Day 9: Friday, March 9 ~ St. Lucia

(Eddy’s pronunciation: sta – LUKE – ee – ah )

This was our second time visiting St. Lucia together, and my third time
here.  When we were here in 2015, we did a zip lining tour at the Treetop Adventure Park.  We had a great time there and briefly considered just booking the same tour again, but I wanted DH to see some more of the island.  My first time here, I took an island tour with Cosol, and I loved seeing the famous Pitons.  I really wanted DH to see the Pitons and visit Sugar Beach, so I researched our options.  The thing I didn’t like about Cosol’s tour was that we spent a lot of our day sitting in the tour van and driving around the island, so I wasn’t interested in booking that same tour again.  Spencer Ambrose gets wonderful reviews both on Trip Advisor and on Cruise Critic.  He offers a land and sea combo tour which takes a speed boat to and from the town of Soufriere, thus cutting out much of the driving portion of the day.  His website offers a detailed description of the tour, and we could book a reservation online by paying a $10 per person deposit, with the remainder of the cost due in cash on the day of the tour.

Today’s daily schedule

Today was another early morning for us, starting with room service delivering our breakfast at 7am.  We were happy to see that they delivered the smoked salmon today!

As we were eating, the Eclipse made a 180 degree turn before docking, so we had wonderful views around the port area.

We finished eating and headed downstairs as soon as the ship was cleared at 8am.  Our instructions told us to find our group in the port shopping area, and it couldn’t have been easier to spot the lady holding a big sign with the Spencer Ambrose logo as soon as we stepped into the terminal.  She checked our name off on her list, gave us each a wrist band, and collected the rest of our money to pay for the tour ($96 USD per person).  We waited a few minutes for the rest of the group to arrive, then we walked a short distance across the parking lot to a dock where we loaded into 2 speed boats.  I thought it was a little strange that each boat had half people for the tour we were taking (the Land and Sea Combo) and half people for the Beach Break Tour.  Perhaps there wasn’t enough people on the beach tour to fill a full boat?  The boats were fairly new with ample seating around the perimeter, but not very much shade.

All ready to go!

By 8:45am, we were on our way, and spent about 30 minutes speeding around to the other side of the island.  The guides explained that we would make several stops along the coast on our way back at the end of the day, but for now, we just needed to get to Soufriere ASAP to beat the other tour buses.

First sight of the famous Pitons!  They were just as majestic as I remembered them!

I thought we were the only cruise ship in St. Lucia today, but it turns out that we had company.  There was a Silverseas ship anchored on this side of the island.  

I was a little surprised when we took a detour to look at the bat cave.  I expected that to be part of the tour later this afternoon, but maybe we don’t pass it then?  Anyway, the bat cave is a crack in the cliffs where hundreds of bats are hiding.  The boat got pretty close to the cave and we could hear the bats, but it was hard to see inside.  I tried using the zoom on my camera but I don’t think I can see any bats. Don’t worry though, they are in there and don’t seem to have much interest in flying out to see us!

We only stayed here for about 5 minutes- long enough to take a few photos and for the guides to tell us about the bats.  Next, we continued to the dock in Soufriere where we got off the boat and loaded into a 12-person van for the land portion of our tour.

We drove for about 10 minutes to our first stop: the mud baths and volcano tour. There wasn’t enough time to do both activities so we had to pick just one, and everyone in our van except one couple opted for the mud baths.  Here is a description of the baths from their website:

“The Soufriere Volcano (Sulphur Springs) last erupted in the 1700’s – over 200
years! It originated from a weak spot in the crust of a collapsed volcanic
crater, and is considered to be a dormant volcano – unlike the active Soufriere
Hills Volcano in the island of Montserrat. One of the best features of
the volcano is the ability to dive into the mud baths.  The mud baths at Sulphur Springs attract people from all over the world because it detoxifies the body and helps heal sun burns, eczema, arthritis, sore joints, and more.”  

These are the prices for the mud baths if you visit here on your own (it was included in the price of our tour):

The guides told us to leave all of our jewelry in the van because it would get
ruined if exposed to the sulfur.  I don’t usually wear any expensive jewelry off the ship in the Caribbean anyway, but I didn’t want to tarnish my costume jewelry so I discretely removed it and put it in a small pocket in my beach bag.  Realistically, I doubt the driver of our van would try to steal anyone’s jewelry.  It would be easy to know who took it since he was the only one left alone with our bags, and I doubt he would risk his job over petty theft.  Just keep this in mind to leave any of your expensive or sentimental pieces of jewelry on the ship if you are planning to visit the mud bath!

As soon as I stepped out of the van, I was confronted with a strong smell of
sulfur.  It honestly wasn’t that bad, and I got used to it after a few minutes, but the air definitely did smell like rotten eggs.  If you have a poor tolerance for bad odors, this might not be your favorite part of the tour.

Wearing just our bathing suits and flip flops, we walked down a flight of stone steps to a small area with 2 or 3 picnic tables. The guides told us to leave our towels and flip flops here, and to give them our cameras so they could take photos of us in the baths.  They told us to step down into the pool of hot water and to soak there for a few minutes to allow our pores to open up.  Be very careful here as the stones were slippery and the muddy water was too dark to see your footing as you climbed down the steps inside the pool.

The guides helped us to climb out the far end of the pool, and they directed us to the plastic tubs of mud.  There were 2 types of mud: a light grey color and a dark black color.  The guides told us to apply the light mud in thin layers all over our skin and to let it dry and harden.  The dark mud can stain your clothing, so they said not to use it, but if you did want to use it, you could apply it on top of the grey mud as a decoration.  It was a little weird that the tubs of mud hardly had anything in them.  As you can see, we didn’t have much mud to work with, but we got it on as best we could.

You can barely see it, but I promise, we did have some mud on us!

After the mud was dry, the guides told us to get back in the hot pool of water to wash it off.  There were some tiny rocks in the mud, so as we rubbed it off, it exfoliated our skin.  It was slippery, but it felt nice, and the warm water felt great.

In the background of this photo, you can see the picnic tables where we left our stuff.

I did bring my towel with me, but opted to just air dry when I got out of the
pool.  We had 2 more stops that involved getting in the water and I wanted to keep my towel dry for as long as possible.  Once we were all out of the baths, we walked back up the stairs to wait for our van to pick us up.  In all, we were at this top for 30 minutes and were finished by 10am.

At the top of the stairs, there is a small “Vending Village” if you want to shop for souvenirs.  I didn’t look closely so I don’t know how the prices were, but I can’t imagine it was any cheaper than you would find near the cruise port.

This was our van for the land portion of the tour. It had 4 rows of seat, with 3 people per row, and the air conditioning was cold and strong!

Our next stop was about a 10 minute drive away on the opposite side of Soufriere:  The Toraille Waterfall.  

This was one of our guides- she left the mud mask on from the baths so it would work a little better.  She must have wonderful skin if she applies a mud mask every day she visits there with a tour group!!

We spent about 20 minutes here, with just enough time to hop in the pool of water below the waterfall.  There were changing rooms available if you needed it, but we were all wearing our bathing suits already.  

Just a warning:  the water here is FREEZING cold!  I guess some might consider this refreshing, but I just thought it was freezing… especially after soaking in the hot water at the mud baths! Also, the entrance is very rocky, so I would recommend wearing aqua socks if you have them. The guides encouraged us to stand under the waterfall for a “power shower,” but that was too adventurous for me haha  

We only had about 20 minutes to spend here, but that was plenty of time because the water was too cold to want to stay much longer. On our way out, there were a few vendors set up on the street, offering samples of hot sauce, banana ketchup, and spiced rum (and of course they had bottles for sale if you liked what you tasted). They also sold a few souvenirs and crafts.

At 10:45, the guides rounded us up to get back in the van.  That was the end of the land portion of the tour, so we drove back down to the marina to wait for our boat to pick us up.  Given how steep and windy the roads are in St. Lucia, and how long it takes to drive from the cruise port to these popular tourist destinations in Soufriere, I much preferred the way Spencer Ambrose structures his tour over how Cosol did things back in 2012.  It was now only 11am and I felt like we had already done so much today.  We were the first tour groups to arrive at both the mud bath and the waterfall, so it wasn’t crowded, and it felt like a better use of our limited time in port.

We had a short wait when we got back to the dock because the person bringing our food for lunch had not yet arrived.  No worries though, we had a nice view of one of the Pitons in the background!

Notice the orange stain all over DH’s bathing suit? Unfortunately, the sulfur in the water at the mud baths stained everything that was light in color.  Not only did it ruin his bathing suit, but it stained the little white flowers on my bikini, the white band of my waterproof watch, and even the plastic band of DH’s snorkel goggles (and he didn’t even wear those in the mud bath!  It must have rubbed off from his hair when we went snorkeling nearly 2 hours later!!). When we got back on the cruise ship at the end of the day, we rinsed out the bathing suits, and then we ran them through the washing machine when we got home, but it’s official… the stains are permanent.  I honestly think the only bathing suit that would survive that mud bath is one that is solid black, and even that might show a slight orange tint!

When the food was delivered, the guides helped us climb back into the boat for the 5 minute ride around the bay to our next destination.  I think this beach used to be called Jealousie Beach, but it is now called Sugar Beach.  It is located between the two Pitons and has one of the only white sand beaches in St. Lucia.  As we approached the beach, we could see several beautiful white buildings dotting the side of the hill.  That was the Viceroy Sugar Beach Resort, a very fancy, high-end resort where rooms run for over $1000 per night.

Of course, we were not going to that part of the beach.  The guides explained that all beaches in St. Lucia are public, and we were free to walk along the water for the entire length of this beach.  However, the hotel owns the lounge chairs and thatched umbrellas on their side of the beach, and those are mostly reserved for hotel guests.  If we wanted to use their chairs on the beach towards the right side of the pier, it would cost $50 per person.  As pretty as they looked, that was more money than I wanted to spend for the 2 hours we would be here!  I took this photo while standing on the pier, looking to the right towards the hotel property:

This was as close as I got to those fancy schmancy lounge chairs…

As a consolation prize, the hotel allows non-hotel guests to use a small section of the beach to the left side of the pier. These lounge chairs were free to use, even if they weren’t as fancy as the ones near the hotel, and there were a few umbrellas, plus tons of natural shade from the trees overhead.  When we arrived, most of the public lounge chairs were occupied, but I spotted 2 vacant loungers up on the ledge in the back row which were perfect for us.  Being up on the ledge meant we had a great view, and being in the back row meant we had full shade to hide from the sun.  I circled our seats in yellow so you can see what I mean…

We arrived at the beach at 11:30am, and the guides said we would stay here until 2pm. Originally, I wanted to book the Beach Break tour to have more time to spend at this beach, but considering we had 2 and a half hours here, plus the experience of the other stops on the tour, I am glad we took this tour instead.  Most tours that I have taken with similar itineraries to this where you make a bunch of stops and then go to a beach to eat lunch, only give you an hour or so at the beach.  I was thrilled to have 2 and a half hours to spend here at this beautiful tropical beach! The guides said that it would take them about 15 minutes to set up the food for lunch, so I used that opportunity to walk along the beach and take some quick photos.  

Looking back towards the pier:

Promptly at 11:30am, lunch was served buffet style with a choice of jerk chicken (that was NOT spicy at all), fried rice, noodles with saffron sauce, green banana salad (that tasted like potato salad), green salad, and fried plantains.  The food was all delicious, even the things that I didn’t think I would like haha  

They also had a cooler fully stocked with bottles of water, soda, and beer, and we were free to help ourselves to as much as we wanted.  We ate lunch sitting on our lounge chairs, and the guides came around to collect our plates as we finished.  

Bellies full, it was time to go snorkeling!  The last time I visited this beach, I was a fairly inexperienced snorkeler.  The friend I was traveling with did not like snorkeling, so I went out by myself, and I was somewhat intimidated by the current and the noise of boats rushing by overhead.  Even though I stayed within the buoys, I still got nervous every time I heard a boat speed by, and it was hard to enjoy the experience.  Needless to say, after we booked this cruise and picked this excursion, I was very excited to get a re-do since many people have proclaimed this is their favorite snorkeling spot in the Caribbean!  

If you look back at the photo I posted with the lounge chairs on the pubic side of the beach, you can see that the entrance to the water is very rocky.  I would definitely recommend wearing something to protect your feet here!  I also opted to borrow a life vest from the guides to wrap around my waist to help me float.  The best snorkeling spot is along the far right side of the water (when standing on the beach, looking out at the water), and there is a series of ropes and buoys to make a safe section so swimmers do not get hit by the boats coming to/from the pier.  Unlike snorkeling tours when you jump in the water from a boat and there are usually guides available to keep an eye on all the swimmers, on this tour, the guides just hang out on the beach to assist with serving the food and drinks.  I did not get the feeling that they paid any attention to the swimmers out in the water, so definitely keep your own safety in mind as you are snorkeling!

Ok, let’s go snorkeling!!

My goal for snorkeling today was to take my time. I got in the water at exactly 12 noon, so I had a full 2 hours to spend out here, if I wanted to.  I had no reason to rush and I really wanted to take it all in and make sure to cover the whole snorkeling section.  Back in 2012, I was afraid to swim too far out, and I honestly had not read many reviews about snorkeling here so I didn’t know what I was looking for.  This time around would be different because I have spent the last 5+ years reading reviews and looking at photos of people snorkeling here, and I now know that the best snorkeling is out at the far end of the snorkeling area.  My strategy was to swim out all the way to where the ropes ended by staying out in the middle of the water, and then to swim back along the wall, staying closer to the rocks.  

Oh my, let me tell you, it was definitely worth it to swim all the way out to the end!!  I found these funky pink sponges that completely covered the wall of rocks and continued several feet down below the surface of the water.  It was so neat and something I have never seen before! Honestly, I think that is one of the things that gets me the most excited about snorkeling… the possibility of seeing something new that I’ve never seen before.  I experienced a lot of firsts when we visited French Polynesia (who ever thought I would get to swim with sharks and octopus?!), so I wasn’t sure if I would discover new things on this trip to the Caribbean.  So far, I’ve been doing pretty well, between getting to hold a conch shell for the first time yesterday, and seeing this crazy pink wall today!

I did my best to capture this in a photo, but it was reallllly challenging.  The sun kept sneaking behind the clouds, which meant the colors weren’t as bright as they could have been.  On top of that, the current was very strong and it was such a windy day that it was hard to hold still to capture a decent photo.  I honestly don’t think these photos do it any justice, but I tried…

I think this photo probably shows it best… some of the little round pink balls opened up to reveal bright yellow tentacles popping out!  I was so mesmerized by this that I could have stayed out here all afternoon… that is, if I wasn’t constantly being pushed toward the rocks from the current!

As I started to swim back along the rock wall, I found a little alcove that had a bunch of bigger fish hiding in there.

As you can see, the snorkeling here was pretty sparse. Yes, I did see some interesting fish, a little bit of interesting coral, and of course, that amazing wall of pink and yellow spongey thingies, but it was all very spread out.  I’m not sure if there just weren’t as many fish here today because of the winds and the choppy water, or if it is normally like this, but you really did have to search to find something worth photographing. Other than that, it was just a lot of rocks.

After 30 minutes of snorkeling, I was getting tired and decided to swim back towards the shore.  This is when things got interesting.  Holy moly!  The current was reallllly strong!  No matter how hard I swam towards the shore, I just kept getting pushed further out into the water.  I have never swam in one of those endless pool swim spas that I always see commercials for on TV, but I would imagine this is what it must feel like haha  It was so frustrating to swim and swim and swim, but not get any closer to shore.  At one point, the water was so churned up that I couldn’t see anything in front of me. It was just total darkness, and I started to freak out a little bit because I didn’t want to get thrown into the rocks if I couldn’t see where they were.  Eventually, I did make it back to the shore (…obviously, since I lived to finish the cruise and come home to write this review for you to read lol), but I was so exhausted that my legs were shaking and I could barely walk back to our lounge chairs!  

I spent the next hour and a half just relaxing on my lounge chair and drinking Piton beer.  Originally, I thought I might go out snorkeling again, but I was way too exhausted from round one to even consider attempting round two!  

Drinking Piton beer with a view of the Piton!

There are free bathrooms and a shower available to use on our side of the beach, so we took advantage of that as our time at the beach was nearly done.  Promptly at 2pm, our boat returned to pick us up for the final leg of our tour.

Remember how there were 2 different boats at the start of our day, each with people from both of Spencer’s tours?  Well, now we had to go back in our original boat. This was a little tricky since the two boats are nearly identical, but we just stayed with our original guides and that worked out okay.  The last part of the tour is a tour of St. Lucia from the sea, and the guides made several stops along the way to point out various landmarks and towns.

First, some final views of the famous Pitons

Spencer driving our boat with both Pitons in the background

Speed boat selfie!

This was another really fancy hotel where every room has their own infinity pool!  From this angle, I thought it looked more like a parking garage, but I am sure it is very pretty from inside the hotel haha

Notice the fish image on the side of the wall?

Another fancy resort, and it looks like lots of tour boats stop at this beach too

a pirate ship!

Approaching Marigot Bay

The long white building on the left is Doolittle’s Restaurant and Bar

There were some beautiful yachts anchored in this bay

Marigot looks like a fun town with little restaurants and bars all along the bay

We really got an interesting perspective being able to tour the bay from a
boat.  Spencer took us all the way to the back of the bay, then around the side of this mega-yacht before returning out to the sea

The building with a round shape is George Foreman’s house

Continuing on with the tour, our next stop was at this land formation that kind of looks like a shoe.  I had seen this from up on the side of the hill when I toured with Cosol, so it was fun to see it up close
from the water this time around.

I don’t remember exactly where we were when this happened, but about 45 minutes into the ride, one of the guys asked Spencer if there is a head on the boat.  A minute later, Spencer stopped the boat in a little alcove along the coast and told us it was time for a potty break and that we should jump in the water if needed! All day, Spencer and his crew really a great job of reading the needs of their guests and making sure we were well taken care of.  There was plenty of Piton beer, soda, water, and rum punch in the cooler on the boat, and they kept the drinks coming as we continued our tour (just be careful not to drink too much, given the restroom options!).

At 3:15pm, we rounded a corner and saw a welcome sight waiting for us in the distance.

Not that we wanted the tour to end, but it’s always a good feeling to see your cruise ship waiting for you where you left it this morning!  Spencer had promised us at the beginning of the tour that we would return back to the pier by 3:30pm at the latest.  As promised, he tied up the lines at exactly 3:25pm!  All aboard wasn’t until 4:30pm, so we had no need to worry about missing the ship.  Overall, we had a fantastic day in St. Lucia with Spencer Ambrose, and I wouldn’t hesitate to book a tour with his company if I ever return here.

After some quick showers and getting dressed for the evening, we went downstairs for a few pre-dinner drinks.  DH got a beer from the Gastro Bar and brought it up to join me at the Martini Bar.  I started with a Sunset Martini, made with Grey Goose Le Citron flavored vodka, Bacardi Coconut flavored rum, pineapple juice, and grenadine.

For round two, I ordered the Fresca Martini, made with Grey Goose Vodka, fresh watermelon juice, mint, lime juice, and simple syrup.  I really liked this cocktail- it was very light and refreshing, and made a perfect end to a day in the hot Caribbean sun!

They have these little jars with something to snack on while we enjoyed our
martinis.  The only problem is that DH would eat the entire jar and then spoil his appetite for dinner, so be careful with these snacks… they’re addicting!!

A little balancing act while he made someone’s drink

There’s never a dull moment at the Martini Bar!

At 7pm, we went over to the MDR for our dinner reservations, and were happy to hear that there was a table for us in Pinto’s section.  Here is tonight’s dinner menu:

Prosciutto di Parma

Spinach Turnover

Homemade Gnocchi al Quattro Formaggi

Butternut Farrotto

We skipped dessert tonight because we had an errand to run.  The Captain’s Club host has very limited hours when they are at their desk.  It is either mid-morning while we are off the ship in visiting one of the ports, or
from 7:15-8:30pm while we are eating dinner.  We tried for several days to meet with them, but the timing was never convenient, so finally tonight, we realized our only chance to catch them was to skip dessert. They sit at one of the desks in the mid-ship elevators area of Deck 7.  When we got up there, we asked them about changing or expanding their hours, but they said they need to work around the hours of the Elite breakfast and cocktail hour every day.  Honestly, I think that was a lame answer because there are lots of Captain’s Club members who have not yet reached Elite status, and we have questions too!  There are two of them, so surely it must be possible for one of them to handle the Elite events while the other mans the desk on Deck 7 (even if not every day, maybe they can be flexible and do that every other day?).  Or maybe they can have some days when they are at the desk before the cocktail hour, like from 3-5pm?  Most people are back on the ship by then considering our all aboard time was 4:30pm every day so far on the cruise, and then it wouldn’t conflict with anyone’s schedules.  Ok, sorry, rant over!

DH wanted to check with them about his Captain’s Club points and we had a few other questions for them.  I was surprised to learn that now that we are married, we have the same number of points.  They said that they make our points match to whoever has more points because we will be sharing a cabin and both get those benefits anyway.  It makes sense, I just didn’t think about it before they mentioned it.

Tonight’s show was a solo performer named Sean O’Shea. The description from the daily schedule was very vague and just said he is a man of many voices and personalities, so we had no idea what to expect.  After seeing his show, I now understand the vague description because he has a little bit of everything- 1 part singer, 1 part impressionist, 1 part comedian.  DH thought he reminded him of if Jim Carey was a singer because he had that kind of humor.  He was quite an interesting character, but I honestly can’t say if I enjoyed the show.  Maybe it just isn’t my kind of humor?

After the show, we went up to the Sky Lounge for ABBA night, featuring name that tune music trivia followed by an ABBA dance party. The guests on our sailing were big ABBA fans because it was super crowded up there!  We stayed for a little while, until the excitement of a busy day got the best of us and we retired back to the cabin.

Step Tracker Daily Total:  4,658 steps; 1.801 miles