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

[deladane]

The Passion Duo was set up in the corner of the bar, performing a set of acoustic songs.

 

 

It was such a nice event, and made for a beautiful ambiance as we sailed away from Bonaire. I really loved hanging out at the Sunset Bar as the ship sailed away, and having this event at the same time made it even better!

 

Once we were far enough out to sea, we went back to the cabin for a few minutes, and were just in time to catch the sunset!

 

 

 

Looks like a few others were out on their balcony to observe the sunset as well.

 

 

After the sun dipped below the horizon, we went downstairs to take our nightly photo.

 

 

Then, it was time for dinner. This menu was another one of the new ones for us, and it featured a few things that looked really good to me.

 

[deladane]

Maine Lobster Ravioli- This was soooooo good! Had I known, I would have ordered 3 or 4 plates to be delivered as my entrée!

 

 

Cured Atlantic Salmon

 

 

BBQ Pork Spring Roll

 

 

Sauteed Duck Breast

 

 

Dessert Menu

 

 

Chocolate Lava Cake (this is DH’s plate, as it is meant to be served)

 

[deladane]

I asked for mine without the ice cream and bananas, so Pinto brought me 2 cakes! Winning!

 

 

We were done with dessert by 8:10pm (Pinto and Jose must be the speediest MDR waiters on the ship, just how we like it!!), so we had time to go watch the evening hot glass show. The Passion Duo had a busy night as they were performing here as well. The gaffers stayed pretty quiet, so instead of listening to them explain what they were doing as they worked, we listened to The Passion Duo playing some music.

 

 

 

We stayed for about half an hour, then went downstairs to catch tonight’s performance by Jeri Sager. She is a Broadway actress who started in Evita, Les Mis, Cats, and Fiddler on the Roof. She has a big belting voice and performed a great show, singing an assortment of Broadway classics. I apologize that these photos came out embarrassingly bad, but it’s the best I could get from the back of the theater…

 

 

 

At 10pm, the Eclipse singers and dancers performed a little show in the grand foyer called Groove. It was supposed to features songs of the 60’s, but the songs weren’t actually from that decade. Instead, they were 60’s themed songs like “Welcome to the 60’s” from Hairspray and the theme song to Austin Powers. You need to arrive early if you want to get a good spot to see the show, especially since you are not allowed to sit on the stairs since they use them as part of the performance. I thought it was a lot of fun, especially being so up close to the action! I guess this is how people feel when they gets seats at the front of the theater for the main shows haha

 

Singing “Welcome to the 60’s”

[deladane]

 

There are no lyrics to the theme song from Austin Powers, so they only had the dancers performing. In case you don’t know what I am talking about, this is the theme song:

 

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As you can see from all the people lining the railing upstairs, the show was very well attended. It lasted about 20 minutes, then they invited everyone to join them on the dance floor. We took that as our cue to leave, and went back to the cabin to rest up for tomorrow in Curacao!

 

Step Tracker Daily Total: 12,467 steps; 4.703 miles

[ROWSE]

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!)

 

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.

 

 

 

 

I love your review!!! Thank you for putting in all the time and effort!

 

 

We have had the pleasure of taking Woodwind's tour about 5 times. I would have been crushed to miss it, so I am so sorry that happened to you. Maybe next time!

In your picture above of your meeting place, their catamaran launches at the third dock down, so there is also a bit of a walk after you meet them.

 

 

I loved your Tahiti review as we also have been there and it brought back wonderful memories. We feel that the snorkeling in Bonaire is equal to or better than Tahiti. The health of Klein Bonaire's coral is amazing!

 

Here is a link to my review of our Tahiti cruise, but my photography is nothing compared to your beautiful photos! https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2168868

[deladane]

I love your review!!! Thank you for putting in all the time and effort!

 

 

We have had the pleasure of taking Woodwind's tour about 5 times. I would have been crushed to miss it, so I am so sorry that happened to you. Maybe next time!

In your picture above of your meeting place, their catamaran launches at the third dock down, so there is also a bit of a walk after you meet them.

 

 

I loved your Tahiti review as we also have been there and it brought back wonderful memories. We feel that the snorkeling in Bonaire is equal to or better than Tahiti. The health of Klein Bonaire's coral is amazing!

 

Here is a link to my review of our Tahiti cruise, but my photography is nothing compared to your beautiful photos! https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2168868

 

Thanks for sharing your review! That brought back fun memories from our time there :cool: That's awesome that you got to do a drift snorkel in Rangiroa. PG used to offer that as an excursion but they stopped for some reason, so we just got to go to the coral garden. We only had 5 hours in port that day so Rangiroa Plongee couldn't accommodate us (I did try to book with them because I really wanted to do that drift snorkel!). My snorkel has an attachment for a gopro at the base of the mouthpiece, so I can take photos or video without using my hands, and it would have worked perfectly on your drift snorkel when you had to hold hands with your neighbor!

[deladane]

Day 13: Tuesday, March 13 ~ Curacao

(Eddy’s pronunciation: kur – ACK – ow)

 

I have always wanted to visit Curacao on a cruise to see the famous colorful buildings along the water and walk across the floating pontoon bridge. Needless to say, I was thrilled we would be visiting Curacao on this cruise! When I researched tour companies for our day here, I read many wonderful reviews about Irie Tours. Most people book the 3 hour East Side Tour to visit the Blue Curacao Factory, drive through the old Jewish neighborhood and the Spanish water area, and to spend an hour or two at Mambo Beach, but I wanted something a little more exciting. Last May, I emailed Irie Tours to book the Short West Side Beach Hopping tour for $75 USD per person. It was a 5 hour tour with stops at 3 beaches, included beer/soda/water on the bus, and would leave us plenty of time afterwards to walk around in town. Then, sometime in the fall, I was looking at their website and noticed our tour description was no longer listed. Hmmm, that’s weird! I emailed them to ask what was going on, and they wrote back to explain that they did not have enough interest in separate short vs. long beach hopping tours, so they combined it. We were automatically transferred to the new tour which would visit 4 or 5 beaches in 6 to 7 hours, and cost $65 USD per person. Since they lowered the price, they said they would honor the new lower price for us. This meant that we got a longer tour with more stops for less money! Winning!! The only problem was that now we had less time for exploring the town, but that is okay and well worth the trade off. Originally, we were going to go back to the ship for lunch before returning to the town, but now we would just plant to eat lunch at the beach and go directly into town after the tour. Sail away wasn’t until 8pm, so we were looking forward to a fun, long day in port.

 

This is the description of our tour from the Irie Tours website:

 

The west side of the island is known for its nature,history and incredible beaches! Along the way our professional guide will tell you all about our Island’s rich history.

 

Our first stop will be at National Park Shete Boka. We’ll stay here for 45 minutes while you can walk around and enjoy the spectacular scenery. You have the option to visit one of the 7 caves or just watch large,unpredictable waves crush against the rocky North coast.

 

We then head to Playa Forti for the ones who dare to go cliff jumping or else enjoy the beautiful view and take some awesome pictures.

 

The next stop is at Kenepa Beach, which is one of the most popular and beautiful beaches on the Island. Here you have the opportunity to enjoy the breathtaking view or dive into the crystal blue water. If you're into snorkeling, Kenepa beach is the perfect spot to do this. We stay at this beach for 1 hour.

 

Now it’s time for our last beach stop, which is Porto Marie Beach. Porto Marie is also known for its incredible snorkel sites. You can also grab something to eat & drink at the beach bar/restaurant. Here we stay for 1,5 hour.

 

On our way back to town, we drive by the salt lake at St. Willibrodus to see the Flamingo's.

 

Today’s daily schedule:

 

 

 

 

 

We didn’t need to meet our guide this morning until 8:45am, and the meeting spot was right off the ship on the pier, so we got to sleep a little later today and ordered room service breakfast to be delivered in the 7:30-8:00am time slot. I really liked that they always called us on the phone 5 minutes before delivering our food so I had time to throw on some clothing, clear off the coffee table, and grab some cash for a tip before they knocked on the door. While eating on the balcony, we noticed that today was another sunny but windy day (see how the water is all choppy and churned up?) We ordered a few extra goodies with breakfast today to keep us full long enough to make it to our lunch at the beach.

 

[deladane]

After breakfast, we ran upstairs to check out the views of Curacao from the port side of the ship (too bad our balcony was on the starboard side and facing nothing but ocean!). The sun is at a funny angle in the morning, so I made a mental note to come back here later in the afternoon in hopes of getting better photos.

 

 

Notice how rough the water is and all the white water crashing against the shore? It was WINDY today!

 

 

The white tents in this photo are where we needed to meet our tour guide… conveniently located very close to the ship!

 

 

Ok, time to head off the ship and get our day started.

 

Welcome to Curacao!

 

 

 

Wow, check out those waves!

 

[deladane]

 

 

As I approached this tent, I quickly spotted a man holding a sign for Irie Tours.

 

 

 

He said, “You must be Dana!” I am always so impressed when the guides can greet me by name before I introduce myself. His name was Eddy, and he said we would have 7 people in our group today, but only the 2 of us were from the cruise ship. That explains how he knew who we were!

 

He was holding this sign with a list of all of our stops for today, perhaps in an attempt to recruit others to book our tour? That didn’t happen though.

 

 

We walked over to the parking area and hopped on one of the colorful open-air school buses to ride around the corner to pick up the 5 other people from the Renaissance Hotel. The bus was a full sized school bus with a few of the rows at the back removed to make space for the speaker system and the giant cooler of drinks. There was plenty of space for the 7 of us to spread out and have our own row, with a separate row for our beach bags. We drove over to the Irie Tours office to pick up some snorkel equipment for the others on our tour. While we were waiting, I noticed this neat painting depicting the scene across the water…

 

 

By 9:15am, we were on our way to start a fun day exploring Curacao!

[deladane]

Yrad was our bus driver so that Eddy could narrate as we traveled to our first site. Unfortunately, Eddy had a fairly thick accent so it was hard to understand half of what he said, but he started the tour by explaining a brief history of Curacao and running through the day’s itinerary. He said the bar is always open so we should help ourselves to the water, soda, and beer from the big cooler at the back of the bus. Whenever Eddy wasn’t talking, they played fun loud music as we drove to our next stop. The bus had no windows, and as usual, it was a very windy day, so it was quite breezy, but that added to the fun!

 

After 15 minutes, we pulled up to our first stop: a lake filled with flamingos! Today we were much closer to the flamingos as compared to yesterday. We had about 10 minutes to get off the bus and take photos. The water in this lake was shallow so we had an unobstructed view of the flamingos!

 

 

 

 

We even saw a few of them fly away. I had no idea that flamingos could fly!

 

 

 

This was our bus for the day… pretty hard to miss it!

 

[deladane]

We made several brief stops along the road to see some of the sites from inside the bus. Up first, we saw the smallest church in the Caribbean. It was basically just a hut on the side of the highway, but Eddy said that lots of people love to pray here because of a miracle that happened in the 50’s or 60’s where a woman was able to get pregnant after praying here and she had been trying for 12 or 14 years, or something like that.

 

 

I’ll bet those windmills in the distance are collecting a lot of energy on a windy day like today!

 

 

Our next stop is called Kunuku House, and it is a museum of restored slave houses.

 

 

 

I thought the fences made out of cacti were pretty neat. Eddy said these are to keep the animals out.

 

 

Driving along the highway, we passed a few small towns with houses for the locals, but mostly, we just saw lots of bushes and clear skies ahead.

 

[swabber]

Dana, thank you very much for this marathon, well-written review. You clearly enjoy doing this but it's still a tremendous amount of work. Probably the best review I've read, and there's a lot of good ones around.

 

We're joining Eclipse soon, sailing from Dublin up to Iceland so it will be warm clothes for us and no shorts. Hopefully we'll check-out the Caribbean in the not too distant future.

 

We sailed on Eclipse when she was in her infancy and back then I avoided the Passport Bar but I'm now looking forward to trying a beer at the Gastro Pub whilst my wife is getting ready before we head for our pre-dinner drinks at the Martini Bar.

 

Thanks again.

 

swabber

[katysuerx]

 

 

 

We're joining Eclipse soon, sailing from Dublin up to Iceland so it will be warm clothes for us and no shorts.

 

 

If you’re on the May 10 sailing, we are on that sailing as well! We are in the final packing stages and looking forward to a great cruise.

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[katysuerx]

Probably the best review I've read

 

 

 

1,000% agree! Fantastic job Dana! ❤️

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[AidenL]

And from me also, thank you, a great review, highly detailed and full of useful information!

[deladane]

Dana, thank you very much for this marathon, well-written review. You clearly enjoy doing this but it's still a tremendous amount of work. Probably the best review I've read, and there's a lot of good ones around.

 

We're joining Eclipse soon, sailing from Dublin up to Iceland so it will be warm clothes for us and no shorts. Hopefully we'll check-out the Caribbean in the not too distant future.

 

We sailed on Eclipse when she was in her infancy and back then I avoided the Passport Bar but I'm now looking forward to trying a beer at the Gastro Pub whilst my wife is getting ready before we head for our pre-dinner drinks at the Martini Bar.

 

Thanks again.

 

swabber

 

Oh wow, Iceland sounds incredible! Have a wonderful cruise!! Not sure if you have a balcony, but if so, DH used to go to the Gastro Pub and get a bottle of beer but left the cap on it so he could drink it on our balcony. We brought a corkscrew/bottle opener to use in the cabin, so that helped, but this way he was close by when it was his turn to jump in the shower. Plus, it was probably more exciting to sit outside on our balcony, snacking from the cheese plate, and watching the sail away, as opposed to sitting inside on deck 3 with no view :cool:

[deladane]

1,000% agree! Fantastic job Dana! ❤️

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

aww, thanks! :hearteyes:

[deladane]

And from me also, thank you, a great review, highly detailed and full of useful information!

 

Thanks for reading! :D

[swabber]

Oh wow, Iceland sounds incredible! Have a wonderful cruise!! Not sure if you have a balcony, but if so, DH used to go to the Gastro Pub and get a bottle of beer but left the cap on it so he could drink it on our balcony. We brought a corkscrew/bottle opener to use in the cabin, so that helped, but this way he was close by when it was his turn to jump in the shower. Plus, it was probably more exciting to sit outside on our balcony, snacking from the cheese plate, and watching the sail away, as opposed to sitting inside on deck 3 with no view :cool:

We do indeed have a balcony and I had already made a mental note of your packing of a bottle opener as the thought of a beer on the balcony has an appeal. It's unlikely to happen though as it looks like we'll throw open the doors only to let in the howling wind and the rain. But hey, it's the North Atlantic...... bring it on ;p

 

Enough of my cruise, people are looking-in to read of your adventures..... me included.

[deladane]

Eddy pointed out this church because they do not bury people underground in Curacao. Instead, they use mausoleums like you can see here behind the yellow wall.

 

 

The church looked quite large.

 

 

At 10:15am, one hour and 15 minutes after starting the tour, we arrived at our first beach.

 

 

Shete Boka National Park is located on the rugged north coast and offers an incredible view of the waves crashing against the shore. It was mesmerizing to watch it! It was very rough and definitely not safe to swim in the water here, so this was more of a photo opportunity than a real beach stop. Eddy told us to walk along the path out to the water, and then to climb up some stone steps to reach the trail that goes around the edge of the cliff to get the best views of the waves, which crashed several feet high.

 

This not-so-little iguana was there to greet us as we got off the bus.

 

 

Walking along the “trail” towards the water…

 

 

The “beach”… I use that term lightly haha

 

[deladane]

 

We turned back towards these steps to climb up to the top

 

 

The trail was well defined and totally flat, so if you didn’t want to climb on the slippery, uneven rocks, you could easily just walk along this path instead.

 

 

I made excellent use of the burst mode in my camera to take photos at this point. I have never really used the burst mode before because I just never think of it, so I got a little carried away and ended up with over 1000 photos that I then had to delete off my memory card! LOL oops!! It is kind of hard to pick which photos to share with you, so pardon me while I overload you with just a small sampling of the photos I took here!

 

 

 

[deladane]

 

 

 

 

 

[deladane]

 

 

 

I call this photo “A rainbow in the mist”

 

 

 

Notice that we are wearing our aqua socks. I wasn’t sure how safe it would be to do this “hike” in flip flops, so we put these on before leaving the bus. We probably would have been okay in flip flops, but better safe than sorry!

 

Walking back to the bus, you can see the rest of the grounds here are baron. Not much to see except for all the excitement by the shore.

 

 

Once back at the parking lot, Eddy showed us where to find the restrooms. They were clean and free, which was more than we could say for most beach stops, so we took advantage of it. There was also a small café if you wanted to buy something to eat, including their specialty, iguana soup!

[deladane]

We stayed at Shete Boka for about 30 minutes, then drove 10 minutes to our next stop. Along the way, Eddy pointed out this funky house up on the hillside:

 

 

Do you see it? How about now…

 

 

I’m not sure what the deal is with this display, but it was at the entrance to our next stop…

 

 

Play Piskado is a fisherman’s wharf where there are often sea turtles in the water trying to eat the scraps thrown in from the fisherman. Eddy said we had 30 minutes to snorkel or just relax on the beach. We were thrilled as this stop was not originally on the tour, and it gave us a chance to swim with the sea turtles after missing out in Barbados!

 

 

To enter the water, you need to walk down this ramp that the cars use to lower their boats into the water. It was covered in moss, so I was glad to have something protecting my feet!

 

 

[deladane]

DH is ready to search for turtles!

 

 

Eddy told us to swim out towards the boats for the best chance at spotting the turtles. It didn’t take long before I spotted this little guy!

 

 

Yay! I was so excited that we got to see turtles!!