Journey of a Lifetime - 11 Night Sunshine November 2015

[Jackie_OR]

Some cruise pals of mine were on that cruise and have the second leg too!! Larry & Juanna....glad to hear it was wonderful!!

 

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[vamartha]

The Liquid Lounge was small but we only went to one or two things there, didn’t go to a single show, usually we do. It was nice having a bar right inside, that is a nice touch. The Alchemy bar was interesting. We only stopped once, I wasn’t a fan of the drink he made me and I stuck to the Red Frog Rum bar mostly for my drinks. We also had drinks several times from the Atrium bar, those were good as well. Service was almost always perfect, every employee smiled and said hello or good morning or good night. I think the crew enjoyed the itinerary, I saw lots and lots of crew at almost every port. Serenity was cool, but again we didn’t get to spend much time there. Nine ports is just too freaking many!

 

 

[vamartha]

St. Kitts was up next. A beautiful island with lots of small villages. Once again we got off the ship and found a tour for about $25. This one completely circled the island and our driver gave us maps so we could keep up with the route. Watch out, they will put a monkey on your head and then ask for money but the monkeys were babies and pretty harmless. I was actually amazed at how soft and timid they were. Some of the lookouts were pretty spectacular with dramatic cliffs and pounding surf. I did get a little bored near the end of this tour but that was an issue with just starting to get tired instead of an issue with the tour. Our driver was good and personable and had a really good knowledge of his island.

 

How long has it been since you've seen a pair of these? They were right in the shopping area but looked long abandoned.

 

 

 

 

 

Shipping containers were popular throughout all the islands we visited. I couldn't figure out if they were using this one for a home or a jail. We did see a lot of them converted into homes on some of the islands though.

 

[vamartha]

 

 

 

His little hands were so soft, that really surprised me.

 

 

 

[vamartha]

 

 

You would see these birds, egrets, all over the island. But no matter where you saw them, they all nest in these trees in this one location. They all come home.

 

 

 

Atlantic Ocean on the left, Caribbean Ocean on the right. Look at the difference in the motion of the ocean!

 

Edited December 13, 2015 by vamartha

[vamartha]

These boys on Steel Drums were amazing! I could have listened to them all day and I sure would appreciate having them on the Lido! Although the music was better this time, I didn't hear any rap on deck and that was sure a welcome change! But these boys, they define the Caribbean!

 

 

 

 

[reerun25]

Enjoying your review!

[vamartha]

Dominica! Not Dumineeka, but Dahminka. Less resort style port and more downtown real life wham bam you are in my city where I live type of port. I loved it! Again we took an unprebooked taxi tour in a van, $20 or $25 per person and lets go see the sights! First off it was off to Morne Bruce for a look at the ship in port and a view of the city. Then a nice drive through the Botanical Gardens, we had a while to get out here. Check out the Wifi in the trees! Then we drove up to Trafalgar Falls and made the trek up the rain forest! It wasn’t a bad hike but it was slippery in places! Two beautiful falls are located at the top and we saw some flood damage in the river on the drive up from Tropical Storm Erika. Our guide said the wind didn’t get much over 35mph but the torrential rains were what destroyed their island.

 

We walked around quite a bit back down in town. Went in a couple of grocery stores and looked around the craft markets. I didn’t feel that people were pushy or unfriendly at all. It was a pretty neat look into their daily life and I enjoyed it much better than some of the artificial ports like Roatan or Grand Turk.

 

 

Our cabin was on portside Lido. Right above the letter L in Carnival.

 

 

 

 

[vamartha]

 

 

 

 

 

[vamartha]

 

 

Land Crab. Terrible picture. He was big, bigger than crabs you find on the beach. Much bigger! He was way up in the rainforest!

 

 

Our expert guide at the Falls. He was an expert in ecology and knew everything about nature. He was a wealth of information all the way on our hike to the falls.

 

 

[vamartha]

 

 

 

 

 

[vamartha]

St. Lucia was up next but as much as I wanted to visit, I had to have a rest day! Charlie walked into port and had a drink or two but I stayed up on Deck 10, enjoying the strong breeze and some Beachcombers from the Red Frog Rum Bar! I sat up there most all day, I had lot of company. At one time John Heald and his assistant Jacinta stopped for a smoke, a cig for her and a cigar for him. They stayed a while too, the breeze was amazing and the views were nice on the starboard side. I’ve got no pics from the day, I just chilled out all day, no rush, no fuss, no mess! We actually saw JH all over the ship, Lido, in the halls, in the atrium, just walking Deck 10, lots and lots of JH sightings!

[vamartha]

A few more random shots from around the ship.

 

 

 

These were good! Watermelon!

 

 

 

[cruisexlife]

Hello,

 

I am LOVING this review! You visited some very exotic ports, and they look very beautiful. I hope I am able to try a Journey's cruise sometime soon, it looked amazing. I really liked the addition of the Steel Drum Band. I play at home, and I love going to the islands and hearing them.

 

Your pics are fantastic, thanks for sharing them! And thank you for taking the time to write this review and share your experience!

[ferfoodle]

The quote button isn't working....but is that a bus squished under that tree in your bottom picture in post #34?

[jimbri]

Great photos!!

[KroozFoolz]

The quote button isn't working....but is that a bus squished under that tree in your bottom picture in post #34?

 

Yes, damage from Hurricane David in 1979.

http://www.da-academy.org/dagardens_hurricane.html

[vamartha]

Yes! It is in the Botanical Gardens and is from 1979. It was crushed by an African Baobab tree during Hurricane David. They've just left it and now its a pretty famous tourist attraction all on its own. These are the only two pictures that I took.

 

[vamartha]

In Antigua I had prebooked an excursion. I wish that I hadn’t. Not that there was anything wrong with the excursion, there wasn’t but I’m pretty positive I could have gotten the same exact tour off ship at about half the price. I had booked with Antigua Scenic Tours and if you are one of those people who simply cannot play off the cuff, by all means I highly recommend them. I’ve always been prebooked for every single excursion and I learned a lesson this trip. I won’t do it anymore. It is nice to get up any time you want from the ship and mosey on down and find a tour. I enjoyed it and I think I’ll adopt it as my new style instead of rushing and fighting to be the first one off! It was $38 to book online and another $38 at the end of the tour.

 

We took the Island Experience and had a new van with air conditioning but it could have stood a pair of shocks! It had the cleanest windows of any tour we took and I have no idea why I’m mentioning it! We visited Nelson’s Dockyard during Yacht Week and that was stunning! Oh my, it is nice to see how the other half lives! Had it not been so hot I would have been in complete heaven but I was really uncomfortable. We went to see stunning views of Falmouth Harbor and then we ended up having two hours at Jolly Beach. Probably not the most relaxing of beaches, all the chairs are right on top of each other and there were a lot of vendors but once in the water, none of that mattered. It was warm, flat, sloping and not full of rocks. The water was wonderful for just floating around and relaxing.

 

We ported by the P&O Britannia.

 

 

Eric Clapton's house. It looked like a hotel!

 

 

 

[vamartha]

 

 

 

 

 

[vamartha]

 

It looked like the school children on every single island wore uniforms to school.

 

 

 

 

[Yarnaholic]

I LOVED Dominica!! We took a Carnival endorsed snorkel excursion to the Champagne Reef. It was nice and there was a lot of sea life to see. Our only complaint is that there were too many people per guide, and it felt like we were all swimming on top of each other.

 

After snorkeling, we cleaned up and went back out. We ended up on an open air bus tour with some other folks and about half a dozen of the ships's crew - some from Pixels, one from the spa, and one of the DJs. Our driver was Lenny. How took us to the botanical gardens and then out of the main city. He showed us so many different plants, like avocado, nutmeg, coffee and cocoa bean, and papaya. He pointed out where TS Erika had caused damage, but we were never in any dangerous areas. He let us stop at a few of the local vendors to buy souvenirs. We went to Trafalgar Falls. GO THERE!! We paid the extra $5 to take the tour up to the falls, and it was fantastic! So picturesque! And then we were led down to the rocks and we actually go to climb up to the falls. We ended up swimming in BOTH of the pools at the bottom of each of the falls. It was a blast! If you want a great island tour, find Lenny!

[w8ing2cruz]

Loving your review - and FANTASTIC pictures!! Can you let us know what made this 'Journeys' cruise different? We are on the Glory 11 day Journey cruise out of San Juan. Did they bring entertainment onboard from the islands or serve different dishes from the islands? Thanks for sharing.

[Keith1010]

Enjoying your posts.

 

Keith

[thephillykid]

Great review so far. We are a little over a month away to our Journey on the Dream. Great way to wet my appetite.

Thanks for the excursion advice.

I was getting a little crazy researching the ports as well.

Howard