December 30 – Basseterre, Saint Kitts and Nevis

Weather – 27º, sunny

Steps – 8,664

Humidity – 62%

Saint Kitts and Nevis (pop. 54,300) is country 106 and is part of the British Commonwealth. Saint Kitts is one island and Nevis is the other, it is the smallest country (pop and area) in the western hemisphere.  

Our tour was an afternoon one, so we had a chill morning. The first morning I’ve visited the juice guy – today we had grapefruit, pineapple, ginger, and spinach. An advantage of being only one floor below the pool is easy access to the juice guy.

our view today

We docked across from the 2,000 passenger Aida Blu cruise ship – has robots to interact with passengers, is

steel drum entertainment

mostly German speaking, allows smoking on balconies and has a nudist area! Our balcony was bathed in morning sun which I do not prefer and was hoping this ship might provide shade…nope. It was cloudy enough to sit while being entertained by the goings on of the Aida.

This cruise has been busy, with only 2 sea days so far. We’ll have another 2 at the end. A lack of sea days limits our visits to the juice guy.

Today we are docked at Saint Kitts and visited Nevis on a tour.

waiting to hit the beach

We took a party boat from Saint Kitts to Nevis for a ‘beach break’. About an hour on the boat, followed by 90 minutes at the beach and another hour back. For not being beach people, it was a great tour. We

watching the surf

didn’t get much in the way of local info, but did get a flavour of the music, drink, and what people do in their leisure time – there were plenty of locals at the beach.

3 small rum punches were included, and we took a bucket of local Carib beer ($20USD) to the beach. Once at the beach we paid for 2 chairs and an umbrella for $10USD – I thought that was reasonable. We brought our books, which was a good idea – 90 minutes listening to the waves, drinking beer, reading…lovely way to pass some time.

On the way to the beach, a steel drummer played and on the way back we listened to a DJ…made for a fun atmosphere.

beer?

our last Carib

Tonight’s we had a reservation at Chartreuse, the ship’s French, reservation required restaurant. As I’ve mentioned the reservation required restaurants don’t do much for us. Last night we were at the steak place, and it wasn’t great, so we are bailing on the French place…the main dining room is the place for us. It was the right choice – the vibe is better because we are more familiar with the staff there.

last 2 rum punches

The show tonight was Blazin’ Boots. It is one of the ship’s entertainment team’s shows. I think we’ve seen it approximately 1 million times, but it’s good. In fact, at one point Chris leaned over and said “what do you think this one is this one?” as they were setting up for the next song…we almost remembered their entire set list.

4 ships in

December 29 – Pointe-A-Pitre, Guadeloupe

Weather – 28º, sunny

Steps – 8,212; unless we put in some effort, we can’t make over 10,000

Humidity – 70%

ginger - all over the park

As soon as we looked outside this morning, we recognized Guadeloupe (pop. 395,700). This is our third visit, and the port is easy for us to remember with it’s 5 story buildings decorated with street art. Guadeloupe is an “overseas department” of France - people are French citizens with French passports, the Euro is

1 or 14 suspension bridges

the currency.

1 of 14 suspension bridges

Because we have been here previously, we have done the typical things…rum and waterfalls. This time, we picked a tour to a nature park with the highlight to be suspended wooden bridges…this turned out to be a zoo with a course of 14 narrow suspension bridges in the
treetops. The suspension bridge (65 feet above the ground) part was quite cool, but the place was too
busy to accommodate people very well. What was supposed to be a 30-minute suspension bridge trek took at least double that time. We didn’t have anything else to do, and weren’t pressed for time, but sheesh! There was dense, lush foliage so gaze upon, but after 10 minutes of that…I could have moved on.

lush everywhere

enormous leaves

Then there were animals that were cool to see, but I’m not a fan of enclosed animals. In the end, we figured the tour was a bit inaccurately described, with the suspension bridge part being over hyped. We thought the suspension bridge part would be a main focus…it was in terms of time needed, but otherwise, not so much.

It was a bummer, but again…some tours are duds, and some are great. Sometimes it’s good to
experience duds to know when you get a good one. Plus, dud tours are really pretty rare.

There were some really cool plants and flowers - birds of paradise, bright yellow cannas, wild orchids and wild ginger.

what's the hold up???

On the way back to the ship, we stopped at Cascade aux Écrevisses one of Guadeloupe’s 100

Cascade aux Écrevisses

waterfalls. I am a sucker for all things waterfall, so I wasn’t sad we stopped here. We had in fact visited these falls on a previous trip – we remembered that one being in a torrential downpour. It was a short walk over a cobbled tourist friendly pathway (the French seem to pour money into the nature infrastructure here) to look at the falls and then back to the bus. That’s all that was necessary.

We grabbed a plate of lunch from the buffet and ate on our balcony. We were in the shade again, so took advantage. We are on floor 10 this trip, right under the buffet and pool on 11. I was a bit worried about the sound from above, but we’ve heard little. It is very convenient in terms of popping up and down.

Our entertainment was watching Mormon door knockers stream out of an apartment building across from the ship. 4 or 5 at a time would come out, pile into a car and be off. We didn’t see any return.

good bye Guadeloupe

On cruises, you typically choose the specific room you will stay in. There are pros and cons to location. With Regent, we usually (not always, if we can get an OK price on a aft facing room we’ll splurge a bit on that) choose the least expensive room – on Regent, once you are out of your

local beer - 3.5 euro

room everyone is treated the same in terms of inclusions. Unless you really splash out, all of the rooms are the same size and layout…the difference is the location.

don't know what they are but...gorgeous!

When we booked this cruise, the inexpensive rooms were booked, all we were able to get was a ‘guaranteed’ room. Meaning, you are guaranteed to be on the ship, but the room you get is a crap shoot – the price is better too for guarantee. You could
luck out and get a primo room, or not. As we always pick the least desirable category, we figured it would work out. We ended up with in a ‘Concierge E’ room.

more flowers

Regent introduced a category of concierge rooms a while back – these give more internet log ins (we get unlimited), a pre-cruise hotel night (not bad) and a ‘better’ location (not important to us). With the guarantee we had, we got none of
this, so essentially, our room is the same size as most are in a better location (higher up).

Diana – Yeah, a bust…you win some and you lose some. I figure getting the Wordle in 3 is skill, in 2…luck. Yesterday it took us ALL the tries, we finally got it, but it took some time.

December 28 – Castries, St Lucia

Weather – 28º, partly cloudy, with a couple of very tiny sprinkles, the clouds looked like we’d be able to watch a storm from our balcony…nope, I guess I don’t know much about St Lucia weather systems

Steps – 6,714

ready to zip

Floors climbed – 32, need to add this stat for today, the zip lining required some climbing

Humidity – 72%

St Lucia (pop 184,000) is our country #105! Once we got away from the port, like Grenada yesterday,

ship in the harbour

this reminds us a lot of our visit to Africa - small roads, run down buildings, random cars seemingly abandoned, goats wandering the streets. St Lucia seems poorish, but according to the interwebs, it is a developing nation, ranking in a middle to lower middle income bracket. Our guide, Carl, told us dead cars are left because inevitably someone will need a part from one – interesting approach.

St Lucia is lush and mountainous, with fruit trees everywhere. The fruit trees

so lush

aren’t all in organized plantations, many are just

random street

growing. We learn that bananas used to be a lucrative crop, but now cannabis has overtaken and farmers are abandoning bananas for weed.

The first inhabitants of St Lucia were the Arawak indigenous group – we’ve heard a lot about the Arawaks this trip, but little on previous trips. St Lucia was colonized by the French and then the British took over; this went back and forth at least 14 times – the local language is a French Creole; I couldn’t understand a bit of it.

another street

Today’s tour was ZIP LINING!!!!! Despite zip line tours being offered in plenty of places we’ve visited, we tend to do the cultural/food/drink tours. Today was the day for adventure!

Getting to the zip line park was an adventure in itself – about an hour there and back on windy narrow roads. The van was basic, but comfortable with good AC, a working mic to hear Carl, and room to spread out – this is all I need! This van was very similar to the African ones where the doors would randomly fly open…this van was much more advanced because not once did the doors open unannounced.

more street scenes

This tour was great! I’m not sure I’d be ready for one again tomorrow – I’d rather see what makes a specific place special, but this was fun. Zip lining in St. Lucia is supposed to be one of the top things to do here…good for us!

Once we got harnessed and helmeted, we zoomed through 12 zip lines and climbed a handful of suspension bridges. We don’t have any photos of us actually zipping, because we left our phones in a locker. As it turned out, we probably could have brought our phones, but the last thing we need is a lost phone.

Other than the hiking up to each platform, zip lining is pretty easy – physically speaking. You get your harness hooked to the cable, put your hands as directed

winding and lush

and go, maybe having to slow yourself down at the end to pull yourself in. I had to pull myself in at one point…I guess I need to eat more!

We zipped through the dense St. Lucia rain forest with a few small waterfalls here and there. The zipping took about 90 minutes. At the end of the 12 tracks, we were back on the van and an hour later we were back onboard.

The weather at the zip lining spot was lovely – warm (but not hot), shady because of the super tall trees and mountains. We saw no animals except for some tiny birds and a couple of lizards.

St Lucia is pretty dead on a Sunday. We found a brew pub online, but weren’t convinced it would be open, so we stayed onboard for the rest of the day. This is no Curaçao where they opened things for the tourists on Christmas.

nearer to the port

It is so dead, that no one was monitoring us randomly wandering the port. Normally, passengers are restricted to where we can

interresting

go…not here, seemed like we could walk where ever we’d like. Not that we’d ever care to go to far into the labyrinth of containers, but no one stopped us. The closest we came to a local beer was a massive Heineken container.

We were lucky that our balcony was in shade for the entire rest of the day. We enjoyed room service lunch with our second and last bottle of Veuve champagne – it was actually a little less than a bottle as my tush knocked the first glass over…maybe I don’t have to eat more.

wandering the port

Our afternoon entertainment was tourist boats going back and forth and the occasional plane on the runway…the airport is super close.

Tonight’s show was a guest performer – Jassen Allen. We’ve seen him before and were looking forward to the show. From what I remember, he does more contemporary material like the Commodores and Lionel Richie. Music from the 60s is what Regent calls contemporary! I’m definitely not complaining…I really like the Commodores and really LOVE Lionel!

tonight's show

The show was good. He is a Vegas show act, so has good stage presence and tons of energy. I’m looking forward to his New Year’s Eve Lionel Richie show!

Did you know… in the Caribbean there are 13 independent countries - the region includes about 30-33 total political entities? I need to do a list of those that we’ve been to.

December 27 – St. George's, Grenada

Weather – 28º, sunny

Steps – 7,239

Humidity – 70%

This is our second visit to Grenada (pop. 114,000). Grenada is an island country in the West Indies in the Caribbean Sea. It is English speaking and its main shopping streets reminded me a lot of Africa – small streets, tiny shops, stalls in the streets, lots of people. Grenada is not at all like and of the ABCs, not even Bonaire.

Our tour today was another dud. It was a dud because of expectations. The

good morning Grenada

original description we used when we signed up was very different from what was delivered, but what was delivered was exactly what the onboard description indicated.

kayaks in the background

I’m read the tour descriptions religiously and knew what the onboard one said but figured that since we weren’t told to disregard the original one, we thought that one would still apply. Nope…in the end, it was fine. We

sea urchins and sea moss

paddled around in a 2-person, glass bottom kayak, looking at very little through the glass. If it had been described as a morning of exercise in the Caribbean we would have been satisfied and happy. It significantly over promised and under delivered.

It was both Chris’ and my first time kayaking, so that was cool. We had a post workout rum punch and fruit tasting…also cool. We had a rustic, but charming place to chill after the workout. We were disappointed that we didn’t see any fish or much of anything under the water.

showing the moss

One of the guides found a few sea urchins and sea moss which they dry and make a drink out of.

There wasn’t much within walking distance of the port, so after the exercise, we stayed on the ship.

We sat on the balcony until the sun drove us to lunch.

back for lunch

In the afternoon we sat at the pool – spots weren’t hard to find as a lot of people were still on tour.

Dinner tonight was supposed to be at one of our 2 visits to the ship’s reservation required restaurants, Prime 7, the ship’s steak pit. Once we saw what would be on the main dining room's menu - chicken parm (Chris) and lamb curry (me) we swapped our reservations for another night. It was the right choice...both of these were very good.

good bye Granada

Many passengers look down on the ship’s main dining room and think the 2 reservation required places are better…they are wrong. In fact, you can get a

Grenada

great steak at the main dining room or even the Italian place. I think it’s the scarcity of reservations that falsely inflates the appeal of these places which are great, just no better than the main dining room.

December 26 – AT SEA, Cruising the Caribbean Sea

blueberry mango margarita

Weather – 26º, sunny, quite windy

Steps – 6,426

Humidity – 70%

As sea days go, today was typical. Last night, when planning what we’d do today (balcony or pool) we decided we’d have to wait until the morning to see how shady the balcony was. Although we are travelling north, we don’t know how directly north we will go.

As it turned out, the balcony was a no-go. By the time we got to the pool it was pretty much full (as least with people’s stuff occupying chairs) but we found a spot on the second level of the pool deck. It was very windy up there, so almost a bit chilly, but we had drink service (and sunglass cleaning service!) and looked directly out at the sea…can’t look directly at the sea from the pool deck.

The good ol’ game of reserving a pool chair is alive and well on Regent – it

always is. A combination of there not being enough chairs in the shade along

bringing chips for the table

with Regent not seeming to care (no different from any other cruise line, that we’ve found anyway) and you have to arrive early to find a shady spot. The first sea day we found one not being too early, but today…nope.

To us that is plain ol’ rude – can’t see how it is acceptable to ANYONE, but apparently it is. People going to breakfast after staking their claim is almost acceptable, but there are some who claim chairs and leave for hours. Or some who occupy 2 chairs, one in the sun and one in shade. One couple next to us, debated whether they should take their stuff, they decided they were unlikely comeback to sit, but would leave it just in case…what a bunch of BS! But…unless Regent cares to do anything, and obviously they don’t, a-holes will be a-holes.

on his way up to me

Add pool deck chair saving to spraying aerosol sunscreen all over the world on a windy pool deck, to leaving your phone unattended with an alarm ringing to using so much perfume I smell you before I see you, to a host of other infractions I could spend all day listing, we encountered plenty of boors! Of course, we are never ever rude and always take others into consideration! Sheesh!

I also did a bit of shopping. We have

panko egg

some onboard credit and with everything included on Regent we have no expenses to cover. Chris will get a hair cut, and I’ll spend it in the shop. The Regent gift shops leave MUCH to be desired – especially this voyage. I’ve come to know what they tend to carry and had some things in mind that I’d buy. Even many of those things aren’t there. There’s plenty of perfume though…great…just what people on here need!

There will be a champagne lunch later in the cruise that we considered. It would be interesting to taste some expensive champagne, but we don’t need any extra booze and the champagne we have access to is AOK.

Dinner was in the main dining room again with yet another set of boors – today was an epic boor day. We were sat (at a table by the window of course) by a table of 6. The larger the table, the larger the noise level…just happens – no problem I get that – in fact I’ve been that loud group, but this table!!! In particular there was one woman who was so loud! We arrived after them and I hoped they would be done and out of there before we were…nope. They were having so

I'm getting the hang of this 

much fun telling the most hilarious stories that no one by them found in the least bit funny, but all were able to hear, and they just stayed and stayed…and drank and drank. One couple said they only wanted to share one entrée as they don’t generally eat much…ah, I think that’s because their bellies were full of booze!

The biggest issue I had with this whole situation was that this was a ‘hosted table’. A hosted table is one where 1 or 2 staff sit with passengers. How on earth members of the senior staff enabled this for as long as they did is beyond me. Of course they weren’t going to cut these folks off, but they sure could have bid everyone an early good night. They did the opposite, calling for more wine!

We chatted with a couple on our way out who were more annoyed than we were…they mentioned something to the restaurant manager after we left.

Scenes like that are extremely rare on Regent, in our experience anyway – and really in life in general. I’m sure people over consume, but I’m not really sure this was this table’s problem anyway…even if they were stone cold sober, they’d be loud, the booze just amplified their charm.

The highlight of the dinner was a panko crusted poached egg in parmasean truffle sauce - OMG, this is the third time I’ve had this and it won’t be my last. It is on the portion of the menu that’s ‘always available’. 

The show was also a bust. It was the violin player again. The show was titled ‘Ritz Symphony’ I couldn’t for the life of me imagine what that would mean. It was described as NOT a violin recital…however…that’s pretty much what it was. Like the first night, it is obvious that she is talented, but as for song selection, crowd interaction, and show-personship…didn’t quite hit the mark for us. These things happen…we were glad the folks from the restaurant were no where to be seen.

December 25 – Willemstad, Curaçao

Weather – 29º, sunny

Merry Christmas Curaçao!

Steps – 12,909

Humidity – 75%

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

There was no Christmas lie-in for us. Our first tour met at this morning at 715! Who thought that was a good idea when we booked this?? I can’t really complain because I haven’t needed an alarm at all since we’ve been away. It was actually quite lovely to see the sun rise and watch the sail into Willemstad, Curaçao.

dolphins

submarine!

Curaçao (pop. 155,000) is the C in the ABC Islands and is our country #104. Like Aruba, Curaçao is a ‘constituent island country’ within the kingdom of the Netherlands and is 65Km north of Venezuela. Curaçao is the biggest of the ABCs.

Our first activity today was to search for more marine life. As soon as we approached the submarine we were about to board, we were greeted by about 5 dolphins. Apparently, this is very rare where we were, so very lucky.

more dolphins

We’ve been in submarines before and this one is

different as we only go just below the surface of the water. Each pair of people shared a seat with a window for each person beside them. As soon as we start moving, the dolphins went with us and more joined. We moved along slowly as the dolphins partied with each other for about 10 minutes. Then we saw very similar things to what we saw yesterday, plus a big ray.

The second half of the tour was to the Blue Curaçao liqueur factory. This was a super quick visit – we learned, tasted, and shopped. We bought a sampler pack. We are only familiar with their orange flavour, but they also have chocolate, tamarind, coffee, and rum/raisin.

tons of fish

and lots of coral

Between stops, we saw different parts of the island while the guide told us all about Curaçao.

our guide showing off

We took a break back at the ship for some breakfast before our second tour.

Before the next tour we wandered to the Queen Emma Bridge, affectionately known as the Swinging Old Lady. This is a pontoon bridge which swings to the side when boats need to pass…interesting. I’ve seen draw bridges, but never a bridge that moves to the side like this one.

our ship and the town

We thought we’d better have some local fare, so we found a snack shack for a plate of bitterballen – a Dutch snack. These are like deep fried meat and potato balls served with mustard, 8 were in the order.

As far as tours go, some you win and some you lose. Fortunately, most you win. Unfortunately, this afternoon’s one was a dud. Probably a bit of a dud because much that we saw and heard was a repeat from this morning and the fact that it was Christmas Day had a few things closed.

found this one by chance

The title of the tour was “Historical City

salt used for building

and Local Street Art” – ummmm, the only art we saw was as we drove by. We were also supposed to taste a local liqueur, technically we did, but it was a tiny bit of Blue Curaçao in a tiny plastic cup poured by the bus driver that we drank ON THE BUS. We were also supposed to have a snack which we didn’t. All of these issues aren’t the end of t
he world, but…it was a bit of a waste. There were also 35 people on the tour…WAY too many. Regent tours are typically in the low 20s which is perfect. The guide was entertaining and the AC on the bus was great.

in historic part of town

bus sips

One interesting thing we learned was that in the past salt was mixed with building material. Over time this deterioriates and crumbles.

After the tour we wandered a bit on our own, sat for a beer some more bitterballen (this time 8 cheese filled balls) and were off for another wander.

decisions, decisions

Our ship is docked very close to town (everywhere is close) but not in any sort of developed cruise terminal. The other 2 ships in town are at the super developed terminal…Starbucks, bars,


restaurants, shops, a hotel etc. We wandered over there to take a look – I’m not at all sad to be where we are.

bitterballen

One the way back we stopped at the Swinging Old Lady (named after the bridge) micro brewery for one

Merry Christmas to us

last Christmas pint. Well, we never have actually had a Christmas pint or a pint at all over the last days in the ABCs. All the beers have been tiny…this is an actual pint. What is the same about all of these beers is that they aren’t cheap. We also bought a couple of shirts.

Dinner was traditional turkey with dessert as a panettone bread pudding. The dining room was busy tonight, so we didn’t get

Swinging Old Lady 

out of there until after the show was almost over, so we skipped it. Chris tried his luck at the casino but returned quickly.

Curaçao by night