Thea Dalfino

I could have done without this stop. Much of the island was being repaired from the hurricane. When you get off the ship there are plenty of taxi drivers to harass you. The best offer we heard was $8 per person for a 3 hour drive around the island. We weren’t interested. Many of our close friends went to medical school at St. George’s and they recommended seeing the Carenage, the waterfall, and going to Grand Anse beach. While we were walking into town a native came up and started talking to us. He took us to the Carenage and explained some of the history. Unfortunately, it looked as if much of it had been ruined and I would not recommend going there unless you need to take a water taxi to the beach. My advice it to walk to the left once you get away from all the taxi drivers and then you’ll see the main shopping street on your right. If you walk through the cave, with the cars (where many people go), that takes you to the Carenage.
>From there, our tour guide Earl took us to the top of the hill to see the destroyed church and stadium. We then went to the bus station to get a bus to the waterfall. It cost us $5 total for 5 people (we had to pay for Earl) each way. The waterfall was nice but touristy. It was wonderful to swim in freshwater.

After that we went back to the bus station and then to Grand Anse beach. My friends said it used to be much nicer but now there is a very steep incline down into the water. I couldn’t use my snorkeling equipment because the water wasn’t clear. There were a lot of people there to harass us on the beach for things like food, drinks, a water taxi, etc. Earl, our guide (who we didn’t ask for but who just stayed with us) was there and tried to fend them off. We took a water taxi back to the Carenage for $2 per person. On the way back to the ship we stopped at the spice market and bought fresh spices. That is one thing Grenada is known for. I bought bottles of nutmeg, cinnamon, currie, saffron, allspice, cloves, and a few others all for $20. At the end of the day, after 5 hours on the island it was time for our guide, Earl, to leave us. My father asked him how much he usually gets paid and he said 100 dollars. We paid him $92 because we thought $100 was far too much. When I came home and told my friends from Grenada they had a good laugh. They said he’s probably out at the nicest restaurants on the island with that kind of money. They felt that $40 would have been generous. My advice is simply to ignore the people that talk to you, only ask for directions from store owners (then they can’t try to give you a tour or take you anywhere), and take taxis to exactly where you want to go. It was a very frustrating experience and the country is so poor that I would not go there again.

Check out the shore excursions available in Grenada.
Grenada Shore Excursions

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