Jan 31 – CHAOS! The Excursion department of Virgin Voyages cancelled our reservation 🙀🙀🙀. On St Lucia we were supposed to take a power boat to a resort called “Jade Mountain” – apparently the most breathtaking property on the Caribbean. We had even been told THE WORLD! It was $300 USD pp just for the excursion, we’d been saving our Pennie’s for this one.
One night in a “Jade Mountain Sanctuary Suite” is $2000 USD. But you get this 👇
We had planned to go with Paul and Emily… It was nice getting the $600 USD refunded, but man were we looking forward to this tour (Gauthier was especially excited). It was the only excursion booked through the Cruise line.
A bunch of our crew (two whom spent a cpl weeks on St Lucia not a month ago) had pre booked a different boat tour of the island for them selves. Paul and Emily decided to venture off with them, there was no way this redhead was willing to beach, boat and booze in the noon hour – equator sun ☀️. Janet and I went waterfall hunting/swimming 😁
We had previously been to Sourfiere, travelled through the “drive through volcano” and witnessed the massive volcanic mountains known as “Les Pitons” – we wanted the less popular tour, one that we hadn’t seen yet… like we did on Barbados. Did some quick googling, the Errard Falls – on the East side of St Lucia, by the village of Dennery – Looked unique enough. Found our first destination 😎
Hired a tour guide (Donald) who owned a brand new tour van. Made a deal with the Donald – for the entire day $150! He took us across the island to Dennery, over about 5Km of pot hole ridden mud roads, up inclines I didn’t think we’d make, to the trail head of Errard Falls. After a pretty easy hike we “TRANSPORTED” to Fern Gully 🍃 🧚 Wow what a sight!
“Don we have time for one more Waterfall, let’s go”
Super happy we found Don, he knew how to drive. We spent so much time in his van that day, going to the east side of St. Lucia, back to the west side by small Piton, then back to Casteries… a good driver was necessary. Around the hairpins, up and down the hills, and through the towns… He had that van moving 🚐 💨
We picked up Dons daughter and her friend from the local collage while en route to the cruise port. Donvida was lovely, awesome people – very proud of their home. Welcoming is an understatement. Made it Back on board and started getting ready for the big night – SCARLET NIGHT 💃🏼.
During a Virgin Voyage, “Scarlet Night”, everyone wears red. I didn’t know what to expect, this is a unique form of “formal night”. Janet was excited to wear the black dress she was engaged in, which is black (not red), so she slapped on the ruby lipstick 💋 I put on the $27.36 dress shirt I ordered on Amazon a couple weeks before. We. Looked. sexy.
This was also our night to do “Menu B” at Test kitchen, I liked this menu better than the first one, the entrées were lamb or shrimp. I had the lamb (best ever) and Janet had Shrimp (with fresh pasta). Janet tried to get them to make her another beef tenderloin, but they wouldn’t 😞 She then tried to get the same chocolate dessert (her fave) but they couldn’t 😞😞 … she liked “Menu A” better.
Finished off the evening walking the ship, trying on $50K Rolex’s, dancing and gambling. Best evening on board yet!!!
The next port of call was special, the island of Antigua. When Embarking from a port in the middle of the Caribbean (as we did from San Juan) you get to spend less time at sea (days onboard called sea days) and have extra opportunity to spend evenings at ports of call. We weren’t casting off from Antigua until 10 PM!
*Last November I reserved a very romantic dinner and sunset experience at a restaurant called “Sheer Rocks” on the west side of Antigua. People gave me flack for spending money on dinner when there’s free food on the ship, but after scoping this place out, it seemed like a really special spot to experience with my Janet. We reserved our dedicated server and dinner table, on a cliff with our own plunge pool and day bed, while the Caribbean sun sets 🌅 in the lesser Antilles 🏝️.
This will sound goofy but “to our delight” we didn’t get to enjoy the romance alone 🥰
To Be Continued. Feb 1 – Sheer Rocks – Antigua
Seas the day 