St. Thomas:It is always beautiful arriving in St. Thomas with the islands, and sailboats in the harbors. We were lucky to have only one ship in port today. Docked in Havensight with lots of shopping right adjacent. I prefer downtown Charlotte Amalie for strolling, just because it is a city and has more character and history. But this time I shopped Havensight and sampled some flavored rums in the AM and then we went back to the ship for lunch before heading out to the beach. I wanted to go to Sapphire Beach but I was worried about the wind, so we chose Coki to be assured of seeing fish while snorkeling. Took the open air taxi. Coki Beach is beautiful when you look out to the water, but otherwise it is a rather crowded (even with one ship in port) narrow strip of sand. We didn’t rent chairs as we were in the water most of the time. We bring our own snorkel gear. The fish were plenty as promised (as unfortunately they feed them). Afterwards, we enjoyed some Caribe beers on the beach before heading back. A little more browsing the stores and enjoyed some Virgin Island Tropical Mango and Summer Island beers. The sailaway from St. Thomas was beautiful as it was already dark and the lights twinkled across the hills.

St. Thomas

San Juan:It’s actually been quite a long time since we were here and we were quite pleasantly surprised how different it seemed to us and how much we enjoyed Old San Juan for the day. Prior to arriving, we were told on board that some demonstrations were taking place at the capitol building that might affect traffic. As we were only going to be on foot, it didn’t concern us as long as they weren’t violent. We later saw and heard them from afar and it seemed more of a celebration with music than a demonstration – never did hear what that was about. We got off the ship early to begin the walk to El Morro Fort. They have a free trolley, but we wanted to walk and enjoy the sights along the way. It does get hot, so be sure to wear sunscreen and a hat – although we were still in the extremely windy weather so it was hard to keep hats on our head. We reached El Morro by about 8:30am and it was already open even though it is listed as 9am. We paid the $5pp to visit both forts. Great place to explore and read about the history. Beautiful photo vistas. Wear good walking shoes as there are lots of stairs and ramps – it’s a great workout. Bring water or buy some there as without any trees on the property, you will be warm. Leaving there we enjoyed watching the people flying kites on the huge open “lawn” leading up to the fort (there is a stand nearby selling kites if you want to give it a try). We also stopped to see the beautiful cemetery on the ocean – what a lovely final resting place. Next we headed to the Cathedral. For a free will donation you can view the inside, taking a moment to cool off and reflect. From there we headed back towards the ocean to the free art museum, which isn’t real big, but has some very nice religious and contemporary art with A/C to cool off. Next stop the Castillo de San Cristobal Fort, which is equally impressive as El Morro. From here, we could hear and view the “demonstration” that was occurring by the capitol building. I thought it was a festival at first. Heading back to the ship, we stopped at the Colon Plaza to see the Christopher Columbus statue. The PR dept. of tourism has a program right now where there put on some entertainment in some of the plazas, so we enjoyed a band and the photo ops with the large decorative vejigante, brightly colored whimsical masked folkloric figures (I had to google this to come up with the correct name and learn about them!). There are a lot of lovely outdoor restaurants to eat, but we took a break for lunch back on the ship, before heading back out to explore more of old San Juan. We love the blue cobblestone streets, colorful buildings, and window flower boxes. We enjoyed some of the shops and came across the Punto de Vista bar where they were offering 2 for 1 mojitos, so we headed up to the rooftop indoor/outdoor bar for a refreshing drink. Afterwards we came to another square with entertainment, this time dancers on stilts and more costumed characters. A bit more shopping and then we headed towards the pier and stopped one more time at a lovely park that had an outside bar to enjoy the local beer, Medallia. We have a fitness tracker and saw that we had logged 26,000 steps in San Juan! We felt it the next day, but the early AM hot tub took care of that! Adios lovely San Juan…another beautiful sailaway past the point where El Morro Fort is perched.

San Juan

Nassau: This was a noon arrival port, so after taking some time to start packing (as the cruise ends the next day), we headed up on deck to see the very scenic arrival into Nassau. Beautiful views of Atlantis and downtown Nassau. Our plan for the day was to meet up with some friends who live on the island. But first we took about an hour to stroll Bay Street and enjoy the sights, and visit the Straw Market. Our friend picked us up and headed to the area where all the conch shack restaurant/bars are located near the Paradise Island Bridge to pick up some fresh conch. His family prepared the authentic Bahamian conch salad for us at his home, but you can also get an assortment of ready made delicious conch and fish dishes at these shacks. It was my first time enjoying this amazingly fresh, tasty local dish. After returning to the pier, we browsed more shops and enjoyed the local Kalik beer (you may have realized, we really love to try the local beers when vacationing anywhere). Sad to be leaving our last port of call for this cruise.

Nassau

Antigua:Another beautiful arrival port. I was delighted to be greeted by a Calypso band finally!! We prebooked a tour with Scenic Tours Antigua for a 6½ hour sightseeing tour that took us through St. John’s and across the island up to the stunning views from Shirley Heights and the Block House and then back down to the historical tour of Nelson’s Dockyard, with some time to explore at each stop. Our guide was the owner of the company, Sean and he was excellent. Very informative tour. It was a very modern comfortable, mini bus with good A/C and large windows for viewing. We then returned via Fig Tree Drive in the rainforest, before taking the option for beach time. We had about 90 minutes at the beautiful Turners Beach, which has one open air Beach Bar and Restaurant with a decent bathroom. We didn’t eat there, but enjoyed a rum punch and the local Wadadli beer. We rented chairs for $5. The white sand beach is beautiful with some palm trees. I attempted snorkeling, but the wind was still making the water a little rough and churned up so visibility was poor, only saw about 5 fish total by the rocks on the left side of the beach. But the water was warm and the swimming was great. There is a vendor area set up for shopping and a couple of people that were working the beach, but they weren’t pushy and left us alone when we said no thanks.

I don’t usually swim much in cruise ship pools as they are usually too crowded, but I decided to venture in the main pool the last sea day afternoon…shortly after I entered it was evacuated because *GROSS ALERT* a human feces was seen floating (no joke) .The last sea day we participated in the CC cabin crawl and scavenger hunt which was great fun with a terrific group of people and an opportunity to see other cabin categories on the ship.

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