Oldies On Tour

Tuesday 4th December and we arrived at Road Town in Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands, we knew that thanks to the Captain’s announcement, again!!!!!  When we looked out of our cabin window and were faced with the Disney “Micky Mouse” cruise ship so the town and beaches will be busy, especially with children, still, as it’s our last day in the Caribbean, it has to be the beach.

No tendering today so walked off  QM2 soon after breakfast and jumped into a communal taxi and headed across the Island to Cane Garden Bay.  Road Town is that capital with a cruise ship dock and a very large marina where yacht charter company “Sun-seeker” is based.  There were quite a few of their charter yachts moored so maybe business isn’t so good for them, this  being their busiest time.

The road out of the town heads straight up the mountain;  it is very steep, very narrow, very bumpy, with a numerous sharp bends all with difficult passing places. As we crawled up at less than a snails pace, probably due to the vehicle being rather old and fully loaded, we were all crunched in with no air con and only small windows open.  I couldn’t help hoping that on our descent back down, the brakes had better performance than the engine going up.  This thought wasn’t helped much when the driver, with his West Indian sense of humour told us, “what goes up must come down”????   Fortunately everything worked and we arrived ok.   Again a fairly crowded beach but there wasn’t the hassle we experienced at Carlisle Bay; we walked to the end, found two sun beds and set up camp.   Bearing in mind two big cruise ships were in town, the beach was really quite quiet, so enjoyed our part of the Caribbean Sea in peace.  Topping up Christine’s tan was the objective so I investigated the beach bars and enjoyed a bottle of “Carib”, for old time sakes of course.

Tortola in common with most, if not all, are still recovering from that terrible hurricane that tore through the West Indies a year or so back, we were told that here 75% of all buildings were affected in one way or another.  The one thing all the islands have in common is their resilience to adversities. 

When we had had our “fill” we eventually left and headed back to the taxi stand.  When we boarded the earlier bus to come here, we bought a return so no issue getting back: I must say everything was well organised, “and” we weren’t charged for our sun beds; what a result!

Our journey back was more comfortable, our vehicle was a modern, open sided bus, not full so we could spread and enjoy the ride back, and certainly not as hairy.

Arriving back at the cruise terminal we naturally had to stop at a bar for that last rum drink, and to our pleasant surprise, they sold “Ting” so rum and Tings were the order of the day.

Back on board we had our first and only formal night whilst being in the Caribbean, still there’s another one whilst heading back to New York; having dragged a case with all the necessary regalia, it would be churlish not to use it as often as possible. 

Back onto our usual “exciting” table; we really should have made the effort and moved, though this may have been difficult as the ship is full and the restaurant have allocated all the seats. Anyway after the exhilarating dinner we headed to the theatre.  Tonight there is a classical pianist so sat near to the end should we need to do a quick exit. 

Katie  Clarke from Norwich was extremely good and very entertaining, needless to say we stayed and enjoyed her performance ‘till the end.

Tomorrow, 5th December is the first of three sea days, but more importantly it is a big day, it is Christine’s Birthday.

Wonderful this morning, we didn’t arrive at St Kits until around 0930, so didn’t have the pleasure of the captain waking us to tell us we’d arrived.

Neither of us could remember St Kits though we think we sailed in here on Whitbread, some 11 or 12 years ago so decided to go ashore and see if our memories could be jogged.  Soon after collecting our tender ticket we were called to our tender, a far cry from the disaster at St Lucia a couple of days earlier.  Dropped off at the terminal amongst all the touristy shops luring you in with the promise of the best deal on earth and a free gift if you go in, we walked straight through and into the original town of Basseterre, apart from a coffee we covered enough of the town to understand why we couldn’t remember if we’d been here before, nothing of interest.  We found a supermarket and bought some still water but didn’t find sparkling for Christine so headed back a different way to the ship when we came across a Chinese shop, yes they are here as well!!!  To be fair they did stock sparkling water and Christine would have bought the remaining 6 bottles, but could only manage to hold 5, she dropped one and being glass didn’t bounce; ? whoops ?, this action did cause a mighty uproar with some fellow who walked in with no shoes on!!!!!

Back on board and a visit to the buffet before relaxing on our balcony.  We’ve never had a balcony before, couldn’t see the point as there is plenty of deck space and thought it was an expensive add-on.  I think we have changed our minds as we have used and enjoyed it on this cruise.

I have to say the lure of the Caribbean is very strong and much to Christine’s horror, I hanker to have another boat out here.

After a pleasant afternoon sunning ourselves on our balcony we went down to the Britannia restaurant, again, and then thoroughly enjoyed a show of singing and dancing by the Royal Court theatre singers and dancers backed by the Royal Court Orchestra. Tonight there was a Caribbean party on the aft deck though it wasn’t very well attended, perhaps it would have been better on a sea day when people hadn’t been ashore.  Also Christmas has arrived, they are getting toe decorations out, more on this later post

Tomorrow we head for Tortola, our last Caribbean destination before heading north to New York.

Friday, and we were woken to the Captains dulcet tone over the PA confirming our arrival at the cruise terminal on the Dutch side of the

Beach was brilliant

Island, “Philipsburg”.  This is a unique Island is so much as there are 2 countries here, Holland and France; currency, Euros in France but still Guilders in Holland with French spoken at the French end and Dutch where we are.  In the centre there is a very large lagoon that also connects the

Should have bought our swimmers!

two countries, and it was here we moored many times in the past on Anam Cara.

We went ashore, jumped onto a water taxi and headed to the town, we were going to take our swimmers but decided not to.  Once we arrived at the pier taxi terminal and got “up-close” we regretted our decision, the beach and sea looked so inviting: oh well, it is what it is, get on with it!!

We wandered along “Front Street”, this road runs parcel to the seafront promenade and is lined both sides of the street with jewellery, clothes and watch shops.  You can’t go more

Enjoying the rum punches

than a few steps without being accosted by shop keepers trying to get you inside.   Ever since Rio de Janeiro where Christine lost her Bvlgari in the sea at cocacabana beech she has been looking to replace them but obviously this particular model has been discontinued.  I had already checked there was a Bvlgari shop and when we stumbled upon it in we went, expecting to come out empty handed.  No such luck, they had a new range called “diva” and in that range there was a pair that Christine fancied; ah well that’s taken care of the Birthday present and the name of the range was very appropriate!!!!!!!!!!

It was time for a drink, rum punch being most appropriate but the one served at this rather touristy bar was rubbish, me-thinks they just showed the bottle to the glass??? so after finishing it I was determined to find a real Rum Punch.  We wandered around and found a back street bar, full of locals and away from the touristy areas and as a bonus, they had “Ting” a local mixer and especially good with rum; we had landed in the right place.  Several “Rum & Tings” later we headed back to the ship and being the “local” bar, and still with money in our pockets!!!!!!!    

Back on board and headed to the stern to wave good by to St Martian, tomorrow we arrive at St Lucia.

Again early this morning we woke to the Captain announcing our arrival into Castries. The good news is it isn’t broadcast in our cabin, but unfortunately we do have a speaker just outside our cabin door, so really hacked off.  We ambled down to breakfast and heard several announcements from the captain apologising for the slow processing of the guests waiting for a tender.   What happened we no not, but after a number of apologetic announcements from the Captain, he delegated it to officer of the watch, coward.  Open tendering eventually came into being around noon by which time we had decided not to bother.  Castries is a port town with little or no interest to us and had we had the full day we may have gone to re-visit old haunts, such as Rodney Bay or Marigot Bay or perhaps Soufriere, where the Pitons are.  Still we had a relaxing day aboard.  Tomorrow we head for Barbados