Carnival Vista - LIVE-Feb 24-Mar 3 - Gal to Montego, GC, Coz - Fun Times, Menus, etc.

[Saint Greg]

Alright. Let’s go back to yesterday’s Dunn’s River falls. We left when when I got off the ship.

 

 

When you get off the ship for pictures they have a guy looking like Bob Marley to pose for pictures with. Something he did to me and nobody else I saw...coming and going...both times..I had my monkey hanging out. And each time he pointed my monkey and and said, “respect mon, respect.” I don’t know the significance of it but maybe there is some.

 

Either general debarkation got off before us or there are a lot of cheaters out there because there were people in other excursion lines before I got off the ship. And our excursion was supposed to be the first off..with the rum excursion behind us.

 

Anyway I didn’t get a pic but you go into that big building. Taxis are to the left and excursions to the right. My ticket had zone 1 on it and sure enough way down at zone 1 was my excursion. There was no line because nearly everyone on my excursion had already boarded the bus and it’s not that many...I counted 25 when I boarded. There were way more than 25 people getting off that ship before me. 

 

We boarded the bus at 8:20 and pulled out at 8:30. It was a nice big bus like we had in Belize but I kept fighting my air vents...they kept closing. 

 

 

[Saint Greg]

This is where Usain Bolt went to school.

 

 

[Saint Greg]

This is discovery bay. Where Columbus landed.

 

 

[Saint Greg]

At 9:30 we passed the Apleton Rum place which explains why they were one of the first excursions to leave after us.

 

At 9:42 we had a rest stop for 15 minutes. They were selling water shoes for $10 for anyone who didn’t already have them. I don’t know what the quality is but that’s a good price. The water shoes on the ship were $40. I have a pair I bought a year ago at a shoe store back home but hadn’t used yet..

 

 

[Saint Greg]

 

They had beer and snacks at this stop. I was going to hold off on the red stripe since we have them on the ship but when that fridge opened and I saw how cold and frosty that top left one looked, I had

to grab it. There’s stripes were $4...kind of pricey for a foreign country....pricey for a convenience store in the US as well. I know they tried to charge the lady in front of me $6 for two Pepsi’s and she put them back.

 

Edited February 28, 2019 by Saint Greg

[Saint Greg]

The rest stop is where they wanted you to change clothes and get your water shoes on. We left the rest stop at 10am.

 

“The jerk store called, they’re running out of you!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Saint Greg]

[Saint Greg]

I have this thing about germs...I don’t like them. I don’t like shaking hands. I won’t refuse but I’ll go wash my hands as soon as you leave. Anyway....everything I’ve seen shows that you hold hands on this thing...so it’s going through my mind...who is going to be in front of me and behind me...this kid directly in front of me sneezes into his right hand. I’m horrified. I also hear a sneeze out of someone In the family behind me. This is not good. I have to change it up. I fake a water shoe problem and let some people pass. Now there’s a girl in front of me. At some point she does a two handed sneeze. I’m going to have to reshuffle the deck again. I let some more people pass. At some point I realize the people I’m with aren’t with my tour guide. I ask what ship they’re on...they say Harmony of the Seas—not good. I look around and find my tour guide and she gets me with the right group.

 

They split us up into groups of probably 30 people. Only 7 were actually on Vista ship. We had a long wait. We were encouraged to leave anything not going with us in the locked bus. The people from the other ship were renting lockers and we had to wait for them. This put us as the absolute last group on my tour...and would take away any time for us to change clothes at the end.

 

 

 

 

[Saint Greg]

I realized this on the walk down...but I had no clue how big this was. I had only seen pictures of the last little stretch. They said it’s 960 feet. You absolutely need water shoes. You will absolutely get soaked from head to toe. There are three checkpoints where you can get off of the falls if you want. I only noticed one...and when I saw it I was hoping it was the last and not the first..it was.

 

One good thing is we had a couple of people up ahead of me in my group that I knew if they could do it...anyone can. You know those straps they put on your car bumper to pull it out of the mud? That’s how they got one of these people over one of the big rocks....not really...but two people pulling and one person pushing.

 

 

[Saint Greg]

One of the reasons I killed my battery is because I tried to video the entire thing.

 

There was a lot of stopping to waiting for the group ahead of us. Stopping for people taking pictures. Stopping because someone slipped and fell. So there was a lot of dead time. When I saw that happening I stopped my recording and restarted it when we got moving again. There are also a lot of times where  my phone got spun around and was just recording my shirt. I’m going to try to cut all of that out and make one nice video. Worst case it may be in sections. Also at the end when my battery started dying it went into power save and stopped recording. I did get a shot at of the end right after I got off and realized it had stopped recording.

 

I took some stills at the end but other than that I’ll have the video out when I get a chance to finish it.

 

 

 

[Saint Greg]

After getting off the falls my battery was at 3% so I turned my phone off.  I wanted to try to capture the lunch and restaurant portion. It is after all a big part of the reason I chose this excursion over Dunn’s River Falls w/Beach lunch. People were complaining about the beach lunch food in reviews. This one was higher rated and had us eating at a restaurant.

 

As I said we were the last of the Vista group to finish and because of that we didn’t have the opportunity to change clothes or shop after the falls that others on our tour did.

 

We immediately boarded the bus and headed to the Almond Tree restaurant for lunch. Once we arrived I was able to change clothes in the restroom prior to eating lunch.

 

 

[Saint Greg]

This is basically the same meal I had in Belize on the Lamanai tour. These countries must have gotten together and said “This is what we’re going to feed tourists on excursions: Stewed chicken, rice and beans. To make them different we’ll serve it with potato salad and tang, you serve it with cole slaw and watered down fruit juice.”

 

 

[Saint Greg]

After lunch they took us to the Ocho Rios shopping portion. It was just one gift shop. I got out and looked around...sampled a couple of Rums...but opted not to buy anything. They had some weird stuff In there. They had your regular Jamaica tourist items but then they had weird stuff. They had keychain wood carvings of male...private parts...about the size of my bathroom faucet. They had salt and pepper shakers of pigs...procreating. I was hoping they’d take us to one of the shopping centers with a bunch of stores where I could get my Harley Davidson poker chip. They took us to a place with penis keychains and salt shakers with porky the pig....porking.

[Saint Greg]

 

 

I was disappointed about my phone battery being dead because on the ride back my window was on the ocean side and I could’ve gotten good pics of all of the things I couldn’t get on the way there... on top of that we took a high road back with an awesome view of the vista and mountains in the background. 

 

Hopefully the Dunn’s River falls video comes out great because my thought was, that was the main reason I was there and I wanted to capture it. 

 

Oh I should mention they want to sell you a DVD of pictures and videos of your climb for $40. They send a camera man with each group. I wouldn’t totally rely on that though. We had people in our group that ordered them but didn’t get them.

 

On the way back they played a video of a Michael Jackson concert...early 90s version I think. It cut out about halfway back and they switched to Jamaican music.

 

 

We got stuck in rush hour traffic...real close to the port. So close I wanted to get out and walk. It was frustrating. But I was glad I booked through Carnival and I knew they wouldn’t leave me. We got back after all aboard.  I went straight to the room and got ready for my steakhouse dinner...which I believe we already covered.

 

Edited February 28, 2019 by Saint Greg

[wardamnweagle]

I’m curious, on my Dream Cruise in three weeks, our departure time is 4pm from Montego Bay. What was your “departure time” versus “all aboard”?

 

And you said you passed the Appleton Estate plantation at 9:30? It shows a 7hr excursion and I was under the impression that it was a 2hr+ ride to get there. An hour is much more doable. 

[Saint Greg]

21 minutes ago, wardamnweagle said:

I’m curious, on my Dream Cruise in three weeks, our departure time is 4pm from Montego Bay. What was your “departure time” versus “all aboard”?

 

And you said you passed the Appleton Estate plantation at 9:30? It shows a 7hr excursion and I was under the impression that it was a 2hr+ ride to get there. An hour is much more doable. 

 

Back on board was 4:30 and we pulled up to the port around 4:30...so we were late. I can’t say exactly which time we pulled out. I’m going to say 5-5:30. I had that early steakhouse reservation so I missed it. 

 

I can can tell you today back on board was 2:15 and we left at 3pm.

 

And I just know we were an hour into the ride when our tour guide said that was where Appleton Rum was. Ours and that one were the two tours they wanted leaving first because they  were the longest.

 

[CRUISERMOMX3]

SG...Thanks so much for bringing us along on another adventure. I’m with you that tequila is my arch nemesis. Have you ever seen the Alchemy do a sangria drink? 

[sid_9169]

Being led to an excursion with strangers sneezing into their hands, and possibly having to hold hands with said strangers? I tell you what, I'll just be back here at the bus waiting for y'all to get back...

[Saint Greg]

Let’s push on to Sting Ray City. When I left you this morning I believe I was in this tender/water shuttle.

 

 

 

 

[Saint Greg]

24 minutes ago, sid_9169 said:

Being led to an excursion with strangers sneezing into their hands, and possibly having to hold hands with said strangers? I tell you what, I'll just be back here at the bus waiting for y'all to get back...

 

And then you go eat lunch and like nobody washed their hands.

[Saint Greg]

[Saint Greg]

When you get off of the shuttle/water taxi you can see the people with the excursion signs

 

 

[Saint Greg]

Found mine...sensational stingray swim

 

 

[Saint Greg]

They lined you up by telling you to go to a colored smilie. They called mine the aqua blue smilie. Then they gave us stickers to wear.

 

 

 

 

[Saint Greg]

This was a nightmare. We got in line at 7:29. We didn’t leave until 8am. First they told us they wanted us to sign the back of our ticket indicating we were told the waters could be rough. Then they passed around a clipboard for us to sign. Then they wanted to count the number of people in line vs the number of tickets. They came up short on people. It turned out a few had wandered off to talk to friends. Then they told us we were waiting on three more people from the ship. Finally we just left them.

 

The bus seemed kind of small. I was thinking...there’s no way we’re all fitting in this thing.