| The Caribbean Islands What will it be like, visiting the islands for the second time? We were more critical than the first time. In fact, these islands only exist to make money from the cruise tourists. Think about this: A 10-minute ride to Paradise Point on St. Thomas for $18, to get a wonderful overview of the harbor and the surroundings, and then another $4 to get into an overcrowded town that more or less consists of jeweler stores. And people's main interest is the bargain you can get in one of those stores. But if you take your time, you will find some romantic small alleys that render a bit of a Caribbean feeling. And maybe you agree with the policeman cautioning a vacationer who thinks that walking around without a shirt in town is appropriate. |
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| We noticed that many of our co-passengers wanted to visit some of the famous beaches on the different islands. On Antigua it was difficult to get a taxi for an island tour without a beach stop. The price was reasonable, $30 per person for a 3-hour tour and a group of 6. And Antigua is worth an island tour, it is one of the most beautiful Caribbean islands we have visited in the past years. But let me warn you: The island dialects can sometimes be very strange and hard to understand, e.g., "tong" means town. The island tour in St. Maarten was neither worth the money nor the time. Many traffic jams, only a few photo stops. The stop at Maho Beach was too early to get the experience of the landing jets right behind the beach. The French part of the island presented itself with its capital Marigot, with colorful straw markets and great marinas. A stop at the totally overcrowded Orient Beach made us refrain from taking another taxi ride in the afternoon for a beach break. St. Maarten did not meet our expectations. One day during a cruise is enough, but a longer stay would be too much for us. Personally, all those tropical islands we visited are not what we expected. But for those who love visiting several beaches and doing all kinds of water sports, these islands are perfect. Before we reached St. Thomas, the ship's officers made an announcement about a gas turbine. We arrived in St. Thomas in the night, engineers came on board, and one turbine was replaced. The passengers were not bothered by this incident. It was different with the medical emergency in the afternoon, when the departure was later than scheduled. There were actually several medical emergencies, and we had some unplanned port stops in order to take the people to an ambulance in the closest port. When we got back from a shore excursion in Nassau, we had a message on our voicemail saying that we would reach Ft. Lauderdale earlier than scheduled. Another gas turbine was to be replaced, and we would leave Ft. Lauderdale only at 2 am on Sunday instead of 5 pm on Saturday. They offered us $ 100 per person as compensation, since they had to cancel the stop in Key West. But in the end it was not necessary. The turbine was replaced faster than expected, and we could leave Ft. Lauderdale for our second cruise to the Eastern Caribbean islands at 8 pm on Saturday, so that we reached Key West on the following morning. |
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