Cruising the Caribbean for Christmas and New Year

Firstly, we wish everyone a very Happy New Year ! We hope you've enjoyed the holidays as much as we have.

Arriving in Fort Lauderdale we returned our rental car to the airport, took a bus back to our hotel and and did some boring admin stuff. The excitement was mounting for us though, with the imminent arrival of our great friends the Jaffrelot's from our home island of Jersey. As if that wasn't enough to be excited about, we were all heading off together for Christmas and New Year on a cruise ship for two weeks in the Caribbean. Top that off with celebrating Tiani's 16th birthday in the middle of it all and we had all the ingredients for a great time, and it certainly lived up to all expectations.

Stunning Magen's Bay, from Mountain Top, St Thomas

Having had a day together in Fort Lauderdale, we boarded the ship and set sail, spending a full day at sea before arriving at Princess Cay's, a privately owned resort in the Bahamas. Taking a tender to shore we swam in the warm sea and tried not to burn in the fierce sun. Next port of call was the unique island of St Martin, part French and part Dutch, and our first glimpse of the many duty free shops that are strung across the various cruise ports in the Caribbean Islands. Christmas eve we arrived at St Thomas, one of the US Virgin Islands, where we took an open minibus tour around the island, stopping at Mountain Top, home of the Banana Daiquiri, and with a great view over Magens Bay too.

Boxing day in Nassau

Christmas Day was another day at sea and was the second of four formal evenings, and on Boxing day we docked at Nassau, the capital of the Bahama's. It was carnival day here, and the locals were having great fun dancing down the main street in their bright colorful costumes, with drums beating and trumpets blaring. Our ship returned to Fort Lauderdale to drop of some passengers and collect new ones, and we elected to stay aboard, whilst our friends did a quick dash to a huge mall near Miami to make the most of the great shopping.

All of us in Hell, Grand Cayman.

Setting sail again and after another day at sea we docked at Grand Cayman, an island which is an overseas territory of Great Britain. Here we did a taxi tour around the island with a local lady who was quite a character, stopping in "Hell" for a picture, and also at the dolphin centre.

Swimming at Roatan

Tequila tasting, serious business !

The ship's next port of call was Roatan, an island off the coast of Honduras. The cruise port here is rather captive with yet more jewelry and duty free stores but there is also a great beach where we swam in the warm Caribbean sea, soaked up the atmosphere and some more sun. Sailing on again we docked at the island of Cozumel off Mexico, where we did another taxi tour with a local, saw ancient Mayan ruins, sampled some locally made tequila and generally had a taster of this Mexican island.
The final port of call was back to Princess Cays, and having been there once already we decided to take advantage of a quiet deck and stay aboard, watching a movie on the giant screen above one of the four pools on board.

On a breezy deck, happy times with great friends.

In between ports of call, the cruise ship offered something for everyone at nearly anytime of day or night, great food, superb entertainment, lots of activities to choose from and a great deck layout too. However there is no doubt that what made the trip really special for us was being with our great friends Paul, Sue and TJ, especially as this was our first Christmas away from home for both of us. Being able to celebrate TJ's 16th birthday with them made it doubly extra special for us.

Back on dry land for just a week and we have already done and seen lots more things, but more on that next time. Some of the photos on this post are courtesy of Suzie (Thank You Muchly) and we've also uploaded a small selection of our own to Facebook which can be found by clicking here.