Bob & Wendy Evans

Number of Cruises: 7
Cruise Line: CCL
Ship: Destiny
Sailing Date: March 14th, 2004
Itinerary: Southern Caribbean

This was our seventh cruise, the second with CCL, departing March 14, 04. The itinerary was San Juan, St. Thomas, Dominica, Barbados, Aruba, San Juan. Our TA at Cruise Magic called CCL and got us an immediate upgrade to a guarantee 4A inside at a 1A price of $555 all-incl, and on arrival we got another free upgrade to 6A outside on the Riviera deck.

EMBARKATION

We flew in about 5pm, and airport to cabin took a little over an hour, very slick, no line longer than a couple minutes. A taxi dispatcher at the a/p curb gets you a cab and gives you a paper stating the cost of the trip to avoid “misunderstandings” between passengers and drivers ($16 plus 50 cents per bag, tip not included). Others arrived about 1pm, previously the worst time for embarking with 2 hour lines, and said they pretty much walked on the ship, no lines. And others arriving mid-afternoon got on quickly. The people who arrived at 7pm had to waited the longest of any we talked to, about an hour.

THE CABIN

Our 6A outside Riviera deck cabin was great, long vanity counter and mirrors, free safe using any magnetic strip card like a drivers license, 4 foot square window, king bed, large sofa, chair, table, tons of storage space, 2 outlets on the counter, ice and pop machines down the hall. People with thick hair will likely want to bring their own hair dryer, the cabin one will take you forever. Don’t trust the telephone wake-up call system, it failed for us as well as our friends. Soap and shampoo in the shower, adjustable shower height, slow drain, we were standing in water at the end (foot bath?). Nice bag of toiletries and thick robes. You can view your account and book tours on the TV (press Menu).

THE SHIP

We thought the ship was lovely, any signs of wear were very minor. We really liked the Sun and Sea lido buffet, it seemed classier and less noisy than the ones on other ships, perhaps because there were no clattery trays, and it has an upper level away from the crowds where you can always get a window seat because most people probably won’t or can’t climb the stairs holding food. A lovely peaceful place to eat.

The Happy Valley always had an interesting Oriental dish or 2, and the NY Deli made great sandwiches with all the fixings, pastrami, corned beef, etc. Great 24 hour pizza just out the back of the Sun & Sea, about 8 choices. Ice cream and frozen yogurt cones near the pool by the drink machine on the port side.

As on all our other cruises deck loungers near the pools go fast on sea days, and everyone breaks the rule and saves them, so you might as well too. Here’s a tip if you want to be near the pool to hear the music and also need some shade like we do (it’s very hot). First, there is shade at the pool level on either side of the deck, but these areas are full of tables and chairs. But there is an overhang on deck 10 above the pool behind the band, where you can move your lounger in and out of the sun. There is also shade for about 4 chairs under the radar globes (?) on the small deck where you walk up the stairs to the water slide. If you get out to these places by about 7:30 you’ll probably find empty chairs. If you don’t check on them frequently your loungers could get pushed around by other people jockeying for positions (as happened to our deckmates) and you’ll find your chairs pushed way out in the sun or back against the wall. Pool chairs in full sun are available until about 8:30. If you don’t need to be near the pool there are lots of chairs in other places.

The dining rooms were lovely, food and service great, got the wrong dinner time and table size, but the maitre d’ fixed it. Take your camera to dinner, lots of “waiter” shows, even a Backstreet Boys show, quiet a riot. Entertainment was good, floor shows, comedians, a magician.

Nice rubberized jogging track, nice gym, 3 or 4 ellipticals, maybe 10 treadmills, about the same bikes, several strengthening machines, free weights, no pulleys, surround windows, lovely change rooms, lockers, showers (no shampoo here (?). You walk through the spa to get to the gym.

PORTS

One general tip about ports, have lots of small bills, you always need them so you have the correct amount for cabs, tips, snacks, buying small things. Getting change is often a hassle. Take about $40 in ones, lots of fives, and a few tens. Twenties are only good for paying for large things like private tours. Most vendors, even little market vendors will take travellers cheques, but often can’t make change for 20's. The ship will cash your traveler’s cheques, and fortunately had lots of 1's and 5's when we ran out.

ST. THOMAS

Port side cabins view the bay and hills, starboard ones view the port. This was our second time in St. Thomas, and for the morning my wife shopped the Havensight stores at the dock while I found a good internet place to find out if our kids had wrecked the house yet. Internet on the ship is expensive, 75 cents a minute, and in most ports you can get about 15-20 minutes for $2-3. Havensight has a good internet place at the main intersection where the cop (?) has a booth, across the street and up the stairs, I think it was $4 for 15 minutes, very fast connection, professionally run, about a dozen computers.

In the afternoon we wanted to hang out at a resort with a pool and beach, we like to go back and forth between the two, where we can order drinks and snacks, so we went to the Ritz Carleton near Red Hook, a $9 p.p. cab ride. You can also do this at the Bolongo Bay Resort for $15, or the Emerald Beach Resort for free (a local told us). The Ritz was lovely, email us if you want the details on how this works.

DOMINICA

The locals pronounce it DOM-in-EEE-ka. Here’s a link to a good map we found, the only thing missing is Titou Gorge, put a dot just below the town of Laudat for that (www.avirtualdominica.com/images/bigmap.jpg ). In Roseau we docked right at the town, port side cabins facing the town, starboard facing the bay. When you walk off the ship to the end of the pier you find all the tour reps, both ship and private, and you get tons of propositions as in most ports, but they aren’t pushy and accept “no thanks.” The going rate for a non-ship tour is $30 for 2 major stops over about 3 hours, and the ship charges $45-50 for the same thing. We like active tours and booked River Kayaking privately with Wacky Rollers, it’s not offered through the ship. But the ship does offer Wacky’s river tubing tour ($75), good fun we heard. We also booked floating up the Titou Gorge (between rocks) with Wacky, and got a 2 for 1 deal at $75. Some operators want you to pay for both a driver and a guide, about $45 pp total for half a day, but the drivers can “guide” too, just get the 2-guy deal if you want to have someone’s undivided attention.

However, it was raining that day and the rivers were too dangerous, so both the ship tubing tour and our kayaking tour were canceled, and people also weren’t allowed into the Gorge. It rains a lot there, I think we were told 400 inches a year. So we decided we still wanted to see the Gorge, and also wanted to see Trafalgar Falls, and got a private tour guy, Louis, (recommended by the Wacky rep), who agreed to take us to those for $30 p.p. We agreed with him that we would use the rainy morning for shopping and start the tour at noon, hoping for less rain by then.

So we started dogging the rain in and out of stores, and found shopping in Dominica was the cheapest of all the ports. The Cornerstone Café has internet upstairs, cheapest anywhere, I think I paid $2 for 20 minutes. There is one classy shop, Lande Leather, a general store selling lots of stuff, just off to the left of the end of the pier. . They were the only place on the cruise that beat the ship price of booze by a couple dollars. Know your leather prices, Wendy thought some were good but others weren’t. And we didn’t know what knock-off Gucci things and other knock-off brands were worth (you see these in San Juan too, like leather Gucci purses for about $50). There are many side streets off the main drag with vendors, little cobblestone alleyways, construction style reminded us of the French Quarter in N.O., but more run down. You bargain off about 20% of the asking price. Wendy got a lovely sun dress there for $16 that she later saw in San Juan for $34. And we got an oil painting about a foot square stretched over a wooden frame ready for a show frame for $18. That size in Aruba was $40, and in Barbados it was $300. CDs were $12, everywhere else they were about $18. You can do the main drag and all the side streets in a half day if you keep moving. Different vendors will often sell the same stuff, but their bottom price is never much different, so if you find what you want there’s not much point in wasting time getting a better price from the next guy, get your 20% off and take it. Don’t miss the little shopping enclave roughly behind Lande Leather, bunch of vendors in an enclosed area, very good selection here, and cafe where you can leave your DH with a $2 beer. The rain was not very heavy, off and on all morning, easy to jump from one vendor’s umbrellas to the next one’s, you don’t need to carry one unless you think you’ll melt.

Luckily the rain had mostly stopped later in the morning, and we grabbed lunch in the lido at 11:30 and were back on the dock at 12 where we met Louis. With the ship not leaving till 6 you could start a tour as late as about 2, but a flat tire or accident could make you miss the ship. The roads inland to the sights are narrow and winding, up hillsides, frequent stops to let oncoming vehicles by. If you get car sick easily you shouldn’t do these tours. One toot on the horn means “I’m approaching the corner”, a toot from another guy means “so am I”, and 2 toots means “I’m coming through.” We wondered what would happen if both vehicles gave 2 toots, but it never seemed to happen.

The scenery was lovely, very much like Hawaii, and Louis was great at explaining all the local sights. First stop was the Titou Gorge ( www.kenshinterlandtours.com/titougortraf.html  ), where the last 50 yards of the road were under a few inches of water, a river flowing down a gravel road, where we had to park the van with a couple other cars on a high spot and start walking up the flooded road. To walk to these sights you need footwear that can get soaked and muddy, like old gym shoes. Wendy had her rubberized slip-on beach shoes (Walmart and Sears, $8), and I had my old but sturdy sandals. When they get muddy there’s always some clear water nearby to swoosh off the mud. The Gorge was too fast and dangerous from the rain to do the swim-up between the rocks, as we’d been told, but it was fun poking around, getting some jungle/trail/water shots, there might have been 10 people there, and then back to the van for Trafalgar Falls.

Trafalgar Falls ( http://ruthtanner.tripod.com/wf/trafalgar.html  )has a $2 entry fee, from which you walk about 10 minutes to a viewing platform. This walk is over slippery roots and rocks, and you have to be careful picking your way along, it’s not a stroll. You can also walk further past the platform to the base of the falls, perhaps a 5 minute walk that’s even trickier, steeper, wetter. Near the base of the falls there is a “jungle hot pool” which you can climb down to and sit in like a hot tub, but again it’s over slippery rocks and we did it but not many others tried to get down. Louis said it’s much easier when the water isn’t so high, the water was covering up the rock “steps.” Louis often took our picture with our camera, or we traded cameras with other tourists and took each others pics. I bought beers for us and Louis back at the ticket place, $2 for the small bottles, local brand, and we headed back to town, got there about 3:30 I think, tipped Louis an extra $10, which he really appreciated, he was great, did a bit more shopping, and then back on board. People who went to the Emerald Pool said they could get into the pool even with the high water. We didn’t talk to anyone who went to the Sulphur Springs. If you like intense hiking, Ken’s Hinterland Tours offers a river hiking tour, crossing some rivers and really seeing the rain forest. Forget doing a beach, they aren’t good on this island, but the rain forest and mountains are wonderful.

Although Wacky Rollers Tours if very professional and reliable, you might prefer not to use them if it’s raining, because they use the open army vehicles like on their web site (www.wackyrollers.com ). We passed them on the road several times, and the people looked rather miserable wearing hooded ponchos in the rain, we were glad to be in a dry van.

BARBADOS

Port side cabins face the dock (industrial view), starboard ones face the bay. There are maybe 30 nice stores in the terminal building, and when you exit the terminal the tour “gates” are on the left, and the $1 van shuttles to Bridgetown are to the right. You might wait 5 minutes for the van to fill, or you can take a $3 p.p. cab to town and leave right away.

The shopping in Bridgetown is expensive and sporadic, even the Net in Little Switzerland was too much, but I found a cheaper one on another street. The nicest place to go is along the water causeway boardwalk that leads to the main bridge at the city center park area with the Big Ben clock. An art gallery in a small plaza wanted $300 for a foot square oil painting that we paid $18 for a similar one in Dominica. There are more vendors on the bridge. But the best shopping was in the Pelican Mall 2 blocks outside the main terminal gates. The shuttle driver will drop you off there, and it was an easy 10-15 minute stroll from there back to the ship, nice breeze off the bay. Perhaps 30-40 stores with a/c in a pretty park setting, colorful local dancers put on a pirate show about 10:30 or 11, lots of art, crafts, some clothing, etc.

Then after lunch we did the Snuba and Boatyard Beach tour through the ship ($99 incl admission for the day to the Boatyard and a free drink), they wouldn’t let us book it privately ($55) because of a deal with CCL. Snuba is diving to a 20 foot maximum while breathing through a regulator on an air hose connected to a floating “raft” that follows you (and 3 others). It was a fun experience, but takes some prep. Ocean Adventures runs the tour from the Boatyard complex which is near the ship.

The tour guys are all fun on the short boat ride to the site, but it’s all business when they prep you. You have to breath deep, not shallow breaths, and you have to blow your ears every 3 feet down to equalize pressure, and they show you how to clear water from you mask while under. The guides have scuba on, and show you signs to communicate while under. They said you have to relax to do all this, and that women are better at relaxing and following directions and signals than men, and are more successful, and sure enough, one guy on the tour kept freaking out and couldn’t handle it, but his wife did fine. If you can’t manage it or want a rest, you can surface and hold onto the raft, and float along with it, still looking into the water with your mask on and see the stuff (like yer wife below giving you the wussie sign). We thought the hoses would get tangled but it seemed to work ok, the divers helped with that.

We snuba’d over 3 small wrecks and some coral, and it’s a way different experience than snorkeling, even being just 10-15 feet down you feel in another world. It’s bright enough for underwater shots, and you can grab the wrecks to stabilize yourself for shots. I wasn’t good at clearing water from my mask, mostly I blew salt water in my eyes which stings, so I surfaced more than some people to clear my mask. This meant I had to re-do the ear pressure thing on the way down, bit of a nuisance. The pressure is about 5 times what you feel going up in a plane, and you have to do it regularly on the way down, or if you wait too long looking at fish etc it won’t work and you have to surface and start over. Surfacing doesn’t affect the others connected to your raft. We had enough air for about 30 minutes, which seemed enough for everyone. We only had 10 brave cruisers on this tour out of 2900 on the ship. We also had a guy and his 12 y.o. son from a resort, and the lad did fine. Free bottled water on the boat, which we used to clean the salt from our eyes and faces as well as drinking. On the way back to shore we all felt like Navy Seals, just a grinin’ and drinking.

Spent the rest of the afternoon at the Boatyard Party Beach ( www.theboatyard.com ), music pumping, loungers, umbrellas, friendly beach staff fetching drinks and helping if needed, good snack bar, pretty good booze, patio café area, water trampoline, climbing iceberg, jetskiis, change rooms, lots of people (it’s a fav with the ship crews), great sand, long pier to take a walk out on, lots of hard bodies. Your teens and kids will love to come here, but it you want a quiet beach nearby, face the water and look to your left, and you’ll see more beach outside the Boatyard property, where other cruisers said it’s quiet. In the evening the Boatyard turns into a party bar.

The main nightlife is at St. Lawrence Gap, a 10-15 minute cab ride from the ship, but the locals told us of a nice place in Bridgetown, and I checked it out while shopping. You go across the main bridge at the park with the Big Ben clock, turn right, first building on the right, walk towards the water along the building, turn left, walk past several shops and you come to the Waterfront Café. Pretty location, nice view, evening entertainment. You can sit outside under umbrellas by the causeway.

ARUBA

It’s easy to see why Aruba is everyone’s favorite. It’s clean, the buildings are all pretty pastels like Disneyworld main street, and there’s lots to do. As you exit the terminal take a booklet from the kiosk, it has a good map insert of the island and of Orangestaad. Walk off the ship, go maybe 100 yards to the main drag, turn right, go 1 block to Weststraat, and everything starts there. Across the street is the Royal Plaza mall, three 3-story pink buildings with tons of shops with pretty interior courtyards, lots of shade. A block further down is the Seaway Mall, an inside mall. Booze and jewelry were expensive ¼ rum was twice the ship price, and tanzanite .75 carat earrings with diamonds were $1300, but a similar pair on the ship at their 40% off sale were $300. But we got a great beach bag for $5 (saw them for as much as $35 other ports), and got a wooden hanging face mask bargained down from $45 to $30, never saw them cheaper than that. Oil paintings that were about $20 in Dominica were $40.

For night life there are 5 party bars at this intersection, 3 in the Royal Plaza and 2 on Weststraat. Iguana Joe’s and Mambo Jambo are on the second floor at either end of the Plaza, with a great view of the strip, the harbor, and the ships. Le Pitit Café is in the middle section of the Plaza, same great view, and a Latin dance bar is above the café on the third level. Two young Dutch kids who boarded in Aruba told us the name, something like Doridos J and said it had good music. The Bahia is up Weststaat towards the ship, and Carlos and Charlies is a few more doors down. It and it’s sister bar Senior Frog’s have branches all over the Caribbean, and have a rep as party places. You can see Carlos’s sign from the gangway. Bahia had a good rock band, playing Eagles etc., and was a classier place.

Because of the Carlos and Charlies rep we had to check it out. It looks like a standard roadhouse, plank floors, bar decorations. Before about 8pm there is canned rock music, no cover charge, and people are drinking at the bars and eating snacks at the tables. After about 8pm there is a $5 cover charge, and a DJ comes out to start the action with some bar games like “guess the song” for a free drink, and he handed out about 10 of these, with everyone shouting and having a good time. Then he took it up a notch, offering a free shooter of Tequila to everyone who joined his conga line. In a flash he had about 100 people behind him, wild rock music, dancing past a waiter standing on a chair who poured a big shot (or 2) in everyone’s mouth as they passed him, spilling as much down their front.

By now it was close to 9, standing room only, the staff takes away most of the tables and chairs, and the DJ starts the serious bar games, like bar top dancing contests for free shooters. The winner got a free shooter down the throat, then the losers got them, then everyone standing on the floor within the DJ’s reach with their mouth open got them. Police sirens and whistles going off, lights dimmed, everyone screaming, dancing, singing along with the songs. He often killed the volume at the chorus, and 300 people “sang” the chorus. Guess what, all 300 knew the exact dirty chorus to “Monie, monie” (sp). It was wilder than the movie Coyote Ugly, more like in front of the stage at a wild rock concert. Except we didn’t see anyone dump a pitcher of beer on anyone’s head, and to be fair, there was no nudity like “Girls Gone Wild” in Florida, there were no fights (gorilla bouncers), and no one passed out on the floor. There were more girls than guys, about 3-1, and with the Crystal gone it was just Destiny cruisers, resort people, few locals. Every few minutes large water vapor misters sprayed the crowd, a nice touch, and sometimes the staff shot clouds of paper clippings all over. Several times we were going to leave to check out other bars, like The Cellar, Club 2000 in the Royal Plaza (couldn’t find it while shopping), E-Zone on Weststraat for Euro music, La Fiesta, and the three places the Banana Party Bus stops, Tumazu, La Ronda, and Choose a Name. But then some new game started and we just couldn’t stop watching, and stayed until the ship sailed. Small local beers were $4, regular size beer like Coronas were $4.50, and liquor was $5, or just follow the DJ around with yer mouth open. What a scene. The young hotties told us the Aruba Carlos has a “badder” rep than the one in Cozumel; imagine, the conservative Dutch out-partying the Mexicans. There’s hope for us Canuks.

About our tour, we love catamaran cruises, lots of deck space and more stable than the yatchs. We took the Aruba Sailaway Beach Cruise run by Pelican Tours through the ship which was terrific. Large 73 foot cat, the Fun Factory 1, free booze. First stop was snorkeling the WWII wreck of the Antilles, a fascinating scene. We anchored behind the wreck and then snorkeled from the stern of the wreck towards the bow, with the wreck getting closer to the surface the closer we got to the bow until it was only a few feet underwater, covered in golden coral, beautiful, tons of fish. You can stand upright and touch the wreck with your fins. Bubbles rise from the divers inside the wreck. A great snorkel whether you arrange it yourself or through the ship. Next stop snorkeling a brain coral reef, lots of fish.

Last stop a chicken and ribs b’b’cue at the Pelican Company pier on Palm Beach, stores and café on a large pier, lunch or dinner in the café depending on your tour time, then free time on their section of the beach. Water equipment, great sand, papillas thatched umbrellas and loungers, over an hour there. Then sailed back to the ship pier laying on the webbing with our drinks. Our other favorite spots are sitting in front of the windshields or dangling our feet over the side holding the railing. A fun crew.

DISEMBARKATION

Disembarking was fine, we did immigration about 7, buffet breakfast about 8, color called to debark around 9, and on the pier at 9:20. The last color was scheduled to be called at 11. Luggage pickup was well organized and efficient.

Our flight was at 3:45, so we had time to do San Juan. CCL won’t store your luggage, but there is a luggage holding business across the street and to the left of the pier, at the end of the yellow/green/red awnings (“Self-Audio something”). They also rent the audio players ($5) which play a description of the sights around San Juan, press the number for the sight you are at. Luggage storage is $3 per bag, and the dear girl allows you to strap your carry-on to your luggage and counts it as one piece, so we left 2 luggages and 2 carry-ons for $6.

Then we walked the 2 blocks along the bay past the Wyndham toward the park area at the town square where the horse drawn buggies are, and then headed into old San Juan to shop and explore. Pretty blue cobblestone streets, no place for high heels. Could have walked up the hill to the fort but didn’t. This was Sunday, and a few shops opened at 10, but most were open by 11. Shopping prices were up and down, you had to know your stuff. Lots of knock-off labels, Gucci etc.

A lunch suggestion is the Baccachina, 1 block in from the bay, on the street parallel with the bay, street name starts with Forte-xxxxx, green awning. Pretty hacienda style courtyard area with trees and umbrellas, another area with a/c, and another area with fans, your choice. We waited 10 minutes for a seat at lunch time. Big platter of nachos/cheese/ham bits for $6.95, big Caesar salad for $6.95, local beer for $2.50, Bud for $2.75, great prices in general, dinners for $15. Finally had to go, walked back to the luggage place, $20 cab to the a/p incl bag charges and tip.

This was the best Caribb cruise we’ve ever had, you’ll have a ball. Hi to our new shipmate friends Kim, Rose, and Lena! Email us if you want.

-Bob and Wendy

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