Hi Joe,

The assistant cruise director is Gavin Murray (the Scottish Gavin) and the cruise director is Keef Maynard.

This time Sunday I'll be at the airport waiting to fly!!!

Rachel.

thanks joe,i will pop to the GP and see what they say

rachel when did you get your tickets ?

xx

Hi Rachie B,

I got my tickets about 5/6 weeks ago.

Rachel.x

Are you back yet ?

cant wait to hear all about it

3 weeks y.day we go !

xx

Great to hear Keef is cruise director!
Met him when we sailed on Colourful Coasts in oct 2006 on the Destiny.
We are travelling on Caribbean Gems on 5th April and cant wait

Hi

Were are booked on the Destiny for 2 weeks from 29th March. We have not taken the all inclusive (drinks Package) as it seam a bit steep at £338 pp.

Can anyone who has been on the cruise in the Carribean give us the onboaed drinks costs ie. pint of lager, whisky ect.

Many Thanks

Paul

Going 5 weeks on Sunday!!! Thank goodness I can look forward to some sunshine after all the snow!!

lol

i was sorting out summer clothes to take today ,very weird when it was snowing outside !

we go a week on sunday !

Rachie b are you going for one or two weeks? Hope you will write a review as the previous reviews are all pretty old on this site. Have a great holiday and let us all know how you got on!

only one week
in feb half term ,as we have older children and dont like to take them out of school!

am sooooooooo looking forward to it, and will definitely do a review

have been looking online but not many detailed reviews !
x

our time has come !

we are flying tomorrow morning ( from Brum)

staying overnight nearby tonight

can't wait !!

Remember to tell us all about it when you get back. Any tips and hints always appreciated.

Great report about the Caribbean gems and the Coral island cruise on the 'cruise critic' board Thomson. It is very in depth and interesting. Kruzseeka is the author.

I'm home ! ( Coral Islands feb 15th - 22nd)

was amazing ! loved every second of it

will do a review when i am not so tired / got a million things to do ! lol

but in the meantime if anyone wans to know about the excursions ,details and prices etc

or the drinks prices ( I "borrowed" a drinks menu ...)

or the kidszone etc ( my sons LOVED this ! they were really fab with them)

feel free to ask away

i wish i was still there

oh well at least its sunny here too

xx

also forgot to say we were soooooooooo chuffed, as we got to go to Antigua! instead of Guadeloupe!

there was some protest over social housing or something,which meant delays / traffic etc in guadeloupe

so the decision was made to change thursday to Antigua! ( which we had wanted to visit,but the itinery for feb half term was coral islands)

Rachie b cant wait for your review as there is a new one on there that is pretty bad. They also travelled in Feb. I want to know about any excursions you would recommend and prices. Also we are doing b2b itinerary so we will be going to antiqua the second week wonder if we will go there twice. Hurry up and post your review. Cant wait until 15 th March.

oh no ,will have a look for the review,who is is by ?

we dont have any other cruises to compare it to ,but we had a fab time

and for the price we thought it was great

theres no pleasing some people!

i dont doubt there are much bigger, better cruises out there

but you get what you pay for ?

we were speaking to people who have done over 30 cruises! and they said they prefer Thomsons, as its smaller so more friendly / personal

have been uploading all my pics on facebook today, so will try and get the review finished tomorrow

you should only get to do Antigua the once ,but those who went twice were chuffed as there is so much to do see and do

to be honest i think all the excursions could be done more cheaply, than any of the Thomsons ones.

on the first day there is a meeting about the excursions,they show and tell you a bit about all of them.but no hard sell ! lol as they arent commision based

You can barter down the taxi / tour guys in all ports,and there is plenty to choose from ! you will be bombarded lol

we did a mixture of both Thomsons and our own thing

St Lucia - we hired a taxi ( 7 seater with air conditioning ,lovely!) to do a 2 hour island tour,then dropped us off @ Rodney bay beach for 4 hours before picking us up again.The guy was fab as a tour guide.
80 dollars for the 4 of us ( wanted 140 initially!)

Barbados - we did the Thomsons swimming with turtles trip
adults £34 children £17
Inc drinks onboard.This was a fab trip ,we did the afternoon one.The guys on the catamaran were really good.

Antigua - We got a taxi to Dickinsons Bay beach

St Kitts - we did the Thomsons "safari city & beach " tour on open sided bus ( safari as they are known out there)then dropped @ Frigate Bay beach for 2 hours .
Adults £26 children £13
This was ok, but quite short tour,and could be done much cheaper i think by a local taxi / bus driver

Tortola - one of our fave places we visited,so scenic.we did the Thomsons "north shore & Pussers landing" tour on open sided bus.
Adults £24 children £12
was fab,got to see lots on this trip

the swimming with dolphins was supposed to be good in Tortola,
but the Thomson price is £85 for adults and £65 for children!

now that we have been ,i wouldnt hesitate to go it alone for all the islands next time

it was easy to get taxis etc,just be sensible and keep an eye on the time!

not like the one couple who were late in getting back ,so we were late in setting sail from Tortola back to Dom Rep!

you will love it,i so wish i was going back !

All sounds great. I think we will try to do excursions on our own as there are 4 of us. The review that gave the grim review was by Neil on this site. Is there any excursions you wouldn't do on your own? Thanks

der ! im such a div i was looking on cruise critic ! haha

hmmm he is being a little harsh on the destiny, IMO

ok its prob not the nicest most modern ship going, BUT everywhere is spotless most of the time

you see cleaners all the time around the ship ,and our cabin housekeeping was fantastic

ok the cabins ARE small theres no denying that ! lol

and when i first saw it i did think OMG how are the 4 of us going to cope in this for a week! ( but it was fine and perfectly adequate )

we had 2 beds over 2 singles

but to be honest for the small time you are in them ,sleep ,shower etc

it really doesnt matter
there are many places to chill etc onboard so not like we needed to do that in the cabin! lol

we were on deck 3 and didnt have any trouble with noise etc

in fact i had trouble staying awake beyond 10 / 10.30pm ! lol and would be asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow!

to last til the early hours i would have to have an afternoon sleep i think!

maybe we were lucky ? but we didnt smell bad smells in the corridors?! or have leaking manky bathroom / shower

the shower curtain is a pain in the behind though ! sticking to you as you shower and the cubicle is a tad snug ! lol

some of the foods are a bit on the unusual side haha
but i gave most things a try and they were all good

they hated to think that you weren't enjoying a meal !
and in the evening our waiter would want us to have something else if he thought we werent enjoying it!

he said we could have everything on the menu if we wished, hahaha!

i put on half a stone as it was in one week!!

d@mn those Lido afternoon teas and 5 course lunches / dinners

as for not being able to get sun loungers,on the days at sea this was more noticable of course ( but is the same at hotels everywhere ?!)

but we could always manage to find a spot somewhere to sit / lie
when we docked, of course there were less people on board,with people going off on trips / excursions

so not as hard to find a lounger / space in the sun

you arent supposed to "save" loungers with a towel
but everyone seemed to and for the whole day grrrr

i was tempted to move some ....

none of us were sea sick at all
the only time i felt it a bit was when we had to "put our foot down" to get to Antigua ( was last min decision) and then it was a bit rough
but i lay down for a bit and felt fine then

I am the type of person who tends to make the most of any holiday,so i wouldnt let it bother me if something wasnt quite up to my expectations

i was in the caribbean so would just make the most of it!

or complain if its gets to you that much .....
but in our case there was nothing to complain about

and would definitely go on the destiny again

in fast i was online looking at prices last night .....