Day 4 (Nov 19): Basseterre, St. Kitts in West Indies Travel Log

Our excursion today was at a more reasonable hour of 8:15am, so I got to wake up at 7am to get some light breakfast before heading out. The excursion itself was very sedentary; we rode on a catamaran from the Port Zante dock to New Guinea, then took a bus to just outside the Eco-Park, and from there took the scenic railway around the island to get back to the airport, and then got bussed back to the ship. It was a very scenic trip, and the modes of travel was novel, so we had a fun time. We expected the catamaran to be rocky but the captain sailed really slow, so it was a very gentle rock. I was sitting outside in front of the and on net the whole time and the rocking posed no problem. The train, however, was very rocky. It was a heavy two-story train car, going on a pair of tiny tracks that looked like amusement park rides designed for children. The train was originally intended to transport sugar cane around the island so I guess it’s not surprising. It was nice to get a view around the island from a high vantage point, and the operators were very informative. My in-laws had booked a different excursion involving the railway (La Professeure booked a different one from theirs by mistake). Basically, theirs didn’t have the sailing part. But we ended up on the same train car by sheer luck. So it was a nice surprise to see them.

In the afternoon we just lounged around the ship; we had lunch, walked around to the spa, then collected La Professeure’s father to go to afternoon tea and then went to the repeat-customers’ toast. It was a good thing there was so much eating during the day, because then we went to a specialty dining venue where they had a fixed menu, and it was quite experimental. It was supposed to be Asian fusion - and I recognised none of the dishes. When the waiter brought out the “Peking duck” I must have made a face because they laughed. It looked nothing like any version of Peking duck I knew - it looked like a crepe. We didn’t like most of the dishes.

After dinner, I wrote this entry and La Professeure caught up with her e-mails while listening to the onboard musicians, a violinist and a cellist, trying to play a Mozart K136 divertimento without the two inner voices, which makes you appreciate Mozart’s writing.

We went to a show afterwards, which was head and shoulders above every other entertainment option on the show. It’s a one-woman show with the assistant cruise director, who started as a singer and now I guess performing on the side? She sang mostly jazz standards, one Melody Gardot song, and some pop songs covers (I was impressed how good Staying Alive sounds as a ballad). So I was very impressed.