Monday and Grenada

I wake to this loud voice coming from somewhere?  I groggily say “who is that” and then I realize it is coming from the bridge into the speakers in the hallway announcing our arrival in Grenada and all clear to go ashore.  Oh…. Well that is a nice way to wake, not some loud annoying alarm but someone saying “welcome to Grenada” I could get use to this.

But I should back track a bit and tell you what we did last night.  Like I mentioned in yesterday’s blog that we wanted to go to the Horizon Court for the German Buffet.  It was very good, various sausages, spatzle and a lovely beef stew to top it with.  A pork roast, various salads, schnitzel and lots of other things.  We enjoyed it and Bernie got a few desserts but I passed as I was full. 

We walk all over the upper decks and watch the island lights as we pass, not sure which island it is we will have to check that out later.  Football is being played on the MUTS and it seems quite popular but we don’t follow it at all, we sometimes follow the B.C. Lions but not enough to watch football while away. 

Frenchie is hosting her Multi Media Trivia in Explorers and guess what WE WON!  Only one wrong – whoot whoot , I might not be smart with regular trivia but give me these multi media ones and well I can hold my own.  We won water bottles, which are great prizes and make great prizes for those that follow me on my facebook page (Cruising Princess Cruiseline with Vickie).  And now with more water bottles I will do a few more draws for them when we get home.

We stay in Explorers because later they are doing a new game show called “Are You Smarter than a Crew Member” which was a lot of fun and the crew up on stage made us laugh.

I saw Lee Childes, our Cruise Director and said hi and caught up with him, and Bruce and Sharon if you are reading I said hi to him from you.

We were in bed just after 11 pm.

Okay back to today.

We went for breakfast down in the dining room where I had my grapefruit and eggs Bennedict (but only had one of the two served).  We quickly head back to the room, fill up the water bottles, change into work out clothes and head ashore.  Our goal today is to do at least five miles, and at our usual pace that is around an hour and 40 minutes but we also want to get some hiking up some of the mountains in there too.

We leave the port area and turn right and head towards the Fort George stairs and we make our way up them and then back down and back up again – okay we are warmed up.  We wander down the other side and along the Inner Harbour called The Carenage, so pretty.  

Our original goal was to walk to Fort Federick and we thought it should be easy to find, well maybe not.  We should of researched how to get there prior to getting off.  We ask one person they tell us it is back towards town, we then ask someone else and they say oh it is over this way (opposite way), we ask a third and we are given another answer!  This is common in the Caribbean, three people three answers, so we walk to the other side of the bay then backtrack and decide which hill we will walk up.  Bernie points to one that looks like it will have a great view.  Lead on!

We start climbing and take the switchback roads up and up, the views just get better.  Lovely homes, many with large dogs that look intimidating but as we get closer to the house the dogs callow back and then as we pass the dogs start barking again.  We get to the top and take some pictures and decide to head back down and to the right instead of the left where we came. 

This island is so pretty, the people are very friendly and helpful.  We are asked numerous times if we want a taxi but a polite no works just fine.  We walk thru the town and check out the fish market, then we pop into the grocery store to buy some local soda for mix with our vodka and the rum punch I bought in Dominica.

We stop by the little vendors just outside the main pier area which includes the Esplanade Mall, we try to find our regular lady we buy from but she is not there.  We do start chatting with two lovely ladies, they each have their own stall #22 and #21.  #21 belongs to Dale and she helped us and we picked us some items from her and her neighbour.  The items included cinnamon, cocoa balls, curry powder, turmeric, and some garlic sauce.  They have lovely little gift baskets filled with a variety of spices which make great souvenirs for friends too.  Check them out and tell them you read about them from this blog. 

We are back on board around 10:45 and we sit in the coffee bar chatting with Beverley the lovely waiter there.  Anita joins us and we all decide to head to trivia at 11:15, this will be my first “normal” trivia, and as many of you know I usually don’t like going to these as many take it way to seriously but we had a good group and we did very well getting 19 out of 20 but since we tied we had a tie breaker where we lost that, but it was still fun.

Bernie has headed up to the pool for some sun and relaxation.   For me I am going to shower and then head down to the line dancing class where they will be teaching us all the steps for tonight’s Island Deck Party.   I have attended the deck party numerous times but have never taken the dance class so we will see how that goes.

Tonight is also the Captain Circle Party for the Platinum and Elites.  They had the Gold party the second day I believe.  We are going to the 5:15 party and then I want to do the food trivia at 7:15.  We will dine in the dining room and probably head to the Island Deck party tonight