My views do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.
After a couple of weeks of soaking in the Detourist workshops and trying to learn enough to present them in an entertaining manner, I needed to get off the ship. I figured out which day I would have the most time off and I submitted a request to be an escort on a tour for that port. The night before there were no tour tickets. But then later my ticket was found in my cubby (or as the Brit’s call them my pigeon hole) in the Entertainment office. I couldn’t remember what I requested, read the description very quickly and then prepared for an adventure. I read the description so quickly that I didn’t remember exactly what it said, but I did remember it saying that there would be 3 things. I wanted to set my expectations low, so I assumed that the ride to the facility in the air conditioned bus was the first adventure.
These adventures were pretty serious. We had to step on a scale to make sure we didn’t weigh too much or too little. I was excited to see how much I weighed (to find out on the ship I had to go up to the gym on a day we were at port and didn’t have anything else going on) but I was only able to read if I was in the YES section or the NO section. I passed.
We would eventually come down the most vertical zip line in the world (I think). It started from the very top of that mountain and came down to the ground.
But first, we took a chair lift to our next adventure. If I was counting correctly, if the bus ride was first, this chair lift was our second ride. As we floated up the mountain, it reminded me of the summer adventures I would go to in Winter Park with the Hogan’s– there is an alpine slide where you take the chairlift up the mountain and then ride a cool little slide down a cement track. I started to wonder what this mountain would look like in the winter until I remembered that I was in the Caribbean and it was summer all year. It probably looked like this in the winter.
Kerry ‘Kez’ James was our Destination Expert on board, and she was on this tour as well. Kez was cruise staff before she started lecturing about the ports. It was fun to have a buddy.
Halfway up the mountain they let us off, plopped us in a tube
and we slid down the mountain rolling up against the sides!
That got my adrenaline going! There’s nothing like getting those exciting nervous chemicals that tell your body that you’re in a little bit of danger even though you’re not really to disrupt the routine. Because of the Detourist workshops, I’d started to really appreciate having these feelings– they’re much stronger the first time you do something new. In fact, they let us slide down in the tubes twice and the second time wasn’t nearly as scary (I ended up coming back to this place later with my friend Jase and talked them into letting me ride a smaller kid’s tube so I could go faster).
Next we took the chairlifts up even higher to almost the top of the mountain where we were given ziplining gear.
There were four zip lines that allowed us to fly across the top of the mountain with a 360 degree view of the island. We started by lifting our knees and flying, but by the end we would run off the edge of the platform and jump into the air.
Our final mini chairlift took us to the very top of the mountain where we waited for the big one. The final adventure.
See the runway? That’s airport beach. I’ve heard it’s pretty cool, but I never made it there. The planes come down right over your head.
This is the French side of the Island. There are two countries– the Dutch side and the French side. We dock on the Dutch side.
Look! I was there!
You can almost see the ships behind the mountains.
That is the flying Dutchman.
The view from the platform
The ships are just behind that mountain
It was so pretty I felt like I was taking a different picture every time.
That was the view looking down from where we would zipline.
the view from the very top
As we watched people line up to go on the big zipline, my heart started creeping up into my throat. It was a long way down. I knew it would be fun but I was also terrified. Kez was excited. We took a before picture.
Finally it was our turn. They strapped me into a big chair which felt very reassuring. Then we put our feet on the fence protecting us from the long drop. Waiting up there at the top was the worst part– the anticipation of it. Once we were let loose it was incredible. It didn’t feel like we were going as fast as I thought we would go even though my cheeks were blowing in the wind and fluttering like sails. It felt like we were floating down the mountain and it was over too soon.
We took an after picture.
Two thumbs up for doing something new and scary looking. My heart beat a little faster that day and I lived to tell the tale.