D4 Does the Carib {Island Style}

St. Thomas

St. Thomas was our first stop on the cruise.  Oh how lovely it is to wake up to sites like this....

 I'm pretty sure I could get used to it!  Beautiful blue waters with white houses lining the coast is what St. Thomas will always remind me of.

 This day we decided to opt out of the excursions offered by the cruise and try and find our own fun. This crazy taxi lady helped us find a driver.  Don't mess with this lady, she may take your head off!

We found a driver that was able to take us on over to Sapphire Beach, the driver was awesome and wasn't ashamed of showing off his accomplishments!  As we were driving there we heard a local wave to him and yell out "Muscleman!"  So that's what we called him the rest of the day :)

 The beach did not disappoint.  Just across the way from St. John's bay, we found a beautiful white sand beach with great snorkeling.  The man parasailing in the picture is an 80 year old man crossing another thing off his bucket list.  His wife was standing there talking to us and she watched him have his fun :)

 I enjoyed most of my day basking in the sun with my book, snoozing, and getting a little more sunburned than I had planned!

 Yep...pretty sure I could stay forever!

 Nothing like seeing this bad boy hanging out on the beach with you!

 I think Nate stayed out for a few hours snorkeling to see the awesome fish and sea turtles!

 Good day, good day indeed!

 Couldn't miss a photo-op!

 Leaving the port

Barbados

Barbados was the one day we decided to do a excursion through the cruise.  It was great!  We went out on a catamaran to a place to snorkel with the sea turtles.  They were huge!  The would sneak up on you and I would accidentally kick one every now and again.  Beautiful!

The excursion gave us some time on a beautiful beach

 Hotel where Tiger Woods got married (too bad that didn't work out for him :)

 How could you go to the beach and not build a sand castle?!

 Getting a coconut from a pushy salesman :)

 I thought these mini palm trees were super cute :)

St. Lucia

I think our group's consensus was that this was our favorite day of the entire trip!  We got off of the ship not knowing exactly what we wanted to do...maybe kayaking or ziplining, whatever we could get the best deal on was what we were up for.  We came across a tour guide that was going to give us a great deal on our day and he said he'd customize it to whatever we wanted.  He delivered...BIGTIME!  He introduced himself as Disco Dave or the Notorious B.I.G.!  He had the disco lights inside his van and everything.  He made us laugh the entire time we were with him.  

He stopped and let us snap a pic of the Victory...

 The home of the Governor General

 Gals in Marigot Bay

 Marigot Bay...home of the celebrities!  Mick Jagger and Deborah Messing among others :)

Then we stopped by the banana plantation where we ate yummy bananas, green mangos, love apples, and coconut....delicious right off the tree!

 Dave told us the blue bags were called banana condoms....pretty funny :)

 Fellas with Disco Dave (yep Notorious is still alive and does tours in St. Lucia!)

 This man was a little pushy about letting us take a picture with him for money...we finally gave in.

 At this cute little fishing village on our way to the beach.  The houses amazed me.  They were about 10ftx10ft and Dave said each of them had plasma tvs and other fancy electronics.  Sure could have fooled me!

 Then Dave used his super sweet connections and got us to Anse Cochon Bay at the Ti Kaye Resort Village.  We got free kayaks and cheap lounge chairs. 

Nate and I's favorite part of the day was kayaking along the coast...very Bachelor-ish if you ask me!  It was while we were kayaking we dubbed this trip "D4 Does the Carib."  Nate also loved the snorkeling here.  I loved reading in the shade listening to the waves crash.  Perfection :)  We also got some yummy food and got to try some banana ketchup, which I am determined to make for myself!

St. Kitts

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St. Maarten

You better believe they have their Ohio State flags waving in the middle of the Caribbean!

Oh how I love the beach!

Go Bucks!

Fun view of the ships :)

This day we hung out on Little Bay, a beautiful resort beach that had wonderful snorkeling and amazing views :)

And there you have it...the beautiful islands we got to hang out on last week.  I would do it all again in a heartbeat!  Our final day we all went around and shared our favorite parts of the trip and things we would change if we could.  I couldn't think of a thing to change!  It was wonderful and we will be cruising again in the future :)