If you're interested in cruising the Caribbean I'm going to share with you
the five best and the five worst things about a Caribbean cruise. I'm Gary
Bembridge, and this is another of my tips for travellers. One of the best things
about cruising the Caribbean is there are three different main itineraries, so
even if you've been on a Caribbean cruise before, there is another one and
another alternative that you can go on. Broadly speaking there is the Eastern
Caribbean, the Western Caribbean and Southern Caribbean cruises. The
Eastern Caribbean normally visits places like the Bahamas, Cayman Islands,
Haiti, Dominican Republic, the US and British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and
Dutch Saint Maarten. If you go on a Western Caribbean, some of the places you
could go to include Jamaica, the Cayman Islands are usually included, Mexico's
Cozumel and Costa Maya, sometimes Belize, the Honduran island of Roatan.
Increasingly you'll find that Cuba, so Havana and Santiago de Cuba, are often
included in this areas.Another development is
increasingly there are cruises which only go to Cuba, and you can often do
seven-night cruises out of Miami which only go to Cuba. The
Southern Caribbean goes to places like St. Kitts, Antigua, Guadeloupe, Martinique,
Dominica, St Lucia, Barbados, Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Most of
the cruises to the Caribbean tend to be seven-night cruises. Another great thing
about a Caribbean cruise is choice. You have the choice of itineraries, but
you also have an enormous choice of cruise lines and style of ship to go on. There's up to 24 different cruise lines of that actually visit the Caribbean in
some form or fashion during the course of the year. Big ships,
small ships, sailing ships or whatever type of cruise experience you want and whatever
price bracket you're looking for, you're probably going to find that going to the
Caribbean. So, if you want a party atmosphere ship you've got that. If you
want a more enrichment type ship you've got that. Any type of experience you can
find, so it's very important to think about the type of experience you want to
see the Caribbean. Don't see all Caribbean cruises as the same.
Think about the type of experience you want because there is plenty of choice
and options. Another great thing is that it's very easy to get to. Most of the
Caribbean cruises head out of Florida, many go out of Miami which is
the biggest cruise port in the world. The two next biggest cruise ports in the
world are in Fort Lauderdale (Port Everglades)
and then you have Port Canaveral. Of course, you can go from many other ports
both within Florida and more widespread. It's very easy to get to. For
example, from Florida on a seven-day cruise you'll normally have one
sea day getting to the islands, you'll visit four or five islands and have one
sea day coming back. You'll normally have a good long day in the port,
getting there about seven or eight o'clock in the morning and normally be there until
early evening. Of course the best thing about the Caribbean is the weather,
the beaches and the outdoors. For a very large part of the year it's a great
region to cruise to. The best time of all is really between December and April.
December can be very very busy, because of course the holiday period. April again
can also be very busy as it is Spring Break time. Very importantly, the rainy season
runs from May to December. Of course, most important of all is the hurricane
season. Hurricane season officially runs from June to the beginning of November,
although historically most hurricanes happen between August and October. The
absolute best time to go, in my personal opinion, is early December
because the weather's fantastic and it's before the big crowds. I also like the
February into March period because again the weather's pretty good, it's not
massively hot, the prices tend to be really good and it's not a a crazy
busy time. If you go to the Caribbean in the run-up to Christmas or in April when
it's spring break and, of course, during the summer it tends to be very busy. It's
much more rowdy and it's much more raucous because that's a big holiday
time. One of the great things about cruising the Caribbean is all of the
islands use the US dollar, so wherever you go you only have to take one
currency and it's accepted wherever you go. It also means, if you're
familiar with the US dollar, you know whether things are good value or good
prices. But one of the best things about Caribbean cruise is you're visiting a
loads of different countries but you don't have to keep passing through
immigration. You don't worry about visas and once you've boarded
the ship and they've checked your passport, when
you arrive in a port you get off as soon as the ships clears and you head
off into town and you head back and you do not have to worry about any of that hassle.
Those are , in my view, the best things about cruising the Caribbean. What do
I think are the worst things about going on a Caribbean cruise? Probably the worst
thing of all of a Caribbean cruise is the crowds and how busy it is. As I
mentioned, there's lots of choice and lots of options and there are so many people and
so many cruise ships going to the Caribbean. You'll find when you arrive
in a port there can often be four or five, or even more, ships which means they
could be 12,000, 15,000, 17,000 people heading off into the tow, on the
excursions, heading to the beaches. It gets really really busy and a little bit
manic. This is probably the worst thing of all of a Caribbean cruise.
As the ships get bigger and bigger, there are fewer places that they can actually
call on and you'll find that many of the itineraries call on the same ports, which
is why they get so busy. If you're looking to have a quiet
experience on some of the islands, look at more cruise lines like Azamara Club
Cruises, Silversea, Regent Seven Seas and those kind of cruise lines which run smaller
ships and often go to more unusual places and therefore avoid the crowds.
One of the worst things about cruising the Caribbean is the reports, the
news and the concern that crime is growing across the islands of the
Caribbean. Of course, there's lots more people going to the Caribbean,
there's many more people heading there and the islands and the people there
are relatively poor and you've got all these people arriving that are
perceived as being much more wealthy. So, like in all major places where
there's lots of tourists, there is a risk of crime. The same is true whether
you're in Venice or you're in Rome or wherever on a cruise. It is
interesting to note is that many of the governments in big countries like
the United States, Canada the UK have started to put out more information
specifically for people going cruising, often about the Caribbean. In
terms of the islands where crime has been reported as more of an issue in
recent times include the Bahamas, St Lucia, Jamaica, Honduras and Barbados.
Most of the crime is fairly petty like pickpocketing, thefts and the kind of
stuff you see whenever there's lots of tourists in a place. Always bear in mind when
you go to these islands, even though it feels carefree and you're on vacation, act the
same as any vacation spot around the world and you need to
be sensible and careful. For me one of the worst parts of a Caribbean cruise,
although it's not probably a massive issue because you can avoid it, is the
obsession with shopping, particularly by the cruise lines. I've been on many
cruise lines and they have these shopping advisors that give talks
and run shopping expeditions and have all sorts of incentives and things to get
you shopping. When you come off the ship
you have to walk through a mall area which is just packed with all the same retail stores like
Diamonds International and Tanzanite International. There's a real
obsession with shopping and one of the most troubling mindsets
I've heard on a number of cruise lines from these shopping advisors is they talk about
the number one activity is shopping in the Caribbean. Of course you
can ignore it and you can avoid the shopping, but I dislike that
shopping has become a fundamental part of the Caribbean experience and actually
when you get to the Caribbean you have to wade through all the shopping malls before
you get out into the islands. Another thing for me that I put in the worst
bucket is the amount of hassling you get when you're on the beach. This
differs a little bit by island, but you'll find normally when you're on a
beach you are constantly harassed by hawkers. In their
defense, these people are trying to make a living and you've got all these people
coming with money and they're trying to make a living, but it can
become quite troublesome. It depends a lot which island you're on too. If
you're in Jamaica you're going to have people offering you everything from
drugs through to knick knacks. On most islands it's much more
handcrafted goods, drinks and food, but you will generally find
that when you're on the beach you'll have lots of
people try to sell you things and, depending on the island, they can be
quite pushy. One of worst things for me about the Caribbean
is how the islands are blurring into one. On your cruise
you'll go to four or five islands and it is quite hard to remember which island
was which often afterwards and what you did where, especially when you're explaining them to
people or discussing amongst yourselves. Unlike say if you're travelling to
Europe where each of the countries is very different, the islands tend
to be very similar and they have created a world where the ports
are very similar with the same shops, the excursions are all very
similar so all do the beach breaks, the ATV tours, the zip lining,
catamarans and snorkeling. It can all be very similar and all starts to blur into
one. The islands haven't tried to make themselves very distinctive and really
push the different cultures and they do tend to blur into one. I think that's a
pity in many ways that the islands have become so homogeneous and so similar, and
they haven't really tried to make themselves very different. All
of them are beautiful and you will have a great time, but I don't think it's
such a pity that they haven't created different identities and made
you feel very different. Some of them when you go are very memorable but they,
tend to be the more southern ones so St Maarten for example is very different to
Barbados but they tend to be the islands that are more developed and more
commercial. Cruising the Caribbean is fantastic but there are great parts to
it and there are more downsides to it. The downsides will not stop me cruising to the
Caribbean and should not stop you cruising Caribbean. But, I think
understanding the best parts of the cruise experience and probably the worst
parts will help you make some judgments and decisions as you look to cruise the
Caribbean. Hopefully you found this interesting. If you enjoyed this I would
love it if you watch more of my Tips For Travellers videos as they are designed to
help you make more of your very precious travel time and money on land, on sea and
and on the rivers.