March 20, 2016 - My extreme caution paid off and I was bright eyed at 6am this morning! All the better to feast on caviar and mimosas, my dear! Not to say I'm spoiled or anything, but caviar just sets the tone for the entire day! You just know it's going to be a good day!
Downstairs and ready for our "Discover Barbados" tour by the appointed hour and we've exchanged our Destination Service Excursion Tickets for our bus number. Today it's number 15. Makes me a bit nervous thinking that there are 15 buses or maybe more in this group.
Actually, there was a Interport Shuttle from the ship to the terminal, which was lovely; it was about a mile hike otherwise. The took us through the pier and it was a delightful surprise, filled with shopping opportunities - Diamonds International, Best of Barbados, Cariloha (all bamboo clothing, bedding and sheets), Columbian Emeralds, A Duty Free Shop, Del Sol, The Best of Barbados Gift Shop and more! Well at 9:00 a.m. you march past them all and head for your bus. We all piled on, got comfortable (actually, they were beautiful new buses) and headed out to discover Barbados.
Although not the tour I would have normally signed up for, I really enjoyed seeing so much of the island. We drove through a beautiful area of Barbados with all of the magnificent hotels, (even saw one that we offer... Tamarind) on our drive up to Highlands Adventure Center for a rum punch. Now there's only one thing better than caviar and champagne for breakfast and it's having rum punch at 10:00 a.m.! The view was spectacular and that's what the majority of our tour was all about, driving around the island and catching the view of the ocean from the south and the west coast. The rugged east coast is particularly good for surfing, and attracts world class surfers for world championships in November. While the south side is where the incredible beaches and crystal clear water is found. A stunning island! We stopped occasionally for "photo opportunities" which we'll share and made our way to St. John's Parish Church. Originally built in 1645 for 110,000 pounds of sugar. It was badly damaged by a hurricane in 1675, rebuild and again damaged in 1780, rebuilt once more before it was absolutely destroyed in 1831. The present church was completed in 1836. The beautiful Gothic design was greatly influenced by its first Anglican Bishop, William Hart Coleridge. From there we made our way back to the ship and the shopping.
I loved the colorful houses we saw all over the island, very imaginative color combinations. They are built to be moved if they find more land, and in some cases built from the top floor down where eventually a bottom floor can be added when the money is available.
Being Palm Sunday, downtown Bridgetown was pretty well closed, with only select shops here and there open, but the shops at the pier were ready and waiting for us!
I was on a hunt to replace a watch band, which I found in Colombian Emeralds, LTD. We checked out Cariloha but found the sizes ran small, but we hit pay dirt at Del Sol with all sorts of fun stuff and promotions... Fingernail polish that changes colors, fun t-shirts and even hair clips! Happy Grandchildren! We found a sundries store as well and I found Cadbury FLAKES! Wow! Talk about Happy!
We're about to slip our lines and head toward St. John's, Antigua. Catch up with you tomorrow!
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