Random note - Today the rumored drink card special made its appearance. For those who don't know what that is, RCL will sometimes at some point during the cruise, offer a 10 drink punch card for a set price. Unlike the drink packages, this card is welcome to be shared so it can be a great deal for a family or couples traveling together to buy 1 card and get a few drinks for each person for the price of $85 plus 18% gratuity. The fine print says the card covers the purchase of any beer, glass of wine, and/or cocktails up to an individual price of $12. If you bought 10 of those $12 cocktails on their own, you'd be spending $120 so it's a great opportunity to try drinks you've never had as well without too much literally down the drain if you don't like them. Or if you're like that lady from dinner yesterday double fisting her champagne, you might want to buy a card for yourself.
With our tour not being till 11AM, we headed down to Chops for a regular breakfast. We got to see Dmytro once again (does that poor guy ever sleep?) and both tried the French toast. I really appreciated that it wasn't bathed in fruit compote like Celebrity would for every griddle item but I found it funny to see what they called "caramelized banana." Those toast pieces were huge and for probably the first time at breakfast, I had to throw in the napkin from being too full.
After breakfast, we got our morning dose of perky Marky Mark who hosted the Spot the Difference Challenge for all 3 small groups of people that showed up. This challenge was done as 3 sets of small thumbnail size pictures on one sheet and there was 12 differences in each set. I used to love these challenges in the old Highlights magazine and now often have to help Mom in her favorite hidden object Facebook games but these pictures were a real challenge. Dad and I worked both independently and helping each other and we still didn't get them all. Eventually Mark put us out of our misery and showed us the answer sheet.
Almost as much fun as admiring the other cruise ships in port is admiring these painted logos on the dock that assign parking spaces of sorts to the different cruise lines. Who knew Dad had his own cruise ship parking spot?
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| In case you ever wanted to know what that glass panel in the bridge floor looks like from below |
Since we opted to skip morning trivia and head off the ship (our tour met on the pier), we ended up being super early. To kill some time, we ventured out of the secure port area to wander the shops. We came back about 10-15 minutes later and held out our cruise card to the port security officer. Unlike the other ports, this time security insisted on seeing our photo IDs as well so it worked out that we had been bringing our IDs along each time. This change was catching a lot of people off guard even though RCL always cautioned passengers in the daily Compass' port info to bring off a photo ID to show along with your cruise card. Some ports are stricter than others in what they require but every port has the right to ask for both. I've heard from a lot of cruisers how apprehensive they are about taking their passports off the ship (even though it's something we've always done) but now we have opted to take advantage of the state's Real ID requirements prompting us to get new driver's licenses. We keep the new valid ones at home and bring the old ones to serve as our photo IDs for port security. To be clear, we still always bring our passport books (not just the passport card) on trips as they are needed when you first check in at airports and cruise ships.
We sat under the covered pavilion for a while until I noticed a shoreside rep holding a sign for our tour by the entrance. While our group of 15 tour goers assembled, we ended up chatting with a married couple who was running their local chapter of an electrician/engineering union and had organized this cruise as a trip for their union. Dad enjoyed sharing his personal career history and that of his dad with someone who could commiserate and understand. Finally the rep agreed that everyone had shown up and we were led around the corner and through a couple shop buildings on a 5 minute walk to the St. Kitts Chocolate Factory.
Our shoreside escort directed us inside where we were then directed past the shop, through a back room full of supplies, and into a small room with folding chairs facing a screen. We soon got to meet the owner of the St. Kitts Chocolate Factory, Gary, as he used a projector to give us a talk on their company's history, the history of chocolate use around the world, and how his chocolates are different.
Gary was very funny and explained how he owns many businesses so after buying a jewelry shop for his wife, his 6 year old asked him to buy a candy store thus St. Kitts Chocolate Factory was born. Gary cared enough to make sure everyone was comfortable during their time here, even offering to get blankets for two women who were cold from the air conditioning. He constantly offered drinks both of the alcoholic and non alcoholic kind and referenced his enjoyment of scotch so much that one of the guys in our tour joked about how one of the chocolates Gary referenced would go great with that scotch. Gary stepped out and came back with a several years old bottle of single malt scotch giving it to the guy to have the honor of opening. The guy was also a big fan of scotch and took the time to savor the cork and passed it and the bottle around while Gary got him a glass to sample some. As the bottle reached the last couple of our group, the husband was handing it back when the wife stopped him. He didn't understand why because he didn't want to drink any. She replied "Ok but I do!" and we all busted out laughing.
Every so often during the presentation, Gary would not only pass around bins allowing us to smell and touch the cocoa harvesting process in various stages but also would treat us to samples of his company's chocolates that showed examples of the techniques we had just learned about. We sampled one called a breakfast biscuit which was like a huge Hershey's Kiss on top of a chocolate dipped wafer, one with a raspberry filling to show off his shiny vs. matte finish, an orange flavored truffle that was coated in orange flavoring and "peeps" like sugar crystals and filled with what tasted like Sunkist soda in cream form.
Raspberry filled above, Sun Kissed below
Once the presentation portion was over, we all applied hand sanitizer and donned hairnets before being led back into the supply room to stand around a long table set up with individual work stations. Each station had one small aluminum dish, 3 small chocolate shells, and a "graham" cracker that honestly looked more like a saltine. Gary joked that the plastic gloves were by each plate because they were required to do so but we didn't have to use them. He found it was easier to work with the chocolate without the gloves.
In the middle of the table was several bottles spread out of various seasonings (everything from cayenne to sea salt), fast food style condiment bottles of milk, dark, white, and colored chocolate so you could pour and make designs easily, and small cups full of solid toppings and fillings such as dried fruit, gummy bears, marshmallows, and sliced almonds. Gary was very open about giving anyone who wanted the chance to add liquor to their creations but I don't think anyone took him up on it. He also had a couple bowls of spreads like hazelnut (but don't dare call it Nutella) and when someone asked about caramel, he sent his employee right off to grab some. The woman next to me had some food allergy issues and Gary was able to answer all of her questions about the ingredients. He also mentioned having gluten, sugar, and dairy free options.
We were instructed to fill the aluminum cup in our choice of chocolate and swirl it around until it coated the bottom. Then filled it with our choice of ingredients. I went with a dark chocolate base and Gary suggested it would pair well with the dried fruit. I tell you, that fruit compote is destined to haunt me on every cruise. I politely declined and instead filled it with the tiny marshmallows, a nod to the campfire smores of yore. Then I decided it wasn't filled enough and topped the marshmallows with milk chocolate after which Gary comes by and encourages me to add a design with the colored chocolate. At this point I figured the monster of a chocolate cup needed a face and gave him one with the green colored chocolate. I topped my cracker with milk chocolate, tiny marshmallows, and gummy bears. I filled the little cups with milk chocolate and the orange colored chocolate.
Once everyone finished decorating, we were handed little plastic containers with a space to write our names on the lids and shown how to stack our pieces to fit inside. They were then collected and put into the blast chiller at the shop while we were led into the shop itself. As we passed through the door, we were each handed a box and encouraged to pick out our choices to fill it. Unfortunately, this part wasn't free. Dad and I opted to only fill one of the 12 count boxes for both of us at $19.99.
The shop was a little small and tough to move around in since there was pre-packaged chocolates on display for sale on small tables and wall shelves so you had to maneuver around them and our fellow tour mates who were browsing. Everyone kind of hit the prepared chocolate counters at once and the staff was keeping busy taking one customer each to help them fill their box. Gary encouraged everyone to take time to go out and shop while here in port offering to keep our made chocolates and our purchases in the blast chiller for us to come back and claim when we were ready to head back to the ship. He then rushed into the connected jewelry shop ready to help all the people he thought would now be buying from his other shop.
I loved some of the funny names for the chocolates. We ended up bringing home 2 Breakfast Biscuit, 2 Sun Kissed (the orange ones we sampled), 2 Cleopatra Strawberry Cream, 2 Oreo Crunchy Chocolate, 2 Truffles, and 2 Rum flavored chocolates Dad picked out. I voted for the strawberry cream and Oreo and let Dad pick the rest. I'm glad he didn't go for the wasabi or tipsy poodle!
Dad didn't want to be bothered looking around the other shops and asked about getting our made chocolates now. Gary directed one of his employees to get them and even though we told her our name, she literally pulled out every single other container to show us and ask if that was ours. She seemed completely confused when she got to the last two not understanding how ours hadn't been pulled out yet. It was like a big surprise when I finally said yes, those last two are ours!
This was a great short excursion lasting only about 90 minutes. The walk to the shop and back to the ship was fine and paved (minus the grassy section we cut through) and you can see how the other side of the chocolate making table in my picture would have easily accommodated anyone in a walker or wheelchair. We were all adults on this tour but I know from researching it beforehand that they welcome families with kids. It's a great alternative if you're not up for a long bus ride or spending the day in the sun on the beach. We reserved this excursion while it was on a cruise planner sale for $42 per person and covered the cost of this and tomorrow's ship excursion completely thanks to being RCL stockholders giving us $200 in onboard credit.
I rarely get the chance to browse the shops when in port or on board without the shadow on my heels questioning why I'd want that or how long was I going to be? I know some ladies reading this right now are nodding in agreement about the own guys in their lives. After a brief exchange of who was holding the chocolate and who was holding the money, Dad went back onboard to get our chocolates into our cabin fridge. I walked the entire port shopping area in hopes of finding something that really appealed to me but I couldn't bring myself to buy the same ole kind of knickknacks you see in every Caribbean port. I admired a magnet that showed a cruise ship and the saying "Cruising into St. Kitts" but then saw that one magnet was $6 and decided that it wasn't worth it.
Having already experienced port security this morning, I was ready with my ID and cruise card getting to bypass the small group that had to step aside and dig their IDs out from the bottom of beach bags. I took a moment once on the pier itself to get some pictures and heard that the open air tram ferrying people up and down the long pier was actually charging $1 per ride.
Usually it's just customary to offer the driver a tip, not actually pay a fare. I suppose though if you really needed the assistance or were just super tired, $1 would be worth saving the steps. I'm surprised that when I made it back to the cabin, Dad was actually disappointed that I didn't have a ton of shopping bags.
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