I convinced John to go to the Windjammer for breakfast. The room service menu is very limited. I went to the Diamond Lounge and got "good" coffee and worked on the blog from yesterday. Our excursion doesn't start until 12:30p but we went off the ship about 11a. The pluses to having the RCCL Labadee experience are many: You can use your Sea Pass card on shore for anything, there is a dining area all set up for your convenience, they will transport you around this area, and you feel quite secure to be on "their" beaches, etc. They even have multiple wheelchairs, both the regular type and those with big tires to go on the sand. This is a great touch for the older travels on this cruise. The down side is you don't really experience the Haitian culture of "real" life. Therefore, we chose to do a Cultural Tour that showed us how some 80% of the people live on this portion of the island. An amazing 10 million people live on Haiti! The other portion of this Island is the Dominican Republic.
After getting off the ship we walked around the area and had our lunch at the Dragon Buffet. They had ribs, chicken, burgers, dogs, salads, fruit, melons, and desserts. After eating we walked down to the water and looked at various amenities. Soon it was time for our tour and we boarded our boat to the skirt around part of the island and arrive at a nice quiet cove and beach. This is the area where they have a village made and give tours. First we had our welcome drink and they we walked to the old village. We saw how they make their own peanut butter and tasted it as well. We also ate Cassava bread (better known to us as Mandioca in Brazil, yucca in Mexico, Taro in Hawaii). Then there was the fragrant coffee... it was a nice. What wasn't nice was that part of our group was very rude in talking over the guide and speaking very loudly all the time. Why is it that some groups of people are so loud and seem to be screaming at each other in their own language. It was embarrassing how rude they were to our guide. Anyway, it did not distract from us enjoying our time there. After the tour of the village we took a swim in the lovely clear water and relaxed on the beach until it was time to return to the ship.
Our Ride for Today
The Village
These people work very hard to scratch out a living.
After we got back and cleaned up we had just enough time to make it to The Solarium Bistro for our dinner. This is a complementary restaurant but does have items on the menu you can purchase for a price as well (ie: lobster, filet mignon) This bistro works a bit differently than some of the other eateries. They have salads and appetizers that you go up and help yourself to what you want. Meanwhile, you have ordered your main dish and it is served when you are ready. John had the skirt steak with fries and I had the garlic shrimp. My shrimp had nothing with it but just the shrimp, which was fine. The appetizers were the star tonight - Oh what choices! There were at least 30 options. My favorite tonight was the mussels in a cream sauce. After your entree you can help your self to dessert, about 10 choices. The Creme Catalan (much like crème brûlée) was fantastic as was the fresh berries and panna cotta.
Solarium Bistro
We are tired tonight, nothing is booked and we talked about renting Sully to watch on TV since we didn't get to see it in the theater. However, we were barely back to our cabin and John was sound asleep. Tomorrow is Jamaica so that is fine, he needs his rest.
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