Galaxy - Southern Caribbean - 23/02/07 - Page 2 - Cruise Line Fans: Cruise Reviews and Chat From Real Cruisers

Cat Woman · 10-13-2006, 07:59 AM

I would love to give you tips on where to shop in the ports, but with the exception of Aruba, I have not shopped at any of the other ports. That's because our excursions on these islands in the past were very long and did not leave any time for shopping. Such a sad situation!!

I will, of course, be making up for lost time in Feb/March.

What I would like to know is..in Aruba is there any other shopping other than the area where the ship docks?

I have read other posts and spoke to a woman at work who has visited Tortola and it appears there is not much shopping to do there.

I see you are going to St. Kitts. Hopefully you don't dock in on a Sunday. Nothing is open on Sunday's in St. Kitts.

Hands down, the best shopping is in St. Thomas but unfortunately we've not going there.

Have a great day!

Sue

cruiseshmooz · 10-13-2006, 06:29 PM

Hi! Aruba has a beautiful new (relatively) shopping centre called the Royal something. All the stores are there. If you walk towards town, there is the old shopping centre on the same side of the street. More stores. Then, if you walk through to the square (inland), you can find the original main stores of lots of chains on the main street (I forget the street's name). I have been successful at Little Switzerland, Gandelman's, Kenro. There are many more.

If you go to Palm Beach, each of the hotels has branches of a couple of jewellery stores and other shops as well. When we vacationed in Aruba, most of my shopping was done in the hotels.

I don't think St. Kitts has much shopping. The best is at the Batik Factory. Grenada has spices.
I never shopped in Barbados. Curacao is basic. I got the impression that the town shopping area was for locals more than for tourists. I was there just before Xmas and it seemed that locals were doing most of the shopping. I did buy very nice and very inexpensive sandals.

St. Thomas is THE shopping area. But, I bought jewellery in one of the main stores. Saved about 10% on Yurman. Some of the stores look like "junk shops", even though their junk happens to be diamonds!!!!!

Anyway, it's fun. I don't know what the prices will be this year. We were in Europe and we found that the jewellery was untouchable.

Here, at home, I have been shopping for a couple of gifts and I find that the prices are sky high.(Of course, I don't usually shop at home, so I don't know if this is a worldwide issue).

It would be nice if there was at least ONE other cruiser, either on your cruise or on ours!!!!

Cat Woman · 10-13-2006, 10:24 PM

It would be nice to have other posters as you say. Even on the "dark side" for our cruise, there are only three of us that post semi-regularly and one has now gone on a cruise (how dare he and not take me!).

Have you sailed with Celebrity before? If so how many times?

This will be our 3rd Celebrity cruise and 2nd on Galaxy. We sailed on the Summit in 2005 and we were not too impressed as we were on the Galaxy. We found the service to be lacking - for instance, not once did we get our picture taken on formal nights at the table - in fact the photographers were sparse throughout the entire cruise. Lucky for us we have 3 cameras amongt the group so we took our own excellent formal night pictures in the observatory (I think that's what it is is called - there are flowers (real and silk), a white piano). We also had filed numerous noise complaints with Guest Relations due to the Cirque show at time. We heard "tribal drum" music in our stateroom from 10 pm to 2 am. Not too sure why the service was not as excellent as we experienced on the Galaxy. The only explanation we could come up with is the ship is bigger - maybe there were not enough staff for the passengers.

cruiseshmooz · 10-14-2006, 09:18 AM

Yes, we have sailed on all but the Millenium. Our favourite was the Constellation, British Isles and Scandinavia. The cruise was fabulous and so was the ship.

We were on the Galaxy once before. It was not great. I don't pay too much attention to that because as you know the dynamics change on every cruise. For example, we had a noise problem in our cabin. The staff gave us a hard time. DH is a lawyer and he handled the situation. (I tend to lose my cool when I know I am right and I don't get co-operation!!!) Finally, they changed our cabin, gave us bottles of wine (we kept finding more bottles in our cabin. It became our joke!)and were generally treated like "guests".

As for service, on that particular cruise, we really liked our assistant Maitre d'. But, we noticed that as soon as he received his tip (which was the standard), he became elusive. HOWEVER, we had him as our maitre d' on a subsequent cruise and he remembered us and gave us the royal treatment. So you never know. We just go with the flow and don't pay too much attention to these details.

We were on the Summit last winter. I think our waiter was the best yet. Happy,Happy and Mahvelous Sol were on that cruise. Very entertaining personnel!!! Come to think of it, I think the photographer was less available than usual. We have yet to purchase any of the photos, so it really didn't matter. It's fun to look at them but if I think I came out well, my DH thinks he didn't, and vice versa!

The best thing about the Southern Carib cruise is the ports. Isn't this the least expensive way to get to the Carib? If I get to take a long walk on each beach and have a good swim in the calm sea, I will be very happy. (My needs are so simple!).

How are your exercises coming along? I began the other day, but did only a few. I will do more today.

Have a great day!

Cat Woman · 10-14-2006, 09:54 AM

I'm with you on that each cruise is different so you cannot let a bad experience taint your opinion of a cruise line.

Our waiters on both the Galaxy and Summit were excellent. On the Galaxy we had Oliver - very handsome, very personable. Our table gave him a wedding present on the last night. We arranged with the Matri'd to have a cake baked for this event and we also arranged for Oliver and his assistant, Thomas, to enjoy a glass of champagne with us when we toasted to his upcoming marriage. Oliver, Thomas and the Matri'd only had a sip mind you.

On the Summit our excursion in Costa Rica was cancelled due to lack of interest. The night before, at dinner, we were discussing this at our table and our waiter told us he was from Costa Rica and he had a friend who owned a tour company. He called his friend before we docked in Costa Rica and arranged for us to meet with his friend. The waiter, Juan was his name, met us on the pier (he got time to be with his family), introduced us to his friend, he left and we decided what tour we were interested in. THE BEST tour I've ever had. The tour guide's name is Danilo. We went through the country side. We stopped at a man's house - he was taking care of a baby monkey whose mother had fallen out of a tree and died. We were able to hold the baby and give it a bottle of milk - very cute. We gave the man some money to help with his efforts. He also had a 3 toed sloth he was looking after - the sloth had a baby. We also went to the Del Monte banana plantation, the Tortuga (I've spelled this wrong) canals. He took time to stop, explain the flora and fauna in the country. He picked flowers for us. Very sweet!

I've went to the gym three times (Tues., Wed. and Thurs.) I may have overdone it on Thursday - I was there for an hour. Yesterday I didn't go but I will be at it again this weekend after I go shopping of course. Must gave those priorities in order!

Have a great day!

cruiseshmooz · 10-15-2006, 10:33 PM

Your tour in Costa Rica sounds amazing. It's the unexpected that often turns out to be the best!

I exercised yesterday, but today I walked. Tomorrow morning I will exercise again (I hope!).

Were you successful shopping? I tried, but save lots of $$$(ie bought nada!)

Cat Woman · 10-16-2006, 07:50 AM

You asked was I successful in my shopping! Ivana Trump was in town. She was selling her wonderful jewellery on The Shopping Channel and it was all on sale.

I showed great restraint! I only bought a gorgeous necklace and earring set and a pendant necklace. The set will look great with my evening gown!

I must restrain myself over the next 4 months. There's more shopping to do on the cruise!

cruiseshmooz · 10-16-2006, 06:43 PM

Enjoy your purchase! Good luck with your restraint!!!!

Cat Woman · 10-17-2006, 06:37 PM

Hope you are having a better day than I have had. To relieve the stress of the day I took time out looking at the shore excursions offered on our cruise.

I was soooooo frustrated at work I was able to do my treadmill exercise in 30 minutes instead of the 45 it usually takes.

What type of exercises are you doing? Any suggestions on an easy way to firm up the abdomen?

cruiseshmooz · 10-17-2006, 08:11 PM

Hope tomorrow will be better!

Did you notice that there is actually another poster, but she won't be going on her cruise before 2008!

As for abs...hah! My back is in trouble and my Physiotherapist has me doing pelvic tilts! Whatever you do, be careful. I could not do crunches because of my neck, so I do floor exercises on my back. My bod is falling apart! I am trying to get back into my "routine" which is mainly stretch and tone. I haven't done it in a long while, and I can see the difficulty I am now having with some of the exercises. I did exercise today and I plan to do so tomorrow. Hopefully, it will get easier.

I answered you on another thread. My DH is late coming home for dinner, so I am trying to kill time and stay out of the kitchen. I am hungry!!