Halloween this year was very special as this was the day we embarked on our Carribean cruise.
As relative newbies to cruising (this was only our 4th trip) Wendy and I found the Sun Princess was a very nice ship as are, I'm sure all four + star ships. My first impression was that it was a little crowded compared to HAL ships. They crammed in a couple thousand people where 1200 to 1400 would have been better. I rated the food an easy 8 but they did charge extra for ice cream! And the ship we were on was physically very poorly laid out. For example, the buffet was "one way" so if you wanted to go back for a second coffee, you were supposed to line up again. Of course most people ignored the "DO NOT ENTER" sign and this added to the commotion. I heard more than one person comment on the inefficiency of the entire layout of the ship. Our table of 10, like our former HAL cruises did have Asian wait staff and my cabin stewardess, Mila was from the Philippines so I felt very much at home. They worked hard to please and I could certainly find no fault with them. IMHO the food selection was just one small notch down compared to HAL.
Before we left , I called down to Barbados and reserved a city bus. The price for the bus and driver worked out to around $350.00 or $25.00 each. among the fourteen people. I printed out some extra tickets which the original fourteen sold to fifteen other people on the ship, so we ended up with 29 people with the original fourteen recovering their money and a tip for the driver. The only stipulation was that whomever you sold the ticket to (they should be of similar lunacy)--- you had to bring them on the bus and introduce them to the rest. It worked. We ended up meeting some of the nicest people on the whole ship!
What a riot! The first stop was the grocery store for rum, ice and beer. Our driver with 22 years experience, I think Curtis Miller knew every person and every place on the island. As he told me ab
out each island feature, I would relay it to the rest of the people on the bus. My throat gave out after the first hour or so but Curtis took us to all the island hot spots. Enough beer and rum and no one cared about the commentary anyway! Co-incidentally, the international surfing championships were taking place that very day in Bathsheba. Curtis doubted if the police would allow us to bring the bus near the beach. Sure enough the police had barricaded the road. Our fine driver explained that we 
only wanted a minute to take a few pictures. We proceeded right to the beach! After a few hours, it was time to leave. The narrow road that we had entered on was now lined with parked cars. Curtis honked the horn to no avail. I rallied the men in the group outside and we physically lifted the cars out of the way so that the bus could progress back to the ship.At the end of the day, we had met another 15 wonderful people who I hope we can stay in touch with in the coming months and years. Some of the emails I’ve received indicated “the Bus Tour and Beach Crawl” was a highlight of the trip. That is very gratifying. God bless!
It seems like every time we fly in an airplane, a week later we come down with some sort of cold. This trip was no exception. Wendy and I were both barking like dogs and had no taste! As Curley of the three stooges said "I don't smell so good".
Wendy and I are very much looking forward to seeing all of you again someday.
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