Emerald Princess Cruise Trip

April 2008

Roseau Dominica

We're headed into port early at Dominica on April 10th. Jerry went up and took pictures this morning while I was getting ready. We were on a private tour today and we were to be out at the end of the pier as soon as the ship was cleared. So, once Jerry was back from taking pictures we went for breakfast and got back to the cabin in time to collect our things and head down to the pier.

Our tour was booked from Reyno Tours. (Click the links to Reyno Tours and email Reyno directly to set up a tour when you are in Dominica.) There were 16 of us that was meeting at the end of the pier. There would be two vans traveling together. Reyno said we wanted to stay together as the second van had the drinks in it! Reyno who is the owner was our driver and he brought along Dahna, which is pronounced like Donna to be our tour guide. She did a good job and was quite funny as was Reyno. We had a really good time.

Our tour consisted of visits to: Rain Forest, Emerald Pool, Trafalger Falls, Mr. Nice Fruit Stand, banana plantations, Sulphur Hot Boiling Spring, The Botanic Garden, and we ended our tour with a stop for a panoramic view of the city, Roseau.

Jerry was feeling pretty adventurous again today as he did yesterday and chose the front seat of the van. He was taking video so it is a perfect ride but some of the roads that wind their way up the mountains are pretty scary. None of the roads on the island are very wide so we were awfully close to some of the other cars coming toward us. As with the other islands they drive on the left side of the road and the cars are set up with the steering wheel on the right side of the vehicle.

Reyno stopped and showed us a lot of things along the way. Both Jerry and I thoroughly enjoyed our tour with him. He had riddles to tell and so did Dahna. He had drinks for us at a couple of our stops. Our hikes to see the Emerald Pool and Trafalger Falls were making me think of our trip to Diamond Head on Oahu when we climbed the 163 steps to the top! The waterfalls on this island are beautiful. If you get into the Emerald Pool they say you will feel 10-20 years younger. I think you might feel those years come back as you exit the pool and make your way back to where you are parked!

Our tour lasted close to 5 1/2 hours by the time we got back to the pier. It was well worth the cost for us and we took in a lot of sights and learned a lot of tidbits about the island.

The Caribe Indians are still here on the island unlike other islands where they killed them off. We did have a stop where they came out to the van and brought us different spices and such in little bags to give us to smell and look at.

You can do an excursion where you tube the river. We saw the areas where you go through on the tubing ride. It looked fun.

Dominica is much more lush than where we have come from. The rainfall where we spent much of our time is an average of 160 inches per year. On the drier side of the island it is much more like 50 inches per year. The flowers were beautiful throughout the island. There are quite a few mountains on this island. I believe we were told that the highest point is 4000 feet above sea level we weren't there though.

Once we were back at the pier and our tour had ended Jerry and I looked for our t-shirts and then made our way back to the ship. We were hot and hungry and it was 2pm or so before we finally arrived back to our cabin to drop off our things and go find something to eat. We ate pizza since it was late and we had burned so many calories with all our hiking. I thought we deserved it.

We took it easy for a couple of hours before it was time to watch us sail away from port and to get ready for dinner.

We are on our way to St. Thomas.

 

See our pictures here.

 

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