St Kitts and staying onboard

Today is another day with a serious lack of pictures, I really didn't take many because I had left the camera in the cabin most of the day. We got up and decided that it wasn't going to be the pool day we had envisioned because of the serious sunburns we had managed to get on our snorkel trip (this, on top of the ones from San Juan!!!) I'm pretty sure this is the sunburn cruise, that's for sure.

After a little breakfast, we took ourselves up to the pool deck and parked it on some lounge chairs in the shade. There was a nice breeze, and we turned the chairs to look out the windows on the beautiful tropical view. I did some reading, but mostly got caught up on the blogs (notice a large # of postings appeared on Monday? That's why.)

About 130 we grabbed some lunch. Lucky for me, they had After Eight ice cream (obviously leftover from dinner the night before) in the buffet so I got a cup of eat. AWESOME!!! Then came the realization I needed faster wifi (and cheaper!) than what I was getting on the ship to get everything uploaded and caught up. So we headed off the ship to the nearest restaurant with free wifi- happens to be called Sweet Lime, and it's just to the right of the dock when you go through the port building. Head through the casino, and go upstairs. It has a fantastic view, and pretty good wifi, so we had a few drinks and got caught up on our emails etc. This took a couple of hours, so we headed back to the ship about 4pm. The most interesting part is that the tide must be really low, because we had to duck to get into the ship off the gangway - it couldn't have been more than 4 feet high. So they had a guy standing there saying "please watch your head" to every single passenger as they got on board.

Dinner was again in Blu (although it's not formal night) and we had another excellent dinner with our same waitstaff as the night before. French onion soup and a Chicken orzo dish, plus chocolate lava cake for dessert. Alas, no After Eight ice cream, but Collins (our waiter) promised to have some for tomorrow, so we will see how that goes. The food was all excellent and I really enjoyed the chicken orzo, it had sundried tomatoes, peas and some sort of vinigrette sauce that was very good. The camera had not left the room again, so alas, no photos. But we'll make up for it when we get to Dominica, I promise!!!! Headed back for the Martini bar, which was less crowded than formal night, and found ourselves some seats in Crush, which is an overflow area. Ari, who had been our preferred bartender was covering that area so we just sort of waved at him when we sat down and drinks appeared about 10 minutes later. Handy, it is.

My only complaint about the cruise so far is the LACK OF LIMES! There is apparently a shortage, and the prices have gone up astronomically so the cruise line has chosen not to buy them. I get it, but it's sure annoying when you want a drink with a lime, and they give you a lemon instead, it's just not as good. First world problems I suppose..........! The restaurants we've eaten in on shore (including the Sweet Lime in St Kitts) all had limes. Geez. Off to bed, and tomorrow is Dominica!

 

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It's formal night?

We came back to the ship after our snorkeling and taxi adventure, and decided to try Blu, the special Aqua class restaurant. We had never actually been to Blue before, and weren't sure what to expect. You can eat in Blu if you are in AQ, or if you are staying in a suite, if there space available, but we never had tried it prior.

Unfortunately, there are no pictures from that evening because the battery had run out on my camera and needed to be charged, so it was back in the room. The restaurant is very pretty, mostly white with blue accents (hence the name!) but the food was spectacular. I had gazpacho soup (delish!) some french onion soup (because I could!) and a chicken breast with veggies for the main course. For dessert, the favorite ice cream ever, After eight. What is it, you ask? Basically, mint chocolate chip ice cream where they use after eight mints as the chocolate chips. We had stumbled across this on our Solstice cruise a few years back, and hadn't seen it since. Jackpot!!!!

Now, what was interesting, was that this evening is considered formal night in the main dining room. Blu has it's own dress code (smart casual, basically no shorts) and we had decided to leave the fancy clothes at home even before we left. So, we were in our not-formals when we headed out to the Martini Bar for some people watching....which was spectacular! The definition of formal apparenty varies quite widely and there were many occurances of "just because you can get it on, doesn't mean it fits" with some of the clothing choices. We actually spent most of the time sitting in an adjacent area, because the Martini Bar WAS the place to see and be seen that night. We called it a night around 10pm, since we were all a little tired from the snorkeling adventure.

 

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St Croix and Buck Island

Today we docked at Fredrickstad on the western side of the island and needed to get over to the main harbor on the eastern side of the island.

You can catch a cab to the other side, which will cost you about $45. Or you can take the shuttle van, which is $16 round trip. Sounds like a good deal, but be careful about what time you'll be back.....depending on who you ask, the last shuttle is at 345 or 4pm....and when we showed up (about 12 of us from the snorkel trip) about 340pm no one was there and not many were willing to help us. Finally, one of the shuttle drivers showed up, and although he was full, he got one of the other cab vans to take the rest of us back to the cruise ship. In hindsight, would have probably gotten a cab, the cost wasn't that much different for 4 of us.

Anyway, it's about a 30 minute drive, and we even passed Home Depot!!!

We arrived in Christianstad, and headed for the Jolly Roger, our transportation for the day.

And off we go to Buck Island!

The trip was very fun and relaxing, and when we arrived, we were on a beach on the west side to allow us all to make sure our snorkel gear was working OK.

Here's Captain Mike on the Jolly Roger. Chris is in the foreground.

Then we sailed around the east side of the island, and anchored for our snorkeling adventure. It was great actually, it was a little choppy, but the water was beautifully clear and we didn't have any issues seeing fish.

There's a trail you can swim through, with some markers telling you about the fish and coral.

A parrotfish

Some coral.

Soon, it was time to sail back to our starting point, and catch the shuttle (or not!) back to the ship. We did see the fort right before we left.

Then, back to the ship, where we got back onboard and cleaned up for dinner. Which was apparently formal night, although I didn't know that until Pam called me!

 

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To the Ship, they say!

This morning dawned bright and clear, and after a quick breakfast, we packed up our stuff and stored it with the hotel when we checked out. We wanted to do a quick walk from the El Convento and get some pictures along the city wall that was the closest to the hotel.

All the cobblestones that are this odd shade of purple were originally used as ballast in the bottoms of ships. They were then used to pave the roads and over the past 400+ years, the glazing has turned this shade of purple. They are slowly being replaced with modern cobbles when the roads are being updated (so they aren't so lumpy) but I'll miss the old ones, they are something else.

The beginning of our walk. The red gate you see in the photo is the main gate of San Juan, and if you were an important personage back in Spanish colonial days, you would have walked right along that walkway up to the gate. I believe there were 5 gates total, this is the only one that is left.

View from the walkway back up the city walls.

We did a big loop around the city, and ended up back at our hotel.

We then said goodbye to the hotel, and caught a cab over to the ship. It's about a 15 minute drive over to the Pan American pier, where we dropped our luggage and got in line to board the ship. No pictures, it was hot and annoying. Once we got on board, our room was ready so we went upstairs and dumped our backpacks off, and then went to look for Pam and Michael. Our room is what is called an AQ1, or Aqua Class 1 room. They are all on deck 11 on this ship, and were added during the last retrofit in 2012. They are right above the Oceanview cafe, which is the buffet eating area. We even have a little waiting area right outside our cabin.

We found Pam and Michael, and decided to eat at Normandie restaurant for dinner. They were offering a 50% off rate for the first night for AQ class cabins. The food was excellent, we really enjoyed it. Here's some photos. My heirloom tomato salad.

Followed by our chateaubriand, carved tableside by the head waiter.

 

Then a cheese course quickly before muster drill.

After muster was over, we headed back for our desserts.

Cocoa cake for me, souffles for everyone else. We spent a bit of time walking around, but it had been a long day so we decided to head for bed.....after a drink at the Martini Bar!!!! Tomorrow was going to be snorkeling at Buck Island for the day, so needed to get our beauty rest!

 

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Marmalade, Part 2

For the first course, I had the V8 gazpacho soup from the vegetarian page, Chris had paella bites. This is when I realized my error, and we switched to the 6 courses.

Then the soup

Then the PAELLA BITES (Chris got more too)

Then a pasta dish, I had the gnocchi, Chris had the tagletelle. No pictures there unfortunately!

Next came the mains, I had the chicken, Chris had the beef tenderloin.

 

We then got to chat with the Chef, Peter.

And then had some dessert - I had strawberries with quinoa and amaranth granola (weird, but delish!) and Chris had the gluten free vegan spice cake (which was also awesome) (this is actually a picture of our neighbor's cake, as we forgot to take a picture prior to eating it. They were kind enough to let me photo it.

PHEW! That was a lot of food, so after a couple of drinks at the bar (Ted the bartender, awesome!) we walked up to the hotel and called it an evening.

Tomorrow - packing up and heading for the ship!

 

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Marmalade, part 1

Since the photos take so long to upload, I'm going to split this into a couple of posts, so please enjoy!
Marmalade is the #1 rated restaurant in San Juan - and it's fancy! We first tried it in 2007 (I think) and it's been consistently good every time. So if you are in San Juan and want to try some excellent food, I'd recommend it. They are only open for dinner, and I recommend the tasting menu with the wine pairing. Here's some shots of the menu.

We were going with the 5 course tasting menu - you pick 2 from the amusement and intermediate pages (first 2 pages) then get a cup of the tiny white bean soup (which is their signature dish and AWESOME) then a main dish and dessert. Once I realized I had MISSED the paella bites somehow (WHAT?) we switched to a 6 course menu (3 from the first 2 pages) plus tiny white bean soup, main and dessert.

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El Morro and a rainstorm. And some wind.

The fortifications sit a the end of a large field (known as the esplanade) that protected the fort from invasion by land. It's quite a walk up to the entrance.

Inside the fortifications you can see the main courtyard, with the same 3 flags flying. The grey structure off to the right is a lighthouse that is still working - they allow you up to the first level with the windows, which is a great view.

As you can see, there are a lot more clouds in the sky, and we had quite some weather move in. Check out the waves crashing to the left, this is right below where all those kite flyers were earlier. Notice they have left? There was quite some wind

Down on the lowest levels of the fort, you could really get an idea of the storm.

We finished walking around El Morro, and started walking towards the hotel and of course, the sun came back out again. At the hotel, we dropped off some stuff in our room and had some lunch at the tapas restaurant there. It was later in the afternoon (about 2pm) and we didn't want anything big because we were saving room for our dinner at Marmalade! A whole post about that, with food porn pictures and everything will be coming soon!

After lunch, we took a brief walk down to Forteleza street and went into Ole, a shop that sells custom fit Panama hats (handmade) It's been there for years, and I'd recommend it if you want a snazzy new hat. Doesn't Chris look snazzy in his new hat with custom hatband? Here's the interior, it's tiny (and filled with hats!!!)

Back to the hotel, and there was a wedding at the Catholic Cathedral (oldest one in the new world!) across from our hotel. They were having the reception at the hotel, so there were lots of fancy dressed up people milling around. Here's a few shots.

The bride had a beautiful gown, but I can't even imagine how hot she was in that dress!!! Long sleeves and everything. Since we didn't see the wedding group until later in the evening, I'm guessing it was a full Mass wedding.
Next, off to Marmalade for dinner!!!!!

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The walk to El Morro

There is a nice scenic walk along the top of the old city walls, overlooking the sea and a neighborhood by the name of La Perla. It's similar to the favelas of Rio, in that it's an area you don't want to enter by accident, and never at night. They do have a beautiful view however. Below is a picture of San Cristobal as we are leaving.

Next, some of the old city fortifications, and beyond, La Perla.

There is actually only 1 car entrance to La Perla, and it's only 1 lane wide, so most people walk up and down. Here's a shot of the houses from above.

As you come over the top of the hill, you see El Morro in the distance. It's a popular place for families, and with today being Friday, groups of schoolkids flying kites.

I've never seen so many tricked out school buses, that's for sure!!!!

Next up, El Morro!

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