San Juan & Easter Brilliance Cruise with pictures!

[lah66]

 

 

 

 

 

After maybe 45 minutes in the water, we got back into the boat and went to the Turtle area to see if we could at least see some.

 

 

[lah66]

This is what we have been waiting for (and paid $75 a person to see) all day! And he did not dissappoint! We saw maybe 4 or 5 turtles as we sat there for 15 minutes or so. There was another boat in the area that was allowing people to snorkel with the turtles. I am not sure if they arrived after us when the water calmed down a bit.

I have to admit to having mixed emotions about this excursion. It was very expensive for just a few hours. Mike and Chase were great hosts. They took great care of us, making sure we were safe and keeping us in drinks and snacks after snorkeling. They made a point to coming around and talking to all the families. Would I book it again? No, unless we knew we could get our money back if the weather was questionable. It was a fun day but we were left feeling slightly disappointed. I cannot hold Mike and Chase accountable for bad weather!

 

 

 

 

[lah66]

Monday was our only sea day for this cruise. We slept in, had breakfast in the Windjammer. Our Meet and Mingle was at 230 and was well attended, considering we barely made 25 people to have the party! We had a great time chatting with the other cruisers. We spent a lot of time in the Solarium and by the pool, reading our kindles. Total relaxation!

 

We had dinner in the MDR. We did not go to any shows this cruise! We are not big on singing and dancing productions unless they are done very well. If we do go, we usually sit on the outside of a row so we can make an exit if need be. A couple times after dinner on this cruise, we would drop by the theater and just stand outside and listen to the singing at the show for the second sitting guests..A few minutes of listening was enough to let us know we were not missing anything. Now, if there was a comedian, an actual singing group, a illusionist, juggler, etc...we would go see those shows.

[lah66]

We were so excited to get to St. Lucia! When we started researching ports, this was a no-brainer for us; we had to see the Pitons! We chose the Jalousie Beach Break with Spencer Ambrose.

 

 

We got off the ship, walked into the tourist building, and immediately saw Spencer's daughter holding a sign. She showed us outside where Spencer was checking us all in. In just minutes, we were walking to his boat. The boat ride was about 40 minutes to Jalousie Beach. We made one stop to drop off a few gals that were doing a land and sea excursion. Spencer's boat is very powerful with two huge motors. We all felt very safe and secure with Spencer in the drivers seat! The views along the way were amazing. St Lucia is very mountainous and simply, gorgeous!

 

 

 

 

And then we come up on Jalousie Beach and the beautiful pitons!

 

 

 

[lah66]

I have asked the moderators to remove the offensive photo. I am sorry to have offended anyone. Lauri

[lah66]

Just a few things about Spencer...he is trying to overcome some recent bad reviews saying he is disorganized. He now takes payment when we first meet up with him before getting in his boat. He used to take payment at the beach, but he did get negative reviews for that. Also, he was using a "friend" to transport some of his guests, but found out that the guy was hot rodding in his boat and making the guests afraid. He no longer uses that person. We had a great day with Spencer and would do it again in a heartbeat!

 

As we approached the beach, both Spencer and daughter made it very clear that the entire beach was available to us but if we wanted to sit on the padded white loungers in front of the resort, we would need to pay $50!

We were the first boat to get to the beach so we had our choice of lounge chairs. Spencer brought the cooler ashore and let us know that he had to go park his boat and would be back very shortly. His daughter stayed with us the whole time and made sure we had drinks, etc. We dumped all of our stuff and snorkeled for a few hours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[lah66]

 

 

 

 

This was the first time we had seen so many of these coral "pots"..does anybody know anything about them?

 

 

[lah66]

 

 

 

 

Before I ever started snorkeling, I always thought fish traveled only in schools. My first snorkeling with a ton of fish was at Capt Cooks Monument in Hawaii. There were many varieties of fish and they were all swimming amongst one another. This picture makes me think of my earlier misconceptions!

 

 

[lah66]

After we had our fill of snorkeling, we came out of the water and took a shower to rinse all the salt water off us. We sat down in our lounge chair to have a cold Piton beer!

 

 

A guy came up with a kayak filled with fresh fruits. We bought some mangoes and tried some prickly pear. It was delicious!

 

 

There was also a guy carving turtles, fish etc. My DD bought a few pieces to bring back to her friends.

 

Soon, lunch was served! It was quite the spread! There was delicious jerk chcken, rice and lentils, potato salad, pasta salad, green salad and great creole bread..plus all the water, soda, beer and rum punch you wanted to drink. Lunch was very tasty. Spencer and his daughter walked between all of the guests and made sure everyone was well taken care of.

 

We enjoyed a few beers after lunch and just took in the beauty around us. We walked the small beach to the end and before long, it was 1 pm and we headed out. By this time the beach was starting to get really busy, so we were fine moving on....

 

 

 

 

[lah66]

We left Jalousie Beach, rode by a few fishing villages and then saw the Bat Cave. You could not really see the bats, but you could hear them scurrying around in the "cave" (crack).

 

 

 

We went past a rock with a key hole cut out of it!

 

 

 

Our last views of the Pitons....

 

 

We saw many 5 star resorts costing thousands of dollar a night.

 

[lah66]

Spencer stopped at Anse Chastenet and asked if anybody in the group would like to snorkel. Spencer wanted us to plan the day, he was just the driver, so his schedule was wide open for us. A couple of us snorkeled for 20 minutes or so. Upon getting into the water, we saw a huge school of long skinny blue fish. The snorkeling was really good. I would love to go back to this area again some day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was no where for Spencer to anchor his boat, all the slips were taken, so he just waited for us out in the middle of the bay. We swam over to the boat and I realized that he did not have a ladder to get back in the boat. Oh oh... He told me to turn around, he bent over, basically bending to foot level, put his hands under my arms and lifted me onto the boat platform! Remember, I am not a small girl. That man is strong!

[lah66]

Away we went! Past beautiful rock walls, more resorts...

 

 

 

 

 

We stopped by another fishing village, and the lady slipper. As we got closer to the lady slipper, we saw a bunch of boys on the structure. When the boat stopped in front of it, they jumped into the water and then swam over to the boat for dollars!

 

 

 

[lah66]

Finally we pulled into Marigot where Spencer gave us the choice to go inland or not. We all decided it looked like a fun place to stretch out legs a bit. Marigot was beautiful! We saw George Foremans house (the one shaped like his grill), Sophia Lorens house (the classy one on the far right in the second photo).

 

 

 

Marigot was so beautiful and so peaceful!

 

 

 

 

 

We returned to port and headed back to the ship. What a wonderful day. As cruisers we get little tastes of so many different islands, but today, we found an island that we can see ourselves visiting for a week or longer. St Lucia is just so beautiful and Spencer really showed us a great time!

[Norwegianlatvian]

Thank you for a great review! Many beautiful pictures!

[welshcorgie]

Finally we pulled into Marigot where Spencer gave us the choice to go inland or not. We all decided it looked like a fun place to stretch out legs a bit. Marigot was beautiful! We saw George Foremans house (the one shaped like his grill), Sophia Lorens house (the classy one on the far right in the second photo).

 

 

 

Marigot was so beautiful and so peaceful!

 

 

 

 

 

We returned to port and headed back to the ship. What a wonderful day. As cruisers we get little tastes of so many different islands, but today, we found an island that we can see ourselves visiting for a week or longer. St Lucia is just so beautiful and Spencer really showed us a great time!

St. Lucia is our FAVORITE island also. The people are so warm and friendly and the island is BEAUTIFUL!!

[Luv06012012]

I have never been to St. Lucia, but it is a recurring theme on cruise critic of how lovely a place it is. You bet that it is on my future "to do" list!

 

Loving your turtle picture! My snorkeling goal is to swim with them somewhere, someday!

[bigque]

St. Lucia is our FAVORITE island also. The people are so warm and friendly and the island is BEAUTIFUL!!

 

St. Lucia is a beautiful place. It was our favorite island also. When we were there we were thinking how we would love to own a vacation home there!

[lah66]

St Lucia is gorgeous...I hope to return there someday to see more of the island. Many people dissuaded us from taking a island tour because of the bad roads. I am not sure how much there is to see elsewhere on the island...I know there is a waterfall, a volcano, a banana plantation, and lots of beautiful beaches!

Has anybody done a land tour there?

Lauri

[joand452]

We did a land tour with Cosol (http://cosol-tours.com/tours.html) in 2007. We had a great day, although we didn't care for Jalousie Beach, since we don't snorkel. And getting out of and back into the boat to the main beach was not easy for me. I would probably not do that part again.

 

We went to the banana farm, the waterfall and the volcano. We also stopped for a meal put together by his girlfriend and family. All local foods with a beautiful view. Cosol was not our driver, but the one we had was great.

[lah66]

My usual obsessive cruise planning let me down here! What a mistake I made!

 

I read as much as I could about Guadeloupe and what little I did find was not positive. I was really concerned about not being able to find an English speaking cab driver that would take us to where we wanted to go, would bring us back to port when we wanted and would not cheat us. We may have been more brave had DD not been with us.

 

We thought about the RCI tour to St Anns beach but it was only a few hours long and pretty expensive. We do not usually take ship tours because I feel I can get more bang for our buck out on our own.

 

We decided we would make this kind of a second sea day...but we would get off the ship, shop the markets and go find the church that Eiffel built.

 

After sleeping in and having a leisurely breakfast, we got off the ship and headed towards town. We got through all the people in port trying to take us here and there and walked down the main street. We immediately noticed how run down and dirty it was in that area. Bags of stinky garbage littered the sidewalks. We got to the end of the street and saw the markets off to the left. As we turned toward them, we were overwhelmed by the smell of human urine. We looked back at the market, at each other, and decided enough was enough. DD was feeling nervous and I did not think I would be able to enjoy the markets. I was really concerned about walking any further away from the ship. We gladly reboarded the ship and had a very relaxing day in the very empty solarium!

 

Our table mates were braver than we were. They dickered with a taxi driver who took them safely around the island and had a wonderful day. They said Guadeloupe is very beautiful and I do not doubt that one bit.

 

I wish I would have known better and taken a ships tour at the very least. Lesson learned for this cruiser!

 

A word about Guadeloupe. This was RCI's last stop there. RCI came to the conclusion that this was not at all successful. I heard the stop was part of an agreement so RCI could get a port in France...I don't know if there is any truth to that. I think they said 300 people disembarked and embarked that day but it was not obvious to us except for the large number of people with suitcases walking around port. It was in no way disruptive. This is the first cruise we have been on that we felt the other guests were very rude. There was a lot of inappropriate elevator and buffet behavior. I don't want to belabor the point, just an observation.

 

What a missed opportunity to see a beautiful island! One that we will probably never return to!

 

Lauri

[lah66]

Thursday we docked in Antigua. We were very excited for our Island tour with Gordon. We had planned to go with two other Cruise Critic couples but one couple were not able to make it. Gordon met us at the Clothing shop off to the right of the port.

 

Gordon is a very pleasant man with a beautiful singing voice. He serenaded us often throughout the tour. His daughter Samantha was out of school that week so he stopped at his home to pick her up so she could spend the day with us. He hopes she will carry on the family business but she said she wants to go to college in a big city and be a pilot!

 

When we met up with him we told him that we did not need a lot of time at the beach since we did not plan to snorkel. For some reason, he did not take us to the Market or to the church advertised on his website. Our first stop was the Devils Bridge. We walked quickly and took a few pictures before the black clouds started after us! This really was the theme for the week...No more April cruises for us!

 

 

Afterwards we stopped at the Dow Interpretation Center and took some gorgeous pictures and watched a short presentation about Antigua. After that, we drove to Shirley Heights. What a gorgeous place! Too bad it was so overcast!

 

 

Eric Clapton's house out on the point...

 

 

 

 

t

[lah66]

Nelson's Dockyard was a lot of fun to walk through. It would have been a great spot to stop for lunch and a drink but we only had 30 minutes or so there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we left the Dockyard, Gordon passed out meat and vegetable pies for us to sample. They were delicious. He also stopped at a store to buy us water, soda or beer. Later in the tour he stopped and got us some delicious fruit. The black pineapple was delicious!

[lah66]

At one point in the tour, Gordon asked his daughter Samantha if she wanted to go to the beach and she answered No. I thought maybe he would drop her off at home before he took us to the beach. Lesson learned...ask the question! Soon, she needed to use the restroom so we stopped at Dickinson Beach. The beach was very beautiful. We basically used the bathrooms and left. I knew he normally stops at Long Bay Beach so I figured this was just a convenient bathroom stop.

 

 

He then drove us to an overlook of St Johns.

 

 

We got back in the van and before I knew it, we were back in port and there was no beach stop! It was 2 pm. Even if we did not want to snorkel, I would have loved to stop at a beach, take a walk, sit in the sand, have a drink. What a huge bummer. I am not sure if he didn't take us because Samantha did not want to go or if we just did not make it clear enough to him that we still wanted to see a beach, just not snorkel. I was left with mixed emotions. He was a very nice guy, but did we get the tour on his website? Nope. I would say it was a good tour, but we did not communicate well enough to make it a great tour. Lesson learned.

 

These guys welcomed us in the morning and sent us off this evening! They were adorable!

 

 

It was beautiful sailing out of Antigua....Not sure if I should live in this house with the private beach....

 

 

Or this one with a private cave....

 

[lah66]

We wrestled with what we should do in St Croix. If it was just DH and I we would have probably hopped on the bus to Christiansted, toured the fort, and gone for lunch and microbrews at the Fort Christian Brew Pub, then go back to Fredericksted for a bit more walking around the fort and port area.

 

DD likes relaxing vacations (sometimes I forget that part), so we headed off to Sandcastle Resort for a relaxing beach day. It was overcast and a big rainy first thing in the morning, but it ended up being a gorgeous day.

 

As we walked out of port, we saw a table of people offering taxis. We should have stopped there, but there was a big line, so we started walking past the table and ran right into a cab that said he would take us to the beach. It was $3 per person. This ended up being a mistake!

 

We checked in at Sandcastle's front desk with a cranky lady who was not in the least bit happy to see us, or probably anyone. The guy that helped us with our chairs and umbrellas was very helpful and pleasant. We got three chairs, two umbrellas and two rum punches for $40. Pretty cheap day! They have a pool, shower, bathrooms that you can use.

 

 

 

 

 

The beach was so beautiful. It was great just to relax and read our kindles. Soon, DD and I were bored so we started collecting beach glass, then playing in the sand, and then swimming. It was so relaxing, and a perfect end to our cruise! On our way out, we had a yummy lunch and drinks at the cafe. I had fish tacos and a guavaberry colada and DD and DH had a burger. The waiter was super friendly!

 

 

 

We walked back to the front desk area to catch a cab back to the port. We waited for a while and none showed up, so we went into the office and asked the lady working the desk (she was even meaner than the first) if she could call a cab for us. She asked us if we had a return ticket and we told her No. Apparently, most the cabbies charge you $6 right away (that is what the taxi table was for) and give you a return ticket and you tell them what time to pick you up. Our cabbie did not give us one. She actually told us that we were going to have a hard time finding someone who was willing to pick us up since we had no return ticket? Really? We were not too worried about it since it wasn't all that far, we could have walked! But why be rude? Soon, a taxi came and took us back to port.

[lah66]

The St Croix port is really beautiful and very quaint! There were a lot of tents set up with people selling things. I picked up a beautiful palm tree wire and sea glass Christmas ornament.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fort Fredericksted

 

 

How sad is this...our last port! I would love to come back here and explore more of this beautiful island. What a great cruise it has been!