Before we fell asleep last night, we left the breakfast room service door tag outside our room so we could eat breakfast while getting ready this morning.  We had to meet our tour on the pier by 8:30am today and wanted to avoid spending an hour on Lido deck dealing with the buffet.  It worked out perfectly!  The room service lady knocked on our door at 7:20am, right in the middle of the 7:15-7:30am window we requested.  We both ordered the bagel with lox and cream cheese, and we decided to eat it on our balcony and watch as the ship finished pulling into port. It made such a scenic place to enjoy our breakfast!

Back when we booked the cruise, we knew we wanted to go zip lining at one of the ports.  St. Lucia is the kind of port where you really need to plan a specific excursion because it’s not like you can just get off the ship and go to a beach like on other islands.  St. Lucia is a lush tropical rainforest and it offers tourists many options of active things to do.  With that in mind, we decided to make this our zip lining day.  I did a bit of research on Cruise Critic and found a company called Treetop Adventures which offered a half-day zip lining tour with round trip transportation to/from their facility. They have 12 zip lines of varied lengths and speeds (whereas most zip line places only offer 4-5 lines), and they got tons of positive reviews so we booked the tour online.  The company was easy to deal with and answered all of my questions promptly via email. 

Our instructions said to meet their guide on the pier at 8:30am.  Sure enough, we walked off the gangway and literally 50ft away was a guide holding a Treetop Adventures sign!  It could not have been any easier to find him!  They had us sign a safety waiver, and then we walked together through the small port shops area to the parking lot where a big van picked us up.  I think we had about 15 people on the van so it was a nice small group for the day.  Our guide’s name was Eagle, and he told us all about the history of St. Lucia and pointed out important landmarks as another man named Cornelius drove the van.  I read a few reviews saying that it is a 25-30 minute drive from the port to the zip line facility… Wrong!!  The drive took exactly one hour (plus a brief 5-minute stop to take photos at a scenic overlook).  So basically our tour was 4 hours long, but 2 of those hours would be spent in the van getting to and from the facility haha oh well!  At least it was air conditioned and Eagle kept us entertained. 

When we arrived at the facility, Eagle explained that they had lockers to store our belongings, but that we needed to leave a $5 deposit which would be refunded when we returned our keys.  They also had bathrooms and encouraged us to use them since there were no bathrooms on the course. Once we walked down to the entrance area, a man named Shetty (rhymes with machete, as he told us) approached us and explained that he would stay with us all day and take photos and videos for us on my camera.  Each couple or family had their own guide to take photos, and I loved this aspect of it.  Shetty held my camera the whole time and took fantastic photos of me and J on the zip lines and throughout the course, and that meant I had both hands free to control the zip line and I could focus on what I was doing and not on operating my camera.  

There were 12 lines in total and we spent about an hour and a half on the course.  When we got to the fastest and longest line, Shetty said he and I would go together in tandem and he would push me super fast.

Once we finished the course, we had some time to get changed out of our harnesses, use the restroom, and purchase a beer. Piton is the local brew and it was a light and refreshing way to finish the excursion ($2 each!). 

On the hour-long ride back to the port, Eagle pointed out a bunch of local plants including banana trees, pepper trees, coconut trees, and a few others.

Bananas growing in the blue bags for protection from the sun

Teeny tiny bananas

Pepper trees

Papaya trees

We also stopped at another scenic overlook to see the Atlantic Ocean.

The roads in St Lucia are very windy and narrow, so this is probably not the best island to rent a car, and if you are prone to motion sickness, you might want to take a Dramamine before going on your tour.  We got back to the pier at 12:45pm and went straight up to Lido for lunch.  I had the Mongolian Wok for the 3rd time… I’m not sure why I was so addicted to it, but it made for a yummy lunch.  The downside was that it always took a long time to get my lunch.  J opted for a burrito and he finished his food before mine was even made!  We also went upstairs to the fish and chips.  There was no line for food, and only 2 or 3 tables had people sitting there, so even though the cruise was half over, it looked like people still hadn’t found the fish and chips place.  We shared a battered fish and it was pretty good, with a good ratio of dough to fish. 

After lunch, we went in search of somewhere to sit in the shade.  My souvenir from Barbados was a bad burn on my back, so I didn’t want to be in the sun any more than necessary.  Sadly, our options of outdoor places in the sun were very limited.  I didn’t want to sit in the section of Lido deck underneath deck 10 because it is behind the windows and I wanted a clear view of the ocean.  Why don’t they put any umbrellas out on the decks?? We wound up on serenity under the shade of the deck above and with a beautiful view over St Lucia and the ocean.  We relaxed there for an hour or two as J read his book and I took notes for this review, then we got ready for formal night. 

We definitely wanted to avoid the disaster from Tuesday’s formal night with the hour long wait.  We were both hungry by 4pm so we decided to hold off on snacking and we would go to dinner when the dining room opened at 5:45pm.  We had no wait at all and were seated within minutes, so our plan worked but I did notice that it never got full for the whole time we were there.  When we left at 7:30pm, there was still no wait to be seated so I guess fewer people go to the second formal night.  That was fine though, we were happy to finish our meal by 7:30pm and have tons of time to enjoy the evening activities on the ship.

But let’s not skip too far ahead… Dinner was delicious, as usual!  I had the eggplant parm and my favorite appetizer, the escargot. I had the chateaubriand for my entree and the diet cheesecake for dessert. 

After dinner, we took a few photos around the ship (not the paid professional ones)

We got to the theater at 8pm and found a seat in the front row. 

Showtime Selfie!

Tonight’s show was called Far From Over, and it was an 80s theme.  We both LOVED it!!  It helps that we are children of the 80s and love 80s music, but we spent the whole show playing name that tune/band and singing along with the songs.  At one point, they brought out 2 beat boys to do some break dancing.  At first we thought these guys were part of the normal dance group, but we soon realized these must be the guys brought on the ship for more entertainment in the lobby later tonight.  They were a great addition to the show and they were extremely talented, but I was wondering if they come to the ship every week to join the show, or if this was a one-time thing.  Does anyone know?   For people who have done this itinerary before, did the break dancers perform for you too?  Anyway, the show ended at 9:15, and everyone filtered out of the theater and into the lobby to watch another brief break dancing show. 

After that, we went to Lido so J could get a sandwich from the deli, and then we went to the piano bar.  We stayed for about an hour and had fun singing along with Milton, but like Tuesday night, there were only about 20 people in there and it seemed like it was the same people who go there every night.  

We then went to karaoke in the Eagles Lounge next door and stayed until midnight when we called it a night to rest up for St Kitts.