July 18 2009 Tortola - Part 2!

[Georgia Jamie]

Originally Posted by Macavity

Okay - I justg now read this - Its how to find inner peace...

By following the simple advice I heard on the Dr. Phil Show, I have finally found inner peace.



Dr. Phil proclaimed, "The way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you've started and never finished".



So, I looked around my house to see all the things I started and hadn't finished, and before leaving the house this
morning, I finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of White Zinfandel, a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream, a bottle of Kalua,
a package of Oreos,the remainder of my old Prozac prescription, the rest of the cheesecake,
some Doritos and a box of chocolates.

You have no idea how good I feel.

That is too funny! Maybe I should look around my house, too!

[Dizzyworld]

Originally Posted by Macavity

Okay - I just now read this - Its how to find inner peace...

By following the simple advice I heard on the Dr. Phil Show, I have finally found inner peace.



Dr. Phil proclaimed, "The way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you've started and never finished".



So, I looked around my house to see all the things I started and hadn't finished, and before leaving the house this morning, I finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of White Zinfandel, a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream, a bottle of Kahlua, a package of Oreos,the remainder of my old Prozac prescription, the rest of the cheesecake, some Doritos and a box of chocolates.

You have no idea how good I feel.

After spending the day shopping for a graduation dress for my DD for her 8th grade graduation, this would work well........starting now.......cheers..........cya.........

[Dizzyworld]

Originally Posted by bdtmoult

Hi All,

Just started to read through the post We are going to be crusing with you and getting more excited by the day! We were on the Magic back in 2002 (I think) and excited to be going once more. It will be myself, DH and DS11.

This is going to be a fun cruise. Lucky ducks that you live near the mouse.

[Tia]

Originally Posted by bdtmoult

Hi All,

Just started to read through the post We are going to be crusing with you and getting more excited by the day! We were on the Magic back in 2002 (I think) and excited to be going once more. It will be myself, DH and DS11.

Welcome bdtmoult!
At least living in Orlando you don't have to worry about the hassles of getting to the port! We were just watching the Magic pull out. They are late today. I sure wish I was onboard today...

-Donna

[Macavity]

I found another cool website (ok, I think its cool)

This is a lady who lives on tortola island, and blogs... and other things... her website has kept me quite entertained the last few hours...

http://www.dearmissmermaid.com/links.html

If you take the time to dig into her website, you can really find some very interestng comments - this one was VERY eye opening...

Many folks locally oppose the cruise ships and the overbuilding of mega resorts. Seems silly when we have plenty of local guest houses and quaint hotels that would love to boast 100% occupancy and are not. Many are on the losing end, as more day trippers from cruise ships invade the islands, many repeat overnight visitors are vowing not to repeat their vacations here as they don't like the overcrowding either.

Our beaches are over run with day trippers and day beach rental chairs and ditto for our roads. The taxi drivers seem to think they rule the island and cause many unnecessary traffic jams.

Government isn't listening to their people that live and work here. A handful of higher ups are most likely compensated from the cruise ships behind closed doors with anonymous locked brief cases. I know, I used to work on a cruise line and when we wanted our way, to invade a peaceful island, all it took was a brief case of untraceable cash and suddenly contracts are signed.

Sad.

I am not saying anyone here took any bribes, but why the local government has chosen to run over the small businesses in favor of mega resorts and budget minded day trippers from cruise ships is just mind boggling.

I think if the tourist board and other higher ups in government, spent a week SAILING the BVI in a charter boat, then they would see first hand the Nature's Little Secrets that bring the sailors and unique overnight tourists to the islands.

I remember reading for years and years that the BVI would NEVER ever allow big cruise ships to come in and pollute our waters. What ever happened to those promises? We now have people pollution! Too many day trippers on too small an island.

We can only hope and pray that the powers to be will one day come to their senses and bring back the high dollar overnight visitors and lessen the cruise-ship people pollution. It can be done, the government here survived quite well without moneys from the cruise ships and small businesses thrived. Now many small businesses feel like the "quality" of the visitors has declined. In other words, a family on vacation here for 2 weeks will spend a heck of a lot more than day trippers and the majority of that money will remain in the BVI. Not so, the way things are now.

Many locals are angry that the day trippers have nice buses to ride around in all day when the rest of us don't even have public transpiration available. I hate to see the island become an angry place.

For eons the BVI has been known as a friendly welcoming destination. Most tourists used to come for 2 or more weeks, not a few hours looking for the cheapest bargain on T-shirts that scream "BVI" on them, just to say "Yep, we stopped there on our cruise ship."

I don't mean to offend those that travel by cruise ships, but look at our roads and schools, WHERE is the cruise ship money going? The government gets a hefty fee for every ship that calls here, but we can't see where that money has helped the BVI any. Many roads that were tore up in the floods years ago, have still not been repaired. Many vistas are just overgrown wide spaces in the road, where you have to stand on your toes to see the views. Many have no guard rails or picturesque rock wall. Take one step too many with your camera and OOPS!

Our schools are not attracting the very best educators nor are we turning out loads of scholars. Yet money is pouring in almost every day from these cruise ships and we don't see where it is going.

Even our garbage situation is out of control again. Neighborhood dumps where garbage is dropped off daily have this huge ring of garbage strewn all around that seems to grow bigger each day. Up and down the roads, garbage is blowing around and finding garbage cans in the heart of Road Town is rare indeed, yet the restaurants do a high volume of take-away foods and this take-away debris is found scattered everywhere.

I wonder if folks on Tortola know that many cruise ship passengers pay $88 and up for just a ride to Cane Garden Bay Beach. That is because the cruise ship gets a cut, the middle man gets a cut and the taxi of course gets a cut, yet so much of this money is just sailing away and not staying on the island at all.

Well, I've slung enough mud today to probably hang myself, but I've interviewed loads of shop keepers, inn keepers, and hospitality workers and I still haven't found that crowd of local folks who are jumping up and down in favor of cruise ship day trippers EXCEPT for the new taxi drivers and the beach chair rental guys and the middle men who have sewn up contracts with the cruise ships to provide overpriced tours.

The BVI will soon celebrate emancipation and freedom, but now we bring in cruise ships who employ slave labor to work in the bowels of the ships and live in cramped quarters beneath the water lines. A cruise ship passenger might typically see 15-25% of the crew at most, the rest are never seen, using secret passageways to traverse the ships to work at ridiculously low wages whether they are oilers in the engine rooms or dishwashers in the galley. If the cruise ships had to honor the same minimum wages payments of the islands they visit, then the cruise ship fees for passengers would of course increase likewise and the slave labor would be eliminated.

It's as if we are saying modern day slavery is OK, as long as it is HIDDEN from our view!

[jlawall]

Originally Posted by DarthVader92

We are now booked for studio sea on july 19th from 12:30pm to 1:30pm!!!!! Please arrive at studio sea between 12:15 to 12:30pm so that we may get started right away.

I am very happy we have gotten into studio sea and i hope all of you will join me in studio sea. Also please bring all family members. All are welcome!!!

Originally Posted by mickeymo

Cool!!!

Originally Posted by mickeymo

Thanks for organizing our meet!!!

Originally Posted by Georgia Jamie

Sounds great! Thanks for organizing!!

If possible, we'd love to start to meet people at the sail away party, too, as mentioned a few posts back. Mostly 'cause I can pretty much guarantee we'd all be there whereas come Sunday at 12:30 it's gonna be a lot tougher to get all of us to the "official" meet . . . once my kids find that pool (DH, too for that matter!), it'll be next to impossible to tear 'em away!

I thought the lime green bracelet idea sounded like a winner . . . easy enough for those who want to be "spotted" to wear one Saturday (and the rest of the week for that matter!) and it would make for a fun and low-key way to meet fellow DISers early on in a very casual way.

Ok, just to remind everyone.....here's the official meet on Sunday at Studio Sea at 12:15pm. Can we say that on this day, we will bring a $20 grab bag to share as a random pick for families to get to know each other. It should hold items from your hometown or state. Of course, it's optional. Then possibly we could introduce ourselves and go from there. Where would everyone like to meet at Castway? Deck 10? Perhaps, this is the day we should wear our shirts so we can find each other......suggestions, ideas, agreed?? Just trying to keep us organized...welcome to our newest member...we're now up to 35 FEs.....macavity.....WHAT WERE YOU DOING ALL DAY........:rot fl:.....joann.....let's play "Knock Knock", neighbor!.....just kidding.....I know, that's not funny, you have small children (I just couldn't resist)........WHERE IS JENNY??

Also, may I say the BVI is the MOST beautiful place I've been, it is less developed but so, so beautiful. Both the Baths and the Jost Van **** places are so wonderful, you can't miss. I'm actually in Miami this w/e visiting my DD22 who just moved there. When I get back next week, we'll take one more look at the private charters in BVI and see if people really want to go and how much......

[tinkerbell_29]

The grab bag idea sounds good to me. Not sure what i could bring from my state though were known for moonshine and wine though those might be appreciated by the adults. We are always on deck 10 for the party. Mom prefers to watch and we like to stay together so we go to deck ten.

Got our cafe press order the other day. One of the items we ordered was the messenger bag. I realized it was yellow but not that yellow. It is almost neon it's so bright.

Lissa

[Macavity]

Originally Posted by jlawall

<snip>macavity.....WHAT WERE YOU DOING ALL DAY........<snip>

did I mention that school is out :-) (for 6 more days at least)


if Florida rates would come out - I'd stop being all the computer all day checking to see if they have come out.....

So.. all those posts were Walt's fault...

yep... that's my story and I'm sticking to it!!!!!!

[31Buzz]

Originally Posted by Macavity

Definition of Heaven:

House clean
Laundry done
Lawn mowed (ok, hubby did this one)

Daughter at work
Hubby out (running errands)

No papers to grade (did I mention there is no school for 6 more days now?)

The TV NOT on

Peace and quiet.... and a route 44 diet vanilla coke from Sonic next to me


....and only me home to enjoy it.....

You know we are FINALLY getting a Sonic in NJ after having to watch all those commercials on TBS

[Dizzyworld]

Originally Posted by Macavity

did I mention that school is out :-) (for 6 more days at least)


if Florida rates would come out - I'd stop being all the computer all day checking to see if they have come out.....

So.. all those posts were Walt's fault...

yep... that's my story and I'm sticking to it!!!!!!

If the FL rates appears, please PM me so I don't miss it. I have some friends in FL that might seriously consider joining us. Thanks.

BTW......interesting things you have dug up today.

[Dizzyworld]

Originally Posted by jlawall

Ok, just to remind everyone.....here's the official meet on Sunday at Studio Sea at 12:15pm. Can we say that on this day, we will bring a $20 grab bag to share as a random pick for families to get to know each other. It should hold items from your hometown or state. Of course, it's optional. Then possibly we could introduce ourselves and go from there. Where would everyone like to meet at Castway? Deck 10? Perhaps, this is the day we should wear our shirts so we can find each other......suggestions, ideas, agreed?? Just trying to keep us organized...welcome to our newest member...we're now up to 35 FEs.....

Also, may I say the BVI is the MOST beautiful place I've been, it is less developed but so, so beautiful. Both the Baths and the Jost Van **** places are so wonderful, you can't miss. I'm actually in Miami this w/e visiting my DD22 who just moved there. When I get back next week, we'll take one more look at the private charters in BVI and see if people really want to go and how much......

I like your ideas.

[Dizzyworld]

Originally Posted by 31Buzz

You know we are FINALLY getting a Sonic in NJ after having to watch all those commercials on TBS

We thought we were getting a Sonic but it turned out to be a hair salon.

[Dizzyworld]

Is it page 100 yet?

[Dizzyworld]

When will it turn the page?

[Dizzyworld]

I give up.