Celebrity reflection 10 night ultimate caribbean cruise - march 23, 2018

[Marvy Mare]

I'm on a roll this morning. I think I'll just post a few more photos and grab a coffee. It's our daughter's birthday today and the family will all be here for dinner. I've been up since 3:30. Nap this afternoon maybe.

 

The Pitons were one of the reasons I wanted to take this tour. I'm a sucker for World Heritage Sites. They are impressive though.They are volcanic spires - the Gros Piton is 2,530 ft. and the Petit is 2,438 ft. We only saw them from a distance which was a bit disappointing. Dana, who is working on a very detailed report visited St. Lucia earlier in March and took a boat tour. They got much closer to these impressive volcanic spires.

 

 

 

 

The town that you see is Soufriere.

 

Again - those beautiful clouds! Almost better than the Pitons and we have clouds here in Ontario too, but just not as stunning for some reason.

 

In the lower right portion of this photo, you can see the road that we were on coming up to where this photo was taken.

 

Coffee time! Until later.

[Marvy Mare]

I mentioned in my last post about not seeing much wildlife in the islands. This morning on our way to our local Conservation area for a dog walk, we saw 1/2 dozen wild turkeys, a pair of nesting osprey and 3 deer - looked like a mom & 2 teens. No photos for 3 reasons - we were in a moving vehicle, don't own a good wildlife lens & I didn't have my camera.:')

 

ST. LUCIA - still

This is getting a bit tiresome. I don't know how people manage to do those incredibly long detailed reports. Good notes I guess. Maybe next time. I know I'm forgetting a lot. Can't rely on an aging memory, but I still have lots of photos, so I'll press on.

 

Our next stop was at the Morne Coubaril Estate. It was a former cocoa plantation.

The vegetation was beautiful but we found the tour a bit boring. By this point, I wish 'beach' rather than plantation was added to this tour. As a former member of the Saturday Morning ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) Club as a preteen, I generally love museums and history, but just not in the mood that day. It sounded like the zip liners in another part of the estate were having more fun. We did get to see the Cocoa Dance though. That was fun.

 

 

 

For all my Catholic friends. Just thinking ahead to the Captain's message on Easter Sunday on the ship. He wished "All the Catholics" a Happy Easter. I heard a few mumbles from people around me. I think maybe he was thinking of Orthodox Easter. The captain - Dimitrios Kafetzis (a very funny man by the way) is Greek. My son-in-law's family celebrated Greek Easter a week after our Easter.

 

Those palm trees are impressive.

[Marvy Mare]

A Banyan Tree. They are pretty cool.

 

A bus parked in a shed. I guess it was a former tour bus. We were going to send this photo to the kids and tell them that it was 'Da Party Bus' - the tour bus that we took in St. Maarten.

In this photo it looks like maybe this vehicle is road worthy.

 

Wild life on the estate. I love cats, but our younger dog isn't a good cat sibling. We adopted a beautiful rag doll cat -Frank after old blue eyes- who hated our dogs. It's a long story but we couldn't keep him. He now resides with Carrie Underwood's sister-in-laws in-laws (how's that for a connection to the rich and famous?) and they love him. He is happy in a no other pet family.

 

That's it for today.

Have a good one. (I just hate that expression) Why not just say - Have a good day, morning, afternoon evening, etc.?

[loving goldens]

really enjoying your review... do you have another cruise booked I believe this was your first???? We were on deck 7 port side having that ship leave right beside us in Barbados was so cool... :)

[Marvy Mare]

really enjoying your review... do you have another cruise booked I believe this was your first???? We were on deck 7 port side having that ship leave right beside us in Barbados was so cool... :)

 

Actually our second cruise - Silhouette in March 2017. I see by your signature that you must also be a dog lover. We have an elderly lab that we won't leave in a kennel again. He probably won't be with us by 2019, but I'm sure the wonderful old guy won't make it to 2020 which is when we have booked our next cruise for. He's 10 1/2 now & very arthritic. We were on deck 10, port side near the elevators where the verandas are a little bigger.

Thanks for the comments & compliments. Keeps me motivated. :D

[loving goldens]

Actually our second cruise - Silhouette in March 2017. I see by your signature that you must also be a dog lover. We have an elderly lab that we won't leave in a kennel again. He probably won't be with us by 2019, but I'm sure the wonderful old guy won't make it to 2020 which is when we have booked our next cruise for. He's 10 1/2 now & very arthritic. We were on deck 10, port side near the elevators where the verandas are a little bigger.

Thanks for the comments & compliments. Keeps me motivated. :D

I understand completely about leaving our fur babies in kennels as they get older.... we have a beautiful golden retriever Maya who is 8 who is good health so far thk god.... they are part of your family... thks again for the great pictures... we are doing a 9 day on the Silhouette March 2019... this will be our third time on her.... :D

[SusieCruiser2]

Thank you so much for taking the time to write this review and including your wonderful photos. My husband and I did the Exotic Southern Caribbean on Eclipse in March this year. Many of the ports were the same, and I'm loving reliving my cruise through you.

 

Also . . . we lived 'in Lakefield' but were actually on Lower Buckhorn Lake, and have now relocated to Bobcaygeon. It's not too often we hear our neck of the woods mentioned on Cruise Critic.

 

Please keep posting! :cool:

Thanks, Sue

[Marvy Mare]

ST. LUCIA (cont.)

 

Beautiful colonial mansion on the property. The family who owns this home still uses it as a vacation property so we weren't able to see inside.

 

View from the property.

 

Our next stop was at the 'World's only drive in volcano', another site that I was anxious to see. There are also mud baths there and pools of spring water that you can rinse off in afterwards. We weren't there long enough to try out the mud bath. I don't think I'd really want to. The provincial park that we go to every summer is on the shores of Georgian Bay, where the water is almost as clear as Caribbean waters but not quite as warm. For a few years when the lake levels dropped there were 'mud baths' at the end of the beach. People would parade by covered in mud. Mostly the very young, so it was difficult to say if it had restorative properties as they didn't need restoring. Just seemed gross to me.

 

A waterfall near the volcano.

 

The volcano. The bubbling liquid was super heated water & that produced the steam.

 

Our group listening to the Volcano Guide. Apparently, at one time you could walk right out on the surface of the volcano. A number of years earlier a guide was showing the tourists how safe it was to walk out there. The story goes that he was jumping up and down on the surface & went right through. He lived to tell the tale & still lives in Soufriere. Ken didn't bother to walk up with us. He heard the whole tour from a nice gentleman, who also sold him a necklace. I was saying that I needed something sparkly for the next dress up night. With that necklace I was sure to sparkle.:D

[Marvy Mare]

Thank you so much for taking the time to write this review and including your wonderful photos. My husband and I did the Exotic Southern Caribbean on Eclipse in March this year. Many of the ports were the same, and I'm loving reliving my cruise through you.

 

Also . . . we lived 'in Lakefield' but were actually on Lower Buckhorn Lake, and have now relocated to Bobcaygeon. It's not too often we hear our neck of the woods mentioned on Cruise Critic.

 

Please keep posting! :cool:

Thanks, Sue

 

Hi Sue

 

Were you on Deer Bay? We're on Chemong up towards the real town of Selwyn. I sometimes take bike rides out to Deer Bay. It's beautiful over there. I love the Canadian Shield. Bobcaygeon is nice too. I've been reading a review by Dana of a March Eclipse Cruise (March 4).Was that yours.

 

Thanks for the encouragement. Now it's starting to feel like Spring I'm not as anxious to relive our trip, but I'm not a quitter.

 

:')Maris

[Marvy Mare]

ST. LUCIA (cont.)

 

After the drive through volcano, we retraced our steps and headed back to port. There was one last stop. Lunch. The restaurant was perched on a hill, like many of the structures in St. Lucia. The driver did an amazing job of backing up a narrow driveway to park so we could make a quick get away after lunch. I can't even back into our driveway. I'm a fairly good driver but my parking has always been a weakness. I can honestly say that I have not even attempted to parallel park since I got my license.

 

The little driveway you can see in this photo was an extension of the driveway.

 

There were two or three vans on the same tour. If I was feeling a little bored and ready to get back two port, I can just imagine how these young people felt.

 

Our meal was a 'Creole buffet, featuring island flavours'. From what I can remember, there was rice & peas, jerk chicken, banana salad and some soba noodles. Everything was pretty bland. I thought that the islands were 'spicy'. I guess island flavours meant spice added but nothing hot. I suppose it was bland to appeal to all tastes and I could have added some hot sauce.

 

Ken was quite happy to have a break from the wild road ways. Ironically, I mentioned to him as we were careening down the road on our final leg back to port; 'at least it's not raining'. I spoke to soon. It just started as a drizzle and then became a torrential downpour. I was even getting a little nervous by this point. I heard someone in front of me say 'Just close your eyes'. In retrospect, the drive was the most exciting part of the journey. :')

 

Traffic was fairly heavy as we came back into town. I had noticed that in the morning too. It was the cruise ship rush hour. We were let out of our of the van with a short walk back to the Reflection. We were on the port side here, so could look over the town from our balcony. The mansions and the shacks all had the same beautiful views.

 

[Marvy Mare]

Some modern office buildings, Payless Shoes and we noticed a CIBC and Scotia Bank as well.

 

All aboard was at 3:30 and we were on the road by 4pm. Maybe even a little before that. I didn't see anyone running down the pier, so I guess we were all back.

 

I think these tourists are just waving goodbye & not yelling 'Wait for us!' I took a photo of this same boat parked in a bay as we arrived at the island in the morning. Do any of the sailing tours actually 'sail'?

 

Sandals. I think it still may have been raining. I don't think I see anyone outside. Maybe they were all on the Queen of the Carnival.

 

Goodbye St. Lucia!

[Marvy Mare]

It had been a mostly dull day as you can see in the photos! Dull days mean clouds though and clouds may mean a beautiful sunset. I have a friend who recently moved to the lake. We have an western exposure. Stop me if I've mentioned this before. I'm getting old & tend to repeat myself and I'm not going back to check my words. Anyway, this friend posts a sunset photo every time there is a sunset. I'm jaded. It has to be A SUNSET for me to post and this evening produced A SUNSET.

It started at 5:35 and all photos were taken right from our veranda. Also note the crepuscular rays (that's my new take away big word from this review) in some of the photos. Too many pictures get boring but I couldn't pick my favourite so feel free to skip through. I won't know. I think this may have been one of the only sunsets I captured on our cruise. Either we were at dinner or somewhere else or there was just an meh sunset.

 

 

 

5:36am

 

 

5:37 - According to Celebrity Reflection TODAY, Sunset was at 6:15. If you went to the Martini Bar or the dark Ensemble Lounge and came back at 6:15 you'd miss the show. When I first started learning my newish camera I found that the sunsets looked nothing like the real thing in my photos. There's only so much you can do in post processing. Anyway, for this camera it's suggested that you use Matrix metering most of the time but for certain images and sunsets spot metering works the best. I think I used it here.

 

The birds are singing! Coffee is done. It is finally Spring here in central Ontario.

More sunset later!

[poffles]

 

 

My favorites! Beautiful.

[Marvy Mare]

My favorites! Beautiful.

 

Thanks. I have a few more.:D It’s finally spring in Ontario? Are you getting all that rain?

[bighairtexan]

I am loving your photos and your review. I'm pretty much doing the same cruise on Equinox in September so this has been helpful and fun to read along.

And I do believe you may be my sister from another mother. I am as good or better than any driver I know but DO NOT ask me to back up into a little space or a narrow driveway and I'm reasonably certain I too have never parallel parked once I passed my driver's test!! I'll park a block away if the space in front of my destination requires parallel parking!! :D I tell myself I could use the extra steps!!

[Marvy Mare]

I am loving your photos and your review. I'm pretty much doing the same cruise on Equinox in September so this has been helpful and fun to read along.

And I do believe you may be my sister from another mother. I am as good or better than any driver I know but DO NOT ask me to back up into a little space or a narrow driveway and I'm reasonably certain I too have never parallel parked once I passed my driver's test!! I'll park a block away if the space in front of my destination requires parallel parking!! :D I tell myself I could use the extra steps!!

 

Nice to know that I have a sister from another mother in Texas. I hate to admit as well, that even regular parking eludes me. Ken will see a vehicle parked over the line in a lot and make a nasty aside, assuming that it was done on purpose. I always say 'Be nice, that could be me.'

Not too long until September.

 

Maris

[Marvy Mare]

ST. LUCIA (Cont.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know that sunset images are better if you post just one and if there is something else in the forefront of the photo, but there wasn't. I felt like this sunset was fine on it's own and as I stated before, I couldn't pick just one or two. Made up for the mostly dull day in St. Lucia. St. Lucia was very beautiful. Probably the most beautiful of the islands that we visited, but the photos I took didn't do it justice. I hope these make up for it. Just a few more.

[Marvy Mare]

There is something else in the front of this photo. :D

 

 

 

This last photo was taken at 6:12. Still 3 minutes before the official sunset. I didn't take anymore photos, so I guess it just got dark.

 

We headed for diner in the main dining room again at our 7:15 reserved time. On this cruise there was only one time we were given the little hand held pager and asked to wait. It was probably on the dress up night. This night was the regular 'Smart Casual'. Generally at dinner people were fairly well dressed. I don't know if anyone would be turned away. I do remember seeing a man in shorts and a tank top in the main dining room on Dress up night (Evening Chic, I think they call it?) on our other cruise. He wasn't turned away. On the Silhouette the maitre de (hostess?) (seating manager?), (what is a non sexist term for that person?) was called home on an emergency part way through the trip. The young woman who took over for her was in over her head. It looks like a thankless job but the first young woman kept cool under pressure. The replacement treated everyone as if they didn't have reservations and I think we were given the pager every night after she started.

 

Back to 2018. As usual, I don't remember what we had for dinner. Next cruise I'll take photos to jog my memory, even if I don't share them. My daughter has a good Sony point and shoot that I'm sure she'd let me borrow. We gave it to her as we wanted them to take better photos of our grandchild. But alas cell phone photos can be instantly shared - only with family mind you, and I take lots of photos for them. The Sony sits in a drawer somewhere. It would fit very well in my purse for another vacation.

 

The entertainment that evening in the Refection Theatre was Broken Strings. It was starring the 'Production Cast of Celebrity Reflection'. I really enjoy the Celebrity cast shows. I'm a sucker for a musical, not exactly a high brow. I can probably sing all the words to Sound of Music & my daughter and daughter's in law share my plebeian tastes. We attend at least one or two musicals (local amateur groups or high school productions) annually in our nearest small city. This show didn't let me down. Loved it.

 

Off to bed by 10 or so. They were showing Mamma Mia at the Lawn Club. I'd love to see it on the big screen, but that 4:30 internal alarm was set and the next morning at 9am we'd be in St. Maarten.

 

When we originally booked this trip - on board the Silhouette - over a year ago, our main reason for booking was the overnight is St. Maarten. That October terrible hurricane put plans on hold for awhile. I wanted to do the cruise no matter what, but Ken was ready to cancel. Ken's sister and her husband had a similar cruise in December 2017. Understandably the St Maarten stop was changed to St Thomas & Martinique I think. I know they didn't get to St. Maarten. Once I made the final payment in December, there was no turning back.

[SusieCruiser2]

Hi Sue

 

Were you on Deer Bay? We're on Chemong up towards the real town of Selwyn. I sometimes take bike rides out to Deer Bay. It's beautiful over there. I love the Canadian Shield. Bobcaygeon is nice too. I've been reading a review by Dana of a March Eclipse Cruise (March 4).Was that yours.

 

Thanks for the encouragement. Now it's starting to feel like Spring I'm not as anxious to relive our trip, but I'm not a quitter.

 

:')Maris

 

Yes, I lived right on Deer Bay, just past Beachwood Resort. What an incredible view. I miss it sorely, but not all the work of a lakefront property with huge gardens. And yes, I was on the March 4th cruise, so have 2 wonderful reviews right now to relive the wonderful cruise.

 

And I also hate parallel parking, but did manage to do it twice that I can remember . . . successfully too! I'm so enjoying your review Maris; please keep up the good work.

 

Thanks, Sue

[Marvy Mare]

Yes, I lived right on Deer Bay, just past Beachwood Resort. What an incredible view. I miss it sorely, but not all the work of a lakefront property with huge gardens. And yes, I was on the March 4th cruise, so have 2 wonderful reviews right now to relive the wonderful cruise.

 

And I also hate parallel parking, but did manage to do it twice that I can remember . . . successfully too! I'm so enjoying your review Maris; please keep up the good work.

 

Thanks, Sue

 

We've been to dinner at Beachwood. Beautiful! I hear you about the waterfront work. We have almost an acre and close to 80 bags of leaves in the fall & 18 so far this spring. It doesn't help that we have neighbours on either side who let the leaves blow. We seriously considered moving a couple of years ago, but couldn't see ourselves in any of the places we looked at. So here to stay for now.

 

Thanks for the encouragement. Now it feels like summer here, it's tough to keep reliving the cruise. More than 1/2 way through.

Maris

[Marvy Mare]

ST. MAARTEN - Thursday, March 29 9am to Friday, March 30 6pm.

As I said earlier, one of the reasons that we booked this cruise, was for the overnight in St. Maarten. I am a weather nut and though horrified by storms like hurricanes and tornadoes I'm glued to the news when they happen. I used to be terrified of thunderstorms. It was something I hadn't experienced in Vancouver and the storms of Ontario and later Alberta, came as a shock. It may have something to do with my fascination with storms. I did experience a typhoon when visiting Korea. The town we were in was well prepared. The flooded roads were drained into the ocean by the next morning. I can't say I drank too much of the water while swimming at the beach. Anyway, until a few months before our departure we weren't sure if we would be visiting St. Maarten.

The hurricane that went through the area was devastating. The residents of Barbuda, had still not returned to Barbuda from their refuge in Antigua when we were visiting Antigua.

Looks like a storm approaching and I'm off to work. Too be continued. I'm sure glad that we got to St. Maarten. Our favourite island.

 

[Marvy Mare]

ST. MAARTEN

 

As I was pretty excited that we were actually going to be spending time in St. Maarten, I was up at 4:30 again. There may have been a beautiful sunrise, but I got my fill with the sunset the night before.

 

Had a few coffee, climbed the stairs a few times, did the deck walk & had breakfast at the Oceanview all well before our arrival in St. Maarten.

 

At at about 6:45am we passed an island. From the distance I thought it might be St. Maarten. I've never been there before. It wasn't & I've been trying to figure out what the island was. We were traveling north from St. Lucia, so some frequent cruiser may be able to enlighten me.

 

It wasn't until 7:55 that our destination came into view - airport by the water, luxury yacht, condos on the hills. We were almost there.

 

There were a few other ships in port. I was hoping that meant that we wouldn't be harassed like we were in Antigua.

 

 

Cruise ships, blue sky, gorgeous clouds and turquoise water. Paradise!

 

Edited May 3, 2018 by Marvy Mare
correction

[Marvy Mare]

 

Getting closer. From our balcony we could see the Carnival ship that was there before us.

 

Other than the fact that it blocked our view, it was kind of cool to be docked right across from the Silhouette, the ship we were on for our last cruise.

 

Lots of money there. I wonder where this ship went for hurricane season?

 

Not many out to greet us. I'm not sure what time the Silhouette arrived, but this was their last stop on their cruise and they were heading back to Fort Lauderdale later in the day. I'm sure they wanted to make the most of their visit.

 

[Marvy Mare]

The neighbours.

When we originally started planning for this cruise, I contacted a friend that I knew had been to St. Maarten a number of times for suggestions for a day resort. He said the the Grand Case Beach Club was beautiful. Just hop in a cab and head there. It is on the French side of the island. We didn't get there on the tour that we did but other people that we spoke to said the French side was utterly devastated. I tried to call the Grand Case a number of times with no luck. Photos of the resort on line were amazing. I just read since we got home that they were opening a restaurant there and nothing else at this point but to keep checking back as they were on the mend.

As for a tour for day one, we decided to book privately this time rather than through Celebrity as there was no worry being late for sail away.

I found a tour on line that sounded fun - Da Party Bus. Again, I was unable to contact anyone. I tried email and phone calls with no results. When we were about 6 weeks away from our trip and cruise ships were starting to visit the island again, I went ahead & booked a Bernard Tour. It sounded good, not too long and made a visit to the airport beach that we were anxious to see.

It was on our Cruise Critic roll call that I found out from a member from Adelaide, Australia (where our niece & her husband live) that Da Party Bus was back in action. I managed to book the tour right away for our first day in port. Thanks Grant. Photos to come. I have mentioned that I have not had a lot of success with photos from a moving vehicle. Photos inside a moving vehicle, especially after the rum punches, were equally as difficult and Grant's dance moves were so quick that I was unable to stop the action. :') So what happens in Da Party Bus......! You know how it goes. If you are reading along though, Grant I do have a few photos of you and some of your group, before and after the dancing.

[george35]

With reguard to your post about towels being on chairs to save them at 6am. I too am an early riser & like to run then walk early, I have seen people at 6:30am putting towels, books, clothing on chairs to save them. When I see this I look at my watch ( at that time there are no crew members around ) & note the time, 30 min. later I just gather all the stuff up & put it where the towel dispensers are then got a cup of coffee & watch the show. Just to let you know my next cruise is on the EQUINOX guess when??

 

george35