This post is the fifth in a series from my Caribbean Cruise in February 2015. You can read a review of Ventura, the P&O Cruise Ship I was on, here and find links to the rest of the posts here.
Although I absolutely cannot choose a favourite island from my trip, I have to say that my day in Saint Kitts is definitely up there as one of my favourite days of the holiday. The island, like all of the other islands I visited, was absolutely beautiful. The scenery was just like a postcard and I loved how lush and green it was. The biggest factor in making this one of my favourite days was our activity. We booked a shore excursion through P&O to go Ziplining with a company called Sky Safari and I honestly couldn’t recommend them highly enough. They were amazing.
The day started off nice and early with a 9am meet time. We were told that we would be meeting under an archway along with all of the other trips. Unfortunately, we ended up in the wrong queue after a member of staff had just gestured vaguely in the direction of all of the queues and then someone else ripped our tickets without even looking at them and led us to the car park where we started to hear about the day. It was at this point we spotted the bikes and realised that maybe they weren’t necessary for the day of Ziplining we had planned… Nightmare. So we raced back to the terminal and found the person who had gestured us in the wrong direction and finally found the group we were supposed to be in literally seconds before they disappeared too! I can’t tell you how relieved we were to find the right people – we would have felt pretty stupid if we had had to return to the ship at 9.10am having missed our trip. I don’t even know whose fault it was to be honest – it wasn’t Sky Safari because we didn’t meet our guide until after that but it didn’t seem to be P&O either – but I would definitely say make sure that you are in the right place if you ever go on a trip like this because I would have been pretty gutted if I had ended up spending the day cycling to the beach instead!
Anyway, once we got past this trauma, it was plain sailing for the rest of the day. I was a bit apprehensive about Ziplining because I am actually scared of heights but I quickly managed to overcome my fear and I thoroughly enjoyed the day. I have to say that one of the major reasons that I wasn’t scared was because of the amazing staff at Sky Safari. They really went out of their way to make you feel secure and safe, from the explanation of all of the equipment and the ‘Monkey Training’ at the start of the day to the humour and reassurance of the guides who spent the day with us. The guides were crazy too though – one of them came along a Zipline that was 1000 feet above sea level with no harness and just holding on by one hand! His strength was unreal. As you can see from the photo below, my way of getting along the zipline was rather different!
Another good thing for me was that because of the physical landscape, you didn’t start off very high off the ground because we were on a hill so at first I was only maybe 2 feet off the ground and then the hill started to slope downwards taking me further and further away from the ground without even really noticing. Before I knew it I was 1000 feet from the ground and flying through the air. This also gave me a chance to feel secure in the harness before the distance between me and the ground got too much!
There were 4 ziplines which took about an hour for the group to get through: ‘The Boss’, ‘MangoTango’, ‘Brimstone Blast’ and ‘River Rocker’. The final one was a double zipline so you could race the person next to you. I beat my friend so the guide told her that she owed me a drink which was great news for me!
At the end of the ziplining, the guides took us further into the Estate to a boutique where they make fabrics and art and also to the Botanical Gardens. This was so beautiful and a perfect way to end the morning.
After we had had a chance to look around the gardens and the boutique, we got back into the car to return to the ship. The driver was a local of St Kitts and he was very knowledgable about the island so it was really interesting to talk to him about the universities, the upcoming elections and the industries of the island. He also showed us the Rum Tree in Old Town where he said local people hang empty rum bottles for the Rum Fairy to fill them up. I hope it works!
In the afternoon we wandered around the market that was at the Terminal and then went to The Rum Barrel for some rum punch and some wifi.
Overall I had an amazing day and I will definitely cherish those memories for a long time. I am so proud that I actually managed to go ziplining because since I was 12, when I got stuck on a chairlift, I have been terrified of anything high up. When we were booking our excursion though, I made the decision to try and get past my fear and just enjoy the experience and I am so glad that I did because I never thought I would be able to enjoy something like that but now I can’t wait for the next opportunity to test myself so that I can conquer this fear! I think booking an expensive trip was an ideal way to push myself into doing it because I would have been so annoyed at myself if I had chickened out and wasted the money and the experience. The trip cost £62 each and was booked through P&O. Here is a link for the Sky Safari website. I would recommend them to anyone spending a day in St Kitts – it really was an unforgettable experience.
BethSophie.com 