Theresa Watkins

Age: 31 to 40
Occupation: Homemaker
Number of Cruises: First Cruise
Ship: Fascination
Sailing Date: October 28th, 2000
Itinerary: Southern Caribbean

We arranged for our air separately with frequent flyer miles, although the cruise air did seem to be priced competitively.  Our flight got in about 6:00pm and we caught a taxi to the pier ($6 pp).  Our embarkation was quick and easy, maybe because we arrived later than others. 

We had arranged a couple of excursions in advance and had planned on doing a few Carnival excursions.  But after seeing how easy it was to get a taxi tour for about half the price of the ship excursions we opted for that on each island.  We did have 7 – 9 in our party each day so that might have helped with negotiating prices, but there were usually others ready to join groups wherever we were.  

St. Thomas – We took the ferry to St. John and the taxi driver (Goose) gave us information on the island on the way to the ferry dock.  He was very helpful and friendly, arranging to pick us up when we returned and arranging for a taxi to meet us when we got to St. John.  I believe the cost for the taxi on St. Thomas was $11pp roundtrip.  We then took the ferry to St. John it was $6 RT for adults and I think half for children.   After arriving on St. John we took the prearranged taxi to Trunk Bay.  The cost of this was also $6pp I believe.  There was a cost to get into Trunk Bay for the adults ($2), free for kids.  But even after paying $25 for the adults and $20 for the kids it was still half of what it was for the ship excursion and we spent twice as long there from about 10:30a to 2:30p.  We wished we had told the taxi driver to pick us up an hour later once we got there, but we were worried of missing the ferry (which runs every hour) and thus missing the ship.

Trunk Bay was one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen and the snorkeling was good too. Other islands we had to choose between one of the two but here we got both.   We LOVED it here! 

St. Martin/St. Marteen – We again hired a taxi for a tour which only cost about $18 pp for a tour and a stop for shopping on the French side and then dropping us off at the beach and then picking us up and returning us to the ship.  We went to Dawn Beach there.  It was nice but not very good snorkeling at least the day we were there and there were LOTS of vendors. It is a poor island and very reliant on tourism.  It was not as pretty as the other islands in my opinion but it did have good shopping.

Dominica – This was everyone in our group’s favorite island overall.  I had arranged for a tour with Joseph Walter(jcwalter@cwdom.dm) via email before we left.  He was great.  He had a guide, Marlene, who did the tour for us.  She was fantastic also.  I would recommend trying to get this pair if you can. When I contacted him I had asked to try to fit all of the ship’s excursions into one day.  He accomplished this for $35 pp adults and $25 for children. . A reasonable price considering the amount of things we did.  We saw the Emerald Pool (most of our group was very impressed with this), Trafalgar Falls, Sulpher Springs, did some shopping and snorkeled at Champagne. .  This was A LOT for only being there from 8:30 to 3:30.   There was a small fee to get into the Trafalgar Falls and Emerald Pool, $2 pp for each one of  those over 4 I think.  If I had to do it over again I would probably leave out Trafalgar Falls and spend more time snorkeling.  We thought the snorkeling here was the best of all the islands.  The spot was difficult to get to coming in from land and not by boat since you are walking on loose rocks but we felt it was worth it.

Martinique – We did not experience any rudeness from the people here at all.  On the contrary everyone was very helpful, the problem lies in not speaking French and I am afraid that is our problem more than theirs.    We slept in this day and then took a ferry over to Pointe du bout.  I think we misunderstood the lady at the information desk because she advised going to Anse l’Ane and we thought she said to just get off the ferry and you will be there.  There was a beach just across the street from the ferry but it was crowded and not that great.  Some of our group did enjoy snorkeling there, not for the fish but for the shells. It would be a good beach to let the kids play in the water, very placid since it had a wall enclosing it partially.  I believe the ferry was $6 for adult and $4 for children.  The taxi was $4 pp RT to get to the ferry dock.  We had a taxi driver Bob who seemed to speak more English than most and was very helpful when we got a little confused.

Barbados – Things were noticeably more pricey here.  I had tried to set up a tour in advance with Mr. Thorpe at Boyces tours (tours@cariaccess.com), it didn’t end up working out because he was gone during that week, but he was also very helpful in planning things to do and gave a completive price we found out later.   We planned on going to Folkstone park for snorkeling and got a price from a driver on the dock of about $3pp to take us there.  Someone at the dock told us we could save quite a bit by taking the shuttle to the terminal and getting a taxi there.  This was wrong.  We actually then ended up paying $4pp.  Not a big deal, but I think they are really trying to get everyone to go to the terminal for the shops and things and weren’t really too concerned with giving accurate information.  This overall was a minor thing.  This is one of the places that I don’t think that there is any advantage to larger groups for taxi prices.  The snorkeling was good at Folkstone park but we heard there were much prettier beaches.  We then took a taxi back to the ship to get cleaned up and dropped off some of the group.  We ended up later getting a great taxi driver, Shelly (246-425-7352).  She was our only woman taxi driver and she said there was very few of them on the island, but she really went the extra mile for us. She took us to the Wildlife Animal Reserve which was really something.  The animals roam free including the green monkeys.  My son loved it.  One of our group even petted one, it was very exciting. There was a fee to get in here but I don’t know what it was.  Then she took us to the Atlantic side of the island for a great view and then back to the ship.  It was a great tour for $25 pp.  Two of our party did go deep sea fishing that day for $100 pp, but I doubt they would recommend it since they didn’t catch anything.  There were other things we wanted to do here like visit the cigar factory, some of the other beaches Shelly recommended, and tea at the Crane Hotel but we ran out of time. 

Disembarkation/ Puerto Rico – One thing I would do differently next time is that I would be in no great rush to get up early and get to the disembarkation waiting area.  They do quit serving breakfast at 8:30 so aim to be out of your room and up to the Coconut Grove by then, but next time I think  I would just sit out on the deck for awhile to let the line die down and then go down at the last call.

After getting off the ship we had a very well-informed taxi driver who gave us an interesting talk on the elections in Puerto Rico which were coming up while he was driving us to San Cristobol Fort.  The fort was interesting to see as well as giving Panoramic views from the top.  He then drove us on to the airport for a total of  $13pp.  Most of the prices that I gave in this review includes the tip we gave to the drivers of about 10%, sometimes more if they were exceptional.

A note regarding the luggage tags, definitely fill those out and attach to each piece.  It will make things go quicker at embarkation.  Also, switch to the new set of  tags that are left in your room on the last night of the cruise, the color indicates how you find your bags.

Lastly, a comment about the Carnival staff, ship and food.  The carnival staff exceeded my expectations.  Our room steward (Mario) had the patience of a saint, considering we had 3 kids and 6 adults in our party.  He was nice to the kids and they really loved all the towel creations he left.   Our dinner waiter (Hector) was again excellent.  The maitre’d was also entertaining.  Some food exceeded my expectations like the prime rib, enchiladas and others.  Other dishes were so-so, but overall the food was good.  I really didn’t expect much from the Coconut Grove, but the food there was above average most nights.

The fact that the cruise had a large singles group on it didn’t really affect us much except that there was quite a bit of noise in the halls, at least by our rooms.  The people were friendly they just wanted to party in the hall.  Not a major thing.

I was surprised by the quality of the band on board, The Dirt Poets, they were really excellent. Stop by and see them if you can.

The thing I was most pleasantly surprised by was Camp Carnival.  The whole staff and especially Graham was so great with the kids.  They had a treasure hunt, a scavenger hunt, and a talent show.  One thing about it being a ‘singles’ cruise is that there were very few kids on the ship which meant the few on there got lots of attention.  My daughter cried because she didn’t want to leave there.  She even wanted to skip going on the excursions we planned so she could stay in Camp Carnival.  The staff was really great!    Overall we had a great time and plan on doing it again.

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