Planet Ruby Starrs

We have enjoyed this cruise...  The top 5 things I liked best about this cruise 1. The people, both guests and other speakers/ enrichment team. Great crowd - made some good friends. 2. Great cabin, in spite of constant elephants dancing at 4 in the morning (deck 3 hazard apparently) and it being beige, good location and decent size. 3. Enthusiasm for Dr Fred. The Fred (as in Dr not Olsen) fan club grows... lectures full, stargazing over full - even staff requesting sessions.... 4. The scrap heap build a boat challenge , great fun - opportunity to chat to staff and guests - obs best cos we won🤣🤣 5. Sunshine..... 6. The day out in St Lucia... 5 things i liked least 1. No outside comfy seats 2. The Borealis beige and often uncomfortable. 3. Beige food - although speciality foods excellent 4. Caribbean, interesting to have been, but too many islands not enought time to explore each one enough 5. Th...

The ship berthed at Dominica.... right in the middle of the town. It was refreshingly un dutyfree .... still lots of market stalls selling touristy stuff - the usual shirts, hats, baskets, but noone really hassling - quite a laid back vibe - even if you loitered looking at bits and pieces. We wandered through the supermarket where I purchased some Dominican sardines, for my world collection pf sardine tins - but nothing much else caught our eye - a lot of the goods were waitrose... it just shows how global we are now -there was very little in that supermarket I couldnt find at home ... especially in Leeds. The centre of the town is quite contained. It has the standard over the top cathedral and usual mishmash of ramshackle and done up buildings just sat side by side.  There are more swish looking appartments nearer the edge of town looming in the distance. There were alot more of the ramshackles.... its a continuation of the colonial style... mostly woode...

Our last stop of the island hopping cruise, Antigua and Barbuda. To be honest more of the same. 8 islands in 8 days you start to get 'Island Leg' ... how ungrateful am I😂. Although it does look a lot flatter and therefore less lush. Also when you get into the town it's much more modern, less ramshackle and its very clean. I'm presuming this is because it's been hit by tsunamis, hurricanes or earthquakes in the more recent past, so theres been a lot of rebuilding. There is the usual run through of duty-free shops none of which were selling banana ketchup. In fact there were more 'upmarket' clothes shops then anything else. We walked up through town to the cathedral, but we decided not to bother going in as it was probably just as grand outside. Actually it looked A bit desolate, uncared for and run down. We did think perhaps if we'd paid to go in the money would go towards doing it up but it looked like it needed a lot...

St Kitts and Nevis Up bright and early - for us .. I'm convinced they put something in the water to keep these wild party octogenarians docile and sleepy... we made landfall at St Kitt's and Nevis, Basseterre to be precise... it looked promising from the ship. Basseterre was an interesting place once we walked out through the port and past all the duty free, souvenir and tourist shops - the town itself was a gaudy colourful mix of higgle piggle buildings.  A eclectic sekection of new and old, shiney and delapidated. All sizes and shapes.. Alot of music and wafting food smells - mostly good.   We walked up to Independance Park... a large square with lots of beautiful old trees, an ornate fountain and loads of chickens running about, some with babies. This square has history though, thousands of slaves were traded there back in the day.  Now it is a quiet green space overlooked by a church, an art gallery (closed) and a few offic...

We are in Philipsburg on Dutch Sint Martens in the Caribbean.  It's very hot and sticky and when we arrived we had incredible blue skies and gloriously coloured turquoise sea but since then it's gone a bit grey and gloomy Dr Fred says it looks a bit like Redcar it's not quite like that... though but we did have a tropical rain storm still very warm but also wet. It was good to get off the boat after five full days at sea and it's very exciting to be on a Caribbean island but to be honest it's a little underwhelming when you get there because it's basically one large market with a lot of bars selling expensive drinks and buckets of beer.   The beach is one long strip of sunbeds and umbrellas.  I'm sure there are some very pretty places but it's difficult to get to them when you have such a short time in Port however it is quite nice to be somewhere hot and sunny and being fed and watered so I'm not going to complain The marina is full of seriously lar...