We arrive in tranquil St. John’s, the capital of Antigua (pronounced An tee’ gah) at 7am as scheduled. The Costa Deliziosa has preceded us. The parade continues, first with Explorer of the Seas, then one of the Azamura Cruises fleet, and lastly by Carnival Magic. If three of the names sound familiar, they should. We have been traveling in somewhat of a pack, which is probably quite typical of cruise lines when ships visit popular destinations at a popular time. We can’t imagine what it would be like if the industry were back to normal. These little port towns must be wall-to-wall tourists. Well, that’s the silver lining for those of us who are here, but tough on the folks here needing to make a living.
We have a most unusual excursion today. The name is Nicole’s table, and it will last for four and a half hours. Basically, we are driven to a person’s home in Antigua, where she, with our help, will prepare several local dishes. We then visit with her until the food is ready, and we then sit down and eat the delicious food we have prepared under her direction. This should be a great opportunity to 1) learn how to cook Caribbean-style food, 2) learn about the island through visiting with someone who lives here, and 3) chat with some fellow passengers with a similar interest in food and local culture.
Cathy’s Report: We meet in the lounge as usual, and discover that there were only six of us for the excursion! Besides us, there was a couple from Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada named Jackie and Nestor and a couple from the Portland, Oregon area named Henry and Harriett. Took a 15-minute van ride to a large, spacious, open house high in the hills with a fantastic view of the water and even our ship.
First, we had juice (a rum punch was also available) and sat around a large table just off the kitchen while our hostess, Nicole, explained the menu and ingredients: plantain chips and dips, jerk chicken with pineapple salsa, tostones, red beans and rice, rainbow salad, and coconut crisp tart. We were lazy and just watched most of the preparations, which was easy because the other members of our excursion were so eager to help. We did make Nicolle’s zesty sour cream dip and rubbed jerk sauce all over chicken halves.
While the chicken was cooking, we all sat on the spacious veranda, enjoyed the view, ate the fabulous plantain chips and dips and listened to the other two couples try to outdo each other with stories of their previous travels and Oceania cruises. Getting a word in edgewise was out of the question, which Steve will confess was a bit irritating.
Then we moved to a huge, beautiful wooden table (that had Nicole served the main meal at a huge table and joined us. Everything was delicious of course. It was quite pleasant as the other four finally shut up and Nicolle told us a bit about herself. She is from the Baltimore area and her husband is from Tiverton, Rhode Island. They have 19 year-old daughter that is away at college in Baltimore.
Now, for the first hour of our visit, Nicole kept getting frantic phone calls from our cab service, telling her that we must be ready leave her house at 1:30pm because Riviera’s 3:00pm departure time, would now be 2:30pm. Naturally, the cab was 20 minutes late picking us up, meaning that we six were indeed the last passengers to board. Cathy was quick to explain that was none of our doing to the person meeting us at the gangway.
Quick aside: we book all our excursions through Oceania Cruises, even though we are aware that the charges are higher than if you bought the same tour direct from the vendor. First of all, we have the confidence that each excursion has been thoroughly vetted by the cruise line and are run by reliable professionals. But secondly, and more important to us, is what you might call an insurance policy: should your tour be delayed past the last boarding time prior to sailing, the ship will wait, regardless. However, if you booked your excursion through an independent operator, Oceania Cruises has no obligation to keep the ship from leaving as scheduled. They probably will, within reason, because they understand their obligations to their passengers, but there isn’t the peace-of-mind guarantee we get by booking through them.
The reason for the early departure is that our next destination, Barbados, is 298 miles away, and we are scheduled to arrive at 8am tomorrow. Without taking the time it takes to clear the port in Antigua and the time it takes to ease in the port at Bridgetown, Barbados, the ship will average a cruising speed of 17.5 knots/hour. And hour out of Antigua, we are at 19.7 knots, sailing into a significant head wind.
Dinner is a big decision today. We stuffed ourselves at Nicole’s Table. The jerk chicken was absolutely delicious, the beans and rice, the rainbow salad and, to top it all off, the coconut crisp tart. Then we had the daily canapes at 5pm. We both agree that a full dinner is completely unnecessary. We opt to a fallback position we have employed in past cruises: head straight for dessert at the Terrace Café. We sit down, a waitperson comes over, and we explain why we are here. He understands.
We then make a beeline for the dessert buffet. Steve has Salted Caramel ice cream … with additional caramel on top as suggested by the server. Tough sell. Cathy has an almond tart. In less than half an hour, dinner is over!
And in another thirty minutes, so is our day. We are rocked to sleep by our ship racing through the Atlantic Ocean, determined to make our scheduled arrival tomorrow at 8am in Bridgetown.
