Caribbean cruise

[catherinesian]

Hi all,

Pretty much decided we want to try a Caribbean cruise in 2020 as our main holiday.

Where do I start? We are a couple, late 20's. Enjoy the more active holiday and nature. Snorkelling, tubing, wandering around rainforests nature spotting and a bit of history are what we want to get out of the ports.

We get max 2 weeks consecutive leave from work so we are limited. We were thinking a split centre like New York 4 days, then cruise 10 days, is that sensible?

We have been on Celebrity (loved), Cunard (didn't love) and P&O (good, would go on again). We are keen to try Royal Caribbean or another some what 'younger' ship (Norweigan, Carnival?).

There are so many ports and different cruises to the Caribbean I just don't know where to start to be honest!

In terms of budget, we have a reasonable budget and can save, but not looking to spend ridiculous amounts of money. We would get a Balcony cabin.

[Loopylooloo]

Celebrity Reflection have a lovely 10 night Caribbean cruise for next year or Silhouette 12 nights, both look amazing, I would do 4 nights first in Fort Lauderdale area, rather than New York, just to keep the cost down, and keep it simple. We are thinking of doing exactly this next year. Both ships are stunning.

[Omega1]

For your interests have a look at cruises that call in at Puerto Limon (Costa Rica) for great wildlife spotting - sloths and howler monkeys amongst other things. For the best snorkelling in the Caribbean imo, you need to visit Bonaire. Another good snorkelling port of call is Cozumel. Bonaire and P Limon are often on the itinerary of a partial transit of the Panama Canal which is fascinating.
Have a look at the Vacations to go website for a good overview of what cruises are available.

[catherinesian]

Originally Posted by Loopylooloo

Celebrity Reflection have a lovely 10 night Caribbean cruise for next year or Silhouette 12 nights, both look amazing, I would do 4 nights first in Fort Lauderdale area, rather than New York, just to keep the cost down, and keep it simple. We are thinking of doing exactly this next year. Both ships are stunning.

See more...

We did a Baltics cruise on the Eclipse and really loved it thanks will have a look. In terms of cost I was pricing up flights with dummy dates this year and to fly London>New York>Fort Lauderdale>London was only coming up at £400 each direct flights which was not much more than return to FL if we can get flights like that then it really doesn't bump the cost up that much at all going to NY - it would just be the hotel cost

Originally Posted by Omega1

For your interests have a look at cruises that call in at Puerto Limon (Costa Rica) for great wildlife spotting - sloths and howler monkeys amongst other things. For the best snorkelling in the Caribbean imo, you need to visit Bonaire. Another good snorkelling port of call is Cozumel. Bonaire and P Limon are often on the itinerary of a partial transit of the Panama Canal which is fascinating.
Have a look at the Vacations to go website for a good overview of what cruises are available.

See more...

Thank you - sounds amazing and I have always wanted to see sloths in the wild. I will have a look

[mitch84]

I have never been to the Caribbean, on a cruise or otherwise, but from reading your posts, I think you would really enjoy NCL.

I did the Baltics on NCL Getaway, a massive ship but so good for the younger active crowd. It had waterslides (good ones too), a high ropes course, a custom built comedy club, a pub that served food (included all the time), I really really loved it, the entertainment was excellent too, including a circus/steampunk type show. Worth looking at the itineraries for the future anyway

[stecee]

I was very close to booking a Caribbean cruise for this year before deciding on Croatia. The two I’d shortlisted were both with celebrity, their ships look stunning and the itinerary was what I was looking for.
However, having sailed twice on NCL ships, they are high on my list for any future cruises for the reasons given above.

[SquishTheWhale]

You would love NCl or RCI I'm sure, the ships are fantastic and very young with loads to do. However if you loved Celebrity I'm sure you'd like something like Princess too, so I'd book on itinerary mainly.

We've done the Western and Eastern/Southern Caribbean and the latter was 100% better itinerary wise. We loved every port including St Lucia, Barbados, Antigua, St Thomas etc. The only one we were on the fence about was St Kitts but it will never be perfect! We did that on Princess as the price was right (£600 for 10 night cruise pp) and we couldn't find a RCI or NCL cruise doing that itinerary out of Florida. Some of them board in San Juan to do the Southern Caribbean which would be a pain in the bum to get to from the UK.

Antigua had a lot of interesting history, spectacular views and beaches. St Lucia had the most amazing snorkelling I've ever done right off the beach from Sugar beach. Barbados had stunning beaches with crystal clear water, we snorkelled over sunken ships teeming with fish. St Thomas we went to Magens Bay which was just gorgeous and you can be swimming in the sea with pelicans dive bombing the water next to you!
St Kitts we zip lined which was fun but pricey and we didn't like the island as much overall.

The demographic on the Princess ship was pretty old but we still had a great time and there was younger people like us. The food was sometimes spectacular and sometimes not great, weirdly inconsistent. We'd go with them again though.

[bonnies mum]

Have done the same itinerary as STW above on Princess - fantastic ports. Princess also do a cruise taking in Grenada & St Vincent, which have rain forests.
Princess does indeed have a slightly older demographic than RCI, with probably fewer entertainment venues onboard, but as they offer more 10 day cruises they have a greater variety of ports.

[catherinesian]

Thanks all. I have been researching lots on cruises we can go on. We want to do a 10 night cruise and have narrowed it down to RCI as Norwegian don't seem to do the longer Caribbean cruises. I think what I have realised is there is no cruise that does all the ports I want to go to within a timescale I can do! So will have to cover some of them now and I'll just have to go on another one to do the rest

I think we have settled on an RCI cruise aboard Serenade of the Seas, although I am wavering as it's one of their older, smaller ships. I did want to go on one of their huge all singing all dancing ships really, but none of them seem to do the longer Caribbean cruises or they go from somewhere other than Fort Lauderdale.

I think we will end up going to the more traditional Caribbean ports Barbados, St Lucia, Dominica, St Kitts, St Thomas and Antigua and then I hope one day to do a longer Panama canal cruise to go to some of the others that I like the sound of.

OH has also decided he doesn't want to go to New York as it's too far away, so we will team NY with another trip sometime. So that leaves me trying to shoe-horn in a cheeky 6 nights in Orlando to do Universal, Kennedy Space Centre and shopping which means our September trip can be just 12 days in the mouse

[catherinesian]

So we spent hours last night looking at RCI and NCI cruises around the Caribbean and no matter how much we looked there just wasn't anything that had all the stops we liked, on a boat we liked (that wasn't old and small). The ships I really wanted to go on, either Symphony or Harmony of the seas do 7 night Caribbean from Canaveral / Fort Lauderdale but only go to 3 stops and all the rest are sea days! Gutted as I really wanted to go on one of their megaships, one day!

Then OH found a cruise on the Britannia that ticked all the boxes and more, goes to some fantastic ports. So we booked it We went to the Fjords on P&O Ventura earlier this month and really enjoyed it, so looking forward to the Britannia as it's newer and bigger

It goes from Barbados and is 15 nights (16 including flights), so we won't be making a cheeky visit to Orlando but it just wasn't going to work with trying to include that, too.



Fly from the UK
1 Bridgetown, Barbados
2 Bridgetown, Barbados
3 At Sea
4 Kralendijk, Bonaire
5 Aruba
6 At Sea
7 Kingstown, St. Vincent
8 St. George's, Grenada AM PM
9 Castries, St. Lucia
10 At Sea
11 Philipsburg, St. Maarten
12 Basseterre, St. Kitts
13 St. John's, Antigua
14 At Sea
15 Bridgetown, Barbados
16 Fly back to the UK