DOCK IN ST. KITTS; VISIT HER SISTER.

Our fourth port stop on our upcoming cruise is St. Kitts, an island we visited on our cruise last year. You can read about our visit to the Clay Villa Plantation here.

Since we toured most of St. Kitts during our shore excursion last year (the visit to Clay Villa Plantation also included a stop at a beach)...

we decided to visit St. Kitts' sister island of Nevis this cruise. Here you can see Nevis in the distance...

The island of Nevis is actually the other half of the country whose official name is the Federation of Saint Christopher and Nevis, a two-island country in the West Indies.
© www.worldatlas.com

We've chosen as our shore excursion: Catamaran Fan-ta-sea & Nevis Beach Break. We did toy with the thought of taking the water taxi from the St. Kitts cruise port at the capital city of Basseterre over to Nevis, but the timetable showed the taxis were so infrequent that we would be cutting the time too close for comfort getting back to the ship. This is one reason I recommend just booking an excursion through the cruise line: you will never be left behind.

The excursion begins by boarding a catamaran like this...
© www.carnival.com

which will sail from the cruise dock down the coastline of St. Kitts. The boat will stop in a secluded cove where we will be able to snorkel for about an hour, hopefully seeing shipwrecks, schools of colorful fishes and turtles.

Afterwards our excursion continues with the boat crossing The Narrows, the 2-mile stretch of water that separates the two islands...seen in the photo below.
© Wikimedia Commons

Our destination is Pinney's Beach, a 3-mile-long stretch of smooth, soft, sugar-fine sand, with a beautiful backdrop of swaying palm trees and the majestic Mount Nevis. From Pinney's Beach we'll have marvelous views of St. Kitts.
© www.explorenevis.com

Lunch and an open bar, with rum punch and Carib Beer, is included in the price of the excursion. From the reviews I have read we spend approximately an hour or so on one of the prettiest beaches on Nevis.

I'm hopeful for a relaxing catamaran ride to yet another new island with many gorgeous views of the beautiful Caribbean and two beautiful islands of St. Kitts and Nevis.

Thank you for visiting,

A Great Europe Trip Planner
 

Unless noted, photos were taken by my husband and me during our Caribbean cruise in May, 2014. 

FIRST PORT STOP: CHARLOTTE AMALIE, U.S.V.I.

On our upcoming cruise, Carnival Liberty doesn't depart the San Juan port until 10:00 at night. This is a first for us as we are used to departing port in the late afternoon. We arrive in our first port stop just the next morning at 7:00 a.m., a hop, skip and a jump from San Juan: the U.S. Virgin Islands.

This will be our first trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands. Of course being a part of the United States, U.S. dollars are accepted everywhere, U.S. visitors usually don’t pay roaming charges for cell-phone use, and English is spoken everywhere. Since we are docked in Charlotte Amalie until 5:00 p.m., we would have enough time for a shore excursion plus shopping time back in town.

One possible shore excursion would take us to the island of St. John and the Trunk Bay Beach.

© www.St.John-USVI-Information.com

© www.stjohnusvi.thebeach.vi

You can see from these photos why Trunk Bay is considered one of the world's most beautiful beaches. 

There is a 225-yard long snorkel trail...
© www.seestjohn.com

with signs with arrows to point you in the right direction...
© www.seestjohn.com

and give information about what the sealife you may see...
© www.seestjohn.com

Since the excursion is only 4½ hours, we'll have time for some duty-free shopping. Remember: U.S. residents enjoy a $1,600 duty-free allowance here...twice the allowance of other islands. Not that I'll be spending even close to that amount of money!!

A frequent cruiser will be familiar with those stores that seem to be in every port: Diamonds International, Del Sol, Little Switzerland, etc. However there are some other places I have read about that I think we'll visit instead:

Within walking distance from the dock are the Shops of Yacht Haven Grande. With upscale retailers such as Louis Vuitton, BCBG Maxazria, Gucci, fun-sounding stores such as How ‘Bout Your Pet, 1 Eyed Jack’s, Flip-Flop Shops and Pirates of Red Hook, clothing stores such as Aqua Beachwear and Bella Vera and eateries named Da Lime in Da Coconut and Fat Turtle, this mall sounds like a great place to visit. Of course there are also gorgeous waterfront views with the magnificent megayachts docked in the harbor.
© www.yachthavengrande.com




© www.shopsatyhg.com)

A 5-minute taxi ride away is downtown Charlotte Amalie, the capital of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Here is where you find the usual cruise port shops like Diamonds International. However my research has discovered a store which sells much better, and more delicious, merchandise: The Belgian Chocolate Factory! This is a must-see store!
© www.thebelgianchocolatefactory.com

Now as much as I love Belgian chocolate, one cannot live (realistically) on sweets alone. I have discovered a couple of other restaurants nearby that are possibilities for a late lunch:

Directly across the plaza from The Belgian Chocolate Factory is Greengos Caribbean Cantina:
© www.foodidude.com

They look like they serve up some delicious tacos... 
© www.greengoscantina.com

Directly on the waterfront of Charlotte Amalie is Big Kahuna Rum Shack.
© www.bigkahunausvi.com

Whereas Greengos Caribbean Cantina is a Mexican-style restaurant, Big Kahuna has a variety of burgers, club sandwiches and flatbreads. Check out their menu here. 

We are really looking forward to our first visit to the U.S. Virgin Islands. After a day at sea, our second port stop is Barbados, an island I have always wanted to visit. I'll talk about our possible plans for our visit in Barbados in my next post. 

Thank you for visiting,

A Great Europe Trip Planner
 

THE AMAZING STINGRAY CITY

Can you guess what was the last port of call on our cruise?  This was exciting for me.  Even though the main reason for this cruise was to visit Belize, I was still excited to visit the Cayman Islands.  I've always seen pictures and television commercials for "The Cayman Islands"...unfortunately I can't replicate in words the famous tune on the commercial of someone singing "The Cayman Islands".

As in Belize, our ship and the Carnival Glory were tendered just offshore.

Our shore excursion was in two parts: Snorkeling and then a visit to the world-famous Stingray City.  We were not the only excursion boat there!

There were over a dozen other excursion boats all parked around the sandbar that is Stingray City.  As you can see, the sandbar allows you to get off the boat and stand waist-deep in the water.

While you stand in the water the stingrays swim right past you. 

Some are big and some are much smaller.  The females are the larger-sized stingrays.  You go girls!

Some people were afraid to stand in the water, fearful of being stung by the tail barb.  However, the stingrays are so used to human presence and contact, so there is nothing to fear.  The stingrays will swim right past you.  We still had our snorkeling masks on, so we stuck our faces under the water to watch the stingrays swim right past us.

You had the opportunity to "pet" the stingrays.  A member of crew would hold the stingray and you could touch it.  They just feel like squishy rubber.  We did not have the opportunity to feed them.

Some people had "personal" encounters with the stingrays...

The stingrays are so gentle and used to human contact that you can actually have one lay on top of you. If it really likes you, it will give you a big kiss!

WE'RE IN BELIZE!!

The reason we booked this particular itinerary was because one of the port stops was Belize.  For several years we wanted to snorkel in Belize which has the second largest barrier reef in the world; only the Great Barrier Reef off Australia is bigger.

The cruise ship did not dock in Belize; the ship anchored a couple miles off the mainland.  It was strange to walk off the ship right onto another boat for our shore excursion snorkeling trip.

A tender boat docked right below our balcony:

Our snorkeling excursion would take us to Goff's Caye, a "Gilligan's Island" type island or caye (why is it pronouced "key"?) about a half an hour's boat ride from the ship.  And this was no ordinary boat ride.  This boat had three 200 horsepower motors attached to the back so we were moving at quite a brisk pace...Hold onto your sun hats!

I sat at the back of the boat on the way back from snorkeling.  That's our little island in the far distance...look at the waves those three boat engines created!  On the other boat in the photo were Carnival Glory passengers doing the same snorkeling trip.  Remember: Carnival Glory followed us everywhere.

Goff's Caye off the coast of Belize.  Can't you just picture Gilligan, the Skipper, Ginger, Mary Ann, the professor, Thurston Howell III and Lovie living here in their grass huts?



The color of the water here is just beautiful.  Have you ever seen water this turquoise?  I love this photo showing the white sand of the finger of beach jutting off the island, the turquoise water (as clear as bath water!) and then the darker blue water where the coral reef is.

Though looks can be deceiving here: it was not easy walking in the waters right off the island: lots of pieces of coral in the sand.  OUCH!

DANGER ALERT: Two people got stung by micro-sized jelly fish while just walking in the water.  One was a young girl of about eight years old...Oh, she was in such pain as they treated her.

Did the snorkeling live up to its hype?  Yes and no.  Yes, the coral reef is spectacular with coral in all shapes, sizes and colors.  However, we snorkel to see fish.  Yes, there were opportunities to see many varieties of fish (some snorkelers said they saw a barracuda) but I was disappointed that we didn't see more fish.  It was usually a single fish at a time.  The highlight was a school of about 20 rather large fish gathered around a large piece of what looked like brain coral. 

And the snorkeling was tiring.  The snorkeling was separated into two options:  you could be dropped off on the caye's pier...

A feathered friend sitting on the end of the pier probably searching for breakfast.

and then snorkel from the island or you could remain on the boat and the boat would go back out onto the coral reef.  We chose to remain on the boat, but then you snorkeled all the way back to the island which it took about 45 minutes.  It was windy so the waves were sometimes three to four feet.  But once we got going in the right direction with help of the current, we had a great time.  Well worth the excursion fee.

When we reached the caye there were refreshments and food to purchase (who knew a $2.00 freshly-grilled hot dog wrapped in a soft taco shell could taste so good?) and trinkets for purchase.

For $10.00 I bought this necklace with the shell ornament.

Nothing tastes better than a Belikan beer in the hot Belizean sun!  (It IS good beer and I'm not a beer drinker!)

Since the snorkeling excursion was in the morning (8:15 a.m.!! Boy, we had to get up early!), so we were able to return to the ship, change clothes and take the tender boat over to the mainland.

The shopping area of Belize City is the same as most cruise ports, with the same familiar stores painted the same bright colors of the Caribbean...

So we bought a few souvenirs, stopped for a delicious strawberry daiquiri at "Mamacitas" to get out of the blazing sun...

The pineapple from the strawberry daiquiri was delicious!

And then we returned back to the cruise ship for lunch, all the while gazing upon the most beautiful turquoise water we had ever seen and remembering our visit to Belize...



And when we returned to our cabin, we still had a spectacular view of the turquoise water!

Our day in Belize is over.  Two ports down, two to go.  Tomorrow morning we dock at Isla Roatan, Honduras. 

Until then...