Over60 travel diary: Cruising the Caribbean
Rosie Hersch, 68, is a retired pharmacist, whose hobbies include studying, cooking and theatre. Her biggest passion is travel and like the song says, “I've been everywhere man (well almost).” Read part one of Rosie’s cruise travel diary here.
March 24 had arrived and in the early afternoon we greeted my sister and brother-in-law on board our beautiful ship. Another lifeboat drill before setting sail and we were on our way to Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas which we would reach after two sea days. It was already March 25 in Melbourne so I was so fortunate that one of the staff at guest services on our ship allowed me to ring our older daughter on a ship phone to wish her a happy birthday.
On the second sea day, I celebrated my big birthday. At dinner, the waiters arrived with a beautiful chocolate birthday cake. When I returned to the cabin I found 2 bottles of champagne compliments of Celebrity Cruise lines.
On March 27, we had arrived at St Thomas. We took a taxi ride to a chairlift. The view of the island from the top was breathtaking. We then grabbed another cab and visited the many historic landmarks in this beautiful town. Of course, the next thing on the agenda was shopping. Then it was time for lunch and in one of the many colourful laneways we found a lovely restaurant and had a delicious paella and salad.
The next day saw us firstly take a wonderful catamaran sail, on the Caribbean Sea, around the islands of St Kitts and Nevis. The sun was shining, the sky was a clear blue and gentle breeze was blowing across the bow. It was heavenly. This was followed by a scenic rail ride around St Kitts. We headed for the upper level of the train carriage and as we chugged along we crossed over narrow bridges, passed almond trees, sugar cane plantations, school children waving from the side of the track and small villages. We drank mango and strawberry daiquiris while listening to our guide’s commentaries in between which we were entertained by some local girls singing to us. It was a great excursion so take this one if you ever venture to this place.
On March 29, we arrived at the capital of Barbados, Bridgetown. This port city reminded me of Port Vila or Nadi. It is quite third world, though I am sure there are beautiful resorts around the island just as there are in Fiji and other South pacific islands. We stopped for a drink at a bar by the water. I found the shopping quite lacking. There were the duty free expensive shops or the cheap quality merchandise. In any case, we decided to get out of the town which was quite disappointing and took a taxi to a lovely beach and spent the afternoon swimming in the beautiful clear aqua water and then lay on the sand under the shade of trees. Before we left the beach we found a food truck that served flying fish sandwiches and on the advice of our ship’s cruise director we bought one each. They were delish. Then it was time to get back to the ship.
After a matinee concert on board, we docked at St Maarten at 3pm. This island is divided roughly between half belonging to the Netherlands and the other half belonging to France. St Maarten is a very pretty place on the Dutch side and the French side is called St Martin naturally. We grabbed a water taxi to a beach area opposite where the ship was anchored, sat at a bar drinking Carib, the local beer, using the free Wi-Fi to ring our younger daughter to wish her happy birthday. Then we scouted the shops around this beach area. This was an overnight stay on this cruise so it was back to the beach and tomorrow we would participate in an excursion of discovery.
March 31 was another boringly beautiful day. It was time to take our trolley tram ride around the local capital, Phillipsburg. The ride was marvellous and we rode through the various streets and alley ways and pulled up at a resort. After alighting from the train, we walked uphill to the historic Fort Amsterdam. This was a very enjoyable excursion. Back at the boardwalk we sat down with my sister and brother in law and ordered more Carib. St Maarten was extremely hot. We sat at the bar looking back on a splendid beach and the beautiful blue shades of water and in the distance, was a view of our grand vessel. We took the water taxi back to the ship and were relieved as we entered from the gangway into deck 2 and air conditioning. Then it was straight up to Deck 14 for a late lunch at the Ocean View Buffet restaurant. The holiday was nearing the end. Two sea days and we would be back in Fort Lauderdale and there would be no boasting this time. I dreaded the packing and leaving such luxury behind.
We fast forward to April 3. Our ship arrived at Fort Lauderdale at 6am. We were up and 6.30am, breakfast at 7am and off to our meeting place at 7.45am. We were booked on an excursion to the Florida Everglades and from there would be taken to Hollywood airport, Fort Lauderdale. It would be a total of 38 hours from the time we disembarked till I would unlock the front door, back home!
So, we headed down the highway to the Everglades. The air boat ride was sensational. We saw plenty of different species of birds, five alligators, two also in captivity along with other animals at a rescue shelter within the Everglades reserve. We sampled grilled gator at a food truck at the Everglades. Then it was goodbye Florida, back to the airport and homeward bound.
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