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Calabrity Galaxy trip report (South Caribbean)



 
 
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  #1  
Old March 9th, 2004, 11:07 AM
Byron Holston
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Calabrity Galaxy trip report (South Caribbean)

(This ended up being much longer than I planned. Sorry for the length)

The Galaxy.... First of all, it's a Big boat. I've never been on a cruise
before and I was overwhelmed at the size of it. It was interesting comparing
the size of the Galaxy next to other cruise ships we docked next to during
the cruise. For the most part, it was usually the biggest one around. That
was until Margarita Island when we docked next to the Queen Mary II. That
thing is huge. Anyways... The Galaxy crew does a great job in everything
clean. Thedecks areas, restaurants, rooms and just about all public areas
were always clean and staff was constantly picking up after you and making
sure the the place was spotless. We were in an inside stateroom which served
it purpose well. We changed clothes and slept there. That's about it since
it was a pretty small room. Regardless of it's size, our stateroom attendant
(Edwin) was fantastic. He was always attentive when we needed something and
the room was constantly being cleaned and re-freshed with clean towels and
supplies.

In terms of meals, the dinners were exquisite and our wait staff was top
notch. Our waiter (Mauricio) and assistant waiter (Putu) made us feel like
royalty and made the whole dining atmosphere fun. Our assistant Maitre'd was
attentive, but we didn't make the same connection with him as with our main
waiters. Maybe it was because of the amount of patrons he had to attend to,
but he spent very little time at our table. The inside lunch meals were also
good, but the outside 'Oasis Grill' was kind of 'tired'. By that I mean it
was mostly pizza, burgers and hot dogs and they were usually lukewarm and
dry. The Oasis cafeteria (which is inside) had a better selection. They
usually had a theme to their lunches. Mexican one day, Asian cuisine another
and Italian another.Our group made it a contest to see who could get the
'ice cream man' to smile. There was usually a cart with one gentleman
scooping out ice cream. For some reason he never seemed to smile. He wasn't
mean or rude, he just never smiled which was in contrast to the rest of the
crew. Nobody won the contest from our group.

(Saturday) St. Thomas - 4 of us in our group decided to do the snuba
excursion. That was a blast. I'm used to snorkeling so the ability to swim
and and explore the ocean without having to worry about air getting into a
snorkel was a welcome change. Luckily, the only people on the excursion were
the four people that I was also traveling with. According to our guide they
usually have around 15 people so we had a small group compared to what
they're used to. Since I've gotten back home, I've already started looking
into Scuba certification.

(Sunday) St. Kitts - The same group of 4 took the Mountain Biking tour of
the Island. This time there were more of us from the boat. In total I think
there were about 20 of us. Now, I've always thought that I was in decent
shape though I could lose a few pounds. That excursion did a good job of
showing exactly how out of shape I am. I did OK for the first part of the
trip, but I slipped back at one point and was never able to catch up with
the bunch. Part of that was that I was also stopping to take pictures. I
finally gave up and got a ride in the 'chase vehicle' up to the next rest
area. I did OK from then out. The tour itself went though the city and out
through the sugar cane fields. Overall, it was very scenic and worth the
money. In the afternoon we went over to Magen's Bay. Instead of taking the
ship excursion, we rented a cab for $6 a person and had him drop us off at
the beach. The same driver offered to come pick us up and take us back for
the same rate so we got to stay as long as we liked. The ship excusion
would have cost us $22 each and we would only have been there of rabout 3
hours. While we were there, the excusrion bus departed and the beach
cleared out pretty fast. Except for some local activity, we were almost on
the beach by ourselves. It was very peaceful and much quieter with
everybody else already heading back to the ship. On the way back, the
driver stopped at some places where we could take pics of the bay from up
high. I haven't gotten those pics back yet, but it was a beatiful sight.

(Monday) Barbados - Kayak and Turtle adventure. OK .. this one was kind of a
let down for our whole group. The first problem was when our transport
vehicle was late picking us up. The bus took us to a pier where we hopped on
a boat that would take us to our Kayaks. The boat ride was just plain long.
Once we got to the Kayaks, we hopped in, kind of raced up the coast for 30
minutes and then hopped back on the boat. From there, the boat took us to a
location where we couple swim with the Sea Turtles. As long as the ships
crew was throwing food out for the turtles, they were all around us. Once
they stopped (after about 15 minutes) the turtles only swam by occasionally.
Overall, the whole excursion was a let down. Next time, we'll just do the
Sea Turtle swim and skipped the Kayaking part. That was a waste.

(Tuesday) Marguerita Island, Venezuela - We were only in port here for about
7 hours so we didn't do any excursions. We just walked off the boat to the
nearby beach and relaxed in beach chairs. There is some local shopping just
off the boat. It's mostly local crafts and none of the discount
jewelry/watches shopping that you see over the rest of the other islands.

(Wednesday)Aruba - We didn't make any plans here either, but we did grab a
local taxi and hae him give us a tour of the island. I had already been here
before so there wasn't really anything new to me here. We had him drop us
off in the high-rise area so we could swim on the beach and soak up some
sun.

(Thursday) 'Day-at-sea'. That was an experience. We experienced 30 knot
crosswinds and some pretty heavy seas. The ship was rockin' and rollin' for
pretty much the entire day. Made for a lot of 'sick looking' passengers. My
stomach was rolling for most of the day. One crew member told us that the
infirmary was full from people getting sick.

Back in San Juan we had to dis-embark at 9:30 but our flight home didn't
leave until 5:00. We hired a local taxi driver to gives us a tour of the old
San Juan and the fort. That took up a good part of the day and we waited at
the airport until it was time to go back home.

Overall we were more than pleased with thecruise, the Galaxy and its crew.

We're already looking to see when we can schedule an Alaska trip on the
Galaxy.



  #2  
Old March 9th, 2004, 11:12 AM
Byron Holston
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Calabrity Galaxy trip report (South Caribbean)

One correction.... The Magen's Bay trip was in St. Thomas and not in St
Kitts. I was writing that frommemory and just got the locatoin wrong.

B

"Byron Holston" wrote in message
ink.net...
(This ended up being much longer than I planned. Sorry for the length)

The Galaxy.... First of all, it's a Big boat. I've never been on a cruise
before and I was overwhelmed at the size of it. It was interesting

comparing
the size of the Galaxy next to other cruise ships we docked next to during
the cruise. For the most part, it was usually the biggest one around. That
was until Margarita Island when we docked next to the Queen Mary II. That
thing is huge. Anyways... The Galaxy crew does a great job in everything
clean. Thedecks areas, restaurants, rooms and just about all public areas
were always clean and staff was constantly picking up after you and making
sure the the place was spotless. We were in an inside stateroom which

served
it purpose well. We changed clothes and slept there. That's about it since
it was a pretty small room. Regardless of it's size, our stateroom

attendant
(Edwin) was fantastic. He was always attentive when we needed something

and
the room was constantly being cleaned and re-freshed with clean towels and
supplies.

In terms of meals, the dinners were exquisite and our wait staff was top
notch. Our waiter (Mauricio) and assistant waiter (Putu) made us feel like
royalty and made the whole dining atmosphere fun. Our assistant Maitre'd

was
attentive, but we didn't make the same connection with him as with our

main
waiters. Maybe it was because of the amount of patrons he had to attend

to,
but he spent very little time at our table. The inside lunch meals were

also
good, but the outside 'Oasis Grill' was kind of 'tired'. By that I mean it
was mostly pizza, burgers and hot dogs and they were usually lukewarm and
dry. The Oasis cafeteria (which is inside) had a better selection. They
usually had a theme to their lunches. Mexican one day, Asian cuisine

another
and Italian another.Our group made it a contest to see who could get the
'ice cream man' to smile. There was usually a cart with one gentleman
scooping out ice cream. For some reason he never seemed to smile. He

wasn't
mean or rude, he just never smiled which was in contrast to the rest of

the
crew. Nobody won the contest from our group.

(Saturday) St. Thomas - 4 of us in our group decided to do the snuba
excursion. That was a blast. I'm used to snorkeling so the ability to swim
and and explore the ocean without having to worry about air getting into a
snorkel was a welcome change. Luckily, the only people on the excursion

were
the four people that I was also traveling with. According to our guide

they
usually have around 15 people so we had a small group compared to what
they're used to. Since I've gotten back home, I've already started looking
into Scuba certification.

(Sunday) St. Kitts - The same group of 4 took the Mountain Biking tour of
the Island. This time there were more of us from the boat. In total I

think
there were about 20 of us. Now, I've always thought that I was in decent
shape though I could lose a few pounds. That excursion did a good job of
showing exactly how out of shape I am. I did OK for the first part of the
trip, but I slipped back at one point and was never able to catch up with
the bunch. Part of that was that I was also stopping to take pictures. I
finally gave up and got a ride in the 'chase vehicle' up to the next rest
area. I did OK from then out. The tour itself went though the city and out
through the sugar cane fields. Overall, it was very scenic and worth the
money. In the afternoon we went over to Magen's Bay. Instead of taking

the
ship excursion, we rented a cab for $6 a person and had him drop us off at
the beach. The same driver offered to come pick us up and take us back

for
the same rate so we got to stay as long as we liked. The ship excusion
would have cost us $22 each and we would only have been there of rabout 3
hours. While we were there, the excusrion bus departed and the beach
cleared out pretty fast. Except for some local activity, we were almost

on
the beach by ourselves. It was very peaceful and much quieter with
everybody else already heading back to the ship. On the way back, the
driver stopped at some places where we could take pics of the bay from up
high. I haven't gotten those pics back yet, but it was a beatiful sight.

(Monday) Barbados - Kayak and Turtle adventure. OK .. this one was kind of

a
let down for our whole group. The first problem was when our transport
vehicle was late picking us up. The bus took us to a pier where we hopped

on
a boat that would take us to our Kayaks. The boat ride was just plain

long.
Once we got to the Kayaks, we hopped in, kind of raced up the coast for 30
minutes and then hopped back on the boat. From there, the boat took us to

a
location where we couple swim with the Sea Turtles. As long as the ships
crew was throwing food out for the turtles, they were all around us. Once
they stopped (after about 15 minutes) the turtles only swam by

occasionally.
Overall, the whole excursion was a let down. Next time, we'll just do the
Sea Turtle swim and skipped the Kayaking part. That was a waste.

(Tuesday) Marguerita Island, Venezuela - We were only in port here for

about
7 hours so we didn't do any excursions. We just walked off the boat to the
nearby beach and relaxed in beach chairs. There is some local shopping

just
off the boat. It's mostly local crafts and none of the discount
jewelry/watches shopping that you see over the rest of the other islands.

(Wednesday)Aruba - We didn't make any plans here either, but we did grab a
local taxi and hae him give us a tour of the island. I had already been

here
before so there wasn't really anything new to me here. We had him drop us
off in the high-rise area so we could swim on the beach and soak up some
sun.

(Thursday) 'Day-at-sea'. That was an experience. We experienced 30 knot
crosswinds and some pretty heavy seas. The ship was rockin' and rollin'

for
pretty much the entire day. Made for a lot of 'sick looking' passengers.

My
stomach was rolling for most of the day. One crew member told us that the
infirmary was full from people getting sick.

Back in San Juan we had to dis-embark at 9:30 but our flight home didn't
leave until 5:00. We hired a local taxi driver to gives us a tour of the

old
San Juan and the fort. That took up a good part of the day and we waited

at
the airport until it was time to go back home.

Overall we were more than pleased with thecruise, the Galaxy and its crew.

We're already looking to see when we can schedule an Alaska trip on the
Galaxy.





  #3  
Old March 10th, 2004, 02:25 AM
Tom & Linda
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Calabrity Galaxy trip report (South Caribbean)


"Byron Holston" wrote in message
ink.net...

Overall we were more than pleased with thecruise, the Galaxy and its crew.

We're already looking to see when we can schedule an Alaska trip on the
Galaxy.



Another one hooked!!!

--Tom


  #4  
Old March 10th, 2004, 06:30 AM
Jeff Coudriet
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Calabrity Galaxy trip report (South Caribbean)

The Galaxy was our first "real" cruise, and we thoroughly enjoyed it.
Sounds like you did too! Thanks for sharing your trip review with us.

Jeff


  #5  
Old March 10th, 2004, 08:23 AM
Mary Foster
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Calabrity Galaxy trip report (South Caribbean)

I really enjoyed your review. Please email me about it. Thanks,
Mary


"Byron Holston" wrote in message
link.net...
One correction.... The Magen's Bay trip was in St. Thomas and not in St
Kitts. I was writing that frommemory and just got the locatoin wrong.

B

"Byron Holston" wrote in message
ink.net...
(This ended up being much longer than I planned. Sorry for the length)

The Galaxy.... First of all, it's a Big boat. I've never been on a

cruise
before and I was overwhelmed at the size of it. It was interesting

comparing
the size of the Galaxy next to other cruise ships we docked next to

during
the cruise. For the most part, it was usually the biggest one around.

That
was until Margarita Island when we docked next to the Queen Mary II.

That
thing is huge. Anyways... The Galaxy crew does a great job in everything
clean. Thedecks areas, restaurants, rooms and just about all public

areas
were always clean and staff was constantly picking up after you and

making
sure the the place was spotless. We were in an inside stateroom which

served
it purpose well. We changed clothes and slept there. That's about it

since
it was a pretty small room. Regardless of it's size, our stateroom

attendant
(Edwin) was fantastic. He was always attentive when we needed something

and
the room was constantly being cleaned and re-freshed with clean towels

and
supplies.

In terms of meals, the dinners were exquisite and our wait staff was top
notch. Our waiter (Mauricio) and assistant waiter (Putu) made us feel

like
royalty and made the whole dining atmosphere fun. Our assistant Maitre'd

was
attentive, but we didn't make the same connection with him as with our

main
waiters. Maybe it was because of the amount of patrons he had to attend

to,
but he spent very little time at our table. The inside lunch meals were

also
good, but the outside 'Oasis Grill' was kind of 'tired'. By that I mean

it
was mostly pizza, burgers and hot dogs and they were usually lukewarm

and
dry. The Oasis cafeteria (which is inside) had a better selection. They
usually had a theme to their lunches. Mexican one day, Asian cuisine

another
and Italian another.Our group made it a contest to see who could get the
'ice cream man' to smile. There was usually a cart with one gentleman
scooping out ice cream. For some reason he never seemed to smile. He

wasn't
mean or rude, he just never smiled which was in contrast to the rest of

the
crew. Nobody won the contest from our group.

(Saturday) St. Thomas - 4 of us in our group decided to do the snuba
excursion. That was a blast. I'm used to snorkeling so the ability to

swim
and and explore the ocean without having to worry about air getting into

a
snorkel was a welcome change. Luckily, the only people on the excursion

were
the four people that I was also traveling with. According to our guide

they
usually have around 15 people so we had a small group compared to what
they're used to. Since I've gotten back home, I've already started

looking
into Scuba certification.

(Sunday) St. Kitts - The same group of 4 took the Mountain Biking tour

of
the Island. This time there were more of us from the boat. In total I

think
there were about 20 of us. Now, I've always thought that I was in decent
shape though I could lose a few pounds. That excursion did a good job of
showing exactly how out of shape I am. I did OK for the first part of

the
trip, but I slipped back at one point and was never able to catch up

with
the bunch. Part of that was that I was also stopping to take pictures. I
finally gave up and got a ride in the 'chase vehicle' up to the next

rest
area. I did OK from then out. The tour itself went though the city and

out
through the sugar cane fields. Overall, it was very scenic and worth the
money. In the afternoon we went over to Magen's Bay. Instead of taking

the
ship excursion, we rented a cab for $6 a person and had him drop us off

at
the beach. The same driver offered to come pick us up and take us back

for
the same rate so we got to stay as long as we liked. The ship excusion
would have cost us $22 each and we would only have been there of rabout

3
hours. While we were there, the excusrion bus departed and the beach
cleared out pretty fast. Except for some local activity, we were almost

on
the beach by ourselves. It was very peaceful and much quieter with
everybody else already heading back to the ship. On the way back, the
driver stopped at some places where we could take pics of the bay from

up
high. I haven't gotten those pics back yet, but it was a beatiful

sight.

(Monday) Barbados - Kayak and Turtle adventure. OK .. this one was kind

of
a
let down for our whole group. The first problem was when our transport
vehicle was late picking us up. The bus took us to a pier where we

hopped
on
a boat that would take us to our Kayaks. The boat ride was just plain

long.
Once we got to the Kayaks, we hopped in, kind of raced up the coast for

30
minutes and then hopped back on the boat. From there, the boat took us

to
a
location where we couple swim with the Sea Turtles. As long as the ships
crew was throwing food out for the turtles, they were all around us.

Once
they stopped (after about 15 minutes) the turtles only swam by

occasionally.
Overall, the whole excursion was a let down. Next time, we'll just do

the
Sea Turtle swim and skipped the Kayaking part. That was a waste.

(Tuesday) Marguerita Island, Venezuela - We were only in port here for

about
7 hours so we didn't do any excursions. We just walked off the boat to

the
nearby beach and relaxed in beach chairs. There is some local shopping

just
off the boat. It's mostly local crafts and none of the discount
jewelry/watches shopping that you see over the rest of the other

islands.

(Wednesday)Aruba - We didn't make any plans here either, but we did grab

a
local taxi and hae him give us a tour of the island. I had already been

here
before so there wasn't really anything new to me here. We had him drop

us
off in the high-rise area so we could swim on the beach and soak up some
sun.

(Thursday) 'Day-at-sea'. That was an experience. We experienced 30 knot
crosswinds and some pretty heavy seas. The ship was rockin' and rollin'

for
pretty much the entire day. Made for a lot of 'sick looking' passengers.

My
stomach was rolling for most of the day. One crew member told us that

the
infirmary was full from people getting sick.

Back in San Juan we had to dis-embark at 9:30 but our flight home didn't
leave until 5:00. We hired a local taxi driver to gives us a tour of the

old
San Juan and the fort. That took up a good part of the day and we waited

at
the airport until it was time to go back home.

Overall we were more than pleased with thecruise, the Galaxy and its

crew.

We're already looking to see when we can schedule an Alaska trip on the
Galaxy.







---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.614 / Virus Database: 393 - Release Date: 3/5/04


  #6  
Old March 10th, 2004, 11:16 PM
Byron Holston
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Calabrity Galaxy trip report (South Caribbean)

Make that another six! There were six of us travelling together and we're
already discussing the next one.

"Tom & Linda" wrote in message
. net...

"Byron Holston" wrote in message
ink.net...

Overall we were more than pleased with thecruise, the Galaxy and its

crew.

We're already looking to see when we can schedule an Alaska trip on the
Galaxy.



Another one hooked!!!

--Tom




  #7  
Old March 10th, 2004, 11:19 PM
Byron Holston
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Calabrity Galaxy trip report (South Caribbean)

I was happy to share. It's too hard to keep quiet when you have that much
fun.
There are some pics here if interested:
http://www.holstononline.com/cruise2004/
Not the best pics, but I was rushing when scanning and posting. I'll go
back and clean them up one of these days.

"Jeff Coudriet" wrote in message
...
The Galaxy was our first "real" cruise, and we thoroughly enjoyed it.
Sounds like you did too! Thanks for sharing your trip review with us.

Jeff




  #8  
Old March 11th, 2004, 01:11 AM
Jaime A. Cruz
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Calabrity Galaxy trip report (South Caribbean)

Byron Holston wrote:
I was happy to share. It's too hard to keep quiet when you have that much
fun.
There are some pics here if interested:
http://www.holstononline.com/cruise2004/
Not the best pics, but I was rushing when scanning and posting. I'll go
back and clean them up one of these days.


NICE! How'd you get such good photos of those turtles?? Best I got was
a blue on blue shadow...

--
Jaime A. Cruz
Secretary
Nassau Wings Motorcycle Club
http://www.nassauwings.org/
http://www.popsrun.org/
  #9  
Old March 11th, 2004, 09:17 PM
Byron Holston
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Calabrity Galaxy trip report (South Caribbean)

I'm not sure.... I didn't do anything special. I was using one of those
cheap Fuji underwater cameras.

"Jaime A. Cruz" wrote in message
et...
Byron Holston wrote:
I was happy to share. It's too hard to keep quiet when you have that

much
fun.
There are some pics here if interested:
http://www.holstononline.com/cruise2004/
Not the best pics, but I was rushing when scanning and posting. I'll go
back and clean them up one of these days.


NICE! How'd you get such good photos of those turtles?? Best I got was
a blue on blue shadow...

--
Jaime A. Cruz
Secretary
Nassau Wings Motorcycle Club
http://www.nassauwings.org/
http://www.popsrun.org/



  #10  
Old March 11th, 2004, 10:11 PM
Jaime A. Cruz
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Calabrity Galaxy trip report (South Caribbean)

Byron Holston wrote:
I'm not sure.... I didn't do anything special. I was using one of those
cheap Fuji underwater cameras.


You were probably able to get closer to them than I was, then. On our
excursion, we didn't get FLIPPERS and it wasn't easy snorkeling in that
current trying to keep up with the turtles and getting close enough for
a photo...

--
Jaime A. Cruz
Secretary
Nassau Wings Motorcycle Club
http://www.nassauwings.org/
http://www.popsrun.org/
 




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