We took shared taxi to Redhook ($10 pp), ferry to St John ($6 each way, leaves on the hour in each direction), shared taxi to good beach ($6 each way) and then local bus back to town ($2pp) from Redhook.  Snorkel trail not available due to strong waves, beach was pretty and fun due to waves, but you have to be a strong swimmer, I dont think it is like this normally. In hindsight it wasnt worth all the hassle and we should have just stayed on St Thomas.

In town we went up 99 steps, saw the outside of Blackbeards castle, saw the old fort and browsed the tourist market.

St. Thomas

We walked to bus station (less than 10 mins) and instantly got a bus ($1) to Folkestone Marine Park on west coast.  Little museum there was worth a few minutes, we then snorkelled but it was a bit rubbish as visibility poor, coral was not in god shape.  We then walked a couple of minutes to a nice church and then bus to Paynes bay on west coast.  This was very nice, and we swam out to the turtles which was excellent even with the poor visibility, we saw loads as the boats were feeding them.

Then bus to capital where we saw the main sights and then walked back to port.

Very good day and only spent a few dollars each.  Barbados people were helpful and we only saw a small portion of the island so potentially could go back and see more.  This was one of the few islands we would consider having a full holiday on.

Barbados

Tour with James $55.  Initial impression was not great as not very friendly and long wait for other people.  We learnt that this is normal when you book these kinds of tour as every day we waited around for about 30 mins after start time stated.

The tour with James and Sion was fine, with plenty of stops for photos etc.  However in the itinerary it states that you see the Piton falls we were offered this at expense of volcano.  We have done similar stuff to the mud baths at Blue Lagoon in Iceland and Dead Sea in Israel, and the experience here was noweher near as good, but still fun.

We had to pay $2 for small boat to Magens bay for quick swim, which is weird cos you'd imagine this to be included in price. However drinks were provided and various breads etc.  The beach at Magens is not great and I would not want to spend a great deal of time here.

No time at end to see capital, but we did stop on way through to see the cathedral.



The trip was worth doing, but probably my least favourite tour that we did.  My girlf however enjoyed it more.

St. Lucia

Tour with Rosie and Jim cabs ($45 I think).  Saw batik place, brimstone hill fortress, black rocks, etc in circuit of island, then down to cockleshell beach.  Again visibility no good for snorkelling.

Rosie friendly and good, non rushed tour.  Would recommend. No drinks are included, but entry to fortress was.

Was time at end to see capital and for a spot of shopping.  Nice relaxed day.

St. Kitts (Port Zante)

Bernards tours ($35?)- first one where we had to pay on arrival (rest were at the end), this worries me as they dont need to work for the money so much, however it was a good tour.  Guide talked a lot about celebrities etc, but not so much about history etc which was a shame, though we should have asked more questions.  This was the busiest tour we did as the others only had 2 other tourists max.  Were about 10 people on this bus.

We stopped to see some urchins, orient bay (nice but too busy), french capital, maho beach.

We liked it, and timings were good, we stayed until AirFrance arrived!  

No time at end to see capital.

St. Maarten

Big, but very noisy before arriving in port

They allowed free stop-overs so we spent a couple of nights in both those cities which was good and made the holiday about 2 weeks in duration.We took our own bags off the ship at end of cruise, as we are not US citizens we could not use the self disenbark option really early in day, but we just left the ship with our bags when we were ready, we left at about 9am and it was all pretty quick, bit of a queue for US customs of about 30 minutes, but all done by 10am.

Carnival Victory Review

First Cruise - enjoyable with some flaws

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