lovely Island and Beach tour the safari bus was taking back to the port. We asked that he stop along the way and drop us off at the enterance to the Sky Ride to Paradise point.

 

More pretty views from the top

 

It wasnt cheap to go up there I believe it was a little over $40.00 for the two of us and when we got up there there was maybe 1 shop and a bar/restaurant. There was also a mini-carnival with a ferris wheel and a few other rides but all of this was shut down. We had the infamous Bushwackers and they were okay. They were made with Bailey's and had more of a mudslide taste to them. People were saying how strong they were but Shane and I didnt really feel any effects. After we finished our bushwakers it had been sprinkling on and off the entire time we were up there, we headed back down the sky ride and walked maybe a 1/4 of a mile to the port shopping area. It was only about 4 pm and we decided to check out Senor Frogs for a bit. We had a hard time finding it, it didnt look like we were headed the right way but it is all the way at the very end of the port where the butterfly farm is. When we got there we were pleasantly surprised that they had a really big fresh water pool!

Shane and I are pool people, nothing makes us happier then to be in or around a pool. Shane doesnt mind a salt water pool, but I am all about fresh water pools so this made my day! We spent about an hour having a couple of beers and swimming in their pool. There wasnt very many other people there but there was this one group. Ranged in age from early 20's to 50's and they were loud and obnoxious. We just tried to stay clear of them, we ended up having issues with one of the 20 something guys in this group later on into the cruise and I'll tell the story then.

 

We headed back to the ship and Im honestly not sure what we did, maybe hung out at the pool for a little bit before going to our room. That night was the 1st formal night and the captains reception. We had planned to go but we didnt make it for some reason or another. We had reservations at 8pm for Portofinos tonight.

 

Now Portofinos is highly raved about here on the boards and I thought it was great. It just wasnt what Shane was expecting when I told him we were having Italian. Portofino is more a mediteranean style Italian. Think lots of seafood and steak, not chicken parm and lasagna. He ended up getting the filet and I had the Seafood skewer which was very good. It had shrimp and scallops and lobster and salmon. We split the sampler desert platter. I think tonight was the 1st of 2 production shows and we skipped that. We love shows but we want comedians and singers and variety acts. Please forgive me but Im a little confused as to when we saw what when it comes to the shows.

 

After dinner it was off to the Pit Stop and then to bed. We really tried to enjoy all of the nightly activites and night life on the ship there was more then plenty to do, but we were always so tired from all day excursions in the sun and long late dinners.

[Venusleo1]

Congratulations on your wedding.

 

Loving the review so far. My boyfriend is also a huge golfer. We're off on our first cruise in less than three weeks and I'm sure he'll be using the mini golf courseva lot!

 

Thank you! Shane messed around on a few holes but we never played a full game. They also have golf simulators although on our sailing they were not open, but check to see if they have them on your cruise. Shane was looking forward to trying them out. I guess next time.

[Venusleo1]

I was very excited about today! We decided to book a land (ATV) & sea(Waverunner) tour through Gecko island adventures: http://www.geckosislandadventures.com/

We had a 10:00 am meeting time and were told to meet at their shop which is right there along the main street at the port. So after breakfast at the windjammer again we walked off the port and followed the very easy directions that they provided to their little store.

 

 

I wasnt sure what to expect from St. Croix as I had heard alot of mixed reviews. Heard that Fredrickstead which is where we dock is a sleepy town with not much to do and then I also heard that they were having crime problems in the past. Okay well this is NOT what we experienced. We Loved St. Croix!!

The port area reminded me of the florida keyes and it was immaculate. On one side of the road there were shops and the other was a cute park area with some vendors.

 

 

[SuchAVirgo]

Im enjoying your review so much. We will be going on the Serenade soon for our Honeymoon too!! Cant wait and now that i'm reading this, its even more exciting.

 

Congratulations to you both. I see you are going on the Pearl soon which was actually my very 1st cruise. you will love it!

[Venusleo1]

So at the Gecko Island Adventure headquarters we had to sign some standard waivers that we wouldnt hold them liable should Shane kill us both on the ATV's. This is a two part tour, you can choose just to do the ATVs or you can add on 1 hour of waverunners which is what we decided to do. You pay all at once but the Gecko people will give you a laminated coupon that you have to give to the waverunner people. If you dont have the laminated coupon, no wave runners for you. Once we were checked in, we were brought by van to the ATV launching site which was maybe just a mile down the road. Now this is my first time on an ATV and I was pretty nervous. I've crashed a scooter in Key West once and ever since then me and scooters or motorcycles ect well we just dont seem to like each other very much. Shane really wanted to ride the ATV's and I would like to consider myself open minded and adventurous so why not?

 

Not a whole lot of pictures here unless we were stopped because I was VERY scared and holding on with both hands for dear life. This is not just a leisurly flat ATV ride, your 4 wheeling it up steep hills and down steep hills and it gets crazy. I was scared but I was having fun too. We were in the back of the pack though because I kept asking Shane to slow down. A few times they had to stop ahead to wait for us for a few seconds. There is a guide in the front and one in the back. Shane would have kept us but I was yelling at him, begging him to please slow down, and like a good husband he of course went at a pace I was comfortable with even though I know he was dying to go full throttle.

 

Shane on the ATV

 

After some brief instructions we're off

 

Stoped for some scenic views

 

There are numerous abandoned Sugar Mills all over the island and we got to go explore one

 

Inside the Sugar Mill:

 

Driving through the rain forest was so pretty:

 

We saw some wild horses on the sides of the roads up and down the mountain too but I didnt get to catch a photo.

 

This tour was about an hour and a half. The guide is the owner of the company. He and his wife moved to St. Croix from Colorado and they were both really awesome. I highly recommend them! You end your tour where you started and its right across the street from a local bar and Rainbow beach. Your ATV guides will leave you there if you have the wave runners booked or they will take those who want to go back in the van. Make sure to tip them then you will not see them again if you stay at the beach.

[Venusleo1]

Im enjoying your review so much. We will be going on the Serenade soon for our Honeymoon too!! Cant wait and now that i'm reading this, its even more exciting.

 

Congratulations to you both. I see you are going on the Pearl soon which was actually my very 1st cruise. you will love it!

 

Awww, you're going to have an amazing time! Congrats to you both! I'm glad that you enjoyed the Pearl, we're really looking forward to it. We're having a mini-roll-call reunion. A bunch of us CCers that were on the Epic with me have booked it, theres 9 of us! I loved NCL when I sailed the Epic and Shane's never sailed them, I think it fits us a bit better then RCI so I'm excited for him to try it, and the ship looks beautiful. Have a great time on the Serenade!!!

[Venusleo1]

So after the ATV's we walk across the street to the beach where there are some guys there with a water sport company that will take your coupons and get you on a waverunner for an hour. You can leave your bags in their shed and they will keep an eye on it for you. Whenever we did any water activities though we always kept our sea pass cards, credit cards and cash in a water wallet and our camera is waterproof so we never left anything of much value in our bag.

 

Since Shane did all the driving on the ATV's it was my time to take the wheel. I'm a pretty experienced waverunner driver. There was a couple of downsides. 1. the waverunners are just anchored off the shore in the water so that makes it kinda hard to get on them. You have to pull yourself up, Im not so great at that so I looked a little rediculous trying to get my but up there and 2. you have to stay within a specified area so your just going up and down the beach.

 

The waters were a little choppy so it wasnt so easy. Water kept spraying us in the face. Now I've done alot of waverunning and never experienced this so Im not sure if it was the type of waverunners or the fact that it wasnt flat seas but I kept having to stop to whipe the water out of my eyes and we were bouncing around a whole lot. After about 20 minutes I tipped us over. Whoops! I went into the water and somehow Shane managed to hang on. Again I had to try to pull myself up onto this waverunner with nothing under me to help push me up. Im so happy my hubby has some guns cause he had to help pull me back up. He drove for about another 20 minutes and then we had enough and headed back to the beach. We had more time on them but we were tired of getting slammed around and water sprayed in our eyes. Still alot of fun though.

 

 

 

We headed back up to the beach and beach bar

 

We recieved some discount coupons BOGO rum puch and 10% off lunch tickets with our tour so we went up to the beach bar and had lunch. The beach here was great. They had chairs and umbrellas for rental and had kayaks, snorkle gear ect to rent.

 

After a little while we decided to head back to the pier and we grabbed a few local beers from one of the stores. Beer was called Caribe and it was pretty good.

 

 

They had a very pretty courtyard area right by the pier

 

 

We really enjoyed our day in St. Croix and we would be happy to return.

 

Today was our official Meet & Greet at 4:30 up in the Viking Crown Lounge. It was nice to finally put some names to the faces and chat with everyone. RCI did a nice job, Mauricio from the CD staff was on hand with goodies and there was a raffle. The only down side is that the bar wasnt open yet, they had non-alchoholic drinks available and fruit and cheese but we would have liked to order and happily paid for a drink and maybe the M&M would have gone on a bit longer that way too. Afterwards we went to the room to get ready for the show which I believe was the crazy super hyper juggler who at first I found very annoying but he grew on me and I ended up liking him, we left right after to make it to the welcome back party for Crown & Anchor. This was everyone even gold members and that room was packed! Captain Karen spoke and I just think she rocks!

 

Afterwards we headed to dinner in the Main Dinning Room and then to the Pitt Stop before heading to bed. Another early morning tomorrow when we get to Antigua!

[debshomespun]

Your review is great and I am loving all the pictures! We are going on the Serenade in Jan. I love the Southern Caribbean Islands.

 

We have been on the Pearl twice, and loved both cruises. They have excellent snack type food in the Blue Lagoon. One of our favorite places to eat.

[Venusleo1]

Your review is great and I am loving all the pictures! We are going on the Serenade in Jan. I love the Southern Caribbean Islands.

 

We have been on the Pearl twice, and loved both cruises. They have excellent snack type food in the Blue Lagoon. One of our favorite places to eat.

 

Ohh goodie, I have a feeling we'll be doing a whole lot more late night partying since there are less ports and we're traveling with friends so I'm glad that they have the Blue Lagoon which I hear is open all night. I'm looking forward to trying it out!

[critterchick]

I'm loving your review! Congrats on your whirlwind romance and marriage. And your baby is adorable!

[Venusleo1]

Welcome to Antigua!!!! This is our favorite stop! We absolutly fell in love with this island and we have actually been looking into coming back on a land vacation.

Today was also our most expensive excursion. We booked the Xtreme Circumnavigation tour through Eli's Eco Tours : http://www.adventureantigua.com/ but let me say that it was our best day and best excursion and worth every penny! If you are planning on visiting Antigua I highly suggest this company and especially this particular tour.

 

This is a high speed power boat tour around the entire island including stops to swim with stingrays, a Robinson Caruso style lunch on the beach at Green Island, Nelson's Dockyard, snorkeling the Pillars of Hercules and a final stop at rendezvous beach. The tour was to meet at 9:30. So we had another early morning, we went to breakfast at the winjammer and headed over to the meeting point for the tour which was just down the dock at the Exotic Antigua store.

 

The boat was late and I was getting worried they had forgoten about us. There was us and another cruise critic friend US1Diver and his wife and another couple waiting. We were getting quite anxious but at about 9:45 the boat pulled up. The appologized profusley and said that the gassing station was backed up. This was the only glitch in the entire day and it was quickly forgoten. Now onto some pictures!!! Lots and lots of pictures of Antigua!

 

When we left the boat we saw that the Carribean Princess was in port right beside us

 

Cool Pirate ship docked at the pier on our way to our meeting point

 

This is the store we were to meet in front of : Exotic Antigua

 

Our view while we waited for the boat to pick us up

 

Once the boat finaly showed up we had to stop along the way at Sandals Resort to pick up more people. Shane and I are thinking about staying here:

 

Beautiful Waters, the boat goes FAST and it's alot of fun too:

[Venusleo1]

I'm loving your review! Congrats on your whirlwind romance and marriage. And your baby is adorable!

 

Thank you, thank you!!! I love that freaking little booger face! He kills me with his cuteness! lol

[Venusleo1]

Sorry about that sideways picture I just tried fixing it but its not working, hope none of you tweak your necks.

 

So on our way to our first stop we drive by Hell's Gate.

 

Now the story is this is called Hell's Gate because the side we are on is still the Caribbean sea which is calm and just on the other side there is the Atlantic which has Hellish waters. So when you look through it you're looking through Hell's Gate. I love Pirate stuff! On the Eco tour which is a seperate tour through the same company they will anchor up the boat and you are able to climb Hell's Gate. We just got a drive by and they stoped for pictures. Now onto Stingray City Antigua!!!

 

More beautiful waters along the way

 

I thought I would be very nervous to go snorkeling with stingrays. They pull up to a floating dock and tie up. Our guides explained that many years ago the same people from Stingray city Grand Cayman tried to open up a stingray city in Antigua but all the locals kept fishing the stingrays for food. They ended up hiring the locals to run the show so that they wouldnt want to eat the stingrays and instead make money having the tourist come to swim with them. There is no cage here the stingrays are free to swim out of the area at any time and they are non de-barbed. They have figured out that boats mean food and when a boat pulls in you can see them swimming over from afar.

 

 

The Stingrays are very nice actually. They will gently swim by your legs almost like a cat rubbing up against you. We were allowed to feed them but I chickened out. Shane however suprisingly did feed one. They give you a whole squid to stuff into your hand while you make a fist and then you place your hand under the water and the stingray will swim over your hand litteraly sucking the squid out. Shane said that the stingray he fed didnt even touch him it was just like a vacume cleaner went over him. I heard some people got stingray hickies. I'll pass.

 

The love of my life, he looks so cute I couldn't resist:

 

 

[Venusleo1]

While at the stingray city site there is also some coral reefs that you can snorkel around

 

That's our boat there at the dock

 

After the stingrays we started back on the boat again at full speed and this is when it got choppy. We had just entered the Atlantic side of the island and we were flying but it was so much fun!

 

We came up to an island called Green Island which was previously owned by the Rockefeller family and they opened it up to the public. There isnt anything on the island except well sand and trees and stuff but we stopped here for lunch.

 

They served us different juices, I believe passionfruit and mango or soda and water and we had pasta salad, green salad, bbq chicken and plantains. For desert there was a delicious banana bread. I forgot to take pictures of the food. So when you pull up to the island they anchor as close to land as they can but you get off the boat into the water and walk to shore. We didnt want to bring anything with us because we didnt want it to get wet but I would suggest taking your towels with you and to hold them over your head because there is no where to sit to eat. We sat down on the sand but then ended up with sand on our hands. Made lunch interesting.

 

After lunch back on the boat and we're headed over to the Pillars of Herculese. These are rocks that have been shapped to do wind and water

 

 

We'll be comming back here in just a bit but first we ride through Nelson's Dockyard a historic british dockyard

 

Fort at the enterance to the dockyard

 

[Venusleo1]

More of Nelson's Dockyard

 

We did a U turn and went back to the pillars to do some snorkeling

 

 

Here's a fellow CCer

 

My funny husband

 

The underwater rock formations are very neat, otherwise the snorkeling here wasnt all that great and the waters were a little rough

 

I would say we spent about 30-40 minutes snorkeling and then boarded the boat again. We're on our way to our final and my favorite stop rendezvous beach.

 

Antigua boasts that it has 365 beaches, one for each day of the year. Alot of them are only accesible by boat and rendezvous beach has to be the most beautiful beach I have ever been to.

 

[Venusleo1]

So Shane and I really are not beach people, theres just something about the sand and the salt water that we just arn't crazy about but we found OUR beach.. this beach should take Magens bay's place in the top 10 because it was so much nicer. The water was calm and the sand soft as powder. I could have stayed here all day.

 

 

 

 

 

This is the boat we've been touring in all day.

[WeLove2CruiseRCI]

Congratulations Stephanie on your marriage!! We were on the Serenade this past February with the same ports as you. When you go back to St. Thomas you said you were thinking of taking the ferry to St. John's. You will love it!! It's a short hike to Honeymoon Beach. It is a little piece of paradise. Soft sand, clear blue water, no rocks and no sea weed. Here is a pic! We loved Mauricio! After our M&M we kept running in to him all over the ship. He knew our names every time and always took a moment to chat.