Travel Files: Southern Caribbean Cruise

Come aboard with us as I share the details on our southern Caribbean cruise!

This post has be a long time coming. I was out of town last week for work {again} and came home to cold temps. However, Sunday was gorgeous. We were able to open the windows and enjoy the 65 degree temps! Warm weather revitalizes my soul. I think that’s what prompted me to finally write this. post.

The last week of January, my husband and I took a much needed week long cruise to the southern Caribbean. To read my review and see more details of our time in San Juan, Puerto Rico, check out this post.

My husband and I LOVE the Caribbean. Every time we go back, we contemplate how we can quit corporate life and move to the stunning islands. We’re convinced we would be the best tour guides that ever lived. Even if we had to live on a tent on the beach. The Caribbean just makes us happy – if you’ve never been, I can’t recommend it enough. A side note on cruising: people either love it or hate it. You can definitely count us in the first group. We think they are such an affordable way to see a bunch of places. Some day, we plan to spend a week at a time in all our favorite ports.

Southern Caribbean Cruise Specifics

We sailed out of San Juan, Puerto Rico on Royal Caribbean’s Adventure of the Seas. Our first day on the cruise was an “at sea” day. It was the perfect way to get in relaxation mode. We then spent a day at each of the lovely ports listed below. Although it rained at almost every port, we still were able to enjoy plenty of sunshine. I won’t elaborate too much on each stop – rather, I’ll let the gorgeous pictures do the talking. I lightened up a few of these, but other than that, I didn’t use any filters.

St. Lucia

My husband wanted to take a segway tour this day. It was a total blast! Our guides were with Lucian Style and they were awesome – highly recommended. After training at their training course to use the segway, we were able to go up in the lush hills. We then took a guided tour through the mountains and had a chance to enjoy the local beach at Pigeon Island.

Barbados

We took a catamaran snorkel tour to two stops: sea turtles and the ship wrecks. This island was rather flat, and since we were on the catamaran all day, we didn’t get to see much of the island itself. The water was beautiful though.

Antigua

This was another catamaran day (we sailed the Mystic II), and we both agree this was our favorite island. This is definitely on the top of the list of places we will want to return to. The water was gorgeous and the island was beautiful. Our sail included a fresh lobster and champagne lunch. Phenomenal.

St. Maarten

This was a repeat stop for us because we had visited it on a prior cruise. The island is beautiful and very clean and it is definitely one of our favorite “piers”. Tons of shopping right when you exit the ship. We spent the day on the French side of the island and enjoyed lunch at Kakao Restaurant, where we met the world-famous Jack Sparrow {he only has one eye}. He apparently has his own Facebook page as well. Definitely a smart kitty as he could instantly tell I was the sucker that would feed him some of the fish from my lunch 🙂

St. Croix

We pulled into port with a double-rainbow welcome and spent the day sailing on the Jolly Mon catamaran. It was clear this island was much more remote and natural than some of the others – but it was very beautiful. It rained a few times this day as well, but you can’t complain when you have water, sunshine and rum punch!

I tried to spare you every minute detail of this trip, but if anyone has any specific questions about the ports or cruising in general, let me know. We had such a great vacation – there is not much better than heading south in the dead of winter! We’re already counting down the days until we can return!