Breakaway to the Caribbean! Day 6

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Trip Report

Day 6 – Tortola Mix of clouds and sun, high 80s, very humid

We were up at 6:00 am to get an early breakfast at Garden Café buffet. I had blueberry pancakes with a mixed berry compote (blueberry and blackberry) and potato pancakes. Molly had the Eggs Benedict, which she thought were just ok.

The girls had a shore excursion reserved, but I decided against joining them. Last time we were on Tortola, we hopped a ferry to Virgin Gorda, so we didn’t spend much time in the town; and this time, I wanted to wander the local shops, etc. It’s very different from the last time we were there in 2006. There is a whole new complex of shops right at the pier. Some of them are the same jewelry stores that you see on every other Caribbean island, but there were also a couple local shops to look through. I walked down Waterfront St., past some interesting looking restaurants, the courthouse, the ferry pier, and the hospital. The view out to sea was really beautiful and I enjoyed the walk quite a bit.

In port with the NCL Escape:

Walking Waterfront St:

After my walk, I came back to the ship and spent an hour at Spice H2O. It was deserted and an awesome way to relax and cool off. There was even a little shade under the “shower” section of the waterfall. For lunch, I headed to O’Sheehans and had the fish and chips. They were really good, although not as crispy as you might expect. I enjoyed it, though. After lunch, I went to Sports Trivia in the Atrium. It was fun, but I didn’t win.

Walking on Deck 16, I watched the crew work on lifeboat drills:

At that point, I caught up with my girls, who were back from their excursion and got to hear all about it. (Side note: Thankfully, we didn’t reserve the Virgin Gorda excursion, since we did it last time. Apparently, there was a problem with the ferry or ferries that they were going to use and all the Virgin Gorda excursion groups were cancelled! Major bummer because pretty much all the other excursions offered by NCL were already filled at that point.)

In any case, their excursion was Tortola by Land and Sea. It was a boat ride along Tortola’s coast, followed by an open air taxi/truck ride up the hillside to get a view of the whole island.

Kathryn described it as “punishing”. Molly simply said it was “scary”. They met the tour leader at 7 a.m. and proceeded to the boat ride first. They cruised about 45 minutes to the first viewing point. There were about 125 people on the boat and not everybody could fit inside the cabin. Those outside on the back deck got 45 minutes of exhaust smoke. People were getting physically sick. (Not my family, thankfully.) Additionally, being outside meant that you couldn’t hear the driver’s commentary about what you were looking at until the boat stopped. They did see some of the small outer islands, which they said was cool, and they learned some of the history of the area once they stopped at one of the viewing areas. They saw various spots for about an hour, then sailed a half hour (in the exhaust) back to land.

They were dropped at a dock with a small bunch of shops and told that they had a half hour to shop and use the rest rooms before departing on the bus tour. But there were 125 people trying to use the bathroom and there was only one stall in each bathroom. So everybody waited in line and nobody did much shopping.

The buses were very much like the ones we rode on St. Thomas: bench seats, no seat belts, about 25 people each in 5 or 6 rows. The drive had many people fearful for their safety. The road up the mountain had switchbacks, which the driver took at, if not full speed, then higher-than-necessary speed and without seeming to check for traffic coming down the hill. Just beep and keep going. (When this was described to a staff member at the Shore Excursion desk, we were told, “Well, that is how they drive here”. Probably true.) The bus did make numerous stops so people could get off and take pictures, but by the last half hour, many people just wanted to get back to the ship.

The best part of the excursion was that it got them back to the ship early enough that a lot of people were still on the island and it was easier to get a spot on The Waterfront on Deck 8. So everybody unwound in a comfy chair and enjoyed the breeze. We stayed there until the ship left port and I used the binoculars that were mounted by the railings to get a good view of the small islands as we sailed past them on the way out to sea.

That night, we decided to get to Savor early to try to avoid a long wait later. There wasn’t a table available by the window, but there was one at Taste, so that’s where we ended up. On Day 6, we finally had our first above-average server in a complimentary restaurant. She was Suzanne from St. Lucia.

We all had the spinach salad with warm bacon dressing, which was good but different from what we were expecting. It was more of a Romaine salad with a little baby spinach mixed in. And the dressing was creamy, rather than oil-based. But we all enjoyed it very much. I also got the beef slider on potato roll with sriracha sauce as an appetizer. It was a small burger, with not much to it. It was a basic burger, without even very much sauce on it. It was just ok.

There were three entrees that we all thought looked good, so we got one of each and just swapped plates. We got the prosciutto-wrapped chicken in a brown sauce. The sauce didn’t really seem to fit with the dish and the prosciutto was on the inside, not wrapped around the chicken. It was ok, but was our least favorite of the three dishes.

We also got the braised beef ribs. These were very good, with mashed potato. They were very tender and I liked them a lot.

The last entrée was ground veal in tomato sauce over penne pasta. This was my favorite. It had great flavor. It probably could’ve used a little more sauce, but I thought it was delicious. Definitely the winner on the night.

Molly had the lava cake for dessert. (This is the same dessert that Kathryn had on the first night. It’s on the menu every day.) I had the chocolate mousse. It was also very good. Very light, as you’d expect, and I enjoyed it a lot. Kathryn had the banana soufflé with sauce (which I think was a vanilla sauce). She said it was excellent, even though she had to pour the sauce herself. (This is a bit of an inside joke for those who have sailed on Disney Cruise Line.)

As we were finishing dinner, two crew members came to our table and asked us about our cruise experience to that point. One of them was from the Shore Excursion Department (Daniel from Italy), so I was very honest about the debacle that occurred with finding our excursions in the previous ports. I also talked about the things that we liked a lot about the ship’s features. He was very attentive and was interested in our description of our experience with excursions on other cruise lines. He took notes and seemed to be genuinely interested in our feedback. It was definitely nice to have that experience.

We had about an hour and a half before our reservation for “Burn the Floor”, so we grabbed Trivial Pursuit from the reading room and hung out in a lounge with trivia questions until the show.

“Burn the Floor” describes itself as “spectacular and sexy”. I guess it was, but after the “Rock of Ages” show, I was expecting something more overtly sexual. Thankfully, it never was. It was “sexy” in the sense that any tango is kind of sexy, but that’s it. I liked this show a lot. The energy and athleticism of these performers was amazing, to be honest. There was a female vocalist, and she was ok, but the dancing was phenomenal. The show was almost an hour with no break. I was never bored, I never thought it dragged. They were terrific. I would absolutely recommend seeing the show.

It ended around 10:30, and I was hoping to go see the Liar’s Club show, but it was cancelled. The girls were all pretty exhausted from getting up so early, so they didn’t want to stay out late. So we headed back to the room for the night.

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