Barbados - home of rum (malibu or gay)
Wednesday brought us to Barbados and probably the most anticipated port for me. One reason, RUM. Barbados is home to two big rum distilleries - Mount Gay and Malibu. I am fans of both versions and was excited to be able to tour one of the two distilleries, if not both.
Another reason - caves! Barbados, like most of the West Indies, has a volcanic past. This past is much further past than many of Barbados' neighboring islands (some of which have active volcanics). Old volcanics typically means certain types of rocks and those types of rocks typically mean caves. Barbados is no different, and we went for a spectacular spelunking at Harrison's Cave. This was no Indiana Jones cave adventure, this was cruise ship spelunking all the way. We arrived via a/c'd motorcoach to the cave and after a 5 minute wait, we boarded our open air tram for a drive through the cave. Talk about luxury - a drive through cave with a guide and all. I mean yuck, we got wet and stuff from the ewwwie water dripping from above.
The cave was pretty awesome despite the eeeeeeeeewwwie water.
Last reason I was excited about Barbados - BEACH TIME!
After our spelunking excursion, Maria went shopping with her Nonna and Papa while Jule, Alyssa, and I headed to Malibu beach, located on the property of the Malibu Rum distillery. This is MY kind of beach - warm, crisp blue waters, hot sun, ample shade and chairs, and of course, RUM within walking distance.
Give me a second here..... Mmmmm RUM
Frankly, I was a bit disappointed in the beach - high current made it tough for swimming especially with Alyssa in tow. Secondly, the long anticipated spectacular Caribbean view was either of the industrial ship yards to the west or the distillery lined beach to the east - not much of a view. The sand was nice - hardly anyone there except those on our tour bus and we had plenty of room to get tossed about in the surf. The steep drop off was another bad characteristic of this beach - hardly 10-15 feet from shore and I was to my nose in water. Again, this made it hard to swim with Alyssa and the current was strong enough to knock me off balance every once in a while.
Still, we had a good time. The beach had a snack shack from which to buy burgers, hot dogs, chicken sandwiches, and lots of rum drinks. Alyssa got a bit grouchy and whiney for a while and was put in a time out. Eventually she and Jule both took a good nap while sunbathing. I elected to ditch the sun and sand for the distillery tour which wasnt much - another disappointment.
Here is the Malibu Rum Distillery tour.
Put on a hard hat.
Walk around some rickety old wherehouses.
Enter one of them and stand next to a big stainless steel tank.
Guide says "this is phase one" and then says a few more things about what is added in phase one but the heavy Caribbean accent is making it hard to gather the other ingredients beyond sugar and water.
Leave this wherehouse and enter another with a similarly shaped yest much larger tank.
Guide explains that this is step 2 which seems to be just an advanced version of step 1 - as many tanks of step 1 converge into step 2.
We leave this part and the guide points to another room and says we cannot go there because that is the bottling operation and it is dangerous (so why the hard hats?).
The hard hat is starting to make me sweat quite a bit - so we leave step 2 and go into a small room remeniscent of an old school house with chairs and a small TV/VCR combo in the front.
Here we are treated to a 10 minute video showing historic Malibu rum commercials from the late 70s as far as I can tell. I kept waiting for Ricardo Montalbon to step out and welcome me to Fantasy Island with that shrimp Tatoo yelling "Da plane! Da plane!" (I'm fairly certain that midget made a porno following that stellar career of being known for pointing at planes and for being a side kick to a rich corinthian leather enthusiast ).
Anyhow, back to the tour - we leave the coolness of the school room and VCR entertainment and walk back past step 2's room, carefully around the bottling area and enter another room filled with cases of Malibu and Cockspur rum and a forklift. The guide explains that this is the shipping room. Really?
We leave that room, head back to where the tour started, ditch the hard hats (thank god!) and she sets up a bar with three different rums and starts pouring out the samples! Yummmmmm.
The Cockspur VSOP was stellar.
The tour left me cold - I wish I had visited the Mount Gay Rum distillery instead.
Anyway, I did pick up some samples to bring home and the best part was they didnt catch me at security while boarding the ship, so I had alcohol to drink on board should I have chosen to.
Anyway, another bonus of that day was seeing the big Cricket stadium where the World Cup final was played last year. The island nations of the West Indies co-hosted the tournament last year. I have no clue who won. I am sure it was not the US, nor Italy since we dont really waste our time with the sport.
Another bonus of the day was winning $200 at the blackjack tables on board the ship. Score!
Back home now and I was so eager to check real news. The onboard TV choices are slim with NBC and Fox affiliates out of Denver (WTF?) combined with a spanish CNN, some MTV style channel that actually plays videos (but the same 12 over and over), TNT sometimes of the day, and 4-5 channels dedicated to the ship.
These choices include:
1. the captain's and navigator's log showing you the ship's position, bearing, air temperture outside, pool temperature, the atmospheric pressure, wind direction and speed, ship speed, distance to next island, distance traveled...
2. Two channels showing replays of the ship's Cruise Director's talks (one on excursions, one from the opening show in the theater). The thing is showing us a talk on all the possible excursions is useful for the first day or two, but after you have been to a port and they keep showing the same information, its a bit old
3. Another channel showing videos made from around the ship (say of salsa dancing or hairy chest contests) or of certain excursions (videographers will go on some excursions capturing moments specific to this cruise so they can sell a cruise video with footage from just this one week). The only time this came in handy was after Alyssa got to be in the Christmas show at the end of the week and we got to see it replayed on the TV.
4. A channel showing artwork up for auction during different days of the cruise. BORING.
Anyway, back to reality... I got to see some football at the Dallas airport and someone apparently threw a shoe at Bush (what took so long?) but I was so eager to grab a newspaper to see that Central Michigan is indeed favored by 6 over Florida Atlantic in the Motor City Bowl the day after Christmas. Whooo, my plans are SET!
Anyhow, we have come home to a broken heater so it is a bit cold in the house. But we are all in one piece and happy and had a great time.
Now, how do I get back on Pacific Time? Its 930am and it feels like lunch.
dr
Wednesday brought us to Barbados and probably the most anticipated port for me. One reason, RUM. Barbados is home to two big rum distilleries - Mount Gay and Malibu. I am fans of both versions and was excited to be able to tour one of the two distilleries, if not both.
Another reason - caves! Barbados, like most of the West Indies, has a volcanic past. This past is much further past than many of Barbados' neighboring islands (some of which have active volcanics). Old volcanics typically means certain types of rocks and those types of rocks typically mean caves. Barbados is no different, and we went for a spectacular spelunking at Harrison's Cave. This was no Indiana Jones cave adventure, this was cruise ship spelunking all the way. We arrived via a/c'd motorcoach to the cave and after a 5 minute wait, we boarded our open air tram for a drive through the cave. Talk about luxury - a drive through cave with a guide and all. I mean yuck, we got wet and stuff from the ewwwie water dripping from above.
The cave was pretty awesome despite the eeeeeeeeewwwie water.
Last reason I was excited about Barbados - BEACH TIME!
After our spelunking excursion, Maria went shopping with her Nonna and Papa while Jule, Alyssa, and I headed to Malibu beach, located on the property of the Malibu Rum distillery. This is MY kind of beach - warm, crisp blue waters, hot sun, ample shade and chairs, and of course, RUM within walking distance.
Give me a second here..... Mmmmm RUM
Frankly, I was a bit disappointed in the beach - high current made it tough for swimming especially with Alyssa in tow. Secondly, the long anticipated spectacular Caribbean view was either of the industrial ship yards to the west or the distillery lined beach to the east - not much of a view. The sand was nice - hardly anyone there except those on our tour bus and we had plenty of room to get tossed about in the surf. The steep drop off was another bad characteristic of this beach - hardly 10-15 feet from shore and I was to my nose in water. Again, this made it hard to swim with Alyssa and the current was strong enough to knock me off balance every once in a while.
Still, we had a good time. The beach had a snack shack from which to buy burgers, hot dogs, chicken sandwiches, and lots of rum drinks. Alyssa got a bit grouchy and whiney for a while and was put in a time out. Eventually she and Jule both took a good nap while sunbathing. I elected to ditch the sun and sand for the distillery tour which wasnt much - another disappointment.
Here is the Malibu Rum Distillery tour.
Put on a hard hat.
Walk around some rickety old wherehouses.
Enter one of them and stand next to a big stainless steel tank.
Guide says "this is phase one" and then says a few more things about what is added in phase one but the heavy Caribbean accent is making it hard to gather the other ingredients beyond sugar and water.
Leave this wherehouse and enter another with a similarly shaped yest much larger tank.
Guide explains that this is step 2 which seems to be just an advanced version of step 1 - as many tanks of step 1 converge into step 2.
We leave this part and the guide points to another room and says we cannot go there because that is the bottling operation and it is dangerous (so why the hard hats?).
The hard hat is starting to make me sweat quite a bit - so we leave step 2 and go into a small room remeniscent of an old school house with chairs and a small TV/VCR combo in the front.
Here we are treated to a 10 minute video showing historic Malibu rum commercials from the late 70s as far as I can tell. I kept waiting for Ricardo Montalbon to step out and welcome me to Fantasy Island with that shrimp Tatoo yelling "Da plane! Da plane!" (I'm fairly certain that midget made a porno following that stellar career of being known for pointing at planes and for being a side kick to a rich corinthian leather enthusiast ).
Anyhow, back to the tour - we leave the coolness of the school room and VCR entertainment and walk back past step 2's room, carefully around the bottling area and enter another room filled with cases of Malibu and Cockspur rum and a forklift. The guide explains that this is the shipping room. Really?
We leave that room, head back to where the tour started, ditch the hard hats (thank god!) and she sets up a bar with three different rums and starts pouring out the samples! Yummmmmm.
The Cockspur VSOP was stellar.
The tour left me cold - I wish I had visited the Mount Gay Rum distillery instead.
Anyway, I did pick up some samples to bring home and the best part was they didnt catch me at security while boarding the ship, so I had alcohol to drink on board should I have chosen to.
Anyway, another bonus of that day was seeing the big Cricket stadium where the World Cup final was played last year. The island nations of the West Indies co-hosted the tournament last year. I have no clue who won. I am sure it was not the US, nor Italy since we dont really waste our time with the sport.
Another bonus of the day was winning $200 at the blackjack tables on board the ship. Score!
Back home now and I was so eager to check real news. The onboard TV choices are slim with NBC and Fox affiliates out of Denver (WTF?) combined with a spanish CNN, some MTV style channel that actually plays videos (but the same 12 over and over), TNT sometimes of the day, and 4-5 channels dedicated to the ship.
These choices include:
1. the captain's and navigator's log showing you the ship's position, bearing, air temperture outside, pool temperature, the atmospheric pressure, wind direction and speed, ship speed, distance to next island, distance traveled...
2. Two channels showing replays of the ship's Cruise Director's talks (one on excursions, one from the opening show in the theater). The thing is showing us a talk on all the possible excursions is useful for the first day or two, but after you have been to a port and they keep showing the same information, its a bit old
3. Another channel showing videos made from around the ship (say of salsa dancing or hairy chest contests) or of certain excursions (videographers will go on some excursions capturing moments specific to this cruise so they can sell a cruise video with footage from just this one week). The only time this came in handy was after Alyssa got to be in the Christmas show at the end of the week and we got to see it replayed on the TV.
4. A channel showing artwork up for auction during different days of the cruise. BORING.
Anyway, back to reality... I got to see some football at the Dallas airport and someone apparently threw a shoe at Bush (what took so long?) but I was so eager to grab a newspaper to see that Central Michigan is indeed favored by 6 over Florida Atlantic in the Motor City Bowl the day after Christmas. Whooo, my plans are SET!
Anyhow, we have come home to a broken heater so it is a bit cold in the house. But we are all in one piece and happy and had a great time.
Now, how do I get back on Pacific Time? Its 930am and it feels like lunch.
dr
Barbados is the best place to relax. Very affordable. Great place to have quality time with your loved ones.
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