You're about to discover the seven things
brochures don't always warn you about
when you're cruising the Caribbean.
Hi, I'm Gary Bembridge,
this is another of my Tips For Travellers.
I'm just back from a Caribbean cruise
and wanted to share with you seven watch-outs,
things I think you need to know,
if you're planning to go on a cruise in the Caribbean,
starting with this one.
First of all, especially if you're cruising out of Florida,
Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Port Canaveral,
you will find crazy, busy disembarkation ports
so plan for that.
If you're sailing out of Miami especially,
which is the biggest passenger cruise port in the world,
you could have 15,000 to 20,000 people getting off the ship
and the same amount getting on the ship.
When I was there on the Friday there was eight ships,
the Saturday there was nine ships,
the Sunday there was seven ships,
the Monday there was six ships.
So huge amounts of turnover, really, really busy,
so try and plan to be ready for big crowds.
So especially if you're getting your transfers
to or from the port you might want to try
and get there really early or get a little bit later
once the crowds have died down.
And also the same when you're disembarking the ship,
really plan so that you're not caught up
in the big, huge amounts of crowds.
So what I like to do, for example, is either get off
really, really early or later on in the day
when it's just a little bit less manic.
The second big watch-out is that these cruises
pretty much all go to the same place.
The Caribbean cruises tend to be seven days long,
you'll find that some are a little bit shorter,
and they pretty much go to the same itineraries
because the islands are geared up
to cater for cruise ships, the facilities,
so it's a fairly limited amount of itineraries.
There's three big core Caribbean cruises
that you're gonna be looking at,
there's the Eastern Caribbean, the Western Caribbean,
and the more southernly Caribbean.
So if you're heading off to the Eastern Caribbean,
you can expect to go to a place like Bahamas,
Cayman Islands, Haiti, Dominican Republic,
the British Virgin Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands,
possibly Puerto Rico, Saint Barth,
and if you go to the Western Caribbean
you could be looking at places like Jamaica,
Cayman Islands again, but it tends to go
to lots of Mexico places like Cozumel,
Costa Maya, might go to Belize,
might go to the Honduran island of Roatan.
If you're going to the Southern Caribbean
you're looking at places like Saint Kitts, Antigua,
possibly Dominica, Saint Lucia, Barbados,
Grenada, Saint Vincent, those kinds of places.
So they all do have pretty much the same itineraries,
so when you start to look at a cruise
the itineraries are going to be pretty much the same
and they kind of blend a little bit into each other.
The ports all start to blend a little bit into each other
as they build more and more infrastructure
to cater for the cruise industry.
When you step off a port
some of the distinctiveness is kind of gone.
Saying that, the Caribbean still, of course,
is a fabulous place to go.
Great beaches, great weather depending on the time
of the year you go, and it's a fabulous place to cruise
but that does all blend into one.
The third big watch-out is as you look at your itinerary
look very carefully because increasingly
cruise lines are owning islands
and manufacturing islands as destinations.
So you're not actually going to an original, unique,
and specific Caribbean island which has a lot of history,
you're going to an island which has been created
by the cruise line where they've got great facilities.
You might have things like water sports,
you might have zip-lines, you might have water parks,
all sorts of activities.
However they're not original Caribbean islands,
these are created and owned by the cruise lines.
There's a lot of them.
So for example, on my last cruise, which was on Oceania,
which is part of the Norwegian Cruise Line group,
we went to Harvest Caye which was a beautiful place,
but again it's a little bit Disney-fied if you'd like
because it is manufactured.
But some of the other islands that you could come across
is you've got Castaway Cay
which is the Disney Line owned one,
you got Half Moon Cay which is Holland America's,
you've got CocoCay which is Royal Caribbean,
Great Stirrup Cay, and as I mentioned Harvest Caye
which is part of the Norwegian Cruise Line.
You've got Labadee which is also a Royal Caribbean.
Princess Cay, Princess Cruises',
and MSC Cruises', which opened in 2019, Ocean Cay.
So bear in mind, as you look at the itinerary,
you may be going to a manufactured cruise line owned island.
Now you can pretty much cruise to the Caribbean
all year-round but there are certain times
that you should consider going
based on what your key needs are.
So the best weather is really that December
through to sort of March, April time,
but there's some big watch-outs.
If you want to go at that time of the year
go early in December if you possibly can
because once you get to mid-December and the holiday season
it is crazy busy and the prices do accelerate a lot.
January, February for me personally is a great time to go,
the schools are back, it's less busy, the fares are lower.
You can find slightly more unpredictable weather,
it can be a little bit more cloudy
and you might have slightly more,
you know, not rough seas as such,
but you might get a little bit more motion
because the nature of the winds.
Once you get to March/ April time and into May
be really cautious again because you'll find
you have Spring Break where again, it's crazy busy.
I have been around the ports just watching
and it can be really busy and quite boisterous.
And of course you then get into the whole Easter holiday
period, so really be extremely cautious about that.
Personally the time of year that I go to the Caribbean
and I really like going to the Caribbean
is early December or I like to go in February,
those are the times I've found I've had the nicest weather.
Although going towards the end of November,
although it's a little bit unpredictable,
but I've have had some great trips at that time.
So what are the other big watch-outs
in terms of weather and times to go and look out for?
Once you get into that May period, May through to November,
you are more in the rainy season,
but very critically important
you are heading into the hurricane season,
which of course brings with it much more risk.
The hurricane season officially runs
from June to the end of November
although in reality most of the hurricane activity
that's going to happen is really between August and October,
so be extremely cautious if you go there
because you could have disruptions due to hurricanes
and of course you may have really unpredictable weather.
July, August is actually a period of time, despite all that,
when a lot of people do go because of course
it's the key summer holidays and it's going to be very busy.
So again, my little tip if you possibly can,
take a look at early December and take a look
at sort of the February, early March time.
That's when you're going to actually get lots of choice
and the prices do tend to be a little bit lower
and generally you're going to have great, great weather.
The fifth big watch-out I've got is around crime.
Over the last couple of years there's seems to be
more and more reports about issues
and crime and risks in the Caribbean.
Now of course there are many more people
going to Caribbean as well, but I think one of the dangers
that people have is they head off on vacation
and it's very easy to get into a sense
of I'm on vacation and let your guard down.
Now very importantly there have been various hiccups
and various issues on some of the islands
in recent times as I record this,
and in fact some stops have actually been changed because
there's been some disturbances with elections and politics.
But generally speaking the islands are safe but be cautious.
So one of the things that I always recommend you do
is all of the big governments around the world
have websites where they have the latest travel advisory.
So the U.K. has one, the U.S. has one,
Canada has one, Australia.
So actually, when you're looking at booking
take a look at what the actual advice is for those ports.
But again, very importantly, when you head off into ports,
make sure that you're not showing off
that you have expensive watches, jewellery, cameras.
Be a little bit cautious,
stick to areas that are really populated and busy.
And a good idea, if you are a little bit nervous,
is make sure you go on organised tours.
So either with the cruise line
or with reputable independent providers.
Now some of the islands that have had bad publicity
over the last few years, if you are interested,
include the Bahamas, Saint Lucia,
Jamaica, Honduras, Barbados.
And you have found, even though it has a reputation
of being very up-market and civilised,
Barbados and Saint Lucia have had reports of issues.
These are places where lots of people are going,
there's, again, lots of people that don't have
a huge amount of money seeing lots of wealthy people coming,
and of course you're always going to have
bad eggs along the way.
So do bear in mind, think cautiously
when you head off on the islands and plan accordingly.
My next big watch-out is around the whole area of shopping.
Now I mentioned a little bit earlier
that when you head into the Caribbean
ports are becoming more and more similar,
more and more homogeneous, and what you're finding
in those ports is the same chain lines,
Diamonds International, Tanzanite International,
all sorts of well-known chains of food and drink
and it is really just becoming the same.
So when you get off the port you have these
big shopping areas and shopping has become
a big part of the Caribbean experience.
Now one of the arguments I've heard
when I've listened to shopping advisors talk onboard
is the number one activity in the Caribbean
is actually shopping because everybody buys something.
But bear in mind it's become a very slick operation,
so this is why I'm having it as a watch-out.
I do have a whole video about shopping in the Caribbean
if you want to find out much more detail
but the critical thing to know
is if you're on a Caribbean cruise
you're probably going to find
there's shopping advisors on board.
Now these people are incentivized
to drive you towards certain stores
and give you various inducements and incentives.
The idea is to get you into the store to buy those things
whether it's jewellery, watches, clothing, whatever it is.
And of course the people in the stores
have become masters, because they're seeing thousands
of people everyday, at selling you things.
So before you go to the Caribbean think very carefully,
is there things you want to buy?
Because obviously it's duty-free, tax-free,
so there are some great prices on things.
But make sure you understand what the price
of those things are at home, particularly online,
because often you can get them cheaper online.
And make sure that you're really, really clear
so you don't head off on an excursion,
head off on a shopping trip,
head off into one of these malls
and find you're spending a lot of money on things
that you either don't really need
or you can get cheaper actually back home.
But shopping is a big, big focus
so be prepared and be ready for shopping
as one of things that's really thrust upon you.
Another big watch-out is one where there's much more debate
and I thought it was worth building into this
when we talk about watch-outs.
There are two camps of thought about
what cruising brings to the Caribbean.
There's one which is a more negative view
and there's a book which I read many, many years ago
which is a good way of expressing
the negative part of the argument for the Caribbean,
and it's by a guy called Ross Klein
and the book that he wrote is called "Cruise Ship Blues."
And he has advocated for a very long time
that the cruise ships are not that great for the Caribbean
because the ships arrive, they don't bring onboard food
because that's all loaded in Miami or Fort Lauderdale
or wherever, they often have relationships
or even own some of the excursions,
and actually people don't spend a lot of money
on the island in the hands of locals
because they're shopping in the shopping malls and so on.
So one of things you might want to do
if you are worried about that
is look at booking more independent excursions,
perhaps with more local providers.
Try and shop in some of the markets
which are run by local people,
try and eat in some of the more local restaurants.
The other side of the argument of course
is the cruise line argument, particularly through CLIA,
which is the cruise line association
where they do talk about the amount of investment
that is brought into the islands
where many of these developments are created.
They're bringing lots of people to the island
and they are putting money into the local economy,
whether it's the taxi drivers,
the guides taking them to the beaches,
the sights, whatever it is.
But bear in mind, as you head into these islands,
the people on the island are not wealthy
so are there ways that you can actually get
some of your cruise dollars into the hands of the locals?
The Caribbean is a magnificent place to visit,
I love going on a Caribbean cruise,
but those are some of the watch-outs and things
that I didn't really know before I went
cruising to the Caribbean and I hoped they've helped you.
I have many more videos, tips, and advice
on cruising, the Caribbean, and so much more,
so why don't you watch another one of those right now?