Caribbean Cruise

We took a cruise to the southern Caribbean between January 19 and January 26. The map shows the places we visited.

We left from San Juan, Puerto Rico on Saturday evening. Our first stop was St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. We spent the day at the beach, but forgot the camera on the boat, so didn't get any pictures. Here's a photo of Sue in the evening on the balcony of our cabin. We were pretty high up on the ship and very close to to the bridge, so we had a great view of the harbors when in port.

The second day in St. Kitts, V.I. was rainy and our planned snorkeling trip was cancelled so we just walked around town in the rain. The third day found us in Grenada, where we took a tour around the island, visiting a spice shop, and walking back to a couple of waterfalls. This was a beautiful island with nice people. We noticed many folks who were out gathering fruits and spices and our guide told us that this was the main activity (in addition to fishing) for many of the islanders. Here we are on a short hike near one of the waterfalls.

We had originally expected to land in Bonaire on the fourth day, but Princess changed the stop to a small island off the coast of Venezuela, Isla Margarita. There was a nice beach and a shopping area with lots of native crafts. Here is Sue at the beach with our ship in the background.





The fifth day found us in Aruba where we planned to go snorkeling. Fortunately this time the weather was very good for sailing and snorkeling and we had a great trip to view some fish among the coral and to snorkel over a WWII shipwreck. Here's Sue preparing for the water on the sailboat that took us to the snorkeling site.

After a full day at sea, we returned to San Juan. The ship was very comfortable and offered lots of very good food, the curse of cruising. This was a relaxing vacation, one we'll remember for many years since we celebrated our forty years of marriage with this cruise. We left the ship in mid-morning and spent the day in San Juan. The old town is especially charming with a definite European feel, the city was founded by Christopher Columbus on his second voyage and has recently celebrated its 500th anniversary. Here Sue and I are taking in the sights from the Spanish fort that guards the mouth of San Juan harbor.

Our trip home wasn't entirely uneventful. On arriving in Miami Florida from San Juan, we found that we had been bumped off our connecting flight to Cincinnati due to "weight restrictions." No, they didn't take one look at us an decide that we had eaten too much on the cruise; there were several skinny folks bumped off as well, we suspect due to freight that American Airlines was shipping. In any event, we spent the early morning of our 40th anniversary in a "glamorous" room on the Miccosoukee Gambling and Bingo Resort (see picture) and returned home somewhat weary but relaxed the next day.