Day 14-Barbados

We woke early as usual and found ourselves docking in Barbados, our last stop.

Our trip was due to start at 9.00 but before that we needed to go to the Live Lounge to complete immigration into Barbados. It’s surprising how much stricter the protocol is here compared to all the other islands. I arrived before the allotted start time of 7.30 and the queue was immense but as soon as the immigration officers arrived and opened up it as incredibly quick.

We had plenty of time to take our coffees which Steve had bought earlier, into horizon for breakfast. We set off for our trip relatively early but it took a great deal longer to leave the boat and was further to walk to get to the tour meeting point but we were still in plenty of time. However we couldn’t find the board for our tour anywhere. It’s always been so quick and efficient before but today it was a bit of a mess made worse by the fact that there was another liner in with its own excursions going from the same point.

After looking for a while we found one of the main P&O reps who asked us to wait by some seats.  There were a few of us so at least we were all together. But after quite a wait the rep said that our tour bus and guide hadn’t turned up but that he was trying to contact them. He disappeared for a while but when he came back he apologised profusely and said they still hadn’t been able to contact them so would have to cancel the trip. We were really upset as there was nothing else we could go on as all the other excursions had left. If we hadn’t changed our booking we could have been on a trip to snorkel with turtles.

I also forgot to mention that when we got back to our cabin at some point yesterday we had yet another letter saying our trip to Harrison’s Cave on Saturday which took us onto the airport, had also been cancelled. So this meant that we had nothing to do for the next two days. I was really upset.

So we sat down and had a chat about what we wanted to do. We knew we couldn’t hang around the boat and didn’t think a walk into Bridgetown would be any point as it’s a bank holiday today so everything would be closed. We decided that we would walk to the nearest beach. You can taxi it there but we fancied walking as we had the time. But that meant we needed to re-board the ship to get beach gear. As we headed back we saw an area dedicated to local trips so we decided to find out what was on offer. Basically there were two tours on the island by taxi. If you wanted a private tour it would be $200 US - er no we didn’t - but a shared tour would be $25 or $30 depending which one we took. We said we didn’t mind but were told both ended at the beach. So we still needed to go back to the cabin to get beach gear. The guy said there was plenty of time as it was still early and he needed to wait for more people.

We dashed back to the cabin which wasn’t as easy a process as normal because of the people leaving the ship to fly home and the extra immigration protocol. But we hurried as much as we could and did it in not too long a time only to find that he still didn’t have enough people. So we sat and waited in the direct sun for a while but no one seemed to turn up. Steve asked how long we need led to wait and he said until there were more people. After another wait Steve said that we were going to give up and just walk to the beach, I said no as I was sure someone else would come and thank goodness, just as we were having this discussion we saw him talking to a large group of people. Like a small miracle he suddenly had enough and we were off. It wasn’t the best tour in the world but it was in a cool vehicle and I probably had the best view right at the front looking straight at the windscreen. Because it was a bank holiday and there was no traffic on the road we think he went a bit off piste and took us to a number of places not on the scheduled tour. The first stop, which was on the tour, was Riahanna’s childhood house. Otherwise we saw a great deal more of Barbados than we would have done otherwise so all was not lost.

In the end we were the only ones who wanted to stop at the beach. We had to pay him in a mixture of Barbados and US dollars in order to finish our currency.

We don’t want to stay too long on the beach as it was lunchtime and because we had to pack I didn’t want to stay out for lunch (we’d also just used up all our cash paying for the taxi sightseeing trip 😂). So we walked past the concessions and just dumped our stuff in the sand and headed into the sea. It really was the most beautiful turquoise sea that we’ve seen all holiday and which reminded us of our sailing holidays in the Caribbean years ago.  It was the most beautiful and welcome dip.

From there we walked back to the ship. Other than a very short hop on the road, it was a really pretty walk so we were generally content with how we’d turned the disastrous start to our day around.

It was well after 2pm when we got back to the boat so we had a beer on deck and then a snack lunch in Horizon.

Afterwards the dreaded packing!  How is it that even though what we’d bought was pretty small the suitcases were absolutely bulging. I guess I just threw things in rather than the careful packing on the way out. And despite the mid holiday wash, there is still tons of dirty stuff which always takes more space. Well that’s enough of the boring bit. I finished in time to meet the deadline and we headed up on deck - Steve for a beer and also to have a read away from our now empty cabin.

Whilst I’d been packing, Steve had been down to see Helen, our friend in Excursions, to check 100% that the trip tomorrow had been cancelled.  We had got confused because after the cancellation letter the tickets for the trip had been left at our cabin. So we didn’t know whether it was on or off. Well once again, they had a minimum number of 10 to run the trip but only two were booked - us!!  But whilst he was down there one of the other excursion guys said- but why don’t you do the Harrison’s Cave trip anyway without the bit to the boarding gate. It’s running tomorrow and will be back in time for your departure to the airport. So we’ve booked. So at least tomorrow we will be busy as we have to leave our cabin by 8 and don’t get taken to the airport until 2! So there should be plenty of time as our trip gets back at 12.30 🤞🤞🤞🤞

We are now ready to head out for dinner one last time in Peninsular and then not too late a night.