Explora II Cruise - February, 2026

Day 5 – Guadeloupe

Sunday, February 8

          Our Destination Experience--alright, I can't do it.  I'm calling them shore excursions from now on!--today was "Waterfall and Botanical Garden in Basse-Terre".  We arrived at the Journeys Lounge right before 10:15, got our number cards an waited for Group 31 to be called.  Then we headed down to Deck 3, exited the ship and walked a short distance to the bus parking area.

          We found the bus with a 31 sign and boarded.  It's too bad no one took a picture of my face when I got to the top of the bus stairs, because who did I see sitting in Row 1?  Marge!  I don't know what I've done to deserve this, but I'm sure that I'm terribly sorry for whatever it was!

          I'm not exactly sure why, but wifey asked if we could sit in the back of the bus, so off we went.

          Once we got moving, our guide explained that the Waterfall gets very busy in the morning, so we would be going to it last, but we'd still have 30 minutes to go swimming if we wanted to.  Instead, we were going to the Casava factory.  The what?  I don't remember that part in the description when we booked this.

          Here's a look at layout of the islands.  Guadeloupe is one that we hadn't visited before previously.  According to our guide, it consists of two islands connected by bridges.  I also found out I've been pronouncing the name wrong.  It is not the Spanish pronunciation (guad-a-loo-pay), but it is a French territory and they pronounce it "guad-a-loop".  

          After about a 30 minute ride on the bus, we arrived at the casava factory where we were told we'd be split into two groups.  We were fortunately able to maneuver ourselves into the non-Marge group and headed into the area for a tasting.

          We were told there were two different types of we could try;  either the fish casava or the ham casava, but that the ham wasn't made from pork.  Huh?  Our guide went on to explain it was "chicken ham," which, umm, okay.  Sure.

          After the tasting, we toured around the factory.  Here is what the casava root looks like when it's pulled out of the ground:

          Then they are peeled and washed:

          And then ground down and cooked:

          This was all fine and actually interesting, but not what we signed up for.  We were now 2 hrs into our 4.5 hr "experience" and hadn't visited either places in the description yet.  About 20 minutes later, we did finally make it to the botanical gardens.  We had the option of riding a train around the grounds, but we decided to just head out on our own and explore:

          We were told to be back on the bus in an hour, so we made our way through the souvenir shop exit (they do not take US currency) and to the parking lot.  We located our bus, board and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  We were eventually told that we were still missing one person, who wandered back about 20 minutes late.  We tried to vote to leave him after 15 minutes, but our guide wasn't having any of that.

          After a short bus ride, we finally arrived at the waterfall, where we were supposed to have 30 minutes for swimming, but it was already 2:30PM and we were scheduled to be back to the ship by 3:00.  We were told we had 5 minutes to walk to the waterfall, 5 minutes at the waterfall, and then 5 minutes to walk back.  

          We deemed the very generous 5 minute allotment for swimming to not be worth it, so we grabbed a couple of picture and headed back to the bus.

          Even with the shortened waterfall visit, we were still 30 minutes later arriving back to the port.  So now it's 3:30PM, a whole bus load of people haven't eaten since breakfast and we discover that the Emporium Marketplace stopped serving lunch at 2:30 and the Burger Bar at 3:30.  That meant our options were room service or the Explora Lounge.

          After a brief debate, we decided we would probably be able to get food faster at the Explora Lounge, so we headed there.  That turned out to be totally the wrong call because almost everyone else from the bus had the same idea, which caused our food to take 30 minutes to arrive.

          Conclusion: I would not personally recommend this excursion.

          Here's a look at the limited shopping area inside the port:

          And back to the suite for some relaxation.  I have decided (or maybe remembered) that hours on a bus with 40+ other people is really not my thing:

          Tonight was the Super Bowl and they not only showed the game on the big screen in the Conservatory, but they also decorated the Journeys Lounge and had a watch party with food, drinks, sports trivia and games.

          While we are the subject of sports, Explora did not pay for the license for the Olympics, so they were not showing anywhere on the ship unless you streamed them yourself.

 

Final step count for Day 5: