B00STED4V

This past Friday (12/4) I got back into town from a 10 day cruise to the Caribbean. I've been on here for a few years now and most of you know or are aware that just about every year at around this time I take a cruise as a part of my Christmas bonus from my job. This year was no different, except for the fact that I will be able to write this entire trip off on my taxes since I have become a travel site owner and can claim this trip as a business trip.

Well anyway I took somewhere around 700+ pics and a few vids this time, but unfortunately the vids I took look like crap but the pics look great I think. So if you'll bare with me i'd like to show you all where I went and also tell you a little bit about the areas as well.


Below is a breakdown of each of the days and where we visited.

A map of where we sailed



Day 1 - Port Everglades, FL. Setting sail for the Caribbean

Day 2 - Eleuthera Island, Bahamas. aka Princess Cays, a private island owned by the Cruise company Princess Cruises.

Day 3 - At Sea

Day 4 - St. Thomas. I got my fiance a beautiful ring from here.

Day 5 - St. Kitts.

Day 6 - St. Lucia.

Day 7 - Barbados. Very "poor" looking island

Day 8 - Antigua. I got alcohol poisoning here.

Day 9 - At Sea

Day 10 - At Sea

Day 11 (not counted) - Port Everglades FL. this day doesn't count since you wake up and then leave the ship to go home.






Eleuthera Island, Bahamas.

Eleuthera Island or Princess Cays, is small island in the Bahamas only 1 mile wide and just over 110 miles long according to the crew staff. Although the cruise ship only makes port on a small private beach with various tours that go over the island.


That is our ship in the background, the Ruby Princess.




This is the color of the water there, and this was taken about 150 feet or so from the shore and about 30'-50' deep.







St. Thomas, USVI.

St. Thomas is a US Territory and the primary language is English with a little island twang from the locals. Even though it is a US Territory they drive on the "wrong side" of the road. We normally make port in Charlotte Amalie when we go here, but this time we came into a port a few miles away.


When we got off our ship one of the first things we saw was hundreds of Iguans lying on the rocks of the port. It was pretty neat to see actually.





That is our ship in the background, and the island in the far distance is Puerto Rico.





Charlotte Amalie as seen from atop Paradise Point, you take the "St Thomas Skyride" to get there.





They have some excellent drinks at Paradise Point, one of which is a frozen Mango Margarita.








St. Kitts. BVI (British Virgin Islands)

St. Kitts is part of a two-island British owned federation, one island is St. Kitts, the other is Nevis it's sister island (pron: Neevis)



This was taken at a plantation on St. Kitts. The Island in the distance is Nevis





Same view, different angle





The Plantation, I can't remember the exact name right now. This place was HOT. They don't have Airconditioning as it is against one of their old island laws that requires them to keep these places similar to how they were in the old settlement days.





A Green Monkey on the Plantation grounds





Some pretty flowers, the red one is a Turbin Lilly. We have them outside of my office.







A St. Kitts spec Subaru lol!





Here is a picture of the Atlantic Ocean on the left and the Caribbean Sea on the right, the land in the middle is only a few hundred yards wide.





The Atlantic, they are building seaside/cliffside condos at the bottom of the picture.





A random view from the town, that alley is only 8' wide.








St. Lucia. Indp.

St. Lucia is independent of England but still is protected by them from what I understand. They speak English and French as well as a type of Creole.


Some random views from atop random stops while on a coast to coast tour of the island.









A Steel drum player in St. Lucia, I didn't know until this trip that they actually have keys or notes on these drums just like any other musical instument... I guess it never crossed my mind.





A man hand painting a piece of fabric, they draw the design on freehand then go over it with a special paint. It then goes through several other processes which I don't remember right now.





Oak barrells filled with Rum, the barrells are actually built especially for this company by Jack Daniels. We took a tour of the Rum Distillery but we were not allowed to take pictures of inside they distillery except in a few places, the ones I took didn't turn out so well.





A Rum Buffet. Yes, a rum buffet. At the completion of the distillery tour you are brought outside to a 20' long U shaped bar with every type of rum this company makes on it, all for you to sample as much as you like as many times as you like. Then you can walk around the corner to their rum shop to purchase the rum you just sampled if you wish. I bought a Peanut Butter and Rum Liquor that tastes like a liquid Reeses cup.








Barbados. Indp.

Barbados is an independent nation similar to St. Lucia, govern under the protection of Great Brittan. They speak English and their own language "Bajan". It's a fairly small Island, less than 200 sq miles in size.



A Coconut vendor and a small open air market.







Their brand new Cricket stadium, Cricket is a HUGE sport in the Caribbean particulary in the British controlled/governed islands.





A nice view from atop a mountain in Barbados.





Just a neat looking door and color contrast photo. The doors color almost matches the color of their water perfectly.







Antigua. Indp.

Antigua and Barbuda are two independent islands of UK. Their primary language is English, and is very small in size only about 100 sq miles. This is possibly the "richest" island of all we visited next to St. Thomas. This was possibly my favorite stop on the whole trip.

The pictures below were taken with a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W190 I picked up in St. Thomas for $130 with a memory card and carry case. I think I may like this camera better than my Canon 30D.


This is the currency used primarily in the Eastern Caribbean. $1 USD = $2 EC.







An outdoor shopping plaza.





A pub that we stopped at, this is litterally right on the water. My back is turned to the water and their marina. The pub also gave away 1 free drink of Rum Punch (rum+fruit punch) to every member of our tour group as a part of the tour... just about every tour we were on durring the trip did this. You had a choice of rum punch, water, fruit punch, soda or beer.





The Marina. The boat ramp in the first picture was neat since it was paved all the way into the water, and you could see about 10+ jelly fish floating around in it.







An old english phone booth around the side of the pub.





Admiral Nelsons Dockyard, this is the Dockyard and Marina you see in teh first few pictures... only a better view of it. I believe it was called Shelia or Shelea Heights... it's the Highest point on the island.





To the Left of where I took the above picture. The Atlantic.





I have these pictures labeled as St Lucia, but they are actually from Antigua.

A old barrack building from one of Admiral Nelsons brigade.





This is about 50 yds behind from where the above picture was taken. That is the Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea. The brown building/compound on the far right of the tip is one of Eric Claptons houses according to the tour director and several people in the tour.





This is about 30 yds behind and to the left of the Barrack building. Those soldiers had one heck of a view.





I'll be putting these pictures together as a panoramic once I figure out how to.











You might remember me saying something about me buying liquor while on my trip. Here it is, 8 bottles of Absinthe and 3 bottles of Peanut Butter Rum Liquor.





That is all the pictures I have of the Islands, i'll be making another post in a few minutes of pictures of the interior of the ship and the Galley which I was able to go on a tour of.

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B00STED4V

The Atrium of the ship, decks 5 -7. They players at the bottom were there every night for hours. The guy on the Violin was badass.






Pics of the Galley, it was amazing. It was spotless and smelled SO good in there.





















A pic of me with the Executive Chef and the Matre D. I bought 2 copies of their cookbook (which is amazing btw) 1 for me and 1 for my brother. They signed both copies, sososo cool.





Here is some Pheasant and carmalized Shallots I had one night, it melted in my mouth it was so tender.





These were made out of bread and various other foods, crazy good work.

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Flash!

PS: That monkey is totally NOT green!

PPS: Party at your house this weekend?

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Sk1n

That looks like a fun time bro. How much did one of those bottles of Absinthe run you for?

S&B

well i have been downloading this thread sice last night so now i will post. J/k

any who we are leaving for st. maartin after christmas we are pumped. I had a good time in st. lucia last year, at the end of the day all these places in the carribian are the same it just depends how good the food is and if you feel safe.

you pix are sweet, but there is a goofy looking guy in some, i would edit him out when you get a chance

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HI Guys

B00STED4V

Yeah I think the tour guide must've had to much rum and sun 'cause that monkey is clearly brown. Party fo so!

It was a blast man but 10 days was almost to long being away.

The dark green absinthe was $50 usd a bottle and the light green was $15 usd a bottle. The only difference is the light green is a smaller size, different brand and is 8% more alcohol at 72% alcohol. roughly 140ish proof I think. The dark green is 136 proof.

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B00STED4V

Yeah I don't know who that guy is


St. Maartin is badass too, you should pick up some absinth for yourself while you're there. All the places did start to look the same after a while, but I was drunk about 70% of the time so I didn't care really lol.

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S&B

whats absinth? and can i use it as a date rape drug?

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HI Guys

B00STED4V

Absinth is possibly the best alcohol ever to be invented, it tastes like peppermint and is strong as hell... I suppose if you drink enough of it it could be used as a date rape drug, or it would end up killing the person lol. I joke btw

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S&B

the girl in your avatar is very distracting btw

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HI Guys

B00STED4V

What'd you say?

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Sk1n

I want to fuck the Jesus out of that girl.

n8rsk8r

wow man. I didn't read much of it till the end.. joo one skinny brch! I am envious of you man.. way to go, btw how is that absithe?

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Cali Korleone

I didn't know you're Mexican!

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FreeBird

@ teh booz and pics.


dat sexay mexy with teh chefs mmmmmMMMM good

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YoungGun

wait you bastard you left from down here (10 min from my house) and didn't stop and say hello

Chad

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99 Pontiac Transam
6.0/4l80E
strange 9" 4.11 gears, full susp

S&B

the chef with his hat on looks high in the pic

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HI Guys

timeless2

Looks fun, Jess. Hope you had a good time.

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Rowbarre

I'm jealous.... Looks like a pretty sweet trip!

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FreeBird

Hey can i get a pic of that shirt so i can have a guy make me one just like it? i just LOVE marilyn monroe!!!!

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Sk1n

:|

B00STED4V

LOL, yeah i'm kinda skinny. The Absinthe is amazing i'm actually having some right now and I took pictures of me preparing it so i'll post those tomorrow. I got a nice pic of the sugar cube process (i'll explain that later) I've only had about half of a highball glass mixed with half water and half absinthe and i'm buzzing hardcore right now.

I'm 3/4 Italian and 1/8 Russian and 1/8 Polish, but with my goatee and stash I look a little hispanic... a little. The shirt doesn't make me mexi lol


Yeah I thought about giving you a call but I didn't know what you were doing an such, I texted you some pics of us on the boat at port Everglades though! The draw bridge went up for this tiny ass sail boat, it was funny.

Oh yeah it was a blast, aside from me getting a little sick towards the end I had a great time. 10 days is a little long though, I may stick to 7 days from now on unless I have my friends and better half with me.

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B00STED4V

Some crazy girl at a bucs event we went to saw me wearing thhis shirt and was drooling over it and asked to take a pic of it so she could bring the pic somewhere to have someone make a copy of that shirt. It was very weird

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FreeBird

at the Buccaneers fan fest he wore dat shirt and some fat chick gawked over it like 3 times, then had her wierd boyfriend approach and ask if he could take a picture while said fat chick gushed about how HUGE of a fan (come to think of it im not sure that wasn't a self pun on herself) she was of Marylin Monroe's and how she wanted someone to take the picture and have a shirt made that looked just like it...

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FreeBird

i got scooped

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