Day 4 – Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Tuesday was an exciting day for us because it was the first day we would stop at a port of call! This port of call was particularily special because it was the first time EVER that the Disney Cruise Line has stopped at Tortola in the British Virgin Islands (and all the DISers back home were eager to hear our reports as DCL pioneers on this inaugural cruise)!
We got up bright and early because ashore time (when we could get off the ship) was 7:45 am and we wanted to get off as soon as we could to explore the island. When we woke up, we were already docked in Road Town, Tortola and starring at us from our window were passengers of Royal Caribbean’s “Grandeur of the Seas” ship! We made sure those curtains were closed when we changed! LOL!
Our view of the Royal Caribbean ship from our balcony
We had the breakfast buffet at Topsiders for the first time and it was disappointing. I know making good-tasting breakfast food in mass quanitities is difficult but you’d think Disney would have it down by now? The bacon was limp, oatmeal was runny, the eggs were mushy, and the pancakes (though better than character breakfast) were still thick and dry. But what can you do when you need a big breakfast to get you through the morning and you need it quickly? I took a few photos of Tortola from the outside seating of Topsiders on Deck 9 and then we were probably off the ship by 8 am.
View of Tortola from Deck 9
View of Tortola from Deck 9
Disney Magic & Grandeur of the Seas in Tortola Dock
Right when we existed the cruise dock, there were a big line of white tents with vendors selling all sorts of souvenirs and jewelry. We passed those tents up in order to save time. We had an excursion booked that met at 12:30 pm back on the ship so we wanted to see as much of Road Town as we could.
Welcome to British Virgin Islands
Donkey near the cruise dock
Our first stop was Crafts Alive Marketplace, a collection of colored houses that served as shops selling souvenirs and clothing. After visiting a couple of the shops, it was clear that most of them sold the same stuff. What I loved about Crafts Alive Marketplace were the chickens! Chris has a special place in his heart for the feathered animal. (He has a collection of chickens on our kitchen refridgerator and I have to drag him away from buying more chickens when we go to home decor shops!) I’m not sure why it seemed to strange to me but when I think of the Caribbean, I certainly don’t think of chickens or any farm animal but the chickens at Crafts Alive were all over the place and roaming freely. I’m not sure if they even belong to someone.
Crafts Alive Village
Chickens of Crafts Alive Village
Hen & chicks in Crafts Alive Village
Chicken & the ocean
View of the ocean from Crafts Alive Village
British Virgin Islands stingray plush from Crafts Alive Village
From Crafts Alive Village, we walked up Main Street where there are a lot of different shops. One of the first stores we went to was Latitude 18, where Chris found a new Kipling backpack to replace the broken Epcot backpack. I also bought a sea glass necklace there. We also visited two of Road Town’s most famous shops, Pusser’s Company Store and Sunny Caribbee. Pusser’s rum was the official rum of the British Navy for 300 years. I picked up a Pusser’s Rum Painkiller set. Sunny Caribbee is famous for their Caribbean spices, spices, hot sauces, soaps, lotions, herbs, teas, coffees, etc. Since I love tea, I picked up a sack of hibiscus tea and calypso-scented soap. At Samarkand Jewelers, we purchased a green stone-carved turtle.
Shops in Road Town
Chris throwing away the Epcot backpack
Pusser’s
Pusser’s Rum Painkiller set
Hibiscus tea from Sunny Caribbee
Stone necklace & sea glass necklace
Sailor Venus house!!
Above Samarkand Jewelers is a small kitchen called Roti Palace. Roti is curry & meat filled flatbread and I heard they were awesome. We already had plans to eat lunch at another restaurant so we bought a conch curry roti to go. The lady cooked it to order and it looked delicious. You know how they say that you’re getting real food if only locals eat there? Well, it was definitely all locals. Not a tourist in sight, other than us! OMG! The roti was SOOOO good! I wish I could eat another one right now. The conch meat was chewy and reminded me of large chunks of squid. The curry flavor was AWESOME. We didn’t eat our roti for a few hours after we bought it so I can’t imagine how much more delicious it would have been if we ate it fresh!
Roti Palace
Conch Roti from Roti Palace
After picking up our roti, we headed to our actual lunch destination, Midtown Restaurant. Again, this restaurant had no tourists, only locals. They don’t have a standard menu. You order off a chalkboard menu and there are only a few options each day. We got the conch soup and a Johnny cake. Chris also ordered ginger beer for his drink. I was really worried that we didn’t get enough food but when we got the conch soup, it was huge!! OMG…it was so delicious too. We had conch chowder in Nassau, Bahamas during our last cruise and it was more like a cream soup. This conch soup was more like a vegatable soup and I LOVED it! We ordered the Johnny cake because of Alton Brown’s show “Feast on Waves” and he raved about them. Chris liked eating it with the soup but I don’t like dipping bread/crackers into soup so I ate it by itself and it was very bland that way. Chris also liked his ginger beer. But OMG conch soup rocks!
Midtown Restaurant
Conch soup at Midtown Restaurant
After lunch, we still had some more time to kill before heading back to the ship for our excursion. We did a little more shopping, stopping at Little Denmark, which is famous for it’s room-sized cigar humidor, where we picked up some jewelry gifts for friends & family back home. We also stopped by Colombian Emeralds to pick up a Caribbean Mint collectible coin, which was one of the freebies from my port shopping book. Finally, on the way back to the ship, we browsed the white tents that we had passed earlier and I picked up up a blue stone necklace.
We dropped off our purchases back in our stateroom and headed over to Rockin Bar D for our excursion, “Tour to Virgin Gorda”. We met up with Michelle and Danny and our tour led us back downstairs to board the ferry to Virgin Gorda. We actually boarded the ferry directly from the ship, instead of having to walk off the ship to the ferry and then board the ferry! The ferry ride was 40 minutes long and it took us through the Sir Francis Drake Channel to Spanish Town in Virgin Gorda. At first, the four of us sat outside at the back of the ferry but it was soon clear that the splash from the waves was going to be horrible. The weather was overcast and pretty soon, we were soaked and freezing so one-by-one we left our seats and huddled under some shelter near the middle of the ferry!
Our ferry from Tortola to Virgin Gorda
Onboard the ferry before getting soaked
Leaving the Disney Magic
View of Tortola from the ferry
View of Virgin Gorda from the ferry
Once we disembarked the ferry in Virgin Gorda, we boarded an open-air safari bus, which took us through Spanish Town and up a hill to an overlook of Savannah Bay. As we continued the drive to The Baths, we passed by through the town and I noticed the houses were colorful like the shops in Tortola but much further apart.
Virgin Gorda in British Virgin Islands
Our safari bus taxi and driver
Savannah Bay, Virgin Gorda
Colorful houses in Virgin Gorda
Finally, we arrived at the highlight of the tour, The Baths National Park! We were dropped off at the Top of the Baths and we had to hike down to the Baths beach. It was easy and interesting hike down. There were lots of boulders jutting into the path and we saw hermit crabs and lizards along the way too. It was about a 15-minute walk down. At the bottom were restrooms, thank goodness! Unfortunately, in the women’s restrooms, the toliets weren’t flushing, some stalls didn’t have toliet paper, and, in case you wanted to shower after going to the beach, all the showers were out of order. Still, I got to relieve myself so I was happy. We, along with Danny and Michelle, decided to put our belongings into a locker. BIG MISTAKE and you’ll find out why in a little bit. After locking our stuff up, I grabbed a hot dog at Poor Man’s Bar as a snack.
Then we headed out into The Caves. The Caves is probably the most unique part of The Baths. It’s a maze of natural giant boulders that you walk, crawl, climb, and even wade through. It was totally a unique experience! The best part was definitely finding the large tide pool that we could wade through and there were all sorts of fish and even a sea urchin! Chris was so excited to see fish in their natural habitat without having to swim!
I also got to try out our new waterproof camera case, the DicaPac, while snorkeling in the tide pool!
The Baths National Park
Trail down to The Baths beach
Entrance to The Caves
Inside The Caves
Large tide pool inside The Caves
Fish in the The Caves tide pool
Going through The Caves took about 15-20 minutes and the reward was coming out to Devil’s Bay. It’s a gorgeous beach surrounded by those giant boulders! It was magnificient. Unfortunately, the weather was still overcast so it was a bit cold going into the water and all my photos are a little dark. It would have been nice if the sun was out but it was still beautiful. By the time we got to Devil’s Bay, we barely had 15 minutes to enjoy the beach before we had to hike back up to meet our tour. We snorkeled and swam for the 15 minutes. It was so disappointing to have so little time there because it was sooo nice!
Devil’s Bay
Devil’s Bay
Swimming in Devil’s Bay
The hike back up the Devil’s Bay path to the Top of the Baths was much worse than the way down. It was longer, steeper, and we were surrounded by cactus and it felt like a desert jungle. It was pretty horrible. We made the mistake of wearing our water shoes during the hike up too. We should have dried our feet off and changed back into our walking shoes. My feet hurt so much. Michelle got 2 bloody blisters as well. I also didn’t wear insect repellent and I got 2 huge, itchy bug bites on the back of my left leg. I’m pretty sure the bugs bit me during that trek back from Devil’s Bay too since it was like a jungle. We realized while making the trek back up that our belongings were in lockers that were at the BOTTOM of The Baths path. Ugh. Bad idea. When we finally got to the Top of the Baths, Danny and Chris went back down The Baths trail to get our stuff out of the lockers and would have to bring it all back up again!! Poor guys. So yeah, if you don’t plan to stay at The Baths beach, don’t use the lockers!!
While waiting for Chris and Danny to come back, I walked around the Top of the Baths area, which included a restaurant, outdoor pool, and a couple of shops. The shops weren’t anything spectacular, even for a souvenir collector like me. The view for the Top of the Baths was lovely though! When Chris and Danny finally got back, we used our free drink coupons from the tour to get rum punch. That was very refreshing! When we boarded the open-air safari bus, I noticed several children with cuts on their legs because they fell on cactus during the walks up and down from The Baths or on the rocks in The Caves. The bus took us back to the ferry. This time on the ferry, we were smart enough to sit inside the air-conditioned cabin with 2 flat-screen TV’s! When we first boarded, they were showing a bootlegged version of the live action “Dragonball” movie and then it suddenly cut to “Paul Blart: Mall Cop”. o_O Either way, it didn’t matter to me. I slept the entire ferry ride back to Tortola! I was so exhausted!!
The “Tour to Virgin Gorda” excursion was a lot more walking/hiking than we thought. The Caves also took longer to go through than I thought it would but Devil’s Bay is absolutely gorgeous. Overall, the time at The Baths seemed too short. The tour description said we would have 2 hours of free time and that wasn’t true. It was so disappointing to only have 15 minutes at the beach but going to the The Baths was truly unique and beautiful experience! When we got back to the ship, the Royal Caribbean ship had left so we had a much better view for Tortola from our balcony!
Top of the Baths pool
View from Top of the Baths
View from Top of the Baths
View of Tortola from our verandah
We both took showers, did some prep for the next day, and then got ready for dinner. That night was PIRATE NIGHT!! Arrrrgh! Even though I heard on the DISboards that very few adults dress up in full costume for Pirate Night (some wear a bandana or pirate shirt, if anything pirate at all), I felt that I had an obligation to go all out for Pirate Night since I was a cosplayer. I wear costumes in my spare time! Why would I be embarrassed to dress up now?! Plus, the idea of a photo with Jack Sparrow in our pirate gear was just too hard to pass up!! I also managed to convince Chris to dress up as well!
After getting into costume, we went downstairs to get photos of course. We took pictures with Jack Sparrow, Pirate Stitch, Christian the Cruise Director, and by ourselves. We got a lot of compliments from guests and Cast Members on our costumes while walking around!
With Jack Sparrow
With Pirate Stitch
Pirate Night
With some other pirate guests!
Dinner that night was at Lumiere’s. Knowing that Chris and I were going to dress up, Kip and Paula agreed to dress up too! Kip’s wig was so cool! LOL! The servers also wore pirate themed costumes and our dinner was pirate-themed as well. The servers also did a parade around the restaurant waving pirate flags and forming a congo line with all the guests! During the dessert course, Paula, Miki, and other servers surprised Chris and I with a cake for our anniversary and sang “Happy Anniversary to You!” It was great!! Even though there were always several celebrations going on every night, we felt so special!!
Kip, Casey, and Paula on Pirate Night
Jerk Chicken
Pirate Parade
Happy Anniversary Celebration
Happy Anniversary Cake
After dinner, we stopped by the room to drop off our cake and then headed up to the Pirates IN the Caribbean deck party! The party/show was already underway when we got a viewing spot on the starboard side of Deck 10. We have a decent view of the stage where the Disney characters were fighting off pirates and regaining control of the ship. After the Mickey and the good guys won, the part that I was waiting for started…the fireworks at sea!! We had an awesome view of the fireworks show over the ocean. It was gorgeous!!
Pirates IN the Caribbean Party
Fireworks at sea
There was a buffet after the fireworks show but we went back to the room to shower and get ready for bed. We were stuffed already. Plus, our excursion the next morning was meeting at 7:15 am!! Insane!!
+ See all photos from Tortola
+ Read more about my Disney Magic Eastern Caribbean Cruise