Nadines Travel Blog

We drove up the Atlantic side and it was so pretty. This side of the island seemed to be a bit more rainforest vegetation. We got waylaid onto several little side roads which we drove up and down and we were rewarded with beautiful views of the ocean. The old sugar plantation ruins dot the entire island and they lay testament to the slave labour that provided the sugar to the growing addiction. We encountered many wondering goat herds that were not tended by anyone. I am sure that many baby goats end up getting run over because they are all over the roads. We drove by the Black Rocks area on the East side of the island and this is where molten lava had burned its way down to the water’s edge a million years ago and has produced a bit of a scary black and rugged landscape. Many black sand beaches are in this area as well. Once we rounded the northern end the views of Mount Liamuiga the dormant volcano was tremendous. Also, the views of the Dutch-owned island of Statia or St. E...

We had to take 3 flights from Aruba to get here, which sounds ridiculous because the Caribbean Islands are not that spread out. We first left Aruba after paying our $34.25 USD departure tax per person. Aruba is in the ABC islands of the Caribbean (Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao) and we flew out with Insel Air. Our first flight was back to Curacao where we paid our paltry little transit fee of 2 US per person to transit through their little airport. Then our second flight was to St. Maarten where we were not there too long before we had to board a Liat Air flight to St. Kitts. Thank God the Liat plane was not as tiny as the experience of the 15 seater with Insel Air on the way to Aruba. The Liat Air flight was fine and we landed in St. Kitts. When you leave the airport and walk out the door you are confronted with quite beautiful views of St. Kitts because the airport is quite elevated and you see the ocean and mountains and it is quite green. We phoned to have our Avis shuttle to ...

The views here are incredible no matter what part of the island that you may be at. Nevis is only 7 km away so move a mile or so and your beautiful view is back again. Because St. Kitts is so narrow at the southern peninsula you can see both the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea in one glance. Believe it or not, the Atlantic beaches are prettier than the Caribbean beaches on this relatively new volcanic island. Black or black-speckled sand beaches are pretty normal here and about one zillion degrees hotter to step on than you want them to be. I could not walk down to our Atlantic beach without my flip-flops, it was too painful without them. The Marriott is located in Frigate Bay and it is very pretty here with grand houses climbing their way up to the tops of the mountain elevations. The style of the homes here has sweeping balconies that wrap around the whole house and the colors of the homes are very Caribbean bright and cheerful in color. Driving back into Basseterre ...

Once you leave the Marriott and begin driving up the steep slope of the highway you are surrounded by gorgeous views of St. Kitts and Nevis. You can see both the Atlantic and the Caribbean at the same time which flanks this narrow ribbon of a peninsula. This whole area is being developed and built up with huge homes with lovely views. We drove all the way to Cockleshell Beach which is apparently the whitest sand beach of St. Kitts but don’t drive there just for the beach, because it really is no hell. There is a quaint little bar and grill there which serves up good-looking food and great drinks. Dax and Darren had a Ting, which is a drink made on the island and it is basically a grapefruit soda drink, I liked it and so did Darren. I ordered a BBC which was a Baileys, Banana, Colada blended ice drink and it was so good, I have already found the recipe and I will try it out on friends as soon as I find some, ha ha ha. I actually have 6 girlfriends meeting us in Phoenix and stayin...

The weather here is absolutely perfect. Yes, it is hot during the day but at sundown and at night time it is absolutely perfect to sit out on your balcony and listen to the night birds and watch the stray cats do what cats do. A glass of chilled white wine is a perfect accompaniment. Even though the groceries were atrociously expensive I managed to find a Chilean White called Casillero del Diablo – Chardonnay 2007 from the Concha Y Tora vineyards for under 8 dollars USD which is cheaper than I can buy it in Saskatoon. During the day St. Kitts has some beautiful birds to watch. These very chipper bold yellow and black tiny birds flit around most of the day. They also have the coolest nests that hang from the tree in the shape of an egg. There are many doves that are cooing and there is also a very cheeky species that is quite a little bird. We watched one that was thinking about challenging the stray Siamese kitty for the can of tuna that we had opened. The young Siamese cat wa...

This is a really relaxing little laid-back island. The beaches are great and it is so much more developed than it used to be. I can afford to eat in Aruba now unlike back in the 90s. It is busy but not too busy and it is easy to drive around. We took a little drive up to the National Park called Arikok. It is 5 USD per adult to get in. You can drive up to the highest hill in Arikok and get a great view of the whole island. The landscape is very different with huge cacti and plants that are not commonly seen in the Caribbean. We then drove back down and back up the other side to see caves and the Atlantic side. The caves were cool to explore and a bit scary because I can’t see in the dark, not yet any way. We also explored a little Atlantic Beach where there were turtle eggs and a dangerous undertow so it was not a swimming beach but just the same it was quite beautiful. We drove on to see more landscape and came across some wild donkeys about 10 of them and two were b...

Yes I know I had never heard of Insel Air either when I booked my flights. The taxi driver taking us from our Sheraton hotel to the International airport in San Juan had never heard of Insel Air either, but they do actually exist. They are about as well organized as Bahamas Air but without all of the late flights. We had 3 flights to get us to our final destination and it only cost my family of 3 a grand total of $441 USD. We first caught a normal-sized aircraft to St. Maarten with a brief stopover and then we loaded more people on board and flew to the island of Curacao. We changed planes or should I say downsized to a 15 seater to fly into Aruba. We had a row of 3 seats at the very back and with this tiny aircraft, the side wall opened up where Darren was seated to get the baggage in. I personally have never seen anything like this. It is only a half-hour flight from Curacao to Aruba so it went really quickly. Dax read from his Diary of a Wimpy Kid book the whole time but we...

It was our last full day here on Eleuthera Island and we wanted to make the most of it so we checked out some more beaches. We were told that the old Club Med beach was spectacular so we had to drive up to Governor’s Harbour the capital; which is halfway up the island and it takes 1.5 hours to drive to. Once you are in to the town then you turn right at the Kalik Beer liquor store. You drive up a hill which is very pretty lined with bougainvillea flowers and handsome housing. You will come to the end of the paved road and then turn left and then right and drive down to the beach. It actually is not on the grounds of the Club Med but right beside it. There was a hurricane that wiped out most of the buildings, but the grounds are still being kept up with the hope of the sale of the property. Personally, if I had a bunch of spare million dollars I would snap this piece of property up really quickly. The grounds are great but the beach is to die for. It is wide and long and white ...

  We actually checked out one day early in order to make it to Miami where we need to catch our flight to San Juan for our cruise. I did not want to leave Powell Pointe, Cape Eleuthera because it is a wonderful and relaxing place to stay which really felt like home. I will really miss the surrounding turquoise water views and the excitement of the shark feedings. We left our unit at 3 pm in order to make it in plenty of time for our Bahamas Air 4:50 pm flight. It turned out that Bahamas Air was delayed again. We have to catch a 7 pm flight out of Nassau to Miami and if we don’t make that then it is too bad for the cruise. Thank God the 7 pm flight was delayed slightly which allowed us to make the connection. Our friends the Poolman’s our next door neighbours at Powell Pointe had a ton of trouble at check in and then through security and they are German diplomats. I thought these types were VIP’s but I guess not. I always thought that working at an Embassy would be a real...

We needed to fly back to Miami for one night because there were not any flights from Nassau Bahamas to Puerto Rico. So we bedded down at the DoubleTree Miami Airport Hotel. We got in later than expected due to the delayed flight but at least we had cleared customs in the Bahamas so that shaved a possible hour off of our night. We caught the complimentary shuttle to our airport hotel and bedded down for a short night. We needed to get up at 5 am again to catch our 8 am flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Dax is truly a delight this early in the morning (no not really, he is a bear and if someone offered to buy him that morning, I would have sold). We were dropped off at the Miami airport at the American Airlines counter. Man is AA. disorganized or what? There were many different lines and signs and even the AA people seemed confused. We waited in the check-in lineup for about 45 minutes and then had to get into another line up to drop off all of our checked bags. Then on to secur...

We caught our flight and had an uneventful 2-hour sojourn to San Juan on AA. We collected our bags and I was so happy to see that all of ours made it. I was having a little nightmare the night before that I would have nothing to wear on the cruise for the whole week but my clothes made it, yeh! We decided to go directly to the cruise terminal. It says on the Ship information provided that you should not proceed to the boat until after 2 pm. It was only 11am so we really took a chance, but it paid off big time. We dropped off our entire luggage ensemble with the men and they told us to get in the line-up. There were maybe only 25 people ahead of us. At exactly 11:20 we started moving and providing our passports to check in and went through security and went and sat down on provided chairs. We were only sitting for approximately 10 minutes and we proceeded to check-in. For those of you who have never cruised before it is just like checking into a hotel, only faster. We got our ...

We did not buy a shore excursion for this island so we just got off of the ship and explored the cruise terminal area and walked around the park area and the waterfront and boardwalk area. Our boat docked at Willemstad and I think that maybe the other dock would have been better; well it could not have been worse anyways. St. Croix is a tiny little island that is pretty to look at from the boat and that is about it. This port is not yet set up for tourism. The stores were closed and there were not too many people around. It was Sunday but if 2500 people are coming to your town, don’t you think that you would be ready for them? It does have a little bit of charm but the buildings are all in disrepair and the island appears to be extremely poverty-stricken. Many buildings are heritage buildings but there is obviously no money to put into them. Many have lovely ironwork banisters and they are in an array of colors and they have an old plantation-type styling to them. There is lov...

  St. Kitt’s is very pretty from the boat just like St. Croix was. The thing we noticed about St. Kitt’s right away is that they have a more aggressive sales pitch. The Crucians (people of St. Croix) did not seem interested enough for us to make a purchase and the St. Kitt’s people were all over us. This tends to turn many people off including us. We are returning for 11 nights to this island this month but we will be flying in and renting a car so it will hopefully be a different scene for us then. The cruise terminal was set up properly for tourism. There was music playing and traditional dance, which gives you a feel for the island. We just wanted to taste the island to give us some idea of what the people were like. We did not even leave the extremely large cruise mall terminal area, we did not need to. I personally liked what I saw, lots of hills and mountains and some very lush areas. The buildings were all different colors which give it a very Caribbean feel. The ...

This is a very pretty island from the boat as well as off the boat. We explored a bit on the island. It is very steep and hilly and we once again found our way to a church. This island is one big rainforest and you would need to be on it for a week to see everything there is to see. We climbed very high up and sat on the Methodist church steps to get the views of the cruise ship and beyond. The people seemed very friendly as well. We had booked a shore excursion called ‘Champagne - 2 site snorkel trip’ for the afternoon so we knew that we were not going to stay too long. We looked at what the market had to offer and walked around a bit more and then made our way back to the boat. We went back to our cabin and got our snorkelling gear together. We often travel with our masks and snorkel so that we don’t have to use inferior equipment. The flippers don’t really matter too much to us so we don’t mind using different company’s flippers. We had to meet at the end of the pier at 1...