The alarm went off at 8, but we didn’t make it out of bed til 9. I was feeling pretty terrible. At least some delicious gruel helped, and the novovirus scare had finally cleared, so we could serve ourselves.
While Matt showered, I went to the infirmary to tell them about my symptoms. Guess what? Seasickness. They pointed out the basket of Dramamine sitting in the office, and told me to stop by anytime and grab some. I instantly felt better, just knowing I wasn’t going to die.
We got off the ship in St George’s, Grenada. It was raining a little, but quickly clearing. To get into town, you have to go through their giant cruise terminal. It was really nice, though, and crowded with people trying to hop on the wifi network.
We left the terminal, found a Scotiabank ATM, and set off up the hill toward Fort St George, because I’d read that the view was amazing. There’s still plenty of evidence of the effects of Hurricane Ivan, too, which was disastrous in Grenada.
We reached the top of the hill and bought our $2 tickets for the fort. The sun was already coming out, and the view thing is no joke:
We wandered around the fort, which was an awesome mix of picturesque and run-down. The police use it as a training facility.
One of the Brits there told us that the markings on the cannons were King George’s seal.
We left the fort, and headed back down the hill to the Carenage. It’s on the other side of the giant hill from the cruise port. St George’s is a busy, very pretty town.
The Carenage was full of fish boats and the infamous Rhum Runner, and it was packed with tourists, as expected.
We picked up a couple spice necklaces to bring home. I love them.
We then stopped at a little grocery store in search of local beverages, snacks, and spices (Grenada being the spice island, of course). We also wanted local change, as it makes an awesome souvenir. Our bag of mauby, pop, and snacks cost about $15US, and the cashier was amused that we wanted Grenadan change. He also reassured us that it was safe to drink outside in Grenada. You never know!
We headed back toward the ship to drop our purchases off and change into bathing suits, stopping at a little craft/souvenir store along the way. We picked up a bunch of things and continued to the spice market, which was amazing. We just stopped at the first booth, but it was perfect… we ended up with bags of spices, and when we overpaid the seller by just a little bit, he handed us another handful of nutmegs as change. I loved it.
We also stopped to visit Yvonne in the cruise terminal, because we’d promised to (she also sold spices), and then spent quite a bit of time in the souvenir shop in the terminal itself. Grenada is good at selling us stuff, and all of it was awesome.
We changed into our beach gear on the ship, and walked back out to the water taxi. It cost $16 roundtrip for two people going to Grand Anse beach.
Grand Anse is regularly called the most perfect beach in the Caribbean, and it’d be hard to disagree with that.
We got a couple of beach chairs with an umbrella at Lazy Days, and the server brought us rum punch. This time, Matt finished his before going in the ocean!
We swam for over an hour. There was a deep dropoff, so you didn’t touch the bottom within 30 or so feet of the beach. That made for some awesome surf, too.
We dried off, sat around on the beach for a bit longer, and then went to find food. I headed straight for the roti stand:
I had a vegetable and salad (!) roti, and Matt had chicken and chips. We sat around giggling at the rooster strutting around the yard. After lunch, we stopped at a little shop on the beach so Matt could pick up a Carib beer shirt, and then we hopped on the water taxi back to the cruise port. On the way, we eavesdropped on one of our fellow passengers hitting on a dancer from the Queen Mary 2. I also noticed the pile of Carib bottles underneath the pilot’s steering wheel.
Back on the ship, we noticed that the Ocean Village boat next to ours was preparing to leave. The passengers were assembling on the top deck, and they were all holding little British flags. I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get flags (preferable Puerto Rican ones). They started blasting music, and we witnessed the Brits singing and dancing along to songs like ‘YMCA’ and ‘We Will Rock You’. We decided to go up to the top deck to watch, because it was hilarious.
We got a couple of the daily specials – the $5 rum runner – and stood at the railing watching the Ocean Village ship. They had two staff people shouting in megaphones to get the crowd going (both of them wearing British flags), and they tried to organize a yelling contest between the two ships. Lacking a large crowd and our own organizers, we lost by a lot. The Brits seemed to think it was as amusing to make fun of the Americans as we did them. It was awesome. Our ship headed out first, so we waved goodbye to them and headed out to sea.
We returned to the cabin to shower and hang out for a while, then went to the martini bar to try the martini flight, more for novelty purposes than actual quality. It was cute! After that, we got a couple of real martinis and headed to the main restaurant for the first time since we’d been on the ship.
We found our table of eight, and realized there was only one open seat. The very loud group there had obviously made a friend, so we went to ask the maitre-d’ about it. They sat us at another four-person table nearby, telling us another couple had the other seats. But they didn’t show up, so: score.
The main restaurant service was sub-par, to our surprise. It was extremely slow, and I didn’t get the fruit cup I’d ordered. I did get a giant caprese salad and Israeli couscous that was very good, though. Matt asked our waiter, Vasilika, for help choosing between two entrees, so Vasilika just brought both of them. We had panna cotta for dessert, and also got espresso. While the food was good, the time it took for dinner wasn’t really worth it. Especially since, if we wanted fancy food, we could get it via room service for free. The buffet was usually just fine for us, though!
After dinner, we wandered down to Michael’s Club, the fancy cigar and cognac bar. Matt just wanted to pick up matches for his cigar, which we then took up to the pool bar on the 11th deck. They were having an “island party” up there, with a really entertaining band and people dancing. We got cuba libres from the hot Irish bartender, and learned about the wonders of Bacardi 8. And since I’m all class, I took my Dramamine with rum.
We witnessed the ship’s longest conga line (or so they said) from above; why are old people doing the conga so hilarious? We also met a couple from Philly drinking out of coconuts, which obviously we had to partake in. But since I was smart, I also made sure we got a gigantic bottle of water to carry around. Ha!
We headed down to the pool deck to dance. By then, they’d played ‘Hot Hot Hot’ at least three times. Once the island band switched to DJ Ron Hollywood, I told Matt we’d hear the Cupid Shuffle within two songs. And we did, so of course we danced to it. Afterwards, I got my own drink in a coconut. I had to.
Then it was time for bed! We had more islands to visit, after all.