Destiny review 5/29-6/5 Part 2

[wystiria]

Part 1 http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=189304

 

 

 

Ports:

 

San Juan:

Ok we flew in to SJ early on Thursday night prior to the cruise. We stayed at the Hilton Caribe which I got on Hotwire for 90$ a night. For this price the hotel was great. However I would NEVER spend a lot of money on this hotel! It isn’t in the greatest shape and we had a number of problems with our room. Starting with being assigned someone elses room and ending with our balcony being shut off (they screwed the door shut) because the concrete was falling of the ceiling!!! Now the Beach was nice and so was the pool. We didn’t eat at the hotel because the prices were typical of a resort – RIDICULOUS 

 

We explored Old SJ, we actually walked form our hotel it’s about a 2 mile or so hike and we had no problems with it. Granted we are fitness nuts – which will become more obvious as we go. A few of the group went and explored the fort of “el Morro” excuse my spelling I can barely spell in English let alone Spanish!! Most of us had already been there so we skipped that. We ate lunch at Tantra and thouroghly enjoyed the experience. Now, I love Indian food so this was a great for us. But if you aren’t into ethnic food this might not be the restaurant for you!

 

On Saturday night we ate at Ajili Mojili, and quite enjoyed the experience. They have moved since we had last been there but we were still able to walk to it from the hotel. As you can see we pretty much walked everywhere!

 

We also had the BEST pinacolodas ever! In old SJ. There is this restaurant that claims to have created the first one all the way at the end of Forteleza st. (spelling) and whether or not they really did the pinacolads are fabulous! Don Q gold rum really makes the difference.

 

St. Thomas:

We got off the ship really early, in fact so early nothing was open yet. We grabbed a cab for 3$ a person down town and then walked around the flea market to kill some time. Then we grabbed something to drink and staked out the stores we thought we would buy something in. Now for those uninitiated in shopping in St. Thomas there is a little folk lore about being the first person in the store. Supposedly they will do anything within reason to get you to buy something. It is supposed to mean a good day of sales. Well since I knew I was looking for a Diamond and Sapphire bracelet I thought it couldn’t hurt right?? So myself and Husband “stalked” two stores tag team style . Anyway I can tell you that we did buy something at Cardow, and I was able to talk them down more than half the original price they quoted. So it just might be true folks . I can also tell you that I am very determined to get the price I want lol….and I know a fair amount about jewelry and had studied up on the gems I planned on buying. Anyway I was happy! Also since I have teeny wrists I was able to get Cardow to make the remaining links of my bracelet in to a pendant and earrings free of charge. I think this their policy – they just don’t necessarily advertise it. We did pretty much all of our shopping in St. Thomas. I blew my jewelry budget big time!!

 

We also bought a number of cigars and watches and pretty much anything you can think of between the whole groups so ask any specific questions if you want and I should be able to answer them or get the answer !

 

We didn’t get to Coki beach because the group did so much shopping and because we only had till 4:30 pm to get back on the boat so I can’t report anything about the beaches this time around. If you have specific shopping questions go a head and ask – I think between us all we hit every store there!!

 

Also there was no customs getting off in St. Thomas, in fact it was easy on and off. I had read somewhere that there were lines in St. Thomas. We didn’t find this at all.

 

Barbados:

We Dove on Barbados and had a fabulous experience. We dove with “Dive Barbados”

John Moore

Dive Barbados

Tel (246) 422 3133

majo@sunbeach.net

http://www.divebarbados.net

 

and John and his wife Mary took great care of us!!! We are freshly certified and this was our first open dive in warm salt water. I had told them this ahead of time and that we would need a buoyancy check and help with weights etc. They were really great about this. In fact I need to give John credit – he achieved something I know is very hard to do!! He was a great help to us, explained things, gave advice BUT never crossed that thin line and became condescending or anything like that. He was great really gave us the guidance we needed but still let us figure things out for ourselves etc. It was a really good first “away from our dive shop” experience. I would recommend this shop to anyone!

 

As for the actually dive it was decent….we saw some eels which I have been fascinated with ever since tahiti and some cool flounder etc. But I think the reef has seen better days AKA prior to last years hurricanes.

 

Honestly I think that spending a month in the south pacific has ruined us for the Caribbean. With that said we are hitting the western islands next January and maybe that will change my mind. My advice – dive and snorkel in the Caribbean as much as you can prior to going to the south pacific!!!!!!!! (oh and yes I know Barbados is not the premier dive site in the Caribbean  )

 

The rest of Barbados:

The rest of the group did a few different things, one of the girls took the Carnival ATV excursion and really enjoyed her self. Some took islands tours which they book on the dock and had a good time plus learned about the island. All of us however ended the day at the Boatyard where we had a few drinks and played some beach volleyball and just had a relaxing time!

 

Dominica

This is by far my favorite island! Now I have been here before and the last time we worked with KHATS tours to arrange a trip to Middleham Falls & Tio Tou Gorge. This trip is fabulous and not all that difficult – I set this up for those in our group who had not previously been to Dominica. As it turned out my idea of not difficult and some of the people who went differs. So with that said if you are interested in this trip make sure to be in shape or at least have the ability to push yourself and mentally keep going. It is a beautiful trip and the people who did make it to the waterfall had a fabulous time!!! Tio Tou Gorge is not strenuous at all and that was a hit.

 

***a side note, if you take a tour like this keep in mind that you will be spending all day out in the jungle and that if you are in a hurry to get back to the ship this is not for you. Our group was joined by some other people from the ship and these people were in a hurry to get back for some reason. This affected the group by not allowing people to swim in the pool at the falls etc. Personally had I been part of this group I would have been very upset. The reward for hiking to Middleham falls is a swim! Also because of this couple the group did not get to experience the hot spring after getting out of the gorge. I know some of our group were really disappointed by this!

 

Victoria Falls & Sari Sari Falls

The rest of the group and the crazies in our group went to two other waterfalls. Both of them are off the beaten path when it comes to cruise excursions. Neither of these is for the out of shape!!!! This was a GREAT Trip! SO MUCH FUN! But it was also our most strenuous day on the trip. To both falls there is not a clear path most of the way. You need to be able to climb up the river and boulder your way through to get to the actual fall. For us this was fabulous! We were looking for this when we booked. We had originally booked a trip to Boli Falls but after finally getting off the ship etc. we didn’t think there would be enough time to safely get to Boli and get back to the ship in time. So Our Guide worked with us and took us to these two falls instead.

 

Victoria Falls was the easier of the two falls to get to, and if you want to have a solid hike/river bouldering experience but not kill yourselves I would recommend going to only this waterfall and skip doing a second. We got to this water fall pretty easily and had a blast swimming in the pool. Now this river is different from most of the others on the island as it is part of the run off of boiling lake. What this means is there is a milky quality to the water that you don’t see in the other clear streams. This is due to the mineral content coming off of boiling lake.

 

Then we had a 30 or so minute drive to the trail head for Sari Sari Falls. Now this hike is definitely not for the out of shape!!!!! There were a lot of switch backs and tight little trails with slippery footing. In fact some of the “trails” are cut right into the rock. Then when you aren’t on the trail you are bouldering through the river to get to the base of the falls. There is an observation platform that offers excellent view but is a very steep accent although not too long. And once you get to this platform there is no way to get down to the pool, so you have to turn around and make your way back. Or in my case “ladder” my way back down this steep climb.

 

Sari Sari is perfectly clear and a great swim. A bit colder than Victoria falls, but gorgeous. Also be wary as the pool is not as deep as most waterfalls and so jumping in from boulders is more risky. We tested most of the pool for depth to see where we could jump in to. And the majority of the pool is probably not much deeper than 8 feet or so.

 

Another tip at this water fall is that you can get behind the falls themselves. Lots of fun:

Ken George Dill

khatts@cwdom.dm

http://www.kenshinterlandtours.com

767.448.1660

767.448.3517 After Hours

767.616.1660 Mobile

 

Aruba:

Lastly the port of Aruba, Sadly I was sick for this port so I couldn’t really enjoy it  however I had set up a dive on this island and my husband and friend went with out me (yeah I know it was such a bummer) They had a good time, the actual diving was much better than on Barbados. They say some sea horses and a eagle ray plus more fish as a whole. They did a wall dive here and had a shore entry.

 

As for the Dive shop – they were no where near as impressed as on Barbados. Now we went with Windie’s Watersport and they had been recommended by our dive shop at home. Both my husband and friend agreed that this dive master (rene) did not pay any attention to the two of them, never asked to see their dive cards and as a whole did not give them a good explanation of the site nor gave a good tour once underwater. This was very disappointing to them as they didn’t know the area and were expecting Rene to be more of a guide.

 

I did include in my original e-mail’s that we were new divers so it wasn’t as if they figured we were experienced divers and would want to fend for our selves. On this particular dive our friend had a few issues with her BCD – now it is new and so she isn’t 100% familiar with it. What happened was she got a pocket of air stuck in it and couldn’t purge it. They were doing a shallow dive and once she accended a bit the air expanded and she started rising to the surface. So to stop this she went head first down kicking while trying to empty her dump valves. Kind of comical if you imagine it. Granted they were shallow and going to the top wouldn’t have been a problem. Anyway the Dive master missed the whole thing. My husband actually had to help her get the last dump valve at the back of her BSD.

 

 

*** for those of you who are divers I want to report that we never hit the reef once  as newbie divers that was my biggest worry! But after our buoyancy check with Dive Barbados we had no problems keeping neutral buoyancy……well except when there was too much air in our BCDs as in the story above  but that didn’t hurt the reef!

 

Debarkation:

 

Debarkation was pretty painless, four of us had early flights our (11:20 to be specific) so we talked to the Pursuer and got new luggage tags. We were the first off the ship. This went pretty easily – although there was your usual cutting and whining about the cutters. Really though once in the Palladium lounge it went easily. We found our luggage easily in the warehouse – although a few people couldn’t find there because in the process of taking our luggage the tags were ripped off. These “unidentified” bags were in a spot all to themselves. Then it was off to get a cab.We got the airport at about 9:30 and it was perfect.

 

***We did ask about taking our own luggage off the ship our selves and were told that the Destiny does not do this. That was the pursuer that said this.

 

Customs:

Customs was no big deal, between myself and husband we had spent a little more than the limit. We actually had a friend declare a few things for us to put us under the limit. Anyway also since I do not have the same last name we needed to fill out two custom forms. Now for those of you with two names, you can get around this by having your marriage certificate with you. since we didn’t have ours we filled out two forms. But other wise Customs was not a big deal

 

Airport

We bought the last of our booze in the airport. We are big Don Q fans and the airport has good prices so keep this in mind if you want to carry back more liquor….also you are already in the airport so it doesn’t count towards you customs limits. One more thing – keep in mind that SJ to the continental US is a domestic flight so 50lbs for most airlines. They were enforcing this when we went through.

 

Ok I think that is it! Hope this is helpful!

[pholter]

Thanks so much for posting! How was the ship in your opinion?? Did your group enjoy the meals, shows, and nightlife on board??

[pholter]

Ooooppppsss! that's what the link was for- thanks again for being so detailed! :)

[wystiria]

Lol - no problem about missing the link :)

[wystiria]

OOhhhh forgot a few things:

 

Slide - lots of fun and was open quite a bit.

 

Deck chairs- They didn't allow saving chairs!!!!!!! how awesome is that? they actually removed peoples things if they left their chairs long enouhg. BUT if you are in the pool pay attention they might steall your towels. lol

 

Also there area lot of deck chairs on the upper decks although it was HOT.

 

Casino: We did pretty well, actually left 100$ up - what a shock. the place was hopping most of the time, Craps was really hot for a few nights - had a great shooter!!

 

The internet cafe is tough to find but if you can find the cigar bar you can find the internet.

 

Also the signs are not always correct - the destiny has been changed since the signs were created so sometimes the rooms the signs refer to rooms that have since been changed into other things. For example there is no card room - but there are signs for a card room. Well it turned out that this room is now where the golf simulator is.....And yes we are card players spades is our game of choice. THe library is an ok substitution for cards.

 

 

The cafe on the way is the spot for decent coffee....but it doens't hold a candle to starbucks. Well unless you are not a starbucks fan :) the Carrot cake and chocolate cake in the cafe is yummy! And I belive my B-day cake was from there and it was also yummy.

 

Also the ice cream machines are open 24-7 and are across from the grill.

 

 

that's it for now......

[Morning glory]

Wow! What a great write up. Thanks so much for taking the time to give us the details. I love details!!:D

We have a 12 noon flight out of SJ so I was glad to hear they accommodated your early flight. You said you went to the purser for different luggage tags, so I'll be sure to do that too.

Thnx again!