The Palm Trees are Really Cool: Onboard the Carnival Valor’s Southern Route (Part Seven)featured
Admittedly, I didn’t know much about Barbados before we booked this trip.
I knew Rihanna was from Barbados. I knew it was exotic sounding. I knew the waters were extraordinarily blue. But I didn’t know much about Barbados. So I didn’t know what to expect for our day there. There aren’t many reviews about the port because not many ships stop there.
Our excursion didn’t leave until noon, so we slept in a bit. We had a catamaran excursion booked, so I anxiously threw back the curtains when I woke up to make sure it wasn’t, like, pouring rain. You know. #caribbeanprobz. Luckily for us, there was nothing but blue skies and fluffy white clouds. And, you know, a very industrial looking pier. But more on that later.
We headed up to Lido for breakfast and, well, it was a scene. I’ve tried to be polite about it, but by this part of the trip, it was out of control – the Lido Marketplace on the Valor just wasn’t big enough to accommodate everyone on the ship. I’ve never encountered a problem like this on any of Carnival’s ships. Lines were almost double what they normally are (ever waited in line 20+ minutes to get some bacon?), tables were hard to come by and the crowd we were cruising with was almost aggressive when it came to getting food. We’re not talking like a couple bad seeds or a “that” family. We’re talking people cutting, grabbing things with their hands, yelling at others and most of the breakfasts and lunches we had up there.
By this third morning, I’d had enough. As I was grabbing some melon (which, if you’ve sailed on Carnival’s ships before and eaten breakfast on the Lido deck, you’ll know is towards the front of the line), a young woman shoved in front of me. “I just need a few things.” Well, “I just need one thing” or “I just want to grab something over here” was being thrown around all over the place and was code for “I just don’t want to wait in line because my time is more valuable than yours and I don’t think I should have to wait” in every single instance I saw it used on this cruise. “I just need one thing” really meant “I need one thing in front of you. And then I’m going to stay here because I need another one thing a few steps up and, you know, another one thing towards the end of the line. But since it’s one thing, I shouldn’t have to wait in this really long line like you did because, you know, it’s just ‘one thing.’”
I told her everyone else was waiting in line for the same and she decided to stare at me as if she didn’t understand English anymore. Between that and the woman who put her plate down at a table Stephanie was about to sit down at to claim it…we couldn’t deny a crowding issue (or a crowd issue, but I think the crowd would have been less of an issue if there were more options open for dining as there are on newer ships).
After a few bites of breakfast (and a few deep breaths), we headed off the ship to do some shopping. The idea here was that we’d have time to bring back any purchases to the ship before our excursion, so we wouldn’t have to carry anything around.
The port area in Barbados is incredibly industrial – it’s not an area that can handle more than a cruise ship or two at a time. More so, it’s not a port built to support tourism, but rather to support their largest industry: agricultural exports. As such, there isn’t a city waiting outside the port to wander around, or quaint streets lined with small shops. All of the shopping in the immediate area is in the terminal, and there’s nothing to venture to on foot outside the area.
We found a few shops offering handcrafted goods and made a few purchases before heading back to the ship to drop them off and pick up our beach gear. Careful to not forget your sunscreen in Barbados, though, because one, there’s a lot of direct sunlight and two, they’ll charge you up the ass if you try to buy it in the terminal.
Our 12:00 pm excursion met at 11:30 am at the end of the terminal. Since it’s not a short walk, we left around 11:00 am, and we were the first ones there. No worries, though – we discovered free wi-fi at the excursion drop!
We chose the Tiami Sail, Turtles and Beach excursion (there are two, I believe – we chose the shorter one) because we were itching for a catamaran excursion (we hadn’t done one since…2006, I think!) and it seemed like a relaxing way to spend the day. We were given boarding passes at the excursion drop and were boarded into a small bus for a short five-minute ride to the dock.
We walked through a small gift shop to get to the catamaran – the Spirit of Barbados. Mom wanted to sit inside in the shade and Stephanie and I opted for the nets.
The tour was rather small (there couldn’t have been more than 20 or 30 people onboard with us) and the crew was so, so fantastic. I really cannot recommend this tour enough. We sailed out to an area where turtles are known to swim and the crew handed out vests and helped everyone put them on before helping everyone who wanted to swim into and out of the water. Mom was out for snorkeling, Stephanie was in, and I…was undecided. It’s not that I don’t like to swim (I love to swim) or that I’m not good at it (I’m a level six swimmer), or even that water scares me (I love water), it’s that swimming with sea animals kind of freaks me out. I’m not an animal person. I don’t have pets. I don’t want a pet. I don’t like it when other people’s pets come up to me. I’m not an animal person. And I don’t like fish. I don’t eat ‘em and I don’t wanna look at ‘em. When I was little, I had a strawberry tetra. I named her Strawberry and she lived in Stephanie’s room because I couldn’t handle having fish in my room.
But, man. I was in Barbados. How often do you get to go to Barbados? And swim in water so pure and blue that you can’t even describe the hue? I made a resolution to stop holding myself back from doing things that made me uncomfortable, so I strapped myself up and climbed down the ladder.
I didn’t last long…five minutes, maybe. But it was a big step for me. And with that big step…I took a big step back onto the catamaran once one of the crew members announced there was a turtle. Getting into the water (without a float beneath me for Stephanie to pull me around on) was one thing. I wasn’t quite ready to come face to face with anything just yet. Stephanie was, though. She bought an underwater camera at the CVS in San Juan for this excursion (pro tip: buy it onboard – believe it or not, it’s cheaper) and swam right over to the turtles.
So in summary: I went in the water, I got out of the water before any sea animals could touch me, Stephanie stayed in the water and swam with turtles and I sat on the catamaran and took selfies. Oh, and Mom sat in the shade drinking Diet Coke.
Once everyone was back onboard the Spirit of Barbados, we sailed up a bit towards a beach. There was a short swim to the shore and I could see schools of fish from the catamaran, so I decided to stay onboard and sunbathe in the nets. Stephanie followed suit and Mom wasn’t going to get off the boat anyways. They opened up the bar with a selection of soft drinks, local beer or rum punch. The crew even carried drinks out to the beach for anyone who wanted a beer or a glass of water.
I made a joke that a lavish, sprawling mansion we saw on the beach was Rihanna’s house, but Stephanie looked it up when we got home, and it turns out, it was Ri’s pad! Girlfriend knows how to pick her property!
I was mesmerized by the way the sun reflected up off the water – like hundreds of the smallest, most brilliant diamonds shining brightly on the blue velvet of the sea.
After an hour anchored at the beach, the crew blew into a conch shell to call everyone back. The ride back was fast and choppy, and if you sit in the front like Stephanie and I did, you will get absolutely soaked. I found it refreshing, though – my skin was scorching. An initial coat of SPF 50 and subsequent layers of SPF 70 didn’t feel enough, and the cold salt water splashing up soothed my warmed skin.
We were getting dangerously close to back onboard time and I was hoping the catamaran would bring us directly back to the ship. Alas, we docked back at the pier we embarked from, bid a fond farewell to our new friends aboard the Spirit of Barbados and rushed back onto the charter bus back to the pier.
Back onboard was 4:30 pm and we got back to the terminal promptly at…4:25 pm. We made a mad dash back onto the ship and quickly made our way through security. We hadn’t eaten since breakfast and lunch was far past over. We didn’t want to wait for room service, so we headed up to the Lido deck hoping the burrito bar was still open. And, of course, there were ridiculous lines everywhere. Only the burrito bar, the deli, the pizzeria and the grill were open, and the burrito bar had the shortest long line, but it was also closing not long after I got in line, so I crossed my fingers. The line took even longer because everyone was ordering two or three burritos each (I’m not even hyperbolizing here – the person in front of me ordered *five* burritos!). At this point, my skin was on fire and a quick glance in a mirrored accent on the wall confirmed that I was well on my way to an awful sunburn, despite all those layers of SPF. Take it from me, friends. SPF 90 or higher if you’re in or on the water in Barbados. And that burrito? Worth the wait. Absolutely delicious.
Meanwhile, Stephanie and Mom opted for pizza.
We headed back to the room after our lunch and I jumped into the shower and slathered on all of the lotion and aloe I had with me. And then I promptly fell asleep. On the balcony. It was a long day.
At some point, I moved it inside to my bed and Mom let me sleep until 7:30, when I had to wake up to get ready for our late dinner reservation at the Supper Club.
Dinner began with amuse bouche compliments of the chef (a zesty, cold tomato soup for me and some sort of salmon dish for Mom and Stephanie) and a selection of breads: brioche, focaccia or some sliced bread, served with butter, eggplant tapenade or red pepper tapenade.
Cold Tomato Soup Amuse Bouche
Salmon Amuse Bouche
Brioche Roll + Spreads
I have to be honest – I don’t remember much about this meal. Not because time has passed. I was a zombie during this meal. I was so tired from the sun and heat and the motion and the rum. Oh, the rum. I remember the meal and especially the service were excellent. I remember that I couldn’t get through half of my steak and I almost passed out face first into my sorbet. And I remember that the wasabi mashed potatoes were, as they always are, amongst the tastiest morsels to tantalize my taste buds this trip. But I don’t know how I made it through this meal, in all honesty. I was absolutely exhausted!
New England Crab Cake
Baked Onion Soup
Cheese Plate (off the dessert menu, but they’ll make you a plate as an appetizer if you ask)
Sliced, Sun-Ripened Beef Steak Tomato
Heart of Iceberg Lettuce
Baby Leaf Spinach and Fresh Mushrooms
Broiled Filet Mignon
Broiled Rosemary Infused Chicken
Surf & Turf
Yukon Gold Mash with Wasabe Horseradish and Creamed Spinach with Garlic
Baked Potato with Trimmings
Peaches and Cream Sorbet
Cheesecake with Hazelnut Biscuit
Guava Cream Cheese Sorbet
The towel animals were on parade again, as we were going down to the Lido deck for a bottle of ketchup.
Why the ketchup, you might ask? Okay, don’t judge me. Someone once told me that tomatoes help sunburn and I’d read myself that vinegar helps take the sting out of sunburns. And, well, ketchup is kind of tomatoes and vinegar. So we grabbed a bottle and headed back to the room.
It didn’t work. I’ll spare you the details. It felt nice and cool going on, but once I got out of the shower, my skin was still an angry, violent red.
We settled in with Outbreak on the television, deciding to skip the Mexican fiesta (and buffet) upstairs in favor of rest and sleep. We were en route to St. Lucia and an early wake up call, so we called it a day.
Today’s Lido Dinner Menu
