We did some fabulous jewelry shopping here. I can highly recommend JC Jewelers. They were very helpful, and due to a call ahead by my boss, who has known the proprietor for years, they opened up their shop for us in Crown Bay Center, despite being closed that day, due to the dual facts that there were no ships in the Crown Bay port that day and that they were in the midst of a move to that location from an older one downtown. We were able to get very fair prices on our purchases, and had a fabulous time visiting with the proprietors, Jay and Judy. It was much more fun than the usual stops at the big chain duty-free jewelers that make up most of the dockside complexes.We stopped at Beuchart’s Beer Garden for lunch and had a fabulous experience. It's a true hole-in-the-wall place with just a few outdoor tables and a bar, shady and breezy, with moss and ferns covering the walls, lizards exploring, and a plantain tree right in the middle. Not at all crowded on the day we went, just one other group at another table, although there was a ship in port. The owner was very friendly and helpful and had been in the islands for many years. The conch fritters actually contained some conch and veggies and were spicy, crispy and batter-dipped, completely unlike the dull, doughy, hush-puppy-like things you usually get. The Cuban sandwiches were also extremely good, containing some of the best pulled pork I've had (and I come from a barbequing state).While the margaritas may not have been the world's best, they were certainly the world's strongest, 2 of them and I'd have never made it back to the ship. The local Blackbeard's Ale was excellent and well worth trying, particularly if you like good dark beers. The only thing I will say is, don't come in here if you are in a hurry, everyone here is on "island time" and each separate dish, sandwich, or drink is made individually, so it will take a while. For us this just added to the sense of leisurely relaxation, but could be an issue if you have a short time hack to get back to a ship. Also, bathroom is clean but southern service station basic.As far as Magic Ice goes, we had been very excited about doing this based on the ads and the other reviews we'd seen, but ended up sorry that we went. Admission is pricy. We spent 92 dollars for a group of 6, 4 of whom were half price (senior/child). Instead of the highly detailed ice sculptures we were led to expect, everything was featureless and rather blobby. It is just a narrow warehouse, so you walk to the end, turn around and come back by the things you already saw. The guy staffing the inside was extremely rude, screaming at kids instead of simply telling them what the rules were. He wasn't much more polite to the adult tourists he served at the bar, only offering vile, sticky-sweet flavored rums (banana, coconut, pineapple and something else) for your "free" shot, though it turned out that you could try any of the rums that they had behind the bar. When my father asked for a dark rum instead, he got very snippy, stating that what was on offer was "what the tourists like". I wish I'd had sense to ask about alternatives myself as the coconut was disgusting.Save your money and have a second margarita at Beuchart’s instead.We had some time left after heading back to Havensight Pier so Mom and I went to the little butterfly garden right across from where we were docked (it’s directly behind the inevitable Señor Frog’s). That was much more rewarding than the ice museum, with lots of beautiful butterflies and local tropical plants on display. We had a fabulous tour guide all to ourselves, as we were practically the only folks there, and she was able to not only tell us about the butterflies and the plants, but to tell us about local life and history as well. You could even watch the new butterflies emerging from hundreds of chrysalises on display. The only disappointment was that the butterflies themselves, while dramatic, were not local species. The attached ‘botanical garden’ to the side was really only about 25 yards of pathway with some of the local plants labeled, but we did see a hummingbird and some cool lizards, so it was not a complete wash.

St. Thomas

This was our favorite port of call this trip. We grabbed a taxi as soon as we got off the ship and, not being in the mood for beaches or having batik aggressively sold at us, was able to get a tour just to Brimstone Hill fortress and back for $12.50 each (plus admission fees to the fort, $10 for adults, $5 for kids). Our driver, Peter, was an absolute gem. He immediately asked if we wanted to go straight there or have a bit of a tour. Naturally we opted for the tour, so he showed us around Basseterre before heading off to the fortress. We saw cattle egrets, monkeys and even a mongoose along the way. Brimstone Hill is fascinating, the oldest fort in the Carribean. You drive up a series of terrifyingly narrow switchbacks to reach the entrance and from the top you have views of most of the island. It was gorgeous! There is a brief video, outlining the history of the site as a British Fort, captured by the French then turned back over to the British at the end of the American Revolution (which I always forget involved a lot of skirmishes between the British and the French in the Carribbean). It gave me real sense of just how much bigger Revolutionary War history is than just Lexington and Concord, and Yorktown.Peter was completely unhurried about the whole experience, I’m not sure if that is because there was only the one ship in port, or if he is just naturally of an island time disposition, but he was perfectly willing to stop along the way us to take pictures, while avoiding any of the unwanted tourist trap shopping along the way (I have had this insisted upon, in Europe as well, by drivers who get a kickback from the owners for every tour that stops), he was not at all worried about how long we wanted to spend exploring the fort, asking us if we wanted to stay longer when we came back to the car when we were done. We asked for a good local place to eat, so he took us to a hole-in-the-wall called OJs, about 3 blocks from the port. Unfortunately we got there right at lunchtime, so we couldn’t get in past the long line of locals reaching out the door. With kids who don’t wait patiently once hunger kicks in, we decided that the better part of valor was to simply return to the ship for lunch, no matter how good it smelled from outside. Next time however…Peter did give us card advertising one of the jewelry places on the docks, so after he dropped us off, we went in just so he could get his kickback. We the used the excuse of hungry kids to head off a protracted sales pitch and went back onboard.

St. Kitts (Port Zante)

We had planned a quiet day here, so we fought off several dozen cab drivers and just explored St. John's on foot. We managed to navigate the gauntlet of maddened taxi drivers, seeking their natural prey of tour lacking ‘rich’ Americans, but only barely. There are fascinating colonial era buildings down by the quay, very satisfying to a group made up of history buffs versus beachgoers. A fabulous huckster named “Sugar Mama” sold us some of her handmade shell and stone jewelry from an improvised roadside stand. I’ll readily admit it, I’ll spend money just as a reward for the showmanship of someone who can talk a good game and “Sugar Mama” was the real deal. We told her we’d think of her when we wore the pieces and she told us she’d think of us that night when she spent our money. Gotta love an honest huckster!We went to the small Museum of Antigua and Barbuda, which is found in the old city courthouse. Nothing fancy here, but some very interesting history if you have the patience to read the displays. They were selling Remembrance Day poppies here, which really brought home the fact that this was, until relatively recently, like Saint Kitts, a part of the vast British Commonwealth. We also went to see Saint John’s Cathedral like the good(ish) Anglicans we are. Unfortunately, the church is currently closed for long-overdue restoration. The churchyard is open to the public, however, as well as a small parish bookshop on the grounds. The parishioner working there was very sweet and was able to give us a lot of information about the church and local history. I bought a small book of devotionals and was touched by his gratitude that I had also picked up one of their free brochures on church history, as “it has the church website on the back, and you can keep up with the renovations.” While heading back in the direction of the ship, we stopped spent a couple hours hanging out in a wonderful little open-air courtyard bar/restaurant called Alligator’s Bar and Restaurant. In all that time, I think we were the only non-locals who came in. Spotlessly clean, the main seating area was a breezy porch with well-padded benches all around. Lunch prices were very reasonable, though I think I’d have had a bit of sticker shock at supper time. Absolute standouts were the conch in garlic sauce and the homemade ginger beer (Hubby suggests that his was improved even further by a shot of good dark rum). 

Antigua

This was a bit of a crapshoot for us as the tour we had scheduled to go to the butterfly garden and Marigot, on the French side of the island had been cancelled due to the recent Hurricane Gonzalo. As we were planning our one official shore excursion here, and as I did not find out about the cancellation until we were on the ship, I hadn’t researched anything about this port. We took the water taxi across to the main tourist area of Phillipsburg and explored the area on foot. Some interesting buildings, but quite a bit of hurricane damage was evident and a lot of places were closed. And the aggressive salesmanship of all the jewelers’ touts reached a grating sort of climax here, probably driven by the facts that we were the only ship in port and that they were less than two weeks out from a damaging major storm. Once you got out of the immediate tourist district, it was still what appeared to be nothing but miles of more shopping districts, just run down ones catering to locals instead. We did get some good rum punch here to bring home, but that was the extent of it. We hopped the water taxi back to the port. I will say we got the best mojitos we’d ever had from a stand in the duty-free plaza by the ship for $5, so that was a highlight. We also found Kinder Eggs in a shop there, which we got to add to the kids’ Halloween goodies that night. I wish we had known earlier in the day what we learned from one of our fellow cruisers on the water taxi back to the ship. If you go straight back two blocks (past the courthouse) from where the water taxi debarks in Phillipsburg you can catch one of the frequently running busses (vans really, but they function as busses) that circle all the way around both sides of the island for $2 per person. You can get to Marigot and back this way, or stop off at any of a number of well-regarded beaches. Or just stay on the whole way round, see the island and avoid a second $2 fare for the trip back. Next time I go, I want to do that, rather than a ship’s excursion. 

St. Maarten

Old San Juan is amazing and gorgeous, everything you would expect it to be, with well-preserved 19th century Spanish townhouses lining blue cobblestone streets. What you don’t expect is that is also very expensive. Nothing makes you realize you are back in the States quite like paying DC prices for everything. All of our favorite parts were free though, the Cathedral, Ponce DeLeon’s final resting place, with its amazing frescoed ceilings, the forts of El Morro and San Cristobal (free for us as I have a National Park Services pass), the astonishing Capitol building and the absolutely stunning (and tiny) Chapel of the Christ of Good Health. We were very lucky to be able to go inside the last, as it is manned exclusively by a society of local volunteers and there is no regular schedule when it is open. We were happy to buy a couple of inexpensive religious tchotchkes to help keep this astounding little site open. It also happened to be right next to “Pigeon Park”, I advise not opening any of your purchases to show them off here as the pigeons will think you are feeding them and swoop down to sit on your head or shoulders. The area is only about 7 blocks square, so everything can be seen on foot. There is a free trolley, but a number of the stops are closed due to construction right now and the route is split into two parts, with the busses that look like trolleys only making a circle around the port area and only the white, open air ones travelling to El Morro and San Cristobal. We found this out the hard way after spending far too much time on the wrong one. Honestly, as long as you have the endurance, you’ll make far better progress on foot anyway, given the unbelievably heavy traffic and the random street closures from the construction. I would say that, especially if you know where you are going, which we did not, you can easily cover the whole area on foot in a single day, so I see this as potentially a fabulous single day port of call. Eat breakfast for free on the ship, see the town and stop for a single substantial local meal at one of the many excellent, but expensive, restaurants, then return to the ship before you run out of money.Food will be your biggest expense. As far as I can tell, there is no such thing as a lunch special in this town, it’s dinner prices at all hours. We did have some fabulous meals, the very best was the mofongo at El Mojito, recommended by one of the hotel staff as the place he goes, and by another as his mother’s favorite. Although it is right in the heart of the tourist area, the patrons seemed to be, if not San Juan local, at least nearly entirely Puertoriqueño, and prices were at least in the semi-reasonable range. The food was amazing and the mofongo was the best we had, stuffed with meat or seafood that spilled out of the top, and dripping with butter and garlic. Despite the name, we did not go there for the mojitos, instead finding the best deal on those at the rooftop restaurant in the Hotel Milano, which offers 2 for $8 mojitos, a decent view and the best nachos I’ve had outside of Chacho’s and Chalucci’s in San Antonio (those who are familiar either with me or the establishment in question knows that that is high praise indeed).How did we find the deal on the mojitos? Those were recommended by the streetside tout of another restaurant altogether, Greengos Carribean Café. A chain restaurant, it is still worth a stop for the very good $5 happy hour margaritas, then ask the girl who works out front where to actually go for food. She was the best free tourist guide in town, happy to point you in the right direction for anything your were looking for regardless of whether it brought you into the restaurant to spend money. Like a number of folks we met and talked to in San Juan, she was not a local, but an itinerant drifter (from Oklahoma in this case) who’d somehow made her way to the city, found it way more expensive than expected, and found local work while trying to save up money to leave again.If you aren’t wedded to having local food, the one good bargain we found was pizza joint called Foccacia. They probably had 20 different styles of pizza on offer, running the gamut from plain old cheese or pepperoni, to a pear and gorgonzola wonderment. They sold by the slice, and we were able to satisfy 6 hungry folks, all with different tastes, for 38 bucks including drinks/beer. I definitely do recommend the Hotel Casablanca if you are cruising out of Puerto Rico, it is right in the middle of Old San Juan, within easy walking distance of the docks, and they will store luggage both on pre-check-in arrival and after check out on late departure days. It is a funky little boutique hotel, a converted 19th century Spanish apartment building that has been decorated with a Moroccan theme. Rooms are small, particularly the ones with only one bed, more like a European room than the larger ones you get used to in the States, but they are comfortable, air-conditioned, with private baths, flatscreen HDTVs, and cable. The decorating theme extends to the rooms, with mosquito netting and themed bedding, as well as mosaic glass wall lanterns. And, hubby’s favorite part, the movie Casablanca plays on a 24/7 loop in the lobby. There is also an AstroTurffed rooftop with lounge chairs and giant stone hot tubs (really giant stone baths, no jets) where you can sit with your nearest and dearest and have a drink while looking over the city and seeing who else is in port (the Valor docked the day after the Splendor left). It’s not really going to sell you on the hotel, one way or the other, and frankly Old San Juan is not at its best when viewed from 5 levels up, but it is a pretty cool feature.Do be aware that, as a 19th century building, there is no elevator and rooms can be as high as the 5th floor. Staff will assist with getting luggage to and from the rooms, but if you have difficulty climbing stairs, this might not be the right choice for you. Also rooms with windows opening on to the old central courtyard (now roofed in) can be noisy, with conversation floating up from the lobby bar below into the wee hours of the night. If that bothers you, ask for a room at the quieter rear of the building or ask for earplugs, which are available from the desk. Prices are reasonable for the area, booking directly on the hotel website we were able to get rooms at the same rate as we would have paid at the Radisson, across the causeway in Condado. In the end it was the more economical choice as staying in Condado would also have meant an expensive taxi ride from the port as well. I also advise against breakfast in the hotel restaurant, 20% off or not, it was bland and rather expensive. Siglo XX across the street had much better choices for about half the cost.The staff here is very helpful, as well as storing luggage, they were able to provide maps of the area, instructions for the best ways of getting around, and recommendations for where to find the best local food (El Mojito, as stated above, seriously, just go there). They also made taxi arrangements for us when we were ready to depart for the airport and would have made rental car arrangements and set up tours, had we not decided that sticking to just exploring Old San Juan was plenty to manage this trip. A taxi to the airport starts at $21, but there are also additional charges for excess passengers and per piece fees for luggage, so it can up quickly.

San Juan

We were in adjoining Ocean View cabins 2404 and 2408. The cabins were roomy (roomier than the balcony rooms) and the connecting door made it like having our own suite. The pullman and sofabed were always made up in the room we were sharing with the kids, so we used the sitting area in my parents’ cabin as a place to visit together and watch TV. It worked out really well and gave us more space than adjoining balconies would have. We spend so little time in the cabin, aside from changing, naps and sleep, that I don’t feel the lack of a balcony, and with 4 of us in a room, I’d rather have the space anyway.

This seems unlikely, as it is a simple Xeroxed form that should have been being run off by the dockside staff and not by the folks on the ship, but frankly all of the shore staff in New York were so rude that it was hard to even get information from them, much less assistance.After going through there, you have your own dedicated FTTF line for check-in, no-one else was waiting and we were able to go straight to the first available agent to get our Sign and Sail cards.

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