Carnival Destiny to the Southern Caribbean
< Continued from page 3
They said you have to relax to do all this, and that women are better at relaxing and following directions and signals than men, and are more successful, and sure enough, one guy on the tour kept freaking out and couldn?t handle it, but his wife did fine. If you can?t manage it or want a rest, you can surface and hold onto the raft, and float along with it, still looking into the water with your mask on and see the stuff (like yer wife below giving you the wussie sign).
We thought the hoses would get tangled but it seemed to work ok, the divers helped with that.
We snuba?d over 3 small wrecks and some coral, and it?s a way different experience than snorkeling, even being just 10-15 feet down you feel in another world. It?s bright enough for underwater shots, and you can grab the wrecks to stabilize yourself for shots. I wasn?t good at clearing water from my mask, mostly I blew salt water in my eyes which stings, so I surfaced more than some people to clear my mask. This meant I had to re-do the ear pressure thing on the way down, bit of a nuisance. The pressure is about 5 times what you feel going up in a plane, and you have to do it regularly on the way down, or if you wait too long looking at fish etc it won?t work and you have to surface and start over. Surfacing doesn?t affect the others connected to your raft. We had enough air for about 30 minutes, which seemed enough for everyone. We only had 10 brave cruisers on this tour out of 2900 on the ship.
We also had a guy and his 12 y.o. son from a resort, and the lad did fine. Free bottled water on the boat, which we used to clean the salt from our eyes and faces as well as drinking. On the way back to shore we all felt like Navy Seals, just a grinin? and drinking.
Spent the rest of the afternoon at the Boatyard Party Beach ( www.theboatyard.com ), music pumping, loungers, umbrellas, friendly beach staff fetching drinks and helping if needed, good snack bar, pretty good booze, patio café area, water trampoline, climbing iceberg, jetskiis, change rooms, lots of people (it?s a fav with the ship crews), great sand, long pier to take a walk out on, lots of hard bodies. Your teens and kids will love to come here, but it you want a quiet beach nearby, face the water and look to your left, and you?ll see more beach outside the Boatyard property, where other cruisers said it?s quiet. In the evening the Boatyard turns into a party bar.
The main nightlife is at St. Lawrence Gap, a 10-15 minute cab ride from the ship, but the locals told us of a nice place in Bridgetown, and I checked it out while shopping. You go across the main bridge at the park with the Big Ben clock, turn right, first building on the right, walk towards the water along the building, turn left, walk past several shops and you come to the Waterfront Café. Pretty location, nice view, evening entertainment. You can sit outside under umbrellas by the causeway.
ARUBA
It?s easy to see why Aruba is everyone?s favorite. It?s clean, the buildings are all pretty pastels like Disneyworld main street, and there?s lots to do. As you exit the terminal take a booklet from the kiosk, it has a good map insert of the island and of Orangestaad. Walk off the ship, go maybe 100 yards to the main drag, turn right, go 1 block to Weststraat, and everything starts there. Across the street is the Royal Plaza mall, three 3-story pink buildings with tons of shops with pretty interior courtyards, lots of shade. A block further down is the Seaway Mall, an inside mall. Booze and jewelry were expensive and rum was twice the ship price, and tanzanite .75 carat earrings with diamonds were $1300, but a similar pair on the ship at their 40% off sale were $300. But we got a great beach bag for $5 (saw them for as much as $35 other ports), and got a wooden hanging face mask bargained down from $45 to $30, never saw them cheaper than that. Oil paintings that were about $20 in Dominica were $40.
For night life there are 5 party bars at this intersection, 3 in the Royal Plaza and 2 on Weststraat. Iguana Joe?s and Mambo Jambo are on the second floor at either end of the Plaza, with a great view of the strip, the harbor, and the ships. Le Pitit Café is in the middle section of the Plaza, same great view, and a Latin dance bar is above the café on the third level. Two young Dutch kids who boarded in Aruba told us the name, something like Doridos J and said it had good music. The Bahia is up Weststaat towards the ship, and Carlos and Charlies is a few more doors down. It and it?s sister bar Senior Frog?s have branches all over the Caribbean, and have a rep as party places. You can see Carlos?s sign from the gangway. Bahia had a good rock band, playing Eagles etc., and was a classier place.
Because of the Carlos and Charlies rep we had to check it out. It looks like a standard roadhouse, plank floors, bar decorations.
Page 5 > > More on Carlos & Charlie's and cruising the Southern Caribbean on the Carnival Destiny > >
They said you have to relax to do all this, and that women are better at relaxing and following directions and signals than men, and are more successful, and sure enough, one guy on the tour kept freaking out and couldn?t handle it, but his wife did fine. If you can?t manage it or want a rest, you can surface and hold onto the raft, and float along with it, still looking into the water with your mask on and see the stuff (like yer wife below giving you the wussie sign).
We thought the hoses would get tangled but it seemed to work ok, the divers helped with that.
We snuba?d over 3 small wrecks and some coral, and it?s a way different experience than snorkeling, even being just 10-15 feet down you feel in another world. It?s bright enough for underwater shots, and you can grab the wrecks to stabilize yourself for shots. I wasn?t good at clearing water from my mask, mostly I blew salt water in my eyes which stings, so I surfaced more than some people to clear my mask. This meant I had to re-do the ear pressure thing on the way down, bit of a nuisance. The pressure is about 5 times what you feel going up in a plane, and you have to do it regularly on the way down, or if you wait too long looking at fish etc it won?t work and you have to surface and start over. Surfacing doesn?t affect the others connected to your raft. We had enough air for about 30 minutes, which seemed enough for everyone. We only had 10 brave cruisers on this tour out of 2900 on the ship.
We also had a guy and his 12 y.o. son from a resort, and the lad did fine. Free bottled water on the boat, which we used to clean the salt from our eyes and faces as well as drinking. On the way back to shore we all felt like Navy Seals, just a grinin? and drinking.
Spent the rest of the afternoon at the Boatyard Party Beach ( www.theboatyard.com ), music pumping, loungers, umbrellas, friendly beach staff fetching drinks and helping if needed, good snack bar, pretty good booze, patio café area, water trampoline, climbing iceberg, jetskiis, change rooms, lots of people (it?s a fav with the ship crews), great sand, long pier to take a walk out on, lots of hard bodies. Your teens and kids will love to come here, but it you want a quiet beach nearby, face the water and look to your left, and you?ll see more beach outside the Boatyard property, where other cruisers said it?s quiet. In the evening the Boatyard turns into a party bar.
The main nightlife is at St. Lawrence Gap, a 10-15 minute cab ride from the ship, but the locals told us of a nice place in Bridgetown, and I checked it out while shopping. You go across the main bridge at the park with the Big Ben clock, turn right, first building on the right, walk towards the water along the building, turn left, walk past several shops and you come to the Waterfront Café. Pretty location, nice view, evening entertainment. You can sit outside under umbrellas by the causeway.
ARUBA
It?s easy to see why Aruba is everyone?s favorite. It?s clean, the buildings are all pretty pastels like Disneyworld main street, and there?s lots to do. As you exit the terminal take a booklet from the kiosk, it has a good map insert of the island and of Orangestaad. Walk off the ship, go maybe 100 yards to the main drag, turn right, go 1 block to Weststraat, and everything starts there. Across the street is the Royal Plaza mall, three 3-story pink buildings with tons of shops with pretty interior courtyards, lots of shade. A block further down is the Seaway Mall, an inside mall. Booze and jewelry were expensive and rum was twice the ship price, and tanzanite .75 carat earrings with diamonds were $1300, but a similar pair on the ship at their 40% off sale were $300. But we got a great beach bag for $5 (saw them for as much as $35 other ports), and got a wooden hanging face mask bargained down from $45 to $30, never saw them cheaper than that. Oil paintings that were about $20 in Dominica were $40.
For night life there are 5 party bars at this intersection, 3 in the Royal Plaza and 2 on Weststraat. Iguana Joe?s and Mambo Jambo are on the second floor at either end of the Plaza, with a great view of the strip, the harbor, and the ships. Le Pitit Café is in the middle section of the Plaza, same great view, and a Latin dance bar is above the café on the third level. Two young Dutch kids who boarded in Aruba told us the name, something like Doridos J and said it had good music. The Bahia is up Weststaat towards the ship, and Carlos and Charlies is a few more doors down. It and it?s sister bar Senior Frog?s have branches all over the Caribbean, and have a rep as party places. You can see Carlos?s sign from the gangway. Bahia had a good rock band, playing Eagles etc., and was a classier place.
Because of the Carlos and Charlies rep we had to check it out. It looks like a standard roadhouse, plank floors, bar decorations.
Page 5 > > More on Carlos & Charlie's and cruising the Southern Caribbean on the Carnival Destiny > >
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