by X-Thor » Wed Jun 12, 2013 7:45 am
Krys wrote:Metal1529 wrote:To be honest, we would probably cancel if it was Grand Turk again. I find it depressing to hear that the other places were even less interesting? Is that really possible? We expected to find complaints on the forum about how boring Grand Turk was. Lot of trash everywhere too.
I wouldn't say that the other places were
less interesting. This is going to be my first time cruising the Caribbean, but from what I'm reading in the reviews, blogs, tripadvisor and cruisecritic - every stop has it's own unique flavor.
We rented a car, saw literally everything on the island, the shops, the grocery store, the light house, the national museum (officially the least informative museum in the world), the outside of all the historic houses (can't enter any), and old abandoned boat/shell museum (just a pile of tourist trash now), we sat at a bar and had drinks and food (good food, I'll say that but it turned out to be run by Americans), and after 2.5 hours we were done and came back to the artificial "might as well be in America" village by the cruise ship.
The tour of the island is a short one but I found that out from simple research at home - no surprises there. Seeing the whole island in less than 3 hours might actually be a benefit for me because I tend to be an early riser. I can tour the island first, then come back to the mini USA village beach/bar and still have time to enjoy sunshine, swimming plus the drunken company of our late-rising comrades
I can be such a loner... but that's NOT happening on this cruise. I'm going to be in someone's business at all times.
Why not have another friend in this life?What's the point of traveling somewhere if you only want to hang out in an American tourist trap fake village?
?
I hear ya, but remember this isn't a typical cruise. I definitely am not booking based on our destination... I can't even really say I booked for the bands because when I booked we only knew 6/40 of them at the time. I'm here for the party, the people and my love of heavy metal. The journey matters more than the destination in this case. All I can think about is how achy, hungry, thirsty, tired and sore I'll be from non-stop metal concerts - so I'm trying to see the destination day for what it is - a recovery day on a tropical island!
I definitely can't just hit the beach when I feel like it in Ottawa, so I'm going to have a blast taking a break from winter!
There was plenty to do at the other destinations, but the local vendors were a hassle (Nassau was the absolute worst) and everything comes with a price. For me, I'm usually too tired from the first two nights of music to be able to spend all day at the destination. I'm on the trip for the metal more than the destination. Can take a normal cruise to do the excursion stuff, so the area close to the port is more important in my ratings.
EXACTLY!
Cozumel - Can't go 5 feet without somebody trying to sell you something. A trip to the mainland would be great (would love to see Tulum) but it's a bit of a trip to pull it off.
Grand Cayman - Getting off of the ship and back on was a hassle. Had to hop in a small boat to get onto the land since the ships can't park directly on the shore. Once on land, it wasn't too bad. It was easy to get around, though annoying that the shuttle buses wouldn't move until they were full.
Nassau - Awful experience. The locals were extremely pushy trying to sell their wares and I had to even slap one's hand away from me to get her to back off.
Grand Turk - It was clean at the port, accessible, no pushy merchants and it was an easy walk to hit up the beach and just relax. Shit, I even went swimming! I never go swimming!
Out of all of the above, I'll take the one without venders chasing me up the street.
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I really experienced Cayman as well. I could have invested a lot of cash in the observe boutiques!
