BARBADOS: Was walking round the jogging track as we docked in Bridgetown, Barbados - we were the only ship due to dock for that day. RC have to perform their emergency evacuation drill once a year to renew their safety certificates and they did it that day from 11am-12:30pm; this meant that guest could not get on/off the ship during this time - it didn't bother us,we quite enjoyed watching the drill, we'd rather watch them practising than it be a real evacuation. 
During the drill, our parents stayed on the boat(took pics & chilled out) whilst me & my bro went on the AVT's & had lunch at Millie's cafe. Millie's cafe is just outside the duty-free terminal behind the little set of shops/AVT hire shop as you pass the customs exit after Diamond International. Millie's serves excellent home cooked local food; macaroni cheese, stewed lamb, fresh salads, fried fish, curried chicken, okra, steamed veg, etc served on a generous plate or take out box for $6... hmmmm nice. 
We had already booked the beach break extravaganza via RC and had the afternoon slot at 1pm. Tour guides were waiting just outside the duty free shops in the port - easy to find. 
Air conditioned bus seating about 30 people; there were about 4 buses but I think some of the other guests went to a different beach - we went to carlisle bay and although there were plenty of RC towels it was hardly what you could call over crowded - there were about 30 of us spread out far enough not to intrude on any one's space. We had full use of Harbour lights beach bar, which had showers and changing areas, as well as a fully operating bar and snack bar. Chairs/loungers and umbrellas were included as well as two free drinks; customary rum punch, banks beer, fruit punch, fizzy drinks, fruit juice, water. 
The beach itself was amazing - even in the wake of a tropical depression from tropical storm Gaston and the approaching Igor. The water was very, very warm and calm, totally see-through and the sand was powdery soft...blissfully pretty. There was also very little hassling from locals who seemed to be enjoying the beach as much as everyone else... 
OVERALL: Good first day, loved the beach - due to the hurricane this was the best beach we went to and actually the only one we got a chance to fully enjoy. Will def come back to Carlisle bay and chill out again one day soon. 


Barbados

we had an earlier start for this port as we had booked a private tour with SPENCER AMBROSE TOURS. Firstly may I say that I only booked this tour two days before we left for San Juan and Spencer was very quick in replying and confirming our space on the tour, he also acknowledged my mum's dietary requirements, as she is a vegetarian and diabetic. 
We were met at 8:10am by a smiling Mr Smalls and Neptune at the entrance to the duty-free shops @ the port in Castries. They were easy to find as they had signs that clearly read 'Spencer's tours'. Smalls spilt us into groups, I guess based on which tour you were doing - we had booked the west-coast tour so had Smalls as our tour guide. He was friendly, funny, welcoming and warm from the start. He seated us in the air-conditioned mini-bus, and showed us the fully stocked cooler of beer (buds, pitons and red stripes), soft drinks (coke, sprite and water) and their infamous rhum punch (very strong!). Smalls is very knowledgeable, patient and professional, he managed to answer pretty much all my random questions - we are Mauritian so share some cultural similarities so I was very curious about the people, its culture, literature and history. 
Banana cultivation: First stop was a banana plantation. Smalls explained how they are grown, as well as the history behind them - they are the main export crop of the island. We got to taste one - very sweet, and not chalky like the ones from Tesco's! When we got back in the van he gave us Plantain chips (Yay!!!), although they were ready salted flavour rather than chilli flavour. 
Anse la Rae: A quaint fishing village which has a thriving fish fry every Friday, took some scenic pics and saw the snake man! 
Cassava bakery: Visited the Cassava bakery, Smalls explained the process of making the bread from scratch. We then got to taste some chocolate flavoured cassava bread - had a nutty kind of taste. 
Canaries: Another small fishing village - known for its famous clay creole pots, again has a fish fry every Friday night. Stopped at a small shop on top of a steep incline to eat some johnny cakes (bakes, dumplings) - they were fluffy, doughy fresh!!! Could live on them! 
Sulphur Springs: After a drive up & down the country-side (our fellow passengers couldn't hack the roller coaster ride, although there was nothing wrong with Smalls driving, just the road were a lil steep) we arrived at the famous drive-thru volcano aka sulphur springs - Yes it did smell!!! But not as bad as I thought it would. Smalls handed us over to a sulphur springs tour guide who walked us thru the springs and told us some interesting info about them. Lasted about 15-20mins which considering the smell was more than enough! 
Pitons/Jalousie beach: We drove to a town (not sure where) and since our fellow passengers were a lil queasy Smalls stopped at the Pharmacy and got them some motion sickness remedies, and also gave us a chance to go to the bank and change some currency. EXTRA BROWNIE POINTS!!! We got a water taxi to Jalousie beach, where we had lunch, mostly local food (BBQ chicken, rice 'n' peas, coleslaw, potato salad, hard food) but toned down to suit every one's palate - mum was very happy with her veggie meal. We did some snorkeling - $10 to hire equipment which me & bro shared. Pretty fish that didn't seem to acknowledge snorkelers... 
Torallie waterfalls/Botanical Gardens: Refreshingly cool and shaded gardens, with a 30ft cold waterfall. Very pretty flowers/fauna - waterfall was amazingly refreshing in the heat! Not much else to say about it - not in a bad way either, must see it and chill under it to fully appreciate it. 
That pretty much concluded our tour - no-one elected to take the water taxi back so we just enjoyed the scenic 1 1/2 drive back to Castries port. Smalls stopped at the bakery to give us a taste of fresh french bread with cheese - lovely and warm, kind of sweet. We got back to port with plenty of time (about an hour) to shop/look around. Will definitely go back to St Lucia - full of luscious natural beauty and will be calling on Smalls via Spencer Ambrose to show me more of this pretty island. 
OVERALL: I think this was the best day of our cruise as we got to see soo much; we took in the culture/scenery, talked to people, ate lots of delicious food, saw some wild life, experienced waterfalls, swam with tropical fish, etc... Great day of exploration, would do it all again! 


St. Lucia

Docked in Antigua at 8am, and had a beach break booked for 5hours including lunch - booked via RC. Tour buses met us at the port, which were actually local taxi drivers transporting us to Dickinson's bay in mini-buses. Our driver was cool, some-one's grand-dad who tells really obvious (bad but funny) jokes! Not as informative as St Lucia but this wasn't a tour, just a ride to the beach lol. 
Dickinson's bay is actually a very beautiful bay and great for snorkeling and water-sports but due to the rapid approach of Hurricane Igor it was quite rough and the sea was dangerous; the red flag was up. The tour guides who were with us all day kept warning about sea swells; I only went in up to my knees (I'm 5'8 and a strong swimmer) and I got dragged in by a powerful current which then spun me underwater and bruised my thighs with rocks & debris. A rope (used to anchor a fishing boat) wrapped itself round mum's ankles after a particularly big waved reached the shore where our loungers were - it left her bruised on both ankles and frightened - she CAN NOT swim, at all!!! after lunch I spent the rest of the hot sunny afternoon chillin in the shade and speaking to the locals - kinda got fed up of them tryna sell me stuff. This was by far the worst beach for hassling despite the tour guides tryna turn them away - seems they dont really respond to female tour guides just the men. However they were really warm and friendly after firmly establishing I wasn't interested in buying beaded necklaces, fake bags, water sports(!) or trying a bit of wacky backy(!!) They even joked about with us saying they think some of our guests were crazy to swim in that water lol. 
Note: We bought cigarettes in Antigua and paid $19 for 200 Benson & hedges - the cheapest we'd seen them anywhere!!! 
OVERALL: Was a decent day at the beach, despite not really being able to go in the sea - there was nothing RC could have done better. Can't help mother nature... 


Antigua

ST MAARTEN CANCELLED DUE TO HURRICANE IGOR 
On our return to the ship from our day at Dickinson's Bay, Antigua - the captain made an announcement that we were unable to dock in St. Maarten due to large sea swells which had closed the port. So we were to dock at Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas US Virgin Islands. 
Initially we weren't too bothered as we'd only really planned to shop in St Maarten and St Thomas is pretty much the same in terms of duty/tax free prices. 
Getting off the ship at St Thomas we were greeted by a short tropical storm, we let it pass and then we caught a taxi to emancipation gardens downtown ($4 per person). This was our only experience of bad customer service - our taxi driver drove a mini-bus style taxi and considering it was 10am there were a lot of fares he could pick up, however the max capacity is 12 seats in the back and then the driver & passenger seats up front. 
We were the first passenger on his bus and explained to the dispatcher that we needed to be @ Emancipation gardens by 10:30 - a 10min drive at the most. 
All the seats were filled by 10:12am, yet the driver wanted more fares!!! 
It gets worse - at 10:34am (I was mindful of the time as we were meant to met some other passengers downtown @ 10:30am) he spotted an older (less mobile) couple and said he had space for them - he then asked the lady to wedge herself in the back (a child would have found it a squeeze) and asked the man to sit on the wheel arch inside the bus. The man had just had surgery on his knee so couldn't really bend it, so the cabbie then had the audacity to TELL my bro to move and "give the old folks a break!" my brother got extremely pissed off and quite rightly indignant, he enquired why he was paying for his fare - to which the driver couldn't answer. I also started getting impatient cos we'd now missed our meeting time for the rest of our group! I told him to let us out if he was gonna mess about even more - he finally started the 10 minute drive we should have done half hour before... 
SKANKED - CHARGED DOUBLE FARE!!!!! When we arrived I paid for ALL FOUR OF MY PARTY - clearly communicated this to the driver who took my $20 and gave me $4 - I made it obvious to him who I was paying for - after all we were the only Asian/Indian people on his bus, yet he still asked my parents for the $4 fare, but had the cheek to charged them $10!!! when we caught up with our group I double checked that my parents had not paid the driver, so I was fuming when my mum told me she had paid for both her and dad. The fact that he (the driver) would take advantage is such a brazen manner pissed me off, so I reported him to the dispatcher on our return to the port - I was smart enough to take a pic of both the driver and his bus (mainly the wheel arch he tried to get my bro to sit on)... The dispatcher and fellow drivers were not pleased but had to give us back our $10, especially as the entertainment director Dennis and Windjammer manager Rajiv saw us fairly upset and intervened - they knew our experience would be shared on the ship and they'd loose business; and so they should if they're willing to skank cruise passengers! 
SHOPPING IN DOWNTOWN, ST THOMAS: Very Mediocre - most jewellery. Predominantly Asian, and the sales peoples seem to prefer pressure sales so it really put me off shopping anywhere in general. There is a great shop that stocks alcohol from all the islands as well as souvenir stuff from most of the islands - the bag says AH Rise. You can't miss it as it stretched between main street and waterfront road. MAC STORE: Ladies, the MAC store is rubbish - having worked in both Selfridges oxford street and Harrods knightsbridge, where snobbish sale staff are 10 a penny I did not expect an overly-made-up(male)sales associate to be soo cold, and have such a weak product knowledge! My brother knew more about MAC than he did and that's just from what my bro sees me pull out of my magic/make-up bag. The stock itself is extremely limited; they don't even stock season exclusives or even many lip glasses or pigments!!! Shock horror/disgrace- how can you even attempt to call yourself a MAC store! 
OVERALL: Disappointed by the lack of mutual respect on the island, the people weren't soo friendly - except the dude in Del Sol (had a cool convo about British premiership football, arsenal all the way!) and the equally cool guy in Carihola (bamboo clothing store) - thanks for our free gifts!! Carihola gave us shell necklaces and Del Sol cute lil colour changing ring & bag x 


St. Thomas

Very pretty port - amazingly clean, got a henna tattoo and had to go bare foot for a while but wasn't an issue since there seemed to be permanent street cleaners! 
We did not book excursions as our wait in the Windjammer (Bruno from Brazil) recommended the beach at the port - which on a nice day would probably be a lovely beach but due to the hurricane (again) the beach was all churned up and had therefore left litter washed up all over the beach. So we got a return trip taxi/shuttle to Rainbow Bay $6 return, approx 10min drive from the port. Look for signs or ask one of the police officers to direct you to shuttle bus, much cheaper than taxi. 
RAINBOW BEACH is a small, but very pretty crystal waters-powder sand beach, known for snorkeling, water sports and sea turtles. However it too was a lil turbulent - although I did actually go in the sea for a bit, but felt a bit unsure as the currents were still pulling quite strong. Rented chairs/umbrella's for about $10 each for the whole day - kind of cool beach chairs in rainbow stripe, belonging to the Rainbow Beach bar, who had cool staff and tasty chips; homemade style $5 and $2 for a coke. 
BACK TO PORT about 3:45pm: Some great dancers were at the square when we arrived back, some by the clock tower doing folk dancing and then some crazy stilt dancers with young female backing dancers - the stilt dancers where soo cool, they could really move (mainly danced to soca/calypso/new style reggae). I had my pic taken with them when I looked up it was a lil scary and overwhelming since they were both masked and really, really tall! 
OVERALL: A decent day at the beach - again it was a real shame we couldn't fully enjoy the beach in all its glory but no-one could have help that, especially with hurricane Igor just round the corner in Bermuda at the time... 


St. Croix

staterooms 7620 & 7628 - okay, smallish compared to standard hotel rooms, shower is tiny!!! Ladies, don't even think about trying to shave legs in there we only used our shower once instead used the showers in the spa instead - totally empty most of the time, they provide their own unlimted towels too.
No flat screen as shown on website - standard old fashioned TV, that was on its way out, so assume they will be replacing them soon...
Decent location not too far from centrum but far enough away for it to be quiet, did not hear much noise at all, even from neighbours next door.
Balconies were decent, can probably fit two/four people seated.

One our last night of cruising, I made it a point to go up to the Windjammer and say a special thank you to ALL the staff who had served me over the week, especially since we'd spent most of our dinning time there - I've read they don't seem to get much pay ($50 a month, boosted by tips) and not many guests acknowledge their hard work, instead preferring to tip reflections staff.Lunch at the windjammer was more appropriate for us, since my mum is vegetarian and felt on her last RC med cruise that she had a better choice of foods in the Windjammer - so we went for the welcome buffet.

Serenade of the Seas Review

Serenade - sad farewell, didn't want to leave

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Deluxe Ocean View Stateroom with Balcony

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