This book tells you all you need to know about the popular ports of call in the Caribbean and, in many cases, how to save loads of money by organising your own island excursions.
Pirates might have believed the Caribbean was made for them some centuries ago when heavily laden Spanish treasure ships threaded their way through the islands heading back home. Times have moved on and now it’s the cruise industry which believes the Caribbean is heaven-made for them. It probably brings as much treasure to them as it did to the pirates now the region has emerged as one of the most exciting cruise destinations in the world.
There is at least a thousands reason for this and all of them islands but not all inhabited. Some fifteen of the main islands visited by cruise ships are covered in this book. They are Barbados; Antigua; Bahamas; St Barts; Dominica; Grenada; Guadeloupe; Martinique: Nevis; St Kitts; St Lucia; St Vincent; Tortola, Trinidad & Tobago and Turks & Caicos. These lie mainly in the outer ring of islands on the eastern side with the Caribbean Sea to the west and the Atlantic to the east.
What makes the Caribbean such an exciting cruise destination? The easy answer is sunshine and the close proximity of the islands which allows you to disembark at a different island every day. Typically, about ten islands are included in a two week tour. More complex answers embrace the diversity of the islands in just about everything, in geography, topography, climate, culture and history. All these topics are included in the introduction to this book before reaching the main section; the islands.
Shore excursions visiting places of interest are an important part of the holiday. Here, each island is treated as a port of call and the information given is all you need for that island. This includes the range of tours offered by cruise companies for that particular island. Many cruisers are happy to join a ship’s organised tour, especially in an unfamiliar location but they are expensive and sometimes very slow depending on numbers. Thirty or forty people getting on a bus can be slow and there is always someone irritatingly late returning to the bus after a stop. In all our years of travelling we have experienced too many of these tours and now much prefer to act independently. I believe there are many people like ourselves so an important element of this book is that it outlines tours you can do independently on each island. It has been our experience that most taxi drivers on these islands make excellent tour guides, it’s their livelihood. It’s not necessarily the case for all islands and the exceptions are indicated. Not only to you get a more inclusive tour, you can save an awful lot of money which you can spend on yet more holidays!
For many, life aboard is the highlight of their holiday and on reaching a destination they are happy to leave the ship to spend a day on the beach. So for each port of call we have indicated the nearest beach with directions.
In researching this book, we were struck by the many quirky facts associated with these islands so these are offered here as a quiz with the answers found in the book.
Which island:
has so many green monkeys they usually get to the mangos first?
calls bananas figs?
was once sold to the Knights of St John?
did Nelson describe as ‘a vile and dreadful hole’?
is still growing the famous black pineapple introduced on the island by the early Arawak settlers?
gave the world angostura bitters?
has a pitch lake?
was named after St Ursula and her 11,000 virgins
is now a world leading grower of limes?
was the birthplace of a woman called Rose who made it into history books as a famous Empress?
Pirates might have believed the Caribbean was made for them some centuries ago when heavily laden Spanish treasure ships threaded their way through the islands heading back home. Times have moved on and now it’s the cruise industry which believes the Caribbean is heaven-made for them. It probably brings as much treasure to them as it did to the pirates now the region has emerged as one of the most exciting cruise destinations in the world.
There is at least a thousands reason for this and all of them islands but not all inhabited. Some fifteen of the main islands visited by cruise ships are covered in this book. They are Barbados; Antigua; Bahamas; St Barts; Dominica; Grenada; Guadeloupe; Martinique: Nevis; St Kitts; St Lucia; St Vincent; Tortola, Trinidad & Tobago and Turks & Caicos. These lie mainly in the outer ring of islands on the eastern side with the Caribbean Sea to the west and the Atlantic to the east.
What makes the Caribbean such an exciting cruise destination? The easy answer is sunshine and the close proximity of the islands which allows you to disembark at a different island every day. Typically, about ten islands are included in a two week tour. More complex answers embrace the diversity of the islands in just about everything, in geography, topography, climate, culture and history. All these topics are included in the introduction to this book before reaching the main section; the islands.
Shore excursions visiting places of interest are an important part of the holiday. Here, each island is treated as a port of call and the information given is all you need for that island. This includes the range of tours offered by cruise companies for that particular island. Many cruisers are happy to join a ship’s organised tour, especially in an unfamiliar location but they are expensive and sometimes very slow depending on numbers. Thirty or forty people getting on a bus can be slow and there is always someone irritatingly late returning to the bus after a stop. In all our years of travelling we have experienced too many of these tours and now much prefer to act independently. I believe there are many people like ourselves so an important element of this book is that it outlines tours you can do independently on each island. It has been our experience that most taxi drivers on these islands make excellent tour guides, it’s their livelihood. It’s not necessarily the case for all islands and the exceptions are indicated. Not only to you get a more inclusive tour, you can save an awful lot of money which you can spend on yet more holidays!
For many, life aboard is the highlight of their holiday and on reaching a destination they are happy to leave the ship to spend a day on the beach. So for each port of call we have indicated the nearest beach with directions.
In researching this book, we were struck by the many quirky facts associated with these islands so these are offered here as a quiz with the answers found in the book.
Which island:
has so many green monkeys they usually get to the mangos first?
calls bananas figs?
was once sold to the Knights of St John?
did Nelson describe as ‘a vile and dreadful hole’?
is still growing the famous black pineapple introduced on the island by the early Arawak settlers?
gave the world angostura bitters?
has a pitch lake?
was named after St Ursula and her 11,000 virgins
is now a world leading grower of limes?
was the birthplace of a woman called Rose who made it into history books as a famous Empress?
