"janerene" wrote:

Has anyone on this forum gone to the island of Dominica? Care to share some
experiences?

We went to Dominica on a cruise ship and enjoyed it very much. This
is what I wrote at the time.

I've heard a lot about Dominica (which is a different island
completely from the Dominican Republic), and it is one of the reasons
that I picked this cruise because I wanted to see if for myself. I
had originally picked to do the four hour bus trip with a walk to the
Emerald Pool, but a flyer came out which said that Accessible Dominica
which had an optional and shorter walk to a pool at another waterfall
was available, so I switched. That trip wasn't until in the
afternoon.

So in the morning after breakfast, we walked out into town. Bob
carried an umbrella as it was raining lightly off and on, and more on
than off. First we went to the Dominica Museum, which was $3 US each.
It wasn't worth it.

Outside the museum was a craft type fair. I had a hard time finding
stuff that didn't have very loud garish colors, but I bought a pink
T-shirt and a little dark pink dress for 2 granddaughters. After I
got them I found out they were made in Thailand and China, and we not
local. Oh well. I did get some EC coins for our grandsons

I went to the tourist information place and asked if there was any
place to buy coffee, and she said there was a place called Bello
(pronounced Bee Low) but they were closed because it was Saturday. I
probably should have bought some baskets which were nice, but I didn't
decide about that in time. We are going back here though, so if you
would like some baskets or woven place mats, let me know.

We went back to the boat, and were tired already, so I ate an apple
and we didn't go to lunch. When we went out for the tour, they packed
us into a bus with several walkers and wheelchair people. I sat in
the back on one side and Bob sat on the other side. It was still
raining off and on but Bob said he didn't want to carry his umbrella
and really we didn't need it..

We went through the botanical garden and saw the school bus that had
been donated by the Canadians, but was crushed by a falling tree
during a hurricane before it could be put into service. We went up to
a lookout (near the prime minister's house) over the city, and I got
out and took some photos. The capitol city where we docked is called
Roseau, which is pronounced Rose OH.

Eventually we worked our way out of the city traffic onto the coast
road. We went past the Sun Princess which was docked way out of town
in what looked like a cargo ship area. I would not like being there
AT ALL.

We stopped for a potty break, and eventually got to the waterfall,
which wasn't that spectacular. One of the men was going to swim in
the pool, but he said it was only about 18 inches deep - not even
enough to float in. They had fruit and drinks for us there, but I
wasn't sure whether they were free or not, so I just took a small
wedge of watermelon.

The roads were very steep and twisty, and the bus often sounded as if
it was laboring. We drove back to town by the river. The tour guide
sang to us, and told us stories about the plants and how to make home
remedies of them. The only problem with the tour was that the first
step of the bus was too high for most people (including me), and they
had no stepstool. Plus they had to store the walkers etc in the
aisle.

Link to view these photos:
http://www.photoworks.com/share/shar... lb_pml&cb=PW

The following cruise
we went back to Dominica. We could look through the
window at the island as we were having breakfast. I was gradually
working my way through the breakfast menu, and I had Belguin waffles
this morning.

Today our tour was to be the Ariel Tram. First we had to take a bus
up the mountain. A couple of times I wasn't sure the bus was going to
make it. It kept bottoming out on my corner. We passed a power
station with a holding pond on the way up.

The tram held 8 people (4 seats with two people) plus a guide sitting
in the back. They went up to the top of the mountain on the lower
track and came back down on the upper track. First, we had someone
take a car around the whole system to be sure it was all working. It
was kind of wet, and before we got in, two people wiped down and
squeeged the water off the seats.

There was a plastic cover over the tram, and I observed that there was
less water on the back seats, so that's where I aimed for. We didn't
bother to get rain ponchos from the store, and of course an umbrella
would be useless. I had a digital camera, and also a film camera in
case it really started to rain.

Our guide (who was named Nigel) that rode with us told us many
interesting facts about the plants and flowers we were seeing and also
identified the bird calls and told us interesting things about the
tram and the island. As we approached the top, it started to rain a
good bit and I put away the digital camera. We could have gotten off
at the top and walked down and across a suspension bridge and get back
on the tram at a lower stop. But since it was raining harder, we
decided not to do that.

When we got down, we were offered the obligatory drink, and there was
a chance to buy things at the store. Then we had to get back into the
same van that we came in (there were several) to go back down the
mountain.

Apparently, although most of the flowering plants flower in the
summer, the tram does not operate unless the cruise ships are in. And
the ships only come in the winter.

On the way down, I was able to take a photo of the wooden pipe, which
was now on my side of the van. We also stopped at a place where we
could take pictures of the mountains and buy souvenirs. I stayed on
the van and Bob got off to take the pictures.

We went back to the ship through the Botanical Garden and I managed to
take several pictures of the squashed school bus. At the end of the
tour, I got off and went into the market to buy some items. I noticed
that you had to pay to use the bathrooms.

For one item the lady said they were $5 each. I said I wanted 5 of
them but could not afford that much money. So she said she'd give me
5 for $30. I said that is the wrong direction - that's more than $5
@. So she eventually agreed to 5 items for $20 and she would throw in
another small item to boot.

As I got back on the ship, I noticed that they were selling flowers to
the ship provisioners on the dock. The steel drum man had gone home.
We had some festivities for New Years Eve, and our dinner partners
took our pictures using my camera, and we took one of them using their
camera.

To view the album "06.12-31D Dominica Tram"

Click on the Web address link below:

Link starts here =
http://www.photoworks.com/share/shar...5ED2C2F3&cb=PW
== Link ends here