There are so many activities and places to see on the cruise that it is difficult to make the nights late and the mornings early. This was an example of one of those transitions, as we were just coming off of our day at sea which included a late dinner followed by Oceaneers Club and a late night drink, followed by a morning that we wanted to get up and get ready for our activities on the island of St. Kitts. I arose at my normal 6:30, which gave me the opportunity to set up the GoPro for a timelapse video of us approaching the beautiful island of St. Kitts. None of us guys had ever been off US soil for the 4th of July before, so this would be a first for us. When Emily was in high school, she and her parents spent one July 4th visiting her brother in Bermuda, and they celebrated at the US Consulate. She’s clearly fancier than us.
With our sights set on a beach day on St. Kitts, we got ready relatively quickly and headed up to breakfast on deck 11 at Cabanas. Walking into the buffet location was our first sight of the 4th of July decorations on the ship. There were red, white, and blue streamers throughout the location, and they even added a red, white, and blue cupcake to the menu. We piled our plates high with our morning nutrition and grabbed the only remaining table available on the back deck overlooking St. Kitts. After getting all of the drinks and getting settled there was a storm cloud that was quickly moving across the island and heading for the ship. You could literally see it coming. We grabbed all of our plates and moved inside just in time for us to miss the downpour that moved across the ship. It was really neat watching the storm actually move across the water. As fast as it came, it blew away, opening up to beautiful morning skies.
With our stomachs satisfied and our table patience on empty, we returned to the room to get our island bags. Then we headed down to the gangway on deck 1 to exit the ship. This was our second island this trip that we planned to take a taxi, as opposed to an organized excursion, to a beach activity. Today Emily had pre-booked a day pass at the Marriott on St. Kitts to enjoy a little beach time and pool time. We located the taxi stand and crammed in with three other families who were headed to the same location. It was a 15 minute drive and it only cost $3 per passenger. Not a bad deal.
About halfway through the taxi drive the driver pointed out the Marriott resort which was down this winding hill, nestled beautifully on the water. When we arrived, we checked in at the front desk to pick up our day pass. We paid our $70 for the day and made our way through the main lobby and shopping area (which of course we had to browse) and out the back door of the resort. There was quite a bit of construction going on in the back center area of the main resort building as it looked like they were rehabbing a pirate ship and the back windows of the building. Made for a less than relaxing walk out of the building.
With our arrival time of around 10:00 am we figured that we would spend 4 hours at the location and head back to the ship around 2:00 pm. We walked past the beautiful pool area which leads out onto the soft, sandy beach right behind the resort. There were numerous cabanas on the beach which had chairs and a table that were included in the day pass, so we secured one and got out our beach toys. The boys’ task for today from Stateroom Santa was to build an epic sandcastle, and they wasted no time getting right to work on it. My job was water carrier, so it took about a dozen trips back and forth from the water making sure that the sand would be packy enough for our bucket molds.
After completing our sand fortress, we headed down to the water to splash around a bit. Although the beach sand was very soft, it was not quite the same as the white sandy beaches we saw on the previous two islands. Also, the water at this location was completely filled with sea weed, so much so that you were covered with it in a very short time in the water. Hunter, of course, collected the sea weed as he normally does, and pretends he is a chef making sea weed crab cakes (when the world gives you lemons, I suppose). The boys have acquired Emily’s love of the joy of being covered in sand (she hates it) and were soon ready to be done with the beach portion of the visit. The timing actually worked out well because there was a thunderstorm that we were watching coming towards us from the water. We took the opportunity to walk back to the pool area, rinse our toes, and eventually headed inside to watch the storm pass.
Inside the resort we were planning on having lunch to kill time while the storm passed, but since it was only 11:00 am, the restaurants weren’t quite opened for lunch yet. There really is such a thing as island time. We found a coffee and pastry location, so Emily ordered a strawberry crumble pastry with an iced coffee, and the boys put their orders in for coffee (H) and vanilla (S) ice cream cones. Turns out the 20 flavors of ice cream they have on their sign only ended up being three and you can sure bet the three left were three that you would have expected to be the last choices. I settled on just the drink and snack for Emily and the boys had Goldfish from our beach bag. With unlimited ice cream back on the ship, no one was too upset.
Much like the morning storm that interrupted our outdoor breakfast, this storm was also short lived. We grabbed our bags and towels and navigated our way back to the pool area, where the once crowded location had been cleared away by the rain. We snagged a couple of beach chairs by the shallow area and the boys got to splashing around. It was the perfect mix of relaxation and play for the entire family, and it turned into a beautiful weather day at 76 degrees. The pool also had an official swim up bar that Emily was excited to take part in during our visit.
We spent the better part of 90 minutes swimming and relaxing at the pool, after which we picked out a perfect pool restaurant overlooking the ocean to enjoy lunch. Our plan was to finish our lunch, grab a drink at the swim up bar, and finish our visit with a stop at the gift shops. The lunch was surprisingly delicious, as the boys got their normal grilled cheese sandwiches, and Emily and I shared a steak wrap and some coconut shrimp. It was a nice break from the cruise ship food that we have eaten for the past week.
After settling up at the restaurant we headed over to the swim up bar which by this time, along with the pool, was completely packed. We grabbed seats at the end but finally realized that the one bartender would have gotten to us right around the all aboard time. We changed plans and took a couple of laps around the pool and agreed to call it a day for our outdoor resort activities.
Back inside the resort we changed into our dry clothes and returned to the shops that we browsed earlier. Emily got an Alex and Ani bracelet of the Caribbean from the resort to remind her of all the islands we have visited. After the purchase, it was time to meet our taxi driver outside, so we bid farewell to the Marriott resort on St. Kitts. We would highly recommend this to anyone looking for a nice getaway for the day.
The ride back to the port area was a quick one. There is something comforting about being in a taxi on a foreign island and seeing that first sight of the cruise ship as you are returning. She dropped us off near the shopping district that led back to the ship, so we popped in a few stores. Emily got some postcards and the boys got cars with St. Kitts printed on the top of them. If they hadn’t picked them, I was going to suggest it, because one thing we are running desperately low on in the Hayes household is crappy metal toy cars.
We returned to the ship at about 3:00 pm, and Emily and the boys returned to the room to chill and smash up their new cars. I headed back out on land with the GoPro and small tripod because I wanted to capture a few timelapse videos of the ship. As we were leaving the ship the first time we commented on how most of the time the ship backs into the port so that you can only see the back of the ship. At St. Kitts the ship pulled in forward giving you a really cool view of the front of the ship which you can’t normally get. Although it was super windy I did my best to capture a couple of videos.
We had a full slate of activities planned for the evening, so I returned to the ship around 4:00 to get the men in the family showered, dressed, and ready to take on the evening. The three of us somehow managed to start after and finish before the lovely Emily, but we didn’t look nearly as nice. (Ha ha, because I probably had to stop and tell you guys where everything was 100 times. EGH) Stop one was deck four atrium where everything was decorated for the 4th of July as were the characters. We got our photos with Americana Mickey and then made a bee line for deck three forward where we met up with Pluto. All of the characters were around that area so we got to see them all, which was really cool.
There was a brief moment between the character meet and greets and the evening show in the Walt Disney Theater, allowing us to stand outside on deck four and watch the ship push away from the port. It was raining as the ship left which provided quite the perfect bookend of weather for our visit to St. Kitts.
A bucket of popcorn and a couple of adult beverages later, we found ourselves sitting in the balcony of the Walt Disney Theater awaiting the first of two evening performances by Kissy Simmons, best known for her role as Nala on Broadway. It was a neat performance as she told stories of her career (hailing from near Kissimmee, Florida, hence “Kissy”) in between a wide assortment of broadway songs. The end of the show butted right up against the start of the 4th of July show on decks 11 and 12, so restless Sawyer and I departed the theater a little early with the hope of grabbing some pizza and securing a spot for the show. Unfortunately the pizza window was not open when we arrived, so we headed up to deck 12 and grabbed a great spot by the railing where we happened to meet up with our dinner tablemates to watch the show.
Emily and Hunter showed up just prior to the start of the show. Emily brought her bag of dollar store light up goodies that she fired up and distributed to the kids. She comes prepared! The show officially kicked off at about 7:45 with a vocal quartet singing Americana songs, followed by the characters doing a couple of dance numbers. The Cruise Director (Mike) and Captain Fabian talked to the audience, which was packed at this point, and indicated that this was the first cruise ever to have two nighttime fireworks show on the same cruise (Pirates and 4th of July). We really enjoyed the show, which I think filled the void for all those that were missing their normal 4th of July festivities at home. Even in the middle of international waters, we definitely felt the spirit of America!
One of the inevitable downsides of big events on the ship is that you somehow have to get everyone back out of the area where they congregated. The great cattle stampede off of decks 11 and 12 was something to behold. Half of the group was making their way to dinner while the other half was making their way to their nighttime activities. We were scheduled for dinner at Royal Palace which Emily was super excited for because they have her favorite dessert, the Grand Marnier soufflé. Tonight they stepped up the standard dinner menu with a 4th of July menu. This gave us more options than we knew what to do with. Emily and I did our best to order an assortment of goodies to share. I actually tried escargot for the first (and last) time. The 4th of July food was a nice attempt but not quite the ‘merica version of your comfort food favorites.
The dinner was great, but the boys were losing their focus (and minds), which happened just in time to drop them off with the Oceaneer Club cast members who took them off to have fun while we finished our five desserts (each got a Grande Marnier Soufflé, crème brûleé, and shared a weak attempt at an apple cobbler). We rolled ourselves out of the restaurant thinking that we would have enough energy to get a drink but sadly discovered that we were out of steam. We picked up the boys from the Oceaneer Club and made our way to deck 11 to get Sawyer some pizza and the boys a few cookies for the dessert they missed at dinner.
Back in the room the boys found their gifts from Stateroom Santa for building their epic sandcastle at the beach. They each got a Disney Vinylmation of the Mickey cartoon characters. Stateroom Santa left another clue in the sea stocking which read:
I hope you enjoyed the beach, sand, and sun
And that your day on St. Kitts was a ton of fun.
You completed your majestic castle made out of sand
So your reward awaits… give yourself a hand
Enjoy the gentle evening waves as you lay in your cozy beds
And drift off with Mickey & Donald chasing after the bread.
Sleep well as tomorrow another island awaits
So make sure you don’t stay up way too late!
They bounced around the room for a bit before finally crashing in bed. Interesting story, as I am writing this, when I got up at 7:00 am to gather my stuff and head up to deck 11 to write this, the boys are in different beds than they fell asleep in. Looking forward to hearing this story when I return to the room. Looking forward to another beautiful day at Tortola!
