The Palm Trees are Really Cool: Onboard the Carnival Valor’s Southern Route (Part Five)featured
Being in St. Thomas is like slipping on an old sweater. There’s a comfort in the familiarity of it – the look and the feel and the smell. But what that sweater brings in nostalgia and comfort, it lacks in that excitement of being new.
We were already docked in St. Thomas when I woke up, and the plan for St. Thomas was to have no plans. That’s not entirely true – I planned on spending some quality time at Havensight and doing some shopping. Nothing too heavy – as much time as I spent contemplating hitting the Louis Vuitton at Yacht Haven Grande, I couldn’t justify buying two bags in a year – but I wanted to hit some of my standards to do some stocking up.
We’ve been to St. Thomas so many times in the past ten years. We’ve been to the top of Paradise Point, to Drake’s Seat, to Magen’s Bay (which National Geographic says is one of the top ten beaches in the world, but I didn’t care too much for), but after all of that…St. Thomas has become our obligatory rest stop. We’ll do our shopping, but after we’ve slept in and taken our time getting off the ship. We needed a rest stop for this trip – we had one sea day and no late arrivals on our seven night cruise. Seven nights, six ports (if you count San Juan) in total, two of which were brand new to us. It’s a lot to do and see in a week. So we used our St. Thomas day to gear up and get our rest in.
We headed up to the Lido deck for a late breakfast thinking most people would have gotten off the ship by then, but the Lido deck was a hot mess. It was ridiculously crowded (and we’ve sailed on much bigger ships with far larger pax counts) and the lines moved very slowly (more on that a few posts down the line). And the food was only so-so. You’re always taking a gamble when you grab eggs benedict off a buffet line, so I don’t know why it surprised me that the egg was more hard boiled than over easy.
We debarked right after breakfast and headed straight into Havensight. Most cruise ships that dock in Charlotte Amalie dock at Havensight, which is the main shopping area. Anything you’d want to find duty free, you’ll find at Havensight.
Here’s a small tip: there’s an information hut towards the entrance. At that hut, they have vouchers for free margs at Senor Frogs. Cheers.
No time for Senor Frogs for me – I promised Stephanie I’d have my shopping done in an hour or less. First stop was Dynasty Dazzlers, where I always buy my duty free liquor. The prices are generally amongst the lowest, they will deliver your booze to the ship so you don’t have to carry it around and the selection is fantastic. I stocked up with a bottle of Bombay Sapphire, a bottle of Disaronno, a bottle of Patron, a bottle of Jim Beam, a bottle of Velvet Cinn (which is apparently like Rumchata but better? Or so they told me. I didn’t ask much. It was cheap and I like Rumchata) and (not pictured) a small bottle of Crown Royal (the rest of the bottles were a liter or larger). Total cost? Around $100. Maybe $110 but no higher than that.
I promise I’m not a lush. You just won’t find prices like these in the US and beyond that, you won’t find these prices in the other ports. You can generally find some good deals in St. Maarten, too, but the
prices generally won’t be lower than they are in St. Thomas unless you catch a special somewhere. And your liquor allowance is higher since it’s a US territory. Viva St. Thomas.
After Dynasty Dazzlers, we set off to our other favorite store, Southern Exposure. We’ve been shopping at Southern Exposure since our first cruise back in 2004. Southern Exposure boasts a nice array of accessories and apparel, and Mom is partial to the jewelry they have there since it’s generally a little trendier.
After we finalized our purchases, we headed back to the ship hoping to get in some pool time before the crowds made their way back onboard.
We dropped our purchases off at the room (which still hadn’t been made up yet), changed into our swim gear and headed up to that adults-only aft pool. And much to our delight, it was completely empty, and we had not only the pool, but also the hot tubs, to ourselves for over an hour. Bliss.
When our fingertips were long past pruned and more of our fellow passengers began heading up to the pool to cool off from their adventures, we headed in for lunch. Since it was a port day, our options were limited to lido deck or…more lido deck or…room service. The Valor doesn’t have the Blue Iguana, or Guy’s Burgers, or the tandoor, or the pasta bar. It does have the pizza, and the Mongolian wok, and the deli, and the old school burrito bar and grill, and it even still has fish and chips, but it felt incredibly limiting. I found myself really missing the Blue Iguana. Especially when my stir fry wasn’t that good.
We walked around the upper decks for a bit after lunch before heading back to the room to nap. And watch Dr. Phil because nothing else as on TV. You know your options are numbered when you settle on Dr. Phil.
A couple hours, a shower and a decently long nap later and…we were still docked in St. Thomas. And since I just kind of picked at my lunch, I was getting the munchies. Mom and I headed up to Lido and grabbed some chicken fingers. Perfect snack.
We brought some back to the room for Stephanie and headed out to the balcony to watch sailaway. And in a predictably dramatic fashion, as we pulled out from the dock, a police car drove up to the gates with a family. A family that stood there and watched the ship sail away. Without them. I hope they had their passports with them, because they’d need to meet us in Barbados.
The schedule on this trip was a little wonky, so while the first formal night is usually held on the second night, this night was cruise casual. We headed to dinner just as the sun was beginning to approach the horizon.
We don’t really care for this menu, but we went to the dining room for dinner for one reason and one reason only: Bitter and Blanc (also known as heaven in a ramekin, and the greatest dessert on the seas). And that Bitter and Blanc did not disappoint. The lamb disappointed. Mom barely picked at it. But the Bitter and Blanc? No disappointments.
Chilled Shrimp Cocktail
Fried Vegetable Egg Rolls
Chilled Peach Cream Soup
Fresh Fruit Cocktail
Wilted Spinach and Portobello Mushrooms with Fresh Bacon Bits
Braised Lamb Shank in a Burgundy Sauce
Farfalle with Roast Turkey Breast and Green Peas
Black Bean and Vegetable Enchiladas
Tiramisu
Bitter and Blanc
Service was a little slow, so instead of having coffee with dessert, we just went to Lido after dinner for coffee. I needed the caffeine to get the useless knowledge flowing in preparation for Movie Trivia. Except Movie Trivia was borderline impossible because they did this thing where they showed a screenshot of a movie with the characters taken out of the picture. I was not impressed.
We were going to stay for Game Show Mania (the last time I played Game Show Mania was on the Valor…and I won!), but they crammed a ballroom dancing class in before it started and we didn’t really care for that (and we didn’t want to waste an hour watching it), so we just headed back to the room to relax on the balcony.
Waiting for me back at the room was a letter confirming my liquor purchases had been delivered to the ship. I appreciated having the confirmation since I didn’t carry the box back onboard myself.
A little more rested (and now 77% more comfortable in a pair of flip flips), we headed out to the shops to browse. We found that while the liquor prices were better than in the US, it’d be pretty hard to not find better prices on nearly any Caribbean island, especially the eastern ones, and especially if you’re shopping outside of the recommended shops (which pay for their inclusion in the shopping guides and are not actually selected based on being the best stores ashore, contrary to what the shopping guides want you to think). Still, if you’re caught on a shore excursion (or in a bout of indecision) and come back to the ship empty handed, you’ll find some decent deals.
Before the Welcome Aboard show, we headed up to the Lido deck for some coffee and noticed that they had out a selection of cheeses, some raisin bread thins and plenty of fresh fruit. Perfect makings for a cheese platter! We came back a few times over the course of the cruise to grab some cheese to enjoy with wine or at shows. We took our plate to go and brought it down to the Ivanhoe to munch on during show time.
They were running a bit behind with Bingo, but the Assistant Cruise Director was running it and she had an incredibly dry sense of humor that I could appreciate, and it made the time pass by quickly.
I’ve complained a lot in the past about the Welcome Aboard show. It’s outdated and tired and it hadn’t been all that entertaining in awhile, but man, after our last cruise on the Breeze and those awful animatronic screens, the live band cut in favor of prerecorded tracks and the dance troupe minimized to a small handful of singers who could also dance, I welcomed this show back with open arms and tapping feet. I didn’t care that some of the dancing was off or the fact that these songs are all over 10 years old. I didn’t care. It wasn’t really the show I missed. It was the live band, the two singers who could really sing and the full thirteen-member dance troop behind them.
We usually skip out when the Cruise Director appears because a comic usually comes on and we aren’t really into the comedy shows, so we skipped out per usual this time and I guess there was no comedian – the Cruise Director did his own show. And from what we saw later on on the shipboard TV, he was actually funny! So while everyone else was enjoying that, we went wandering around the ship before heading back to the room.
Castle was on TV and at some point, I fell asleep watching it (a habit I carried onto vacation from home – frequent unintentional naps). When I woke up, Mom had ordered room service (which, apparently took less than ten minutes to get to our room) and we snacked while trying to decide if we wanted to hit the midnight showing of The Fast and the Furious 6.
Roasted New York Strip Loin and Cheddar Cheese on French Bread
Assorted Vegetable Sticks with Blue Cheese Dip
Peanut Butter and Jelly
Since none of us have seen The Fast and the Furious 1-5, we opted out of watching #6, choosing instead to watch The Proposal in our room (because who can get enough Ryan Reynolds?). Stephanie went to put our tray out in the hallway and found a, um, soiled towel in the hall. One, gross. Two, keep that stuff in your rooms. K, thanks, goodnight.
I fell asleep somewhere in between Betty White doing a tribal chant while dancing around a fire and Ryan Reynolds’ character deciding he really did love Sandra Bullock’s character (sorry, predictably clichéd ending spoiler alert). Two days down, four ports and a sea day to go.
Today’s Lido Lunch Menu
Today’s Lido Dinner Menu
