Sand, Surf & Rum Cruise on the Regent Grandeur
1/24/25 to 2/3/25

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Page 1 – Embarkation, Ship
Page 2 – Ship Continued
Page 3 - Ports of Call: Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Gustavia, St. Barts
Page 4 - Ports of Call: Roseau, Dominca; St. Johns, Antigua; Tortola, BVI

Ports of Call

Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic

After a day at sea, we finally could see the mountainous coast of the Dominican Republic.

As we approached Puerto Plata, there was lots to see along the coast with a large amphitheater and old fort.

As we entered the harbor, we got a better view of the fort from a different angle.

When we disembarked the Grandeur, we could see that the dock was a very long one. We were glad to see that there were small shuttles to take us to the end of it. They said that they were free shuttles, but we knew they were doing it for the tips. We were happy to tip them.

At the end of the dock was a shopping and meeting area with two people in fancy costumes welcoming us and looking to have our photos taken with them for tips. We passed on it, but they did look good.

The main area was quite nice and was a hub of activity for the various tours from the two ships in port.

With Regent being an all-inclusive cruise, they include a very nice selection of available tours. They also have some tours that require an additional payment, but we were very pleased with the descriptions of the included ones for this cruise. Our tour for the day was called Puerto Plata Dominican Experience. We boarded a large bus to start the tour. Our group leader was Reynaldo. He said we could call him Raymond.

Reynaldo introduced us to the guide for the first part of the tour, Miguel. He provided us with lots of historical and cultural information about the area.

On the way to our first stop, we passed by the umbrella street. It was properly named.

We stopped at the main square that was quite attractive with cute brightly colored buildings.

The were two statues in the square of Dominican Republic heros. There was Juan Pablo Duarte, one of the Dominican Republic’s founding fathers, and General Gregorio Luperon, who fought for independence from Spain.

On one side of the square was the church of St. Philip the Apostle. With it being Sunday, the church had services. Miguel kept talking about various things until about ten minutes before the 11:30 service was to begin. With us only having ten minutes to check out the church interior, we had to rush.

The highlight of the church is the many beautiful stained-glass windows. When I visited this church in 2017, I was able to take photos of most of the windows and put 17 of them in the review. Even though I was only able to take photos of half of them, it shows what lovely stained glass they have.

We left Miguel to rejoin the bus for the next stop. On the way, Reynaldo told us to look to the right to see a statue of Neptune. We had to look through the trees to see it. I was surprised that I was able to take a photo of it. It is highly cropped to just show the statue.

We stopped at Fort San Felipe. It is a small fort but well preserved. The grounds are also quite nice. Down near the water there was another statue of General Gregorio Luperon, but on horseback.

Construction of the fort was completed in 1577. It was also used as a jail, where Juan Pablo Duarte, who’s statue we had seen in the square, was jailed for a time. Its appearance is similar to the forts in San Juan, Puerto Rico; but smaller.

When I previously visited the fort, we didn’t have time to see the interior. I didn’t have much time on this visit either, but I made time and just spent a few minutes checking it out.

There was a small museum inside, but I didn’t have time to do anything but take a photo of it.

From the fort, we had a great view of the port and the Grandeur waiting for our return.

Our last stop was at Ocean World Adventure Park. The interactive marine park has many activities for families including the opportunity to touch, pet and feed all their favorite animals and mammal friends, including dolphins, sea lions, sharks, stingrays, exotic tropical birds; walk through rain forests and much, much more. As you can see from the below park map, it is a very large place.

We were there for a different type of activity, a cooking class and lunch. Cathy is the cook in the family, and I just admire what she creates. I can cook basic things and follow simple recipes, but it isn’t my thing. S ince the cooking class was on the tour itinerary, I figured I would join in the fun. Our group was broken down into two classes, with ours having 22 students. It was a nice classroom with everything that we would need to make the dish of the day called a plantain basket. The picture of it on the wall did not appear to be that easy to make.

Cathy and I put on our chef’s hats and were ready to learn how to make this local delicacy.

In front of each of us was a pot of boiling oil, two pieces of plantain, meat filling for the basket, cheese and cooking utensils.

We slowly dropped the plantains into the hot oil to let it boil for a while to get to the correct color and consistency. We were then told to take the plantains out of the oil before putting each piece into the red pressing utensil. The press formed a very nice basket, but the main challenge was getting it off of the utensil. I followed the instructions, and they came off easily. Some had a lot of difficulty with one fellow having to redo theirs after crumbling the baskets.

We then put the filling in the basket, topped it with the cheese and put it on the plates where we were told to make a design with ketchup. I was quite pleased with my ability to follow instructions and make the plantain baskets. They would be the first course of the lunch to follow. They were quite tasty.

There were a lot of other very good food items on the buffet set up for our group. The highlight was some pork, but everything was quite good. It was a much better lunch than we expected.

After lunch we had a little over an hour of free time to walk around the park before our next activity, a dance class. There were so many interesting things to see and do at the park, but we didn’t have enough time to actually see any of the scheduled shows. This park is a full day’s entertainment. We only were able to see some of it, but it is a first-class attraction in a beautiful environment. We were particularly pleased to see that the wildlife in the park had very large pools to live and work in. My first time in Punta Cana over 20 years ago, we went to a dolphin show that was in a large fiberglass swimming pool. It was heartbreaking to see. This environment was so much better for them.

There were pools and beaches for swimming and/or snorkeling.

It was just a beautiful place to walk around and look out to the ocean.

We met up with the rest of the group for a demonstration of two local dances, the merengue and bachata.

We were then asked to go on stage for a merengue dance lesson. As expected, many of the women wanted to try it and none of the men. Cathy had a good time with it.

After the demonstration, Cathy posed for a photo with the two main dancers.

We thoroughly enjoyed the tour. It had a lot of variety and fun along with a delicious lunch. The great weather made it even better. We headed back to the Grandeur where we were looking forward to our dinner in the Asian specialty restaurant, Pacific Rim, that night. As we were leaving port, I was able to get photos of the church and fort we visited on the tour from a different angle.

San Juan, Puerto Rico

As we approached San Juan, we could see El Morro on one side of the bay. The fort was a major defense from invaders.

On the other side of the bay was Isla de Cabras or Goat Island. Since it was right across the bay from El Morro, troops would provide crossfire against those attacking El Morro. The small rectangular building on the right side of the photo is the ruins of a building that housed patients when the island was made a leper colony at the end of the 19th century.

We didn’t dock until noon. The tour we booked was called Secrets of San Juan. It was a walking tour through parts of old San Juan with a visit to El Morro. It was supposed to be a four-hour tour, but I hoped that it wouldn’t be all walking. I was wrong about that. Our guide was Hector. He was a nice fellow who told us some history and pointed out important spots along our walk.

We enjoyed the walk seeing parts of San Juan we hadn’t seen in the past, plus it was a beautiful day with a very refreshing breeze.

There are many areas remaining with the massive walls that once surrounded the city. They are so tall and thick. Statues have added additional beauty to the walls.

We next stopped at the beautiful Raices or Roots Fountain. It is composed of several bronze statues honoring Puerto Rico’s mixed African, Spanish and Taino-Amerindian heritage. It was completed in 1992 and represents a ship being steered into the open sea with leaping dolphins leading the way to a bright 21st century.

Nearby we saw more of the old city wall. I can’t resist taking photos of the garita sentry boxes along the walls.

We next stopped at a square in front of the San Juan cathedral. Hector then introduced us to his father, also named Hector. We weren’t sure why his father was conducting this portion of the tour, but the younger Hector was videoing his presentation with his phone. His father did have the official Puerto Rico National Park ID lanyard, so perhaps we needed him to do the tour at El Morro.

He told us about the cathedral, and we took a quick visit inside.

Our next stop was in front of Iglesia de San Jose, the second oldest church in the Americas. The church was established in 1532. The building was very deteriorated and had to go through a major renovation taking almost 20 years. It was completed in 2021.

Just outside the church is a statue of Ponce de Leon, who was buried in the church for 350 years before being moved to the cathedral. The church was built on land given to them by the Ponce de Leon family.

We next came to the Totem Square where we saw the Teluric Totem that the square was named for. The square was completed in 1992 to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the discovery of Puerto Rico. The totem is made up of broken pottery fragments that represent those found in the indigenous Taino archeological sites. The totem also represents the initial violent meeting between the original native inhabitants and the European colonizers.

Not far from El Morro, we came to Ballajá, a sculpture depicting 3 intertwined figures. It has been interpreted to symbolize the struggle between the old and new generations of Puerto Rico. The woman symbolizes the Ballajá district. The old man symbolizes a predator who neglected the district and the young man rescuing the woman symbolizes a new generation of Puerto Rican striving to preserve their identity.

Having been to El Morro before, I knew that it was a long walk to get to the fort.

After entering the grounds, we went into some of the rooms along the wall. Some of them had openings to a balcony. The view from the balconies was gorgeous with the waves crashing on the rocks.

We then walked up to a higher level where there were canons and great views of the surrounding area.

As we were leaving El Morro, Hector pointed out the large dry moat that surrounded the fort.

He also told us that we would be back at the ship in a half hour. We were most happy that the four-hour walking tour would only be three hours.

There was a large cemetery between the grounds and the ocean. I asked Hector if the cemetery flooded due to its low elevation and proximity to the ocean. He confirmed that it was a problem.

On the walk back to the ship, we enjoyed the colorful houses along the way. We also saw an unusual statue called the Lamb of God. It is a sheep carrying a flag.

We were very glad to get back to the ship and be able to rest for a while before the evening activities. We did enjoy seeing parts of San Juan that we hadn’t been to in the past, but it had been a lot of walking with no stopping.

Gustavia, St. Barts

I was looking forward to revisiting St. Barts, and for Cathy to see it for the first time. It is a lovely island that usually has lots of large yachts visiting, some of the largest in the world. There weren’t that many this day, but there were still some nice ones. We had some rougher seas during the evening, and they were still moving a lot when we arrived at our anchor location. This was the only port where we would be using a tender.

We booked two tours for our visit to St. Barts. The first one was an hour and a half snorkeling tour at 10:30 AM and the second was an hour panoramic tour of the island at 2:45 PM. So, we would have to go into town two different times since we didn’t want to walk around the town of Gustavia for almost three hours.

Getting onto the tender was challenging due to the up and down motion caused by the waves, but everyone finally got loaded. The ride itself was smoother than the boarding, thank goodness. When we docked, I just took a few photos of the area, since I knew we would be back later for the second tour.

The snorkel boat was both for diving and snorkeling.

We went to the snorkel location that had just gorgeous water. I purchased a new style of full-face mask that had a snorkel as part of the mask. I tried it at our development and was very pleased with it, since it wasn’t supposed to fog up. It didn’t in the pool. It worked fine when we jumped in the water, but it didn’t take too long before it started leaking a little water, probably due to my beard. I was still enjoying the fish life as we swam further away from the boat to see other areas. The mask was fogging up some and the mask type couldn’t be cleared in the traditional way. The bigger problem was that I couldn’t get enough air through the smaller gauge snorkel as I swam faster. This made for a less than enjoyable experience, so I returned to the boat as Cathy was enjoying herself in the water.

When the tour was over, we got back on the tender to return to the boat to shower, have lunch and get ready for our afternoon tour. We were supposed to meet for the tour at 2:45 PM. We went down to the theater where we always met for tours and the doors were closed. Oh oh! I looked at the Passages daily info info on my phone and saw that we were supposed to meet on the pier after a tender ride. Curses! I didn’t read the info like I should have. We rushed down to deck 3 and a tender had just left. We missed the tour. It wasn’t worth waiting for the next tender to just walk around Gustavia. I hated that Cathy didn’t get to see any more of St. Barts, but we will probably be back again in the future. So we went back to the cabin to watch a movie, since the ship doesn’t have much to do even on sea days.

I took the least number of photos ever for a port stop; but we did enjoy the snorkeling. We looked forward to seeing more of Dominica the next day.

Sand, Surf & Rum Cruise on the Regent Grandeur 1/24/25 to 2/3/25