Luckily, the Pacific Princess arrived and was cleared shortly after 7am. After a quick breakfast in the Panorama Buffet, we walked off the ship prepared for an easy beach day. We walked out of the port and down to Lobster Alive on Carlisle Bay Beach and were seated in front row loungers by 8:30am. Go us! It was already warm with very low humidity and sun shaping up to be a perfect beach day. I was in that beautiful crystalline water in about 7 seconds and it was just spectacular, with 100% visibility as far out as I swam.
We had heard about management changes at Lobster Alive from Suzan and Greg, who were there earlier this month, and, sadly, they are not happy ones. The previous bartenders have left, including Cheryl, who took with her that unmatchable rum punch recipe that I have loved for years. Terry, who rents the chairs, is still there and it was nice to see at least one familiar face. The deal there is still the same: $15 for two chairs and and umbrella (not all of them are large ones any longer) and three half-priced drink coupons. About 11am I went up to the bar for a rum punch and discovered they no longer give change in US $. I handed over US $5 and a half priced coupon and got back some local currency that I was told would be more than enough for a second rum punch. Well...one was enough, thanks very much. They taste nothing like the old ones. I was crushed.
Lobster Alive has been painted blue, and they no longer have the large green umbrellas
But other than that, the day was perfect. Well, almost perfect. I had to wrestle with my miracle swimsuit again, topped by a rash guard, when I needed to use the bathroom. Good grief that is not a pretty picture. Wet rash guard, wet swimsuit, wet me. It's a week's worth of strenuous exercise in ten minutes. I have considerably wised up though, and ordered only two piece swim shorts and tops from Lands End to take to Hawaii. I'm getting too old to pull on miracle suits.
I purchased a beautiful abalone pendant from Sonny, the same beach vendor I bought my turtle earrings from during our visit last January. He's such a nice guy, and remembered me and what I had bought and that it had been my birthday that day. We do love Barbados and the wonderful Bajan people! Around 1pm, I took the local currency and our two remaining half-priced coupons and went up to the bar to get two local Banks beers. Good grief...I waited in line about 15 minutes. I am not impressed with the new management. In fact, for years the Lobster Alive website linked to a blog post of mine where I had said good things. They had never asked permission but I really liked the place and didn't mind. I haven't check it recently but if it still does, I am going to ask them to remove the link. Things are no longer as they once were. We'll still go there, simply because it's a quieter location on a busy beach, but will only buy beers.
Around 3:30pm we caught a taxi ($4 per person) back to the port. G took our heavy gear and returned to the ship but I spent some time wandering the souvenir stalls looking for t-shirts for the twins. I really wanted to get them on Tobago but there was nothing that suited, and I even had a hard time finding something in the right sizes and colors today, but finally did. I didn't want to buy any on Martinique and they've had plenty from Antigua and St. Kitts over the years. It was time for a change. There was a jumble of shuttles outside the terminal building running passengers back to all the cruise ships. Even if I had wanted to walk down the breakwater to the Pacific Princess, it wasn't especially safe to do so today, if only from the shuttle bus traffic.
G was already in the shower when I returned and I did the same and joined him in the PES Lounge for a beautiful sailaway. We went to dinner at exactly 5:30pm and ate lightly (I had beef fajitas tonight, for some reason). At 7pm, we had a cocktail party for this cruise's MTP event. I was so happy to see that they had not squeezed a lunch into one of our sea days this cruise. As a passenger, I think it is much easier having an evening event than a mid-day one. Of course, many people prefer the luncheons. It was just a bit tight on our Mediterranean cruises when we had only two sea days every 12-night cruise to spend one of them cleaned up by lunch for the rest of the day. We had wonderful lobster, crab, scallop, shrimp and beef tartar hors doerves and several sweet treats to choose from.
G was nearly asleep over dinner, so as soon as the party had ended, we skipped all entertainment (tonight's was production show Cinematastic) and returned to the cabin. He's been asleep since before I finished my nighttime ablutions. Five beach days in five ports are catching up with us, but tomorrow in Martinique will be considerably less exciting. With no beach nearby, we will likely just spend some time walking around the port town of Fort de France and have an early return to the ship.