Cruising the Caribbean: Part 2

AlbinoBowler — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:44:49 +0000

This is the second post in a two part series. You can find part 1 here.

Barbados:

Out of all the islands, Barbados was the one I was the most disappointed by. One of the main problems with the island was that the ship was docked right in front of a huge industrial yard and it was very ugly. We had no excursions planned for the day so we just stayed on the boat the entire day. I found that there was a ping pong tournament on the ship at 12:30PM so I went to it. My brother and I also competed in the mini-golf tournament

and he beat me! I ended up winning the ping-pong tournament though so it was a good day. My mom and I were bored after ping-pong was over so we went down to the shopping plaza next to the ship. It didn’t really have that much but I did end up buying some sand and shells for my girlfriend, Roslyn.

We got back onto the ship and went to eat sushi, dinner, and played some games in the casino. I did VERY well on the Blackjack tables. My brother also did very well but didn’t know when to quit and ended up losing all of his money for the night. I turned 20 dollars into 117. I realized that Blackjack was awesome at this point and decided that it would be my game of choice for the remainder of the cruise.

St. Lucia:

The ship docked in St. Lucia the next morning at around 10:00AM. We had already eaten breakfast so it was time to go do our next excursion which was a Canopy Tour (Jungle zip line). It was yet another long bus ride but totally worth it. We were able to make it to the zip line area but it was so humid (duh, it’s a jungle). There was a giant tiki bar at the start of the tour where they showed us how to put on our harnesses and helmets. The only problem I had with it was that they

made me wear a hairnet, even though I had very short hair, so most of my pictures look stupid. There were 11 zip lines to go on total and each of them went higher off the ground. The very last zip line we went on was about 600 foot long, 250 foot in the air and we reached speeds of about 50 miles an hour. It was an absolutely incredible excursion and probably my favorite of the entire trip.

My mom and I made it back to the ship and ate some sushi. You may be wondering what my brother has been doing since we were in Dominica. Well, a month ago, he broke his leg completely through both bones. He had to have surgery and they put a steel rod in his leg. The only two excursions he was able to do were in St. Thomas and Dominica. He spent the rest of the trip laying in the room and watching TV (yes I know, stupid).

That night, when we went to dinner, Scott and Tom had a great idea. Everyone at our dinner table decided that we would hijack an entire Blackjack table at the casino once we were done eating. This turned out to be an awesome idea since all of us did incredibly well in Blackjack. I ended up turning 40 dollars into 148. Once again, my brother didn’t know when to quit and lost all of his money again. Either way, we had a great time.

Antigua:

Antigua was our most busy island. My mom and I had planned 2 shore excursions in 1 day for this island. In the morning, we were ATV’ing. It was VERY fun because we were on trials that drove through the country side and could go very fast on the ATVs. It was a very beautiful island with lots of palm trees and historical buildings. One of the stops we made while ATV’ing was at an old plantation windmill. It was built in 1850 and was still standing. We were able to

get back to the ship just in time to go back out to do our 2nd excursion, horseback riding! It was a quick drive to the beach where we were going to do the excursion. My mom and I have plenty of experience horseback riding since my grandfather used to own horses so it wasn’t anything new to us. We were hoping they would give us free reign of the horses but the guides made us stay in a line and we couldn’t even make the horses gallop. Otherwise, the guides would yell at you. The horseback riding was the worst excursion we went on just because the guides were very unfriendly. My mom and I both agree that we would’ve been fine if we had just done ATV’ing for that day. We still enjoyed the beach after the riding was over. We had also made a tradition of trying the local beer of the island. I got a few Albino Bowler pics of him with the beer and on the beach.

Dinner that night was amazing as usual. Our dinner table decided to hijack a Blackjack table again for the night. My luck was not so good and ended up losing 40 dollars on the table. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

St. Kitts:

We arrived in St. Kitts at about 10:00AM. I wasn’t expecting much out of the island because my mom had been there 12 years earlier and said it was a very run down island. I was completely surprised when we pulled into the island because it was the most beautiful one of all the islands we had been to. Not only that, but it had the best shopping center as well. We decided that we would definitely be visiting it before we went back to the ship after the excursion. Everyone met right outside of the ship for our last excursion which was Nature Kayaking. This one was my pick because I wanted to do something to work off the massive amounts of food that we had eaten all week long.

It was a nice bus ride to where we were kayaking. The bus driver was incredibly nice and had a lot of knowledge about the island. She even stopped the bus in the middle of the road so we could see some of the monkeys that live on the island! We eventually made it to the starting location for kayaking. First, we went snorkeling though. It was fun; there were a ton of black sea urchins everywhere. Once everyone was tired of snorkeling, we got into our kayaks and made the 2 and a half mile trip along the edge of the island. The entire time, my mom complained because she actually had to paddle to make the boat go. I kept pushing her to paddle and we eventually made it to the stopping point. As soon as I stepped into the sand, my feet felt like they were on fire. The beach was all black sand and it was extremely

hot that day so it felt like we were trying to walk over lava. We made it to the shack on the beach and found that the excursion guides had set up a local fruit feast. All the fruits on the plate were from the island. I tried a few that I had never had before such as papaya. It had some of the best pineapple I have ever had. Once we finished eating, we rode the bus back to the ship.

The shopping in St. Kitts was amazing. We went through many stores and eventually found an ice cream shop. As if we weren’t fat enough already, we got ice cream cones. I ended up buying the most stuff out of 2 of the shops. We eventually got tired and went back to the ship.

Later that night, I took the Albino Bowler around the ship and took some pictures of the various places I had spent the most time. This included the casino, internet café, sushi bar, and main lobby of the ship. I also had our waiters and our entire table take a group photo with him.

San Juan (Again):

The ship pulled back into San Juan at about 8:00AM. We had to go through the debarkation process which is usually pretty easy (it’s just a lot of standing in line). We ate at the San Juan airport and prepared to go home.

Overall, this was one of the best vacations I have ever had. It had great people, great excursions, great food, and was very relaxing. Till next time!

–Zac McKinney

The Adventures of the Albino Bowler » Barbados

Cruising the Caribbean: Part 2