In spite of all the best efforts to the contrary by the Devil himself, we somehow manage to get to the car parking area, get negative results on our final Covid tests, and get boarded onto the Oceania Riviera. It's a miracle, and we can't stop congratulating ourselves. The ship appears to be less than half-capacity - perhaps around 600 out of a possible 1250. This part is wonderful as well. It's nice to finally relax and enjoy the skyline of Miami as we relax and eventually disembark.
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| Miami Skyline as we were about to disembark |
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| Enjoying some wine as we finally make it aboard |
I am thrilled. Thrilled, I tell you. It has slowly dawned on us that there had been some changes to the cruise itinerary that we hadn't been made aware of. Now, we were skipping San Juan, Puerto Rico, Martinique, and Guadaloupe in favor of St. Kitts and Antigua. Those other places are fine, but we've been there. Now St. Kitts and Antigua, along with St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and St. Maarten will be entirely new to us. We busily book tours of the new places.
Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic
Beautiful part of the island (we've been to the southern part), but a lot of trash. Forgive me, I meant to say a LOT of trash. It's everywhere: the beach, the ocean, the roads, and the countryside. We're hearing that it's so plentiful is due to a huge rainstorm. But we're a little dubious about that. This is not to say that we are not enjoying our visit. We travel to a small county home in the hills beyond and above the city. There we tour the small home and cooking area, as well as see a wide variety of growing fruits, vegetables, herbs, and spices. We also sample the local rum, coffee, and chocolate. Yes, I try the fresh local hot chocolate drink, and (believe it or not) I love it!
Later, we have some local food - chicken, rice, and beans - for lunch, and then make our way to the beach. The beach would be pristine had it not been for the mountains of trash. Our guide and everyone we meet is most gracious, helpful, and informative. It helps that they provide gallons of rum as we go along.
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| Debbie at her country home |
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| Stunningly beautiful beach with mountains of trash |
So far, so good with regards to Covid. They tested everyone on board yesterday, and although there were some positive results, we are not amongst them. Everything else is going swimmingly as well. So far. But I should add that there are a few storm clouds on the horizon. Evidently, some people on our floor, including a stateroom a few doors down, did test positive. We believe they're being quarantined, and we see people in hazmat suits visiting them from time to time.
Two and a half out of our first three and a half days are at sea. That's fairly relaxing, but it's about to change. We have ports of call for the next eight consecutive days, beginning with St. Maarten.
Phillipsburg, St. Maarten
The port area beckons, but first, we go on a tour. It's a nice one, up to the top of a mountain via a long cable-car ride, where we can see a great deal of the island as well as several other nearby islands. It's very scenic.
After a subsequent walk/jog into town, I am very impressed with St. Maarten. It's scenic, clean, and the natives are very friendly. I was particularly impressed by the fact that I saw no hustling or bothering of tourists; just respectful selling without hassle. The town of Phillipsburg is very nice, with a great boardwalk and beach area.
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| St. Maarten |
St. Johns, Antigua and Barbuda
Antigua and Barbuda is the country; Antigua is the island. You know. The place with 365 beaches, one for each day of the year, so long as it's not a leap year. Guess what? We're impressed with this place as well. Unlike St. Maarten, which is Dutch, this place is very British. And quite (rightly) proud of it.
We're not thrilled with it at first. It appears to be nothing at all except back-to-back houses and villages not unlike Barbados (which is yet to be visited during this trip). Not bad, but not particularly pretty. But then we arrive on the opposite side of the island for some scenic views and a tour of the harbor. It's all wonderful. We'd come back here to visit too.
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| Antigua |
Bridgetown, Barbados
We've been to Barbados a couple of other times, once for a whole week. Yet here we are on the Best of Barbados tour, and in spite of our familiarity, it's not bad. We tour the Mount Gay Rum Distillery and Sunbury Great House, Tropical Gardens, and Gun Hill Signal Station. Although the scenery is not quite as spectacular as the previous ports, it's still very nice. The gardens everywhere are lovely as well.
I should say, however, that I'm getting quite sick of rum punches. Not that I ever loved them to begin with.
It's sail-away time. The Captain comes on to make an announcement: "We are not going to sail to Grenada tonight due to their high numbers of Covid cases. Instead, we will continue to stay here in Barbados for tonight and tomorrow." Further, "We will not conduct the St. Vincent Covid testing scheduled for tomorrow." All this has us wondering. Is it really that we don't want to go to Grenada, or is it possible that they just don't want us? And why would St. Vincent remove their testing requirement? Is it possible that we're not going to go there, either? We enquire about the latter question and as (somewhat) reassured that we are indeed still going to St. Vincent. Let's hope so.
Since we don't have any tours for this second day in Barbados, we take a long walk through Bridgetown and over to the beach. We even cross a few of the bridges for which the town gets its name. It's all lovely early in the morning. I follow that up for a run along the same route.
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| The beach in Bridgetown, Barbados |
It's just a little before sail-away time. The Captain comes on to make an announcement (this time everyone holds their collective breath): "We are not going to visit St. Vincent, St. Lucia, and St. Kitts due to their high numbers of Covid cases. Instead, we will stop in St. Maarten again, and Tortola, British Virgin Islands. We will still visit St. Barts. We will have an additional day at sea." Although we have wanted to visit the BVI, we wanted to go to St. Vincent, St. Lucia, and St. Kitts more. This is very disappointing.
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| This morning's sunrise |
We will just have to suffer through this. Seriously, as long as we are able to safely disembark from this ship, we'll be happy. We are truly having fun visiting the places that we are still getting to, and making friends amongst our fellow travelers. And as they say, the food ain't bad.
Road Town, Tortola, British Virgin Islands (BVI)
We'd had the thought that this would be the best of our ports of call, and guess what? It is. As much as we've enjoyed the others (perhaps St. Maarten most of all), the island of Tortola has them all beat. It turns out that the BVI is a great booby prize to compensate for missing St. Vincent, St. Kitts, and St. Lucia.
We begin by going up to Mount Sage National Park, site of the highest point on Tortola. This park was created by a grant from Laurance Rockefeller. Our tour leader takes us on a steep, muddy, and difficult one-mile hike to the top, where the views of the surrounding British and American Virgin Islands are magnificent.
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| View of the surrounding Virgin Islands from Mount Sage |
After a rum punch, we motor down to Cane Garden Bay to enjoy a wonderful beach. And, of course, another rum punch.
Of all the places we've visited on this trip, the BVI is the one we'd like to return to the most.
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| The beach at Cane Garden Bay |
And by the way. We play team trivia every day with some friends we've met. It's tons of fun.
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| Our Team Trivia Group (John, Theresa, Jenny, Peter, Debbie, Dan, Margo, Marc) |
Gustavia, St. Barts
We’ve just gone ashore in hoity-toity St. Barts (home of the rich and famous), our final port. We will now have two days at sea before disembarking in Miami. It’s remarkable that we’ve managed to stay Covid-free, at least as far as we know. We’re trying hard to stay that way. And since the ship is only half-full, so it’s the best of all worlds. Already, we miss Tortola in the British Virgin Islands, which was grand. We’d go back there in an instant. St. Maarten and Antigua were tied for second.
And have I mentioned that the food’s been okay? We are trying to limit ourselves to one added pound per day. That way we’ll keep our weight gain to no more than fourteen pounds, total. Each |
| The Harbor in Gustavia |
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| Walking in Gustavia |
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| St. Barts |
We are back in Miami and about to disembark. Other than the minor disappointments, it's been a wonderful cruise experience. Oceania Cruises did a marvelous job of keeping everyone, most notably us, as utterly happy as clams. Their service and food are unsurpassed. We had fun meeting new friends on board, especially when playing team trivia. And we enjoyed the ports of call. Of course, the best part of all is that we managed to (as far as we know) stay Covid-free.
We are slightly concerned that Oceania and their parent company, NCL may be in at least some financial trouble. They certainly don't do well when a ship is only half-full like this one. The entire cruise industry is suffering losses; we just hope Oceania survives.
One final concern is for our car. We used Cruise Safe Parking in central Miami and we just hope the return all works out as it's supposed to.
P.S. Picking up the car manages to work out. We made it!
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