Grenada

The girls kicked off the day with a session of Yoga with Tim from the gym, our Australian personal trainer.  Blessedly, he does yoga right side up.  It was rather intense class, and was super fun!  After a shower and breakfast (my now traditional order of fruit, yogurt and Raisin Bran) we headed into St. George, Grenada. 

We hung around the port/shopping mall for a bit and met up with the gang.   There was a much broader selection of titanium jewelry, and I got the chain I'd been looking for!  We ventured out in search of spices, since we were on the spice island and all! 

It was an interesting route to the spice shop.

We got to Dot's Plaza, the recommended spice shop and we bought pretty much what we could carry.  Its going to be a spicy year!  Lots of cocoa balls, nutmeg (and nutmeg syrup) and the most lovely bay leaves I've ever seen. 

Heading back to port, we hit a post office (I live to test small island postal systems).  And then Ron and I decided to get a bit closer the to the Fort.  It was quite a climb, on an uneven staircase, but worth the effort for the views! 

Traffic in Grenada is for realz. I liked the many textures on the building behind the truck. 

Cars go through this tunnel with you. 

Vegetation near the fort. 

I thought this was an interesting old building. 

Pointing at a cool looking tree. 

Fort Wall. 

The Star Princess, dwarfing a Regent Seven Seas ship.

Headed back down!

On the stairs a gentleman was selling sopadillas, so we bravely tried them.  The closest thing I think of to describe them kiwi, but with golden flesh and no seeds. 

These guys were kickin it at the port/mall. 

We left Grenada early (2pm) so we could make it to our next port on time.  In the evening, we checked out the comedian that we had picked up in St. Thomas, he was reasonably funny, lots of jokes about cruising and being old and what not.  We passed through the "Ultimate Deck Party" where there were lots of streamers, dancing and debauchery going on.  I think there was a bit more casino-ing as well. 

I'm pretty sure this night we ended up chillin' like villains' with Bro and Sis-in-law up in the buffet until way late.  It was awesome whenever that happened.  :) 

Dominica

The port and shopping guide had noted that the sail in to Dominica was really something special, and I'm glad we got up to see it.  As he said, its like Jurassic Park :) 

Pretty

Town and prettiness!

We had determined that Dominica is not a big shopping port, and is a serious natural beauty, so we signed up for the Aerial Rainforest Tram tour, and it was worth every penny.  We met our tour group around 10 am, headed off in a van up the mountains.  The drive into the rainforest was beautiful (no pics due to some stickers on the windows) and filled with twists and turns - at one point, the road was just two columns of concrete.  And the number of hairpin turns was impressive.  The driver kept reminding us to trust him, and lo and behold eventually we arrived at the tram site. 

The Rainforest Tram is a re-purposed ski lift from Costa Rica, you go up in small groups in the slow moving gondola and each gondola gets its own tour guide, ours was Ronnie, and he says he has a great job. 

More tram info for the interested.

We took 8 gazillion pictures on this tour.  I will try to be judicious in my choices.  You take the tram all the way up the mountain, and then have the option to walk back to the mid way station over the suspension bridge.  We took the option, and highly recommend it!

Huge leaves!!

Huge trees!

The suspension bridge, from a distance.

Birds of paradise, in paradise. 

On the gondola, looking at trees.

Suspension bridge up close.  200 ft across.  300 ft gorge below. 

Ready to cross!

Ron was brave enough to look down!

This is the Breakfast River gorge, where people eat breakfast during their hike to the hot springs.

I glanced down, and it was even prettier than this looks. 

How crazy is it that we caught a sunny day in the rainforest?  Dominica gets 400 inches of rain a year. 

This is as calm as I could look in the moment. 

Solid ground and giant trees again!

At the bottom we enjoyed a really nice rum punch, were given a tourist magazine about Dominica and chatted with our tour mates.  We got back in the tour van, and it stopped for some photo breaks this time! And they pointed out the local agriculture - including avocado trees and a poultry farm. 

Postcard!

The prettiness just doesn't stop here!

At that point, the camera battery died.  Back in town, there were plenty of aggressive tour guides - even though they saw us come back from our tour, they wanted to take us out on more!  And, apparently, it was relatively quiet because it was a Sunday.  We saw a Royal Bank, but it only gave out Eastern Caribbean dollars.  Hit a store or two, and looked at some stalls and headed back to the ship to recover from all the excitement of the tour.  

A quiet evening followed, Ron and I watched "Tangled" Under the Stars, it was cute - very broadway inspired, but not the revolution in Princess movies I was hoping for.  

St. Thomas, USVI

Sailing into St. Thomas

We arrived nice and early in St. Thomas and after breakfast and snapping some pictures of the port, we were ready to head into town.  St. Thomas is known as the best shopping port in the Caribbean, and we certainly put it to the test. 

After getting off the ship, we discovered that the port is surrounded with iguanas!!!  There was a lengthy photo taking incident.  Eventually, we took a jeep taxi into town and followed our trusty shopping map.  I tried on a lovely titanium pendant and chain, but despite their best efforts, the store owners couldn't figure out how to get me just the chain (really all I need, with my collection of pendants).  I collected up a few free things here and there.  We ordered chocolates for delivery to the stateroom.  And some flavoured rum for making summer drinks when we get home. We picked up more bamboo t-shirts for the ports ahead, and made a serious effort to get a proper iguana souvenir (you'd think it would be an obvious choice for the producers here!).  We were back on the ship by late lunch time. 

I felt like I should tip him for this pose, but I didn't know how!

 

 

In addition to wild life, funny stores!

Aw man!  If only the ship was circling back!

 

 

 

Nice archway.

There was an interesting pond full of fishies!

I loved the list of local flavours on here. Mmm.  Sour sap.  Tamarind. 

Our favourite Caribbean store!  Bamboo t-shirts for the win!

I love the flags all over the Square in St. Thomas

Shopping district!

Oh yes, they had Hello Kitty by Kimora Lee Simmons.  

The charm bracelets will run you about 2K, or as I like to call it - half a cruise. 

Purely decorative, we think. 

Back on the ship, we did a bit more reading about Dominica and headed down to the Shore Excursions desk to make some plans.  We did some hanging out on the balcony, and I did my favourite thing, watching all the machinery and action of sail-away.  They were definitely looking for some missing folks in those final minutes! 

I think we had a relatively quiet evening, dinner, wandering around the ship and seeing the action, and tucking in to get rested for our next port!

Luxurious Day at Sea!

It takes some time to get from Princess Cays to our next destination, so we had, as described in the Princess Patter a - luxurious day at sea.  Ron went to a poker tournament.  I went to the Port and Shopping talk (not much has changed in port shopping since January). 

Ron played in the Ping-Pong tournament, which was being organized by our pool buddy Ali.  It turns out, that all the older guys that have tables at home turn up for this one :)  Ron faired well, but only made it to the quarter final.  I went to the English Pub Lunch and had the ploughman's platter.  In the afternoon, I went to the gym and enjoyed the view from the cross-trainer - really can't be beat! 

I think I might have ended up watching a movie this afternoon in our room, those days at sea are so luxurious, its hard to remember!  I know I watched "Easy A" at some point on this trip. 

Soon enough, it was time to get all gussied up for the first formal night.  We all met up in one of the parent cabins and headed down to see the champagne waterfall, and get some family portraits.  We wandered around to the various backgrounds, heard the Captain's address, and smiled on command.  As we headed off to dinner, I caught them cleaning up the Waterfall. 

What a waste of perfectly good champagne!

Again, no waiting with our big group and Anytime dining.  Dinner was tasty, though I feel like it was pretty slow service wise. 

Ron's smoked duck appy - sometimes they would have trays of this in the buffet.

Many many pictures were taken over the course of this dinner.  Note my excellent hair accessory from Flights of Fancy.

Perfectly rare. 

We had to find out what the item "Gourmandises" was.

Bananas foster!

It was no-smoking night in the casino, so we changed into our less formal looks, went and played a few hands/spun a few reels and called it a night.  There may also have been some late night ping pong. 

Princess Cays

I woke up early, as I am prone to do on cruise ships, and went to the Morning Stretch.  It was not terribly intense, but was a nice way to wake up, of course.  Our breakfast arrived, ordered the night before.  Princess only delivers continental breakfasts - which is actually really helpful for keeping this meal from getting out of hand :) 

We decided not to venture into Princess Cays.  While I'm sure its a fun experience, it just seemed like a guaranteed sunburn to me.  Definitely a great place for the sun-seekers/beach patrol.  I did take some pictures from the ship while we were anchored there. 

Princess Cays, from a distance :)

They used the lifeboats to tender in!

As our alternative, we played some ping-pong (Ron wasn't allowed to smash, which makes it a fair game for me), ordered room service for lunch, read, relaxed.  We also went to the adults only Sanctuary Pool by the spa and met Ali, from New Jersey, one of the cruise activities staff who had a few hours off.   The Sanctuary Pool has a swim against the current machine!  Neat!!

Croque Monsieur, Chips, Cole Slaw and Condiments.  Thank you included room service!

We also went to afternoon tea in the Portofino dining room - white glove service, scones, sandwiches, cookies!  Fun!! 

After I took this picture, they came around with cream and jam for the scones.

In the evening, we went for dinner as a big group, and had no problem getting a table with our Anytime Dining arrangement.  Dinner was nice, and it was good to spend time with the whole gang. 

Crab salad.

Second course - more salad!

Jerk chicken and rice - it was caribbean night.

Ron enjoying his meal :)

Chocolate cookie and ice cream.

We rounded out the night with a very windy experience at Movies Under the Stars (MUTS).  Princess has a big screen set up over the pool, and in the evening they convert the deck chairs to point to it, hand out blankets and popcorn and show movies.  This one was "The Tourist" and while the movie was not good, the top of a cruise ship sure is a nice place to see it :)