Our 2010 Caribbean Cruise

Carolyn's February school vacation is a time when we like to emulate Jimmy Buffett when he says: "I want to go where it's warm!" And there's not much warmer than the Caribbean  Sea, so that's where we headed.

Last year, we went with another couple on a Princess cruise out of Ft. Lauderdale. Cruises are interesting. The ships are gorgeous. The food is sumptuous and plentiful. The ports of call are all lovely - at least from dockside. But we were disappointed in last year's itinerary. There's only so far a ship can travel in a day and leaving from Florida meant we spent a lot of time at sea. So this year, we decided to take a cruise leaving from San Juan, Puerto Rico, which meant we spent more time ashore and less time underway.

Always looking for a chance to explore new places, I elected to stay behind in Puerto Rico for a week after the cruise ended. That adventure is the subject of the following post, which you will read first because of how these blog type thingies are structured.

Our cruise took us to St. Thomas, Dominca (pronounced dome-uh-NEE-ca by the locals), Grenada, Bonaire and Aruba. Of them all, our favorite was Bonaire. Much less well known than its Caribbean cousin, Aruba, we found it especially appealing precisely because of that fact. It is small, neat, tidy, and attractive but most of all, it is NOT overrun with tourists. And it has beaches and breezes and warm Caribbean waters that beg you to stay for another day, another week - or forever!

So we ate and floated our way across many hundreds of miles, but our favorite activity of all was sitting on those wonderful beaches we encountered along the way. So next year, that's precisely what we intend to do - find a beach somewhere and park ourselves next to the waves that lap the shoreline and just soak up the sun. Yeah, we won't get to eat 14 times a day, but our waistlines will be better for it!

Can't wait!

You can view a compendium of pictures from the cruise at this link: Cruise2010