Bob1958, that looks gorgeous, especially if you get use of their pool! The only other excursion we've done in Barbados besides snorkeling was the mine tour. I'm not really a cave type person, but if you are, it was very interesting. Some really cool formations.
Originally posted by Cortney:
What are all of your ports you'd be hitting? Sounds like a great cruise...
St. Kitts/Nevis, St. Croix, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, Barbados, Curacao and Aruba.
We're making a little more progress. We had to scrap the idea of the resort at Crane Beach in Barbados because there are no busses that go there and the taxi ride pushes the total cost per person towards $80, or close to what we pay to do the Cat Cruise on Silver Moon, so we're doing the Cruise instead.
On Curacao, we're going to spend the $40 taxi each way to go to the beach at Cas Abou since that sounds like an incredible place. Dominica we're hiking to Ti Tou Gorge (we passed on the hike to the boiling lake). In Grenada we're down to either Annandale or Concord Falls hike. Still working out the others.
Air tickets went down so we just purchased them, however we also see that the cruise price skyrockted from $799 we bought at to $1,269, a 59% increase! I don't kwow if that's due to most rooms being sold or the travel advisory in Europe, or maybe some of both.
Originally posted by penny3333:
Doesn't it make you feel good when you save 59%? Then you get a good price on air fare, wow, almost like hitting the lottery
Actually, I'm more shocked than anything..I didn't know that the fares could increase by such a large amount. In some ways it doesn't seem fair. However, the difference is a lot of rum drinks.
We're looking at St. Croix now....not a lot going on there; safety is a concern. Buck Island seems popular but we're already snorkeling on 2 other islands.
I haven't been to St. Croix in a long while, but would love to go back. It's a beautiful island, like St. Thomas used to be. I understand the safety concern, though. They did not capitalize on tourism. You might want to check into an all-inclusive day pass, or maybe a nice hotel day pass. The island was so natural and clean. Like I said, it's been years, so it may have changed. Some friends of mine go down every year for a week, and dive every day.
One month to go and we just finished the excursion plans. This will be the 3rd time we've landed on St. Kitts but the first time we're actually taking the ferry over to Nevis. It's very odd, but it seems that Nevis isn't interested in cruise passengers. Not only don't the ships offer excursions to that island but the tour guides do everything they can to discourage cruise passengers from coming over. The ferrys run often enough and aren't particularly expensive so I can only think that Nevis wants to cater to a smaller and more exclusive clientelle. Their Four Seasons Resort just reopened at $600 per night and the rest of the island doesn't seem to be geared towards tourists like the other islands are. In any event we found a guide who has told us previously in 2009 to stay on St. Kitts but this time doesn't know we're cruise passengers. We'll do some investigating and try to find out why they don't want cruisers' money.
I think it's because of the residents and the clientelle that comes to vacation on Nevis. They're trying to keep the island as remote as possible so those that do vacation there are not bothered by a bunch of locals trying to push product, as well as a bunch of tourists on the beaches, in the hotels, at the restaurants, etc. There are tours over there, but they are private and usually expensive. The ferry usually takes over employees and supplies. I hope your trip works out great. I still wish we would have done the helicopter tour.
In case anyone is interested in why Nevis excursions aren't offered by the cruise ships, I did a lot of questioning and got very few answers. However, the folks on Nevis I talked to all would like more day trippers coming over on the ferry and were disturbed to find out that the cruise ships don't recommend the trip. Some speculate that because of the ferry schedule an excursion may not get back on time if a ferry is delayed or has to cancel due to bad weather, but that rarely happens. At least two business folks I talked to are going to inquire with the tourism board about it.
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