Posts Tagged With: Barbados

Thursday saw our return to Bridgetown, Barbados where a lot of passengers disembarked either for a stay on the island or their return flights home.

We had a leisurely wake up and breakfast in Islands as our booked tour for the day had been cancelled. We knew about this early in the cruise. We were supposed to visit a small zoo followed by a trip to Worthing Beach but apparently ‘operational difficulties’ meant this couldn’t now happen. We’d looked at other options but decided to have an independent adventure. Jane had got some advice from a friend of a friend, who comes to Barbados a lot, as to the best thing to do with just one day to spend in Barbados.

So we were off to Pier 1 Restaurant at Port St Charles. The port here in Bridgetown is large and very well organised. Once through the terminal there are people who co-ordinate the taxis so we got on board with a couple off the ‘Jewel of the Seas’ who were from Canada and a couple from London off our ship. The lovely Brenda was our taxi driver and she patiently drove us all all the way up the west coast of the island to our various stops. We drove through interesting looking towns like Speightstown and Holetown and past the famous Sandy Lane Golf Club. Everywhere was bright and colourful despite the fact that the day was a little over-cast. Along the road were a mix of luxury resorts, very fancy condominium blocks alongside tiny ramshackle shacks. It was a very odd mix and you wonder how these tiny home owners manage to keep hold of them when there’s so much development all around. On the left hand side we got occasional glances of the beautiful beaches and sea.

After about an hour we arrived at our destination. The selling point of this place is that with your lunch reservation comes the opportunity to spend the day on their sunbeds,using their pool and swimming in the sea. Unfortunately when we arrived (3 hours before our lunch reservation) the young lady said that there were currently no sunbeds frees but we were welcome to sit in the bar. Erm…..not really what we had in mind. Instead we walked back across the bridge to a lovely little beach opposite the restaurant which had only one family on it. We lay out our towels and settled down to relax. When the sun came out the views to the restaurant were beautiful with the soft white sand, the palm trees swaying and the water which seemed to be a rainbow of colours as it swirled in the breeze. I obviously couldn’t still and after a lovely swim to cool down I had a little wander along the beach seeing what ‘treasure’ I could find. I then laid it all out on my towel and painted it into my sketchbook. Jane meanwhile didn’t read her book as she was supposed to as there was free Wifi so she did a little bit of catching up.

When it was time for lunch we wandered back to the restaurant. Jane had a lobster and prawn dish and I had a Flying Fish Sandwich which was very tasty. We had views over the water back to our little beach as well as the various yachts that kept coming and going.

After lunch we were able to stay on the deck on a couple of sunbeds and spent the afternoon in the partial sunshine and I enjoyed a couple more swims in the pool and sea. Lovely. At 4-30pm Brenda was waiting for us as promised and again carefully drove us back to the port. She’d been absolutely brilliant as everyone had told us the taxi drivers here are.

We got back to the ship at 5-30 well in time for our departure at 8pm. We were now joined by lots of pasty looking new people looking excited but a little dazed and confused! We were both a little tired after our big day out so it was a quiet and early night for us…zzzzzzzzzzzz

Long before blogging was a thing, we went on our first and only cruise. For Jane’s 50th we went on a Thomson’s Red Sea Cruise with Joyce and Enid. We all really enjoyed it but for one reason and another, have not been on a cruise since.

Well, about 3 weeks ago we got fed up of the UKs miserable weather and booked ourselves onto a Marella Caribbean cruise. To be honest, we’d been keeping an eye out for some time, hoping the prices would come down. They didn’t but when I spotted that we could go on a 2 weeks cruise for less than just one of the weeks, it was a no brainer. So here we are!

The trip consists of two separate cruise itineraries joined together. Exotic Islands and then Coconuts and Cocktails or something like that. I’ve had Antigua and St Lucia on my ‘travel wish lists’ for many years and this combined tour ticks off both!

After a very easy 9 hour flight from Birmingham we arrived in Bridgetown, Barbados. We left behind the cold and wet and arrive to sun and blue, slightly cloudy skies and 28 degrees heat. Gorgeous. We loved the fact that a bus picked us up at the bottom of the airplane steps and then drove out of the airport straight to the docks. No need to enter the airport at all! The drive through Bridgetown was busy and colourful especially as it was the end of the school day.

The ship is called Discovery 2 and it’s bigger than the last ship we cruised on but not one of those floating megalopolis. Once on board we found our cabin 6533 which is an inside cabin but really very acceptable. When you’ve been staying in a campervan, everything is spacious in comparison and so much storage space! Our luggage hadn’t yet arrived so we soon set about exploring the ship. We visited the Atrium bar and sat outside looking at the docks and then wandered upto level 9 and the main pool area where the 6 Nation’s rugby was being shown on the big screen. We then had dinner in the fabulous Islands buffet restaurant with views of the sun setting as another huge cruise ship set off. We then went back to our room to check on luggage (nothing) but were handed our first copy of ‘Cruise News’ the daily update on what’s happening across the ship, I remembered this from our last cruise and I was very excited to see that they hadn’t gone digital!

This then led us to the rest of our evenings entertainment. A music quiz in the very pleasant ‘Squid and Anchor’ bar which is not at all as naff as the name might suggest. Then we went to check out the show lounge and their Country Music night which was really very good. Bless them all. We round off the night by poking our noses upstairs at the pool area where a local reggae band were playing at our Sail Off party. I think we’re going to enjoy this…..

All Aboard