Cruisin' the Eastern Caribbean

[BanzaiCat]

The wife and I just got back from a fan-freaking-tastic time on the Carnival Valor out of San Juan, Puerto Rico, this past week. We stopped at five islands...St. Thomas, Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Kitt, and St. Maartin. One sea day in there as well. If you've ever been on the fence about a cruise as a vacation, I cannot recommend it enough. Also highly recommend getting an outside stateroom with a balcony, because the views are incredible.

St. Kitt, getting ready to leave. The cloud cover on the distant mountain was there all day.


I think this was as we were pulling in to St. Maarten. All these islands start to look the same after a while, lol.


There was quite a bit of rain in St. Lucia and we missed some rain over St. Maarten thankfully, so the rainbows were out in force.


Another great view.


Our ship's 'whale tail' shadow. I think this was as we were pulling in to St. Lucia.


St. Thomas wasn't much to write home about. We took an excursion to a place called Sugar Bay Beach, which is an all-inclusive resort. For about $80 US per person we were able to take advantage of their beach (the water was blue-balls cold though) and beach stuff like kayaks and such, their pool which was huge and had nice waterfalls, and most importantly, all you can eat and drink included. A good time all around.

In Barbados, we took a catamaran excursion that took us to some awesome snorkeling spots where huge sea turtles came within touching distance. The catamaran crew kept us well supplied with rum punch. I got a good buzz and my wife got stupifyingly drunk, then swore off booze for the rest of the trip, lol. There were about a dozen of us and things really were fun once the rum started flowing!

St. Lucia was probably the least fun destination. My wife booked an island tour which sounded great on paper and it had lots of great reviews, but it rained all day and most of the 'sights' were pretty underwhelming. The terrain was easily the roughest out of all the islands we visited, so if you have motion sickness I do not recommend this little island excursion at all.

St. Kitt was a beautiful island. Our friends that we went with spent some Marriott points to get a room so we'd have a place to keep our stuff and shower. The location was excellent and they had a great beach with a reef and tons of fish to see while snorkeling. Plus a pretty large pool too. Not all inclusive on the food and drink, which is just as well as I'm trying hard NOT to gain all the weight I've lost over the last 6 months.

St. Maarten was probably the best out of all of them. It's a very interesting little island divided into a Dutch side and a French side. We went to a beach on the far north side of the island. Our driver told us all kinds of interesting stories about the island's history, political history and struggles, and other fascinating stuff. The beach was relatively small, maybe a quarter of a mile to half a mile wide, and it was very quiet. Lots of secluded rooms/apartments hidden behind trees. Our excursion included access to the beach, one drink, and a gourmet lunch. The food was AMAZING there, easily the best we'd had all week. All the people there were French, and the topless portion of the beach was right next to us (which my wife raised an eyebrow at when I first noticed the blonde French woman not ten yards away taking her bikini top off). It's hard to be an uncouth peasant American not noticing foreign ta-tas, but I did my best to ignore it. It was a terrific day and really nice to be away from the thousands of other people on the ship.

[Gusington]

I took this exact cruise about 15 years ago. I got so fat from all the food on board that my girlfriend did not recognize me when I rolled off the gangplank upon my return. Cheeseburgers all night!! And parties every day.

[Jarhead0331]

Imagine what I could do with my drone there?  Great shots...

[BanzaiCat]

Imagine what I could do with my drone there?  Great shots...

Oh hell yes, sir. A drone on any of those islands would have afforded breathtaking views!

[Jarhead0331]

I also loved St. Maarten (more the Dutch side than the French) and didn't particularly care for St. Thomas.  At Maarten, we took a "Rhino Rider" tour, which is a two person speed boat. So much fun! The group tied them together off of a beach and also had the awkward pretend not to see female nudity feeling.  We then took a tour through these docks where all these mega-yachts were berthed.  Such amazing ships.

Additionally, I also did not care for St. Thomas. There were like seven cruise liners docked there and the island was so crowded. Moreover, it was mostly a dump.  My experience was also uncomfortable there because I had a severe burn on my legs from the prior stop at St. Maarten.  Like an idiot, I didn't put sunblock on my legs and when we were riding those Rhino Riders, the wind was blowing back my shorts so my legs got all burned up.  Still painful to think about to this day. 

[airboy]

I could not get my wife to go on a cruise until we sailed the Baltic for our 20th wedding anniversery trip.  Since then, we've averaged more than 1 a year.

I really enjoy it.  No email.  No phone.  The trip to Hawaii was awesome.  Nothing and nobody except the ship for 5 days each way.

[Martok]

Cool pics, BC.  Glad you guys had a great time! 

[Greybriar]

Nice photos, Banzai_Cat. Thanks for sharing.

They almost make me want to go on a cruise, too.

[MIGMaster]

Great pics - I luv the Caribbean - hard to beat it !

[bob48]

Looks fantastic.

[Centurion40]

Took one cruise (Honeymoon) back in 2005 and loved it.  Sailed from NYC to San Juan, then onto St. Thomas and Tortola.







Building a new pier in St.Thomas:

[steve58]

Nice photos BC, they remind me of my honeymoon to the US Virgin Islands way back when.  No cruise for us, we hopped a plane and spent a week hopping around the islands.

Thanks for sharing.

[BanzaiCat]

Great shots, thanks for sharing yours. Wish I could go back again in a few weeks! We sailed with some friends that are Diamond Platinum Carnival cruisers, meaning they do it six times a freakin' year, while we can barely do one. But hey, one is better than none!

Additionally, I also did not care for St. Thomas. There were like seven cruise liners docked there and the island was so crowded. Moreover, it was mostly a dump. 

Yeah, we thought St. Thomas was pretty run-down, but St. Lucia was easily the dumpiest of them all. It's difficult though because most of those islands are swimming in poverty. Tourism is pretty much their only income, other than alcohol.

We were lucky...each port we pulled into had no other ships there, except one; I think it was St. Lucia, and it was the Freewinds, which is apparently some crazy nutjob Scientology ship. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freewinds

The ship was a ghost town, though. I didn't see anyone on deck nor on the dock by it. I took several pics of it over several vantage points, thinking it was a Royal Caribbean ship at the time.



Oh yeah, here's a catamaran that almost hit us. You can see our balcony rail.



Got a good straight-on shot of one of the smaller airfields in St. Lucia. Is it sad that the first thing I thought of when I saw it was, "the Grog flight nuts would probably like to see this?"



My wife at the rail of our balcony while we docked at St. Kitt.

[Centurion40]

Great shots!

[Onion]

Heading to Bermuda from NYC next week. Best island by far to visit, not as poverty stricken as most of the Caribbean.   

BTW how many people learned their West Indies geography from countless hours of playing Pirates! (the original one, the good one, on the C64, Amiga or in RGB on IBM clones)