Thursday, November 17, 2016 – Gustavia, St. Barts, FWI – Mostly Sunny – 85F

Distance from Philipsburg, St. Maarten to Gustavia, St. Barts: 12 Nautical Miles

This could be the shortest ride yet in our cruise career – we could have tendered from St. Maarten to here.  To make this an overnight sail, Quest must have been floating with the current.

In any event, it’s another beautiful day and our first visit to this very pricey Caribbean island.

We don’t have tours today, so we plan to tender in and walk around the town of Gustavia.  The tender ride is short and smooth. 

Tender Ride to Gustavia

The harbor is U-shaped and the plan is walk around the U to the other side of the harbor (opposite the tender port).  It is a very warm day and shade is at a premium.  Gustavia is best described as a Caribbean upper class mall.  It is one expensive shop after another.  There are no McD’s here so I can’t figure out the cost index.  So today, it’s all about getting some steps under our belt and taking pictures – at least until the heat gets to us.

The streets in the town were very narrow and there were plenty of cars traveling them today.  The sidewalks are OK but you have to careful when you cross to the other side.  At the bottom of the U, we came across a park – complete with Anchor statue and a statue of a Bear with a Camera.  After some digging, I found out that the statue is called “Chronicle of the Latter World” and it was just installed a few days ago (November 12). The bear was done by Brooklyn-based Polish artist Joanna Malinowska, and is on temporary loan to St. Barts.

Smoky, the Tourist

We made it to the bottom of the U of the Harbor (below) but only got a little way around the other side when we called it quits.  There weren’t many stores that looked interesting and it was pretty hot (check out the sun umbrella).  We retraced our steps and headed back to the ship.

Gustavia Harbor

Back on the ship, I went up on Deck 10 and took some nice pictures of the waters around St. Barts.

Tonight is the “White Party” – a big buffet out on the deck followed by singing by the entertainment squad.  Instead of dealing with the buffet (and inquiring as to the composition of many of the foods), we had dinner in the Restaurant.  A much more relaxing meal.  From there, we headed up to deck 10 and were surprised to get really good seats.

Eating in the restaurant turned out to be a good call since the line for the buffet was still pretty long when we got out there.

Buffet Line

A bonus – one of the waiters was able to take non-blurry pictures of us decked out in white.

Yes, That’s Us

Then it was party time with Tony and the crew delivering the same playlist that we heard at the last cruise –yet each group of singers has a slightly different take on the tunes.

The show was pretty much the same as we’ve seen in the past but it’s always fun to watch – nothing like good singing and dancing along with a club soda.

The big finale involved the March of the Crew with crew members carrying flags.  At first, we thought that each crew member had their country’s flag but that couldn’t true (there would be a lot of Pilipino flags and the singer from the US would have the Stars and Stripes).  Just a symbolic indication of the world wide crew.

March of the Nations – White Party Finale

Back to our rooms to get some rest.