Detailed Photo Review of Celebrity Eclipse 14 Night Southern Caribbean Cruise 3/4/18

[deladane]

We took the Woodwind last November. Klein Bonaire was very rough, so I am sure they did the right thing cancelling.

 

Agreed! We could see it from the ship later in the afternoon and there is zero wind protection out there. Too bad you can't control Mother Nature :rolleyes::rolleyes:

[deladane]

Justino explained that there are hundreds of sites where you can go scuba diving in Bonaire. Because the road which circles the island is so narrow, there isn’t a lot of space to park your car, so they have these cross walk signs to keep the divers safe. I thought this was really funny…

 

 

Our next stop was the 1000 Steps. No, there are not 1000 steps here. I think it was more like 70 steps haha Under water, the steps continue and create one of the best scuba diving spots on the island as the plateaus and drop offs repeat and create a beautiful underwater world. We spent about 20 minutes here, with time to walk down to the beach and take some photos.

 

 

These yellow painted stones mark all the dive spots around the island. Most are named for the person who discovered the site, but this one has a more specific name.

 

 

 

 

[deladane]

 

 

Another rocky beach

 

 

 

 

[deladane]

 

 

The ocean eroded the side wall of the hill, mimicking the steps under the water

 

 

 

I can’t imagine walking back up all of these steps, lugging scuba gear!!

 

 

One last view of the beach. This was really a beautiful spot!

 

[katysuerx]

1000 Steps! That is where we stopped too, we did a bit of quick snorkeling here. You’re right, it was super rocky. I prefer to snorkel from a boat excursion but was thrilled to have the option to just run into the water. We also saw this little guy on the steps!

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[deladane]

Next, we continued driving north towards the town of Karpata. There is a large protected nature reserve at the northern end of the island which is home to hundreds of flamingos. Justino passed around this poster to show us that flamingos are actually white in color when they are born, but they feed on shrimp which turns them pink. The older they get, the more shrimp they eat, and the pinker they become!

 

 

After a few more minutes of driving, I looked out the front window to see this:

 

 

It was a beautiful lake and home to many of the flamingos. Justino pulled off into a parking area so we could get out and observe the view from an overlook point. It was nearly impossible to capture the flamingos on my camera because we were quite far away, but I could see them with my naked eye. If you look very closely in the lake, the tiny pink spots are all flamingos!

 

 

 

 

[deladane]

We continued driving around the lake to get a closer look at the flamingos. Justino said we had to keep a safe distance so we couldn’t get too close, but at least we could see them clearly now. I think it was lunch time as they kept ducking their heads under water to eat. While I have seen many flamingos at the zoo or in enclosed animal habitats, this is the first time I have seen a flamingo in the wild, and I was thrilled!

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we approached the lake, Justino said that there is this little yellow bird who always lands on his side view mirror whenever he drives through here. Sure enough, as we were slowing down to watch the flamingos, the yellow bird found us!

 

 

It was really cute- he kept peering down to look at his reflection in the mirror, then getting confused and thinking it was another bird so he flew into the mirror, then he went back on top for a second and started the process all over again. This went on for several minutes, until he realized we were driving further and further away from his nest, so he gave up and flew away. Justino said the same thing happens every time he comes to this lake, always with the same yellow bird. How funny!

[Metaled]

 

Day 9: Friday, March 9 ~ St. Lucia

(Eddy’s pronunciation: sta – LUKE – ee – ah )

 

This was our second time visiting St. Lucia together, and my third time here. When we were here in 2015, we did a zip lining tour at the Treetop Adventure Park. We had a great time there and briefly considered just booking the same tour again, but I wanted DH to see some more of the island. My first time here, I took an island tour with Cosol, and I loved seeing the famous Pitons. I really wanted DH to see the Pitons and visit Sugar Beach, so I researched our options. The thing I didn’t like about Cosol’s tour was that we spent a lot of our day sitting in the tour van and driving around the island, so I wasn’t interested in booking that same tour again. Spencer Ambrose gets wonderful reviews both on Trip Advisor and on Cruise Critic. He offers a land and sea combo tour which takes a speed boat to and from the town of Soufriere, thus cutting out much of the driving portion of the day. His website offers a detailed description of the tour, and we could book a reservation online by paying a $10 per person deposit, with the remainder of the cost due in cash on the day of the tour.

 

Today’s daily schedule

 

 

 

 

Today was another early morning for us, starting with room service delivering our breakfast at 7am. We were happy to see that they delivered the smoked salmon today!

 

 

I'm new to this forum and noticed your excellent review of your adventures and the Eclipse. I'm going to be on the Eclipse with my wife and daughter on July 1 travelling the Baltics for 12 days. My last cruise was 7 days in the Caribbean...we used Zero and hung up our swim wear in the cabin washroom and we draped our swimwear on the deck chairs....it was windy and luckily, we didn't lose our suits. I noticed the laundry challenge in one of your pics....$49.95 for a bag. I 'm wondering how you/others deal with laundry?

[deladane]

I'm new to this forum and noticed your excellent review of your adventures and the Eclipse. I'm going to be on the Eclipse with my wife and daughter on July 1 travelling the Baltics for 12 days. My last cruise was 7 days in the Caribbean...we used Zero and hung up our swim wear in the cabin washroom and we draped our swimwear on the deck chairs....it was windy and luckily, we didn't lose our suits. I noticed the laundry challenge in one of your pics....$49.95 for a bag. I 'm wondering how you/others deal with laundry?

 

How do I deal with laundry? I don't! haha I pack enough clothing and bathing suits for the entire vacation and don't re-wear anything (except for my shorts since I usually don't wear them for very long each time). I own a lot of clothes though, so I may as well wear them! DH only owns 4 bathing suits and 3 rash guards, so he does re-wear that stuff. He rinses it off in the shower with shower gel as soap and then hangs it to dry on the hooks in the shower, and re-wears a few days later.

[Metaled]

How do I deal with laundry? I don't! haha I pack enough clothing and bathing suits for the entire vacation and don't re-wear anything (except for my shorts since I usually don't wear them for very long each time). I own a lot of clothes though, so I may as well wear them! DH only owns 4 bathing suits and 3 rash guards, so he does re-wear that stuff. He rinses it off in the shower with shower gel as soap and then hangs it to dry on the hooks in the shower, and re-wears a few days later.

 

 

That's a good way to save on laundry!!! Thanks for the pics and especially the menus...I'm getting hungry just looking at the food pics! Keep it up.

[oskarNZ]

Thanks again for more great updates. I am loving your posts on Bonaire.

 

Sorry to hear that you missed out on your snorkel tour, but for what it’s worth, that land tour looks awesome. Bonaire looks like a really beautiful island.

 

We are booked with H2O Visions on a 5 hr tour that does both a land tour as well as some snorkel stops off the beach. I just couldn’t decide what was more important to me - the snorkelling or seeing some of Bonaire’s highlights - and this seemed the best compromise.

Reading your trip report, I’m really happy now that we will get a chance to see the salt flats, slave huts and flamingoes; they’re sights and landscape so unlike anything close to home.

I’m going to remember your guides advice to use the framing of one of those windows to get a unique photo of the ocean.

[deladane]

Thanks again for more great updates. I am loving your posts on Bonaire.

 

Sorry to hear that you missed out on your snorkel tour, but for what it’s worth, that land tour looks awesome. Bonaire looks like a really beautiful island.

 

We are booked with H2O Visions on a 5 hr tour that does both a land tour as well as some snorkel stops off the beach. I just couldn’t decide what was more important to me - the snorkelling or seeing some of Bonaire’s highlights - and this seemed the best compromise.

Reading your trip report, I’m really happy now that we will get a chance to see the salt flats, slave huts and flamingoes; they’re sights and landscape so unlike anything close to home.

I’m going to remember your guides advice to use the framing of one of those windows to get a unique photo of the ocean.

 

That tour sounds like a great compromise! Thanks for reading along :cool:

[deladane]

Last few glimpses of the flamingos as we drove off towards our next destination…

 

 

 

 

 

Next, we drove further inland towards the town of Rincon.

 

 

We pulled up to the Cadushy Distillery, where they make cactus liquor. They usually charge $5 per person to take their tour and sample the liquors, but it was included in the $30 price we paid for our tour.

 

[deladane]

 

 

They took us to a shaded area at the back of the property and offered everyone a sample of the cactus liquor. This is Justino serving the samples… he made a silly face when he saw I was taking his photo haha

 

 

I thought it tasted kind of sweet, but I liked it.

 

 

We watched a short film about the process of making the cactus liquor.

 

 

After that, we had a few minutes to walk around the grounds, use the rest rooms, and sample the other flavors of liquor.

 

This cute bird was hanging out in one of the trees… Maybe he turned green from drinking too much cactus liquor??

 

[deladane]

Some photos of their grounds…

 

 

 

Sign for the restrooms

 

 

There is a bar area set up where they offered tastings of their rum, whisky, vodka, and a few other flavors of liquor. I tried a few but didn’t really like any of them. After everyone had their fill, we piled back in the van to finish off the rest of the tour.

 

We passed this big yellow church, but I don’t remember what Justino told us about it.

 

 

 

Lots and lots of cactus everywhere we looked

 

[cinderellen]

Dana,

I've really enjoyed your review. We did the same cruise a while back. I was fascinated with the salt huts and I believe I have a picture of the same yellow church! Thanks for sharing your trip.

Ellen

[deladane]

Dana,

I've really enjoyed your review. We did the same cruise a while back. I was fascinated with the salt huts and I believe I have a picture of the same yellow church! Thanks for sharing your trip.

Ellen

 

Thanks for reading!

[deladane]

 

 

We continued driving a little further to see views of the waves crashing along the shore on the north side of the island. By now, it was 12:15pm and the tour was due to end back at the ship at 12:30pm but we still had not gone to the beach. Justino asked us if we wanted to be dropped at the beach or the ship. I had assumed the beach stop was included in the 3 hours of the tour, but it appeared to be in addition to it. It was still very windy so we didn’t want to be blasted by the sand, and we were hungry for lunch now anyway, so we decided to skip the beach stop and just asked to go back to the ship. The other 2 couples in the van had the same plan in mind, so that’s what we did. We arrived back at the cruise port area promptly at 12:30pm. Overall, I think it was $30 well spent and it was nice to see the island of Bonaire, but I know the snorkeling tour would have been way more enjoyable and memorable had the weather cooperated.

 

Back on the ship, we went up to the buffet for lunch. I tried the made-to-order stir fry station because it is only available for lunch on port days. It was very tasty and made for a nice alternative to the pasta station which I had already eaten several times.

 

 

At 1:30pm, we ventured back off the ship to walk around the town. It was pretty small, spanning just two or three blocks, but there were a few shops, galleries, a brewery, and a few restaurants along the water.

 

 

 

[deladane]

 

 

 

 

 

[deladane]

The sun was beating down on us, and even though we were wearing hats, it was still very hot, so we only lasted about half an hour before we returned to the ship. On the walk back along the water, we spotted this little guy crossing in front of us.

 

 

 

Back on the ship, we went up to the Sunset Bar to admire the wonderful views and cool off with a cold drink. Bonaire is a very flat island, so the view from deck 15 of our ship was incredible!

 

 

 

 

I ordered a Blue Hawaiian and this is what the waiter brought me… it looked like the cactus liquor from Cadushy! Haha Usually these are frozen blended drinks, so I guess this was the on the rocks version? No worries, it was still cold and refreshing, which was what I wanted anyway!

 

[CaptCrunch]

I'm new to this forum and noticed your excellent review of your adventures and the Eclipse. I'm going to be on the Eclipse with my wife and daughter on July 1 travelling the Baltics for 12 days. My last cruise was 7 days in the Caribbean...we used Zero and hung up our swim wear in the cabin washroom and we draped our swimwear on the deck chairs....it was windy and luckily, we didn't lose our suits. I noticed the laundry challenge in one of your pics....$49.95 for a bag. I 'm wondering how you/others deal with laundry?

 

I don’t mean to hijack Dana’s review but I wanted to answer this question because I have a laundry solution that I love!!

 

I purchased a Scrubba Wash Bag from Amazon and I did laundry twice on my last 11 night cruise. I brought the Scrubba Bag, about 15 clothespins, a length of thin nylon cord, and a small bottle of laundry detergent.

 

The Scrubba bag is similar to a “Dry” bag (if you are familiar with camping gear) except it has a built in scubbing area with plastic nibs inside the bag and a valve to remove the air. It works exceptionally well and has directions printed right on the bag. After washing, rinsing and wringing, we used a pool towel to roll the wet clothes and then we walked on the towels to remove as much water as possible from our clothes. Even after wringing them multiple times, the towel walking method removed quite a bit more water.

 

We strung up the clothesline between the two deck chairs at night and the clothes were dry in the morning.

 

Keep in mind we were washing quick dry gym clothes, undergarments and swim suits in the Caribbean. You could always wash with the Scrubba bag and hang your clothes up inside the closet on hangers but it will take longer than overnight to dry inside; I’m not sure how well things will dry overnight on the balcony on the Baltic Cruise.

 

I bought the Scrubba specifically for this trip and it worked out really well. I highly recommend it.

[deladane]

I don’t mean to hijack Dana’s review but I wanted to answer this question because I have a laundry solution that I love!!

 

I purchased a Scrubba Wash Bag from Amazon and I did laundry twice on my last 11 night cruise. I brought the Scrubba Bag, about 15 clothespins, a length of thin nylon cord, and a small bottle of laundry detergent.

 

The Scrubba bag is similar to a “Dry” bag (if you are familiar with camping gear) except it has a built in scubbing area with plastic nibs inside the bag and a valve to remove the air. It works exceptionally well and has directions printed right on the bag. After washing, rinsing and wringing, we used a pool towel to roll the wet clothes and then we walked on the towels to remove as much water as possible from our clothes. Even after wringing them multiple times, the towel walking method removed quite a bit more water.

 

We strung up the clothesline between the two deck chairs at night and the clothes were dry in the morning.

 

Keep in mind we were washing quick dry gym clothes, undergarments and swim suits in the Caribbean. You could always wash with the Scrubba bag and hang your clothes up inside the closet on hangers but it will take longer than overnight to dry inside; I’m not sure how well things will dry overnight on the balcony on the Baltic Cruise.

 

I bought the Scrubba specifically for this trip and it worked out really well. I highly recommend it.

 

Thanks for the suggestion, that sounds like a great solution! Just one thought though- it is a big no-no to leave things on your balcony overnight. It is extremely windy out there as the ship travels between ports overnight, and there is a big risk of something blowing overboard. If you get caught throwing something overboard (intentionally or accidentally), you can actually be asked to leave the ship and be sent home for it! Maybe try just hanging it up in the bathroom instead :)

[CaptCrunch]

Yikes!! Thanks for the warning. Will definitely dry inside from now on.

[Metaled]

Yikes!! Thanks for the warning. Will definitely dry inside from now on.

 

Thanks for the suggestions CaptCrunch & Dana!

[deladane]

I think this island out in the distance is Klein Bonaire. There is supposed to be great snorkeling out there, but I didn’t see anyone snorkeling today (not surprising given all the wind!)

 

 

At 3pm, we went over to the Sky Lounge for today’s round of music trivia. They just did general music trivia today so there was no specific theme. DH and I just played on our own team, so we did okay, but didn’t come close to winning. The views out the windows of the Sky Lounge are always so pretty! Unfortunately, the glare off the windows makes it hard to take a good picture, but I wanted to post this for anyone who is booked with Woodwind because it shows where we met our guide this morning. Do you see the first pier coming out into the water that is closest to the ship? The one with the building on the end with the reddish brown roof? We met our guide on the sidewalk right next to that pier, so you can see it is not a far walk at all.

 

 

After trivia, we went back to the cabin to get ready for the evening, then went down to the Martini Bar for a drink. Now that it was week two of the cruise, I had a feeling for which martinis were my favorite, so I ordered the Blue Wave again, knowing it was tropical and refreshing.

 

 

While I was sipping on my cocktail, I re-read today’s daily schedule and noticed that they were having a tapas and sangria event on the lawn at the Sunset Bar, and the Passion Duo was going to perform during sail away. We wanted to go upstairs to watch the show, so I started to walk towards the elevators with my martini glass, but the bartender stopped me. He said he had to transfer my drink into a highball glass and then I could take that with me wherever I wanted on the ship. I guess they don’t want their special large martini glasses disappearing all over the ship, but I didn’t mind at all because this made it easier to walk with the drink and not spill it! Haha

 

When we got up to the Sunset Bar, we saw that they had setup blankets and little tables on the lawn for the event.

 

 

There was a nice spread of food set up in a buffet with breadsticks, cheeses, meats, and veggies.

 

 

At the end of the table, you can see 2 big silver bowls-that’s where they had the sangria. They served it like punch from the bowl, but they were charging $10 per glass and it was not included in the beverage packages, so I just stuck with my martini.