Bridgetown, Barbados

Fun Facts*
Barbados was the only vacation destination in the world with scheduled Concord service, and had up to 4 flights per week during the winter season.

For over three centuries, Barbados was a colony and protectorate of the United Kingdom, and still maintains with Queen Elizabeth II as Head of State.

In addition to the above Fun Facts, we were reminded that we should be careful when crossing the street, since the cars drive on the left side of the road in Barbados. In addition, as of October 1, 2010, a national no smoking law was passed in Barbados. Consequently, it is now illegal to smoke in public areas on the island. How nice is that??

Barbados was one of my favorite stops on the cruise. The beaches were beautiful, the people were friendly and overall we had a great time there. We only spent time on the beach, but there is so much more to explore - Harrison's Cave, Flower Forest, Shipwrecks, and snorkeling with sea turtles. Barbados is definitely one of the places that I want to go back to. We started by taking a taxi to Harbor Lights Beach Club at Carlisle Beach which is on the Caribbean Sea side. The beach and water was breathtaking. The blue of the sky and greens of the water were just perfect, I was speechless and then when you add in the pink sand...WOW! Arabella and I were in heaven. Jay was starting to get sick of the beach at this point, but was a good sport since we had chairs and an umbrella, there was food within walking distance and one the "Pirate Ship" appeared, there was entertainment! The beach was also pretty relaxing since we were not hounded too much to buy things from the locals, once you said you were not interested, they left you alone. And I am sure it helped that the police were patrolling the beach!

Check out how pink the sand is!
















Police patrolling the beach - without weapons!









Goodbye Barbados, I will return!

I also learned about Barbados Rum. I had no idea that Rum was this popular...



After the spending at least 4 hours on the beach, Arabella and Jay went back to the port and ship for a nap, while I walked around the shopping area in Bridgetown. I struck out with shopping there, but did pick up some cute earring for Arabella and myself, as well as, Rum Cakes for Jay in the Duty Free Shops before getting back on the Ship. We had a great dinner, once again, and then Arabella had some ice cream from the 24 hour ice cream station. She is still asking for after dinner now that we are home!




*Fun Facts have been taken from the Carnival Fun Ashore Your Guide to Shore Excursions Book.

Thursday's Thoughts

Hearing: Arabella's respond "Beautiful Momma" when I told her that she was beautiful when I put her down for her nap, it melted my heart!

Tasting: The last Guavaberry Chocolate from The Belgian Chocolate Box in St. Maarten

Seeing: Rain and cloudy skies when I would rather be seeing this again:



Smelling: The crisp, cold Fall air!

Feeling: Tired since I have been trying to catch up on laundry and housekeeping since returning from vacation!

Wordless Wednesday

Roseau, Dominica

Fun Facts*:
Christopher Columbus named the island after the day of the week on which he spotted it - a Sunday (dominica in Latin) - which fell on November 3, 1493.

Dominica has been nicknamed the "Nature Isle of the Caribbean" for its seemingly unspoiled natural beauty.






When we got to Dominica (not to be confused with the Dominican Republic), we had no idea what the island was like. I would have to say that Dominica is the least industrialized of the islands we visited, and it seemed very poor. I was sad to find out later in the cruise that Carnival is not going to be going to this island anymore which means that the locals will be losing a significant amount of money from tourism. We also found out that part of the reason that the island has not been built up with resort areas is due to the fact that they are focusing on ecotourism. (For more info on ecotourism please see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecotourism). Our taxi driver who took us around the island told us that some of the infrastructure updates that are taking place are thanks in part to the Chinese government since Dominica is too poor to make the updates themselves - we thought this was very interesting and I want to do more research on this. Dominica is full of natural beauty that we saw when we ended up getting a tour of the island instead of just going to the beach as we thought we were. We learned that Dominica is just 291 square miles and has 365 rivers. We visited Trafalgar Falls, the botanical gardens, the hot springs and the volcanic black sand beach. On our tour, we had fresh coconut water and Arabella and Jay ate fresh sugarcane. We had a nice, relaxing time at the beach (Arabella snoozed under the umbrella) and we were not hounded by the locals to purchase everything under the sun. Our taxi driver even waited for us at the beach while we swam and relaxed before he took us back to the port, now that is what I call service!!

View of Roseau from Morne Bruce.
Following Jay to the waiting taxi on a side street away from the port. It was a little scary since the road was narrow and busy with cars driving right next to us.
Here is an even better shot of how close the cars were to you while we were walking.
It was funny to see CAT merchandise in one of the few shops at the Port.
We were very surprised to see a branch of our bank, Royal Bank of Canada in the Port. I actually used the ATM there to take out money...which is a whole post in itself!

Trafalgar Falls in the background.

Fresh coconut water, so YUMMY!

Sulphur hot springs.

Arabella and I enjoying the black sand beach.


Wiped out from the tour of the island.
Enjoying fresh sugarcane.




After our day in Dominica, it was back on the ship for Formal night. We had fun dressing up and enjoyed another yummy dinner in the dining room. After dinner, Jay tried his hand at the 2 cents slots in the casino on the ship to try and win a BMW...I am sure you all can figure out how that went!





*Fun Fact has been taken from the Carnival Fun Ashore Your Guide to Shore Excursions Book.

Silly Waiters

One of the things about the Fun Ship is that there is always something fun going on. And this was certainly unexpected! Right in the middle of serving dinner, all of the waiters would stop what they were doing and go and perform a dance. This was one of Arabella's favorites! We would laugh, everyone would get up from their tables and watch, and it was a great time. I guess this is all part of what makes Carnival the Fun Ships!

Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas

Fun Fact*: In 1917, St. Thomas was purchased (along with St. John and St. Croix) by the United States for $25 million, as part of a defensive strategy to maintain control over the Caribbean and the Panama Canal during World War I.



It was so funny, to see CNN on the big screen bright and early at breakfast on Monday. I guess some people still need to get their fix of the news. I was amazed at how many people were sitting in deck chairs watching the big screen during breakfast.


Since we had not planned any shore excursions in St. Thomas and the beaches were closed, or so we were told due to bad weather the previous week, we decided to check out some of the Duty Free Shopping in the Port before taking a quick walk to the St. Thomas Sky Ride. There were all types of jewelry stores and perfume stores. We even had the chance to sample some Guava Rum, it was so good! But instead of spending our time shopping, we kept walking. I couldn't belive how hot it was and there was hardly any breeze. The Skyride was nice, it was like taking a ski gondola to the top of a mountain, only all you could see was beautiful turquoise water and lush green foliage.
There was a sea plane that took off all day in the harbor where we were docked. It was so fun to watch it take off and land!







After the Skyride, we headed back to the Duty Free Shops before getting back on the ship for lunch. I was so very good, and bought not a thing at the Shops! One funny thing that we noticed on the way back, was that the cars were driving "on the wrong side of the road".



Arabella and I did some swimming in the pool before she and Jay went back to the room for nap time. I then spent the afternoon on deck enjoying the sun and my book!







Before dinner, we watched part of the movie The Princess and The Frog on the big screen on deck - Arabella loved watching the movie outside! Then it was off to dinner for some yummy food! St. Thomas was beautiful and we had a great day!








*Fun Fact has been taken from the Carnival Fun Ashore Your Guide to Shore Excursions Book.