HORSESHOE BAY 2015

We have been to Horseshoe Bay twice on 2 different cruises. I will include both visits within this review to make it simple. (This is part of my full length review)

Once you arrive at Horseshoe bay and walk down the path leading out to it (coming from the beaches down the road, this would be the left hand side of the beach while facing the water). As you are coming around the corner along the path, this is the opening to Horseshoe.

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I absolutely loved the sand around this area away from the beach. It reminded me of sand dunes

 This would be considered the "non-crowded" section of the beach. Yes, there were a few people wondering around, but plenty of space to spread out and enjoy yourself.

We ALL started heading toward the "Baby Bay" area where we spent most of our time when we were here in June.

Notice Brayden in the picture? Of course you don't...he's not in the next several pictures...You better believe Sakari is with us! 

At this point I'm frustrated that Kendra is still walking toward Baby Bay and I screamed to her "You might want to stop and find your son!" She turned around to look and finally noticed he was gone. I knew exactly where he was because I had been keeping my eye on him. He was still ALL THE WAY BACK AT THE BEGINNING of the beach! ...where he was busy playing in the sand and running back and forth. She started screaming for him to come on. He played like he didn't hear her and this is normal for him. I don't know what makes her think that she's going to walk away and he's just going to follow her. He will never follow her and the split second you're not looking, he takes the opportunity to wonder off.

Since he was acting as if he didn't hear her, this now forced her to walk all the way back down the beach to get him. HAHAHAHAHA...that's what you get! Anyone who's been to Horseshoe Beach knows it's not the smallest beach to begin with and quite the haul to get from one end to the other...especially carrying beach bags and towels.

The kids decided they were going to go exploring while some of us decided to locate what ever remains of beach front real estate we could find at Baby Bay.

Up the rocks they went for the spectacular view that I got when I was here a few months ago. Since I had already done it, I knew I was not going to go up this time around. I was going to sit back and relax on the beach and watch them emerge up at the top.

Kendra finally drug Brayden down the beach and dumped him at our beach-front property and headed off to catch up with her brothers. She finally made it up there as well.

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Kendra was up there doing all kinds of hand signals down to me and Courtney joined in at some point. They acted as if I knew what they were talking about. They did it over and over and then would turn to each other and laugh then continue with the charades. I would later find that they were trying to tell me there were turtles on the other side...only to find out they were kidding and were trying to entice me to climb up there. But since I suck at charades, I didn't move and they didn't accomplish their goal.

I told the kids to take lots of pictures for me when they were up there and this is what they brought me back...

Kenny standing someplace that looked like he probably shouldn't be standing at...too close to the edge.

The girls come back complaining about how the boys were scaring them by getting so close to the edges. I'm glad I didn't go up there. They would have for sure had to carry me down and call the squad.

Monkey see, monkey do. Kolin joined in on the fun just to get Courtney going as well. They totally convinced them they were going to jump into the water.

Since they didn't jump, they decided to climb down there. I didn't even realize you could find a place to do that. But, of course my boys did.

Looking back at Baby Bay

After their adventures, they all headed down to me to let me know how bad the boys were and I breathed a sigh of relief that they had all safely made it back and none of them decided to jump.

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We hung out the rest of the time at "Baby Bay".

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Next up was Baby Bay Beach

BABY BAY BEACH

This would be the review of the other time we went to Horseshoe Bay:

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We took the bus system to here (we had other plans to go to Warwick and walk our way down the beaches to get to Horseshoe, but it didn't end up working out for us and we just spent the day here instead).

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Somehow my ducklings must have lost faith in my ability to do effective planning for the day and I ended up at the back of the line. That's ok, let poppa duck lead the way since he's never planned a day of our vacations in his life. LOL

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We were walking down the hill and I must say it really seemed like a walk. (Back to that feeling of going somewhere for the first time and it seems to take forever). It's definitely quite a hill and not at all what I had pictured.

We made it to the scooter parking lot and then the rest of the parking lot for cars. I felt like we must be getting close now.

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They had a wash the sand off stations for I guess for munchkins...or maybe it's just a foot washing station. There was no time to stop and find out...keep going ducklings!!!

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THEN WE FINALLY MADE IT!!!

Wow the waves looked a little well...wavy. I decided not to put the burden on the rest of the clan because I didn't want another deer in the headlights look from all them and went to Kendra instead and ask what we should do. Our choices were to stay here or head over and take the long haul down all the beaches in the reverse order that I had planned, which meant we would have to also turn around and come back that way again. She sighed and I left it up to her. She said if we were going to be doing it in reverse order, we might as well start here and pointed over to the "baby beach" at Horseshoe. Sounds good to me...at this point just give me some ocean water. We headed that way. But we will continue with Horseshoe Beach first.

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After spending quite some time in the Baby Bay area, we were getting a little bored with the area (and when I say "we" I mean Kendra & I because the guys are perfectly happy never having to move more than a few inches from their prime real estate any place we go). We decided that we would just sneak off to the other side of Horseshoe and explore.

We found a cave

Yep, we're going in girls. It was quite the task to make it in there with the slippery rocks in the water below our feet and the huge waves crashing in on us. It would prove to be an adventure.

Once inside I seen a nest up in the rocks with some long tail feathers hanging out. I knew this must be the Bermuda Long Tail bird. She did not bother us and we did not bother her.

There were areas that headed off into the cave and we are not adventurous enough to even try it.

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I took a few pictures of the entrance

Then a few goofy pictures before we left

Trying to make our way back out.

Shayla got pounded by the waves

Looking back at the beach. It had gotten a little crowded throughout the day.

I have no idea what this thing was on the beach. Anyone?

The girls decided they wanted to stay in the area and "ride the waves". This is one of Kendra's favorite things to do. She likes the water like this. Me, not so much. I rather have the calmer water so that I can snorkel or at least look around under water without actually taking in the water. LOL Riding the waves takes a little bit of effort.

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I decided to head back over toward the baby bay beach area and I was on a mission to climb the rocks and take pictures of the area.

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Several times during the day Kendra and I both looked at each other and said "Do you want to start walking along the beach toward Warwick?" Each time I was hesitant for some reason. Something just didn't feel right. I know at one point she said "I wish WE could just take off walking there and leave the kids and guys behind". That would have been the perfect solution although I didn't want to spend a majority of the day somewhere else without the rest of the family. There was something about having my grandson walking along there and the "cliffs" along the water that just scared me. He's unruly, he scares me, and I was just so unsure of the timing.

I kept telling her that since our plans didn't work out the way we had wanted them to, we could always just save the money and head back on the bus instead of staying longer and having to pay almost $50 for a cab each. There was always things to do in the dockyard and I was more than satisfied with our day we had spent there.

In the end, we decided it would just be too much work to pack up the entire family and start the trip to Warwick and then have to come back. Yes, I was disappointed in not being able to stick to my original plans and I was even more disappointed that the bus directing guy had led me in the wrong direction after multiple attempts of telling him what our plans were. In the end, I just seen this as an excuse to have to come back in the future.

It was about 4pm and we decided we had a great day and we'd start packing up our things to head back. It always takes awhile to get Sakari out of the water and I knew this time would be no different. By us leaving now, we would be able to catch that last bus returning from Hamilton at 4:30pm and head back to the dockyard.

I did notice they had beach wheelchairs there...so if anyone is wondering...they also had the ice cream window.  After that was the wash rooms.

We headed to the showers to rinse off. Yes, they had regular sized showers in the bathrooms with ice cold water, but it was refreshing.

Around the time that we decided to leave the sun came out in full force. It felt like the temps doubled and man was it hot.

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​Sakari insisted on one last photo of this beautiful place with the big fish before we left

We made it to the taxi area and knew ahead of time that we wanted a ride up the hill because it was quite the walk coming down and what I would consider somewhat "steep".

As we got to the area where there were drivers, they were asking us where we were going and if we wanted a ride. Kendra was far behind and I kept telling them that I was waiting on the rest of my party to catch up. I told him we were a party of 8. They kept putting people in the taxi's and they would leave and when Kendra finally caught up, I told them we were all here. He said he'd take us to the dockyard and I inquired on the price. His reply was $7 pp. Kendra ask "What about the kids?" "Um...$1.00 per kid."

So public transportation would have been:

$5 pp for adults x 5 adults=$25 plus

$2.75 per kid=$8.25.

Plus $2 pp x8 for the ride up the hill=$16.

That's a total of $49.25 for our entire party.

For the Taxi:

$7 per adult=$35

$1 per child=$3

for a total of $38

Yep, we'll take it. We had the entire van to ourselves and it was awesome!!!