20241226 Thursday, December 26, 2024. St Kitts Carnival and Beaches

20241226 Thursday, December 26, 2024. St Kitts Carnival and Beaches

Ben was awakened by a rhythmic drumming and scraping sound so he went to the balcony to see if the ship was crashing into the dock.  The ship was backing into the slip, but the cacophony was coming from shore.  It sounded as if everyone in the town with a sound system had it pointing at the ship and were simultaneously playing a dozen unrelated club band rave songs.  It was truly an awful racket, drowning out all the normal noises of huge cruise ships.  

Simultaneously, we also saw another Princess cruise ship heading into the adjacent slip just minutes behind us.  It was our old friend, the Island Princess.  We had spent 60 days on her going around South America.  She tied up across the pier from us.  The Viking Sea, which had been tied up across from us in San Juan, Puerto Rico, was on the next pier over along with Royal Caribbean’s Serenade of the Seas.  

John contacted his college roommate Dan and learned that the cacophony was actually St. Kitts celebration of Carnival.  There were 6 parades occurring in Basseterre, the capital city of St. Kitt and Nevis.  After a quick breakfast, we headed ashore to meet Dan and his wife Kayla, who is a St. Kitts Native.  There is a large shopping district at the cruise ship port which Kayla said is where people do most of their shopping, but when cruise ships are in town, it gets incredibly busy.  There are the usual Diamonds International and other tourist stores as well as a large variety of restaurants, gift shops, bars and a local crafts market.  

One thing that was very noticeable was the taxi drivers were extremely aggressive and seemed to come at us from every possible direction, even with Dan and Kayla fending them off for us.  Some of them followed us hundreds of feet as we tried to get out of their primary kill zone to where we could exchange pleasantries and properly greet each other.  

We could not avoid the Carnival parades which had pretty much consumed the main streets and squares of Basseterre.  The music was so loud it shook your guts and rattled your brain.  The streets were filthy with trash, and the crowds were half rowdy and half in a semi zombie state.  Kayla explained that the parade had started at 4am, and that these people were partying full throttle since then.  What was most visually striking was the number of full bootied women clad in fishnet stockings or pantyhose barely covered by thong styled swim tops.  Many wore cowboy hats and had bandanas tied to a thigh, and a lot of people had been splashed with paint at some point.  

The parade and dancing was pretty loosely organized and seemed pretty chaotic.  It was quite unlike the very glitzy and tightly choreographed Samba Parade at the center of Rio de Janeiro’s Carnival celebrations.  We frequently caught a whiff of marijuana in the crowds.  It was extremely intense and too much for us to really appreciate.  We eventually circled around to the taxi station where Dan, Kayla, John and Price would depart to go to a nearby beach  and do some sightseeing.   

Ben and Janet explored some of the town including its independence park and Catholic Church before heading back to the ship. 

They ended up having to work their way through the Carnival parade again to get back to the ship. 

Dan and Kayla did provide narration for their scenic trip to Cockleshell Bay Beach where the kids could all relax on beach chairs, and saw lots of giant conch shells and lobsters while swimming.  John and Price clocked over 2km in swimming for their day’s workout.  They also had lunch on the beach and a relaxing island afternoon.  

Meanwhile, Ben and Janet did enjoy the ship’s creature comforts with much less crowding since most people were gone on shore excursions.  

Ben and Janet did an afternoon trivia with Katherine from Montreal, coming in second place again. 

The kids made it back to the ship after their beach excursion.  We had dinner at O’Malley’s Pub, which is a casual dining venue that has a cover charge that is included in the plus package.  The sushi meal we had earlier was a similar set up. Since our package included two of these casual dining venues, we wanted to make sure to take advantage of them.  

O'Malley's Irish Pub casual dining venue

Irish Whiskey infused brownie

Apple Irish soda bread cake

The pub food was good, and better than the usual free Princess Pub Lunch that used to be featured on most itineraries.  They featured a Guiness Killarney stew, Mussels, and chicken wings.  They also had Irish themed desserts with a whiskey infused dark chocolate brownie, Bailey’s cheesecake and Guiness chocolate cream cake.  This was also the only ship’s venue where you could get Guiness stout and several Irish themed cocktails. 

After dinner, Price was played out and headed up to bed early.  The rest of us went to the Princess Theater where Nina Skyy did a Whitney Houston tribute. 

Janet said she enjoyed the show while Ben and John both spent a significant part of the show resting their eyes.  Price had chosen wisely to rest his eyes in the comfort of his bed.  After the show Janet retired directly to bed while Ben and John hit the Gelato stand before turning in.  

Tomorrow is our last port of call, St. Thomas in the American Virgin Islands.  John and Price will have to get up very early for their introduction to scuba excursion. The ship arrives at 7:15am and leaves at 4:30pm.  Ben and Janet will explore the town on their own since they didn’t get to do that during their last visit to St. Thomas.  They had done the same introduction to scuba, but Janet managed to rupture her ear drum on that excursion, so no more scuba for us old folk.