The Palm Trees are Really Cool: A Pictorial Review of the Valor's Southern Route

[LVDFW]

Why the ketchup, you might ask? Okay, don’t judge me. Someone once told me that tomatoes help sunburn and I’d read myself that vinegar helps take the sting out of sunburns. And, well, ketchup is kind of tomatoes and vinegar. So we grabbed a bottle and headed back to the room.

 

 

It didn’t work. I’ll spare you the details. It felt nice and cool going on, but once I got out of the shower, my skin was still an angry, violent red.

 

We settled in with Outbreak on the television, deciding to skip the Mexican fiesta (and buffet) upstairs in favor of rest and sleep. We were en route to St. Lucia and an early wake up call, so we called it a day.

 

Just curious what the letter said. Was that the re-fuel day so no smoking letter?

[willydoit]

Still here,,,,nice review!:D

[ragethjj23]

Love the review...soooo many ideas for when we do this cruise next year!

[NeuroQueen]

Thanks for such a great review. We were booked on this trip for Thanksgiving last year, a FREE cruise mind you, just like you received, in a wonderful Lido balcony. It wasn't meant to be as I broke my arm the month before. I was devastated. Finally, a free cruise and I couldn't go. This is showing me all that I missed. Plus, I love your reviews. I had to laugh as I stay on the Catamarans as well and drink rum punch. Haha. Can't wait to read the rest.

[jwalk03]

Good review so far! Took this trip last year and LOVED every minute of it. I proposed to my g/f on the beach in Barbados. It was awesome!!

[kjunea]

wonderful review. We are doing the Valor in March, so I am really looking forward to all of your review! My poor husband has Michigan skin and I am sure he will be as red as a beet if we do a Cat tour on Barbados! We can keep spraying him every 30 minutes and he still burns!

[Flytko]

Love this review, gives me ideas about doing this route!!!!

[CruiseAwesome]

I should probably be on bed at this time but reading this review has me completely excited for our upcoming Southern Caribbean!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

[Nicole721]

Yes still reading!! Loving your review and all of your pictures!! Hope to do this cruise one day :) Thank you again!!

 

It's a fantastic itinerary! :)

 

Still reading!

 

Wooooooohoooooooo!!! :)

[Nicole721]

Just curious what the letter said. Was that the re-fuel day so no smoking letter?

 

I don't remember what it was exactly, but I don't remember a refuel letter.

 

Still here,,,,nice review!:D

 

Thank you! :)

[Nicole721]

Love the review...soooo many ideas for when we do this cruise next year!

 

I'm glad! :)

 

Thanks for such a great review. We were booked on this trip for Thanksgiving last year, a FREE cruise mind you, just like you received, in a wonderful Lido balcony. It wasn't meant to be as I broke my arm the month before. I was devastated. Finally, a free cruise and I couldn't go. This is showing me all that I missed. Plus, I love your reviews. I had to laugh as I stay on the Catamarans as well and drink rum punch. Haha. Can't wait to read the rest.

 

Sounds like you're due for a stroke of good cruise luck! :)

[Nicole721]

Good review so far! Took this trip last year and LOVED every minute of it. I proposed to my g/f on the beach in Barbados. It was awesome!!

 

What a place to propose! Probably one of the must stunning beaches I've ever visited!

 

wonderful review. We are doing the Valor in March, so I am really looking forward to all of your review! My poor husband has Michigan skin and I am sure he will be as red as a beet if we do a Cat tour on Barbados! We can keep spraying him every 30 minutes and he still burns!

 

SPF720000000!

 

My skin has never reacted to the sun the way it did in Barbados. I mean, I'll burn sometimes, but that's usually when I forget to put on sunscreen or when I think it's not warm enough or there isn't enough direct sunlight to burn (I'm looking at you, San Francisco!). But a blistering burn wearing SPF 70? Man, that Barbados sun was another breed.

[Nicole721]

Love this review, gives me ideas about doing this route!!!!

 

Do it!!

 

I should probably be on bed at this time but reading this review has me completely excited for our upcoming Southern Caribbean!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

 

= my life ;)

 

I'm supposed to be packing (leaving for California in less than 48 hours!), or in bed (long day of meetings tomorrow) and instead, I'm here -- posting in this thread and reading a Europe review (we're doing a Europe cruise in May!). I'll sleep...later LOL.

[Nicole721]

Many of our family vacations start with an off-handed mention at a really random moment. A “I wish we were in [insert random tropical island here]” while we’re out to dinner, or a “What about a trip on [insert a cruise line here]” on gchat during the work day.

 

Our first attempt to visit St. Lucia began on a car ride through a snow storm in 2008. Stephanie had just graduated college and, much like myself, was planning on taking some time off before finding a full time job to figure out what she wanted to do, and I was driving her home after moving her out of her apartment. Somehow, snow storms seem to motivate us to book vacations.

 

Our minds were on Orlando and a visit to Disney World and our eternal favorite Gaylord Palms, and as we do, we just started Google-ing. And we found a fantastic late rate on a cruise on the Miracle cruise departing six weeks later. St. Maarten, St. Kitts, St. Lucia. Mom always had some weird fascination with St. Lucia that I never quite understood, but that somehow grew the more reality shows she saw it on (I’ll call it The Bachelor Effect). And a couple of weeks before we left on that trip, we got a letter in the mail explaining that the Miracle was having propulsion problems and instead of docking in St. Lucia, our trip would take us to Turks & Caicos instead.

 

Despite the heavy disappointment, St. Lucia never really made it back onto any of our itineraries. “Lets visit St. Lucia!” was replaced with itineraries from New York, or to Aruba, or on new ships, or different cruise lines.

 

It was almost fate, not that St. Lucia was on this itinerary, but that the St. Lucia day fell on Mom’s birthday (a milestone birthday, nonetheless). And when we woke up to bright sunlight streaming in through our balcony door, basking us in the promise of adventures to come, we knew it had to be.

 

 

We were docking in Castries as we woke up and the first thing that struck all of us was just how much green there was. Lush trees in vibrant greens canopy most of the island. Amongst them is a vibrant and lively downtown (which didn’t seem walkable from where we docked, but surely close by) and small fishing villages canvasing many of the shorelines.

 

[Nicole721]

We grabbed a quick bite and a few cups of coffee up on Lido before heading to the Ivanhoe to meet our tour. While St. Lucia isn’t a tender port, many of the tours met in the theater to keep things organized. The row behind us was a zipline excursion and as people checked in, they were asked to step on a scale and try on a safety harness. We weren’t doing anything that extreme. I wanted to go on a hike of the Pitons but Mom and Stephanie weren’t feeling quite as adventurous. Instead, we booked on the Land and Sea to Soufriere, which would take us on a bus tour through the island and then a catamaran ride around. It was a long excursion (6+ hours), but would allow us to see many of the islands highlights.

 

 

When our tour group was called, we were split into groups of around 18 and led onto small busses. I heaved a heavy sigh of relief when I saw our tour group would be no greater than 20 (despite the large number of people taking the tour). Smaller tours are much more personal. Our tour guide was Solange and while incredibly knowledgeable about the island, she was not particularly warm.

 

[Nicole721]

The tour began with a drive through Castries, which is almost like the downtown area of St. Lucia. The streets were lined with local shops, banks, churches and schools, people filling them as they went about their Thursday mornings.

 

 

 

This tour allowed for many photo stops. The bus had windows that rolled down, and our first stop was a photo stop of the ship.

 

 

I’d heard the roads in St. Lucia were steep and winding, but I didn’t think they were that bad – certainly not as steep as some of the roads in St. Thomas or Tortola. Maybe I was distracted, though, by the foliage outside the bus window. We’ve been to many Caribbean islands (I think there’s ten or so that we have left to check off our lists), and I’ve never seen an island so lush. Vivid shades of rich colors paint the island in every which way you can look. It’s captivating in ways words can’t come close to describing.

 

[Nicole721]

Our first full stop was in Anse La Raye, a small fishing village on western side of St. Lucia. We had 20 minutes or so to peruse the local wares, grab a beer or use the restrooms. Mom, Stephanie and I didn’t venture far from the bus – the area was incredibly impoverished and there were many people begging for money (it made some of our fellow travelers uncomfortable – someone even asked Solange to escort them to the restroom because they didn’t feel comfortable walking alone). I live in a large city so there was nothing here that made me too uncomfortable, but if you’re not used to being approached for money, I can see where some would feel out of place.

 

 

 

 

[Nicole721]

We had another long stretch of bus ride before we hit our next photo stop, but it passed by in a blur of bright colors as we rode along the coast.

 

 

The bus pulled over on the side of the road and we stepped out to a lookout spot where we could see the Pitons.

 

 

Rising majestically from the Jalousie Bay, these mountainous peaks are just…breathtaking. Gros Piton is the larger one (Petit Piton, the smaller) and looking across the bay, I was glad we decided against the hike. It was incredibly hot, I was incredibly burnt from our sail in Barbados and our itinerary was intensive and didn’t leave much room for rest. The hike will come one day, I’m sure. This time, though? I was content to stare off into the distance and take it all in.

 

 

 

[Nicole721]

There was a small table with a vendor selling handmade wares, but we stepped past and back onto the bus. The vendors in St. Lucia were incredibly aggressive. If the bus was stopped at a stop sign, it wasn’t uncommon for a vendor to walk up and start knocking on the windows.

 

 

With most of the land portion of this tour complete, we only had one stop left before the sea portion of our excursion: the Diamond Botanical Gardens.

 

[Nicole721]

It was incredibly crowded at the botanical gardens when we arrived. There was a slowly moving tour group ahead of us, another two groups behind us and many people at the grounds to swim in the mineral baths or visit the waterfall. The allure of the gardens outweighed the number of people in them. Bold, intense colors of flora lined the dirt paths through the forest.

 

 

 

 

 

[Nicole721]

The water flows black down the Diamond Falls River due to the sulfur content from the volcano. If the color didn’t give it away, the smell would have.

 

 

 

Our walking tour of the gardens culminated with a photo stop at a waterfall. The kind of waterfalls you want to swim under and jump off of that scale dozens of feet. Not the man made kind we’d seen at the Gaylord Resorts we’ve visited, or the disappointingly tiny one we hiked through the rainforest in Costa Rica to see. I was disappointed that the stop was a photo stop and this wasn’t a waterfall we could swim through, but I’ve got plenty of travels ahead of me for that.

 

 

[Nicole721]

At the end of the tour, we had a few minutes to use the facilities and peruse the gift shop. I bought a bottle of locally produced rum and Stephanie grabbed us all ice cold water bottles to sip on during the short bus ride to the pier where we’d embark the catamaran.

 

 

I thought the catamaran was more like a ferry. It was large and had more space inside than there was outside. While our bus tours were small, three or four busses of people had to fit onto this vessel and as luck was on our side, we were the first group to board. We chose seats around a small table in the shade and waited for the rest of the groups to arrive.

 

 

[Nicole721]

The water was brilliantly azure, and so clear that you could see pretty far down.

 

 

 

[Nicole721]

Lunch was brought onboard for us, catered by a local restaurant. A buffet was set up on the bar with salads, macaroni and cheese, rice, beans, local fish dishes and jerk chicken.

 

 

As everyone settled in with lunch, we began our sail around the island.

 

 

 

[Nicole721]