Some of the Best in Cruising Part 2: The Ports

When I’ve been asked for my favorite Caribbean island, I struggle to find an answer. Because I like so many, each for a different reason. But what they all have in common is plenty to see and do close to where the ship pulls in (no excursion required!). Here, then, is my “best of” list for the Caribbean cruiser:

Shopping: Cozumel. There’s great shopping right at the pier, or you can grab a cab into town for a mind-numbing selection of more of the same. Colorful ceramics; onyx chess sets and figurines; silver jewelry with gems and without; and inexpensive knickknacks from maracas to magnets makes shopping a blast. You’ll find consumables there, too. Read more at Chocolate, Rum and Spice: Food Souvenirs of the Caribbean.  

Cozumel in color.

Best beach: private islands. These are, simply put, paradise. Carnival’s Mahogany Bay in Roatan, Honduras; Princess Cays in the Bahamas; and Royal Caribbean’s Labadee on Haiti offer the quintessential Caribbean beach day. They’ve got powdery sands and calm blue waters perfect for swimming and water sports; palms and hibiscus and bougainvillea to feast the eyes; and lounge chairs everywhere, along with plenty of shops and ways to soothe a parched throat.

The private islands are surely the best way to relax on a cruise.

Lined up and ready to go at Princess Cays.

Biggest variety: St. Maarten. A beach right in town, cheap chair-umbrella-beer packages, surfside seafood shacks, water sports, great shopping, gambling and even a blast from the past—an automat—selling local foods like the Dutch kroket. This lively place of merriment is constantly changing—for the better. There’s more at “How to Spend Your Cruise Day in St. Maarten.”

Prettiest harbor: Dominica, Bonaire. This one’s a tie. Dominica has perhaps the most compact port, with its location at the foot of surrounding velvety green hills. Be prepared to invest some leg muscle if you walk around town, where you can visit a farmers market or grab some free wi-fi at the local library. Or, shop the stalls at the pier, where you can get locally woven baskets and other souvenirs.

Then there’s the transparent waters of Bonaire, where a stroll along the waterside promenade is like a visit to an aquarium. Vibrant-colored fish swish by underfoot, and the sea around you is a painter’s pallet of shades of azure. Read more at Knowing Your ABCs.

A walk along the promenade in Bonaire is like a visit to an aquarium.

Most European-ish: St. Barts. Part Riviera, part Caribbean, totally French, St. Barts is remarkable for many reasons. You won’t find any bargains here, but you’ll marvel at the mega yachts parked in town, the hilly and winding streets that force cars and all manner of local vehicles to part halfway on the sidewalk. You can sip café au lait at a seaside café, nibble on quiche from the local patisserie, marvel at the wines lining the walls at the supermarche´ or browse the fashionable shops. St. Barts is off course and worth it.

Paris? Mais non, the patisserie of St. Barts.

Time travel: San Juan. With two well-preserved, exhibit-laden forts, a dramatic fountain honoring the island’s birth, blue cobblestone streets, mosaic stairwells, and even shops selling Spanish hand fans and the short jackets of the matadors, the old town of Puerto Rico’s capital takes the cruiser back in time. No DeLorean needed here—just a little bit of pedestrian power.

San Juan is one of those ports that are made for walking.

The ancient wall today protects San Juan from sailboats.

Memorable feature: Curaçao. This Southern Caribbean Leeward island off the Venezuelan coast has several oddities—a floating bridge that takes you to the colorful Punda District when it’s not stepping aside to let boats through, and a fruit and veggies market where vendors sell their stuff out of wooden boats tied up to the dock. And if that’s not enough, how about liquor that’s made from oranges but is blue in hue?

Float your way to Curacao's Punda district.

So, that’s my “best of list.” What’s yours?

Musing’s Top Tip: Did you miss Some of the Best in Cruising Part 1? Then check it out here, for ship life highlights—from what’s on your plate to what’s on the stage.

Watch for the Signs—How the Ports Tease and Tempt You

In San Juan, they’re in Spanish. In St. Barts, they’re in French. And everywhere else in the Caribbean, they’re colorful, often kooky, design to tempt, taunt and tease. I am, of course, talking about the signs.

We take restaurant and shop signs for granted. But they can stop you in your flip-flops. Bring a smile to your face. Some of them are even memorable. Like the one at the St. Thomas Crown Bay pier greeting cruisers with “Free Beer Tomorrow.”
 
Below are some of our favorites for your viewing pleasure. And don’t forget, the next time you’re tripping the Caribbean, watch for the signs!

Glad we settled that. (Dominica)

Sure beats chicken noodle! (St. Maarten)

Any funnier and you’d have to feed us. (Grand Cayman)

Leave your fishing rod at the door. (Grand Cayman)

Anything else come with that? (St. Maarten)

 

Taking a sip? Leave your partner on the ship! (St. Maarten)

Wahoo! It’s ladies' day! (St. Maarten)

Their clothes or their grammar?  (St. John)

Amen to that! (St. Maarten)









These Ports are Made for Walking Part 2: Western Caribbean

Here’s good news for budget-minded cruisers who don’t want to shell out extra money for excursions at the Caribbean ports: there’s plenty to do just on foot. In an earlier posting, I covered some walkable highlights of the Eastern Caribbean, featuring San Juan and St. Maarten.
 
Here, I’ll do a quick take on the Western ports of Grand Cayman and Cozumel:
 

Slice of the Grand Cayman waterfront

Fish and other fun in Grand Cayman. Most ships dock in the center of George Town. The harbor
horseshoes around the blue waters, and provides plenty of shops—both high and low end—and a Margaritaville, as well as a bit of history in the form of (very few) remains of Fort George, originally built to protect the island from Cuban invaders.

 

Along the waterfront’s Harbor Drive, merely steps from the cruise pier, is a small fish market on the sand, where you’ll be as likely to find a snoozing local in the shade of the market tent as an array of snapper, grouper and other fruits of the sea laid out like handicrafts.


Take your pick among these fruits of the sea

The fishmongers throw chum into the water a few yards away, drawing two-feet long tarpon and other species, delivering an aquarium-like experience literally at your feet.
 
And if watching all this gives you a craving for fresh seafood, you only need to venture a bit further down Harbor Drive to find a restaurant sign beckoning with “You hook it, we cook it.”

Mexican mementos in Cozumel. The docking for most ships is Puerta Maya pier, two miles and about an $8 taxi ride into town. We did the walk a few times, but it’s not for the faint-hearted, especially under the scorching Caribbean sun. Perhaps the only benefit of doing so (along with walking off those newly accumulated calories) is the chance to spy an iguana scurrying in and out of the brush or check out the large modern supermarket (with public bathrooms upstairs) along the way. 

Fortunately, a plethora of shops have sprung up at the cruise terminal and during a recent trip, we found ourselves so immersed in the shopping, we never left it. 

Tchotchke shopping at the pier in Cozumel

While mass produced, there are plenty of inexpensive and different trinkets to bring home as mementos—from costumed dolls (actually made in Mexico!), colorful ceramics and onyx chess sets to the local specialties of vanilla and tequila.

If you want to spend a bit more, the jewelry store owners would be only too happy to show you their silver and stone. The shopkeepers can be quite aggressive, but it does work to your advantage. The price of a silver-and-lapis piece I was eying had dropped in half by the time I exited the store door. Needless to say, bargaining is strongly recommended.

Try to make it to the far end of the shopping village, where you’ll find Los Cinco Soles, the best of the shops. It’s an outpost of the bigger store in town, but has same higher quality of ceramics, jewelry, onyx, folk art, clothing and more. 

Fill your fruit bowl at Los Cinco Soles

One unique offering at Los Cinco Soles is a huge variety of watermelons, mangos, red peppers and other brightly colored papier-mâché fruits and veggies. Filling a lovely wooden bowl from the Western Caribbean port of Roatan (watch for a future posting) with these makes a great centerpiece (and conversation starter) for your table back home.

And if shopping’s not your thing, the pier’s got several places to eat and drink. Or, get your photo taken with a modern Mayan, submerge yourself for an underwater oxygen infusion or turn yourself into mush with a massage by the sea.

 

Cruising and the Sweet Anticipation

Ah, anticipation. “That sanguine expectation of happiness which is happiness itself.” Jane Austen might as well have been talking about cruising.
 
I know it’s not just me who finds the planning of a cruise nearly as satisfying as the cruise itself. That explains the variety of cruise countdowns, roll calls and other tools designed precisely to fuel our excitement.
 
And now, here, I’m going to share some of what’s out there to feed your sweet anticipation:
 
Cruise countdowns—There’s a cute (free!) cruise clock widget at Cruisingtalk for your blog or website. You select your cruise destination, the ship icon with the right logo and trip date. If you want to see what it looks like, scroll down to the very bottom of my blog screen for my upcoming trip on the Constellation. Here are some other countdowns (all of which are free):

Ucruiser—wide variety of tickers you can tailor to the particular ship
Shipmate—designed for your Facebook page
Shipmate app—this cell phone app has a countdown, as well as trip itineraries, photos, deck plans and more

Weather forecasts for ports of call—If your trip is coming up within a month, cruiseoutlook.com will give you the weather forecast at all your ports of call. It will also show you where your ship is right now and where it will be over the next month.
 
Webcams—Watch the port ship comings and goings, get a sneak peek of what your port looks like and check out what’s happening on your ship right from your desk with a webcam. Here are a few places to find them:

larrysvacationwebcams.com—ships, ports, resorts and destinations
cruise-addicts.com—ship and port cams
cruiseoutlook.com—ship cams
cruisedeckplans.com—port cams

Roll calls—These are ways for people who are taking the same cruise to meet virtually. Many of the forums have them, including:

cruisecritic.com
cruise-addicts.com
cruiseline.com
cruisemates.com
 
Advice from those who really know—us
There are many websites with tips on planning excursions, packing and the like. But to get the details—and answers to your most specific questions from those who really know—your best bet is the forums. For a list of them, see my posting from July 18, Cruising the Web.

Musing’s Top Tip: If you sail on Princess, check out the “Downloads” section of their website for screensavers and wallpapers, slide shows and shipboard webcams you put on your desktop.

#cruise

Cruising the Web

Looking for reviews on a ship? Help on picking a cabin? There’s a website for that. How about tracking your ship’s whereabouts? Finding out who else is sailing with you? There’s a website for that too.
 
There’s so much stuff on the web for cruise planning that it can be hard to know where to start. So I’ve spent time sifting through a lot of it so you can spend less. Here’s my take on the best online resources for ship reviews, cruise advice and getting excited about your upcoming trip:
 
Cruisecritic.com—The most robust and well known of the sites, it gets more visitors than all of its competitors combined. It has detailed reviews of ships and ports by its authors, a huge database of member reviews, industry news, feature stories and cruise deals, as well as active roll calls (connect with fellow cruisers before your trip). Musing’s Top Feature: It has the most vibrant forum, with readers writing in all day long on a wide variety of topics. The site’s members also work with many of the ships to host free “Meet and Mingle” events during cruises that can feature “cabin crawls” (peek into different cabin categories), presentations by the crew, raffle drawings, food and gifts.

Cruiseline.com—Search for trips on this site, view ship reviews and photos by members, and get overall ratings of ships based on member reviews. There are also feature stories, cruise planning advice, roll calls and a forum. Musing’s Top Feature: This site verifies members actually took the cruises they’ve evaluated, designating the reviews with a green “Verified Review” ribbon. You can also access the free smart phone Ship Mate app to track your ship’s whereabouts at any given moment, connect with others on your trip and more.

Cruisemates.com—Provides reviews by the editors of ships and ports, and a forum with reviews by members. Member reviewers are asked to rate ships on various criteria, and each ship is given an overall rating based on this input. There’s also advice on cruising and cruise deals. Musing’s Top Feature: Lively feature stories are submitted by columnists such as Janice Wald Henderson, a food editor and writer for epicurious.com.

Cruise-addicts.com—Includes industry news, cruise deals, ship reviews, photos submitted by members and forums. Musing’s Top Feature: This site is a winner for audio/visual features, with its array of videos on the ports, ships and the industry, as well as podcasts. It also has a variety of webcams on the ports and an interactive, real-time cruise ship tracker.
 
Cruisedeckplans.com—Sick of straining to see the tiny stateroom numbers in deck plans on websites or in catalogs? This is a site for sore eyes! Deck plans are interactive and enable magnification. Hover over a room number and you get cabin descriptions and occasionally, insider info that you’ll never get from the cruise lines. Like when a cabin could be noisy because it’s near a crew work room.

There are also deck plans with on-the-spot photos of public rooms that have been submitted by readers. The site is actively recruiting member photos and will even pay (though you’ll have to submit a lot just to cover the price of a cup a coffee). Most of the site’s info is available for free, but a modest membership fee gets you even more. Musing’s Top Feature: The whole site is unique and offers something no other one does—the ability to find a stateroom on a deck plan without getting a headache.

Porteverglades.net—This is the official website of Port Everglades, Florida, one of the busiest ports in the U.S. It includes a port map and two weeks before you sail, you can find out from which pier by viewing the Ship Schedule on the homepage. It also alerts you to construction that may slow down traffic into the port.

Know of any other great sites? Do share!

 

What I Wish Someone Had Told Me

If you’re like me, more than a few times after an unpleasant surprise, you’ve thought: why didn’t someone warn me?

Well, today I’m going to share some cruise planning tips that we found out the hard way. So you don’t have to.

Like to gamble? Cruise during hurricane season. When you cruise the Caribbean, sun and warmth is a given. But go during hurricane season and you’ve just shot the dice. Getting stuck on a cruise ship in strong winds and rain isn’t much fun. So, know that Atlantic hurricane season is June 1 through November 30, with the peak in early September.

Just a word or two about the peak: that only means the odds of a hurricane go way up. It’s still a gamble going the other vulnerable months. One year, we thought we were safe going the first week in November, but just missed a hurricane by a few days. And though the weather was fine, the seas were still rough. The cost? The captain bypassed our stop at the cruise line’s  Bahamas private island, a highlight of the trip.

Build in time for coming and going. Then, add some more. You can never build in enough time for getting to the pier and getting out of it. This is not the time to cut it close. Flights get cancelled. Luggage gets lost. Cars break down. The cab gets lost. Customs takes forever. The port is under construction. There’s going to be a hard rain. Or fog. You get the idea.

It helps to find out as much as you can ahead of time about what to expect:

• Read the forums such as cruisecritic.com
• Go into port websites to find your way around in advance. Is there going to be construction to slow down traffic? Where’s your ship going to be docked? Closer to the port entrance or at its furthest point? If you visit Ft. Lauderdale’s Port Everglades’ website (see “Ship Schedule”) two weeks or less before your cruise, you can find out your ship’s pier and how many other ships will be in port. This could impact your parking options

Is that itinerary stop open for business? This one still pains me. One time, I chose a particular cruise because it was going to Martinique. What I didn’t notice was that it was pulling in on a Sunday. The port was closed up tight. Another trip, St. Maarten was celebrating a national holiday and most of Philipsburg took the day off.

Some itineraries have you getting into a port very late in the day. By the time you get off the ship, it’s even later. If everything closes at 5, what are you going to be able to see?

And some get you into port when the sun rises and leave just a few hours later.

Tendering to Philipsburg, St. Maarten. The ships dock,
but you still need a tender to get into town.

My advice? If the ports are important to you, study the itinerary carefully. Call the cruise line with questions. And read the forums.

Tendering adds time. It helps to know in each port whether you’re going to be sitting in the middle  of all the action or in the middle of the harbor. Tendering can easily add an hour or more to the process of getting on and off the ship. You also want to know what pier you’re arriving at. In St. Thomas, for example, there’s a big difference between the piers at Havensight and Crown Bay in terms of proximity to Charlotte Amalie.

Choose your excursions wisely. We made the mistake of picking a tour of the Bacardi factory on our first trip to San Juan. The whole process of busing there and back, and waiting around with the huge crowd for our turn to tour took hours. When we finally got back into the city, everything was closing.

I hope this helped a bit. And if you had your own wish-someone-had-told-me moments, don’t make us suffer—please let us know!

 

Quaint and Quirky: Alaska’s Cruise Ports

The natural beauty, of course, is the real star of Alaska. Snowy mountains everywhere you look. Glaciers that are really that blue. Waterways littered with ice in late May. Soaring eagles, breaching whales. Desolate, pristine, untouched loveliness.

But the ports are a hoot, too.

They’re quaint and quirky, as only they can be in a state that refers to the rest of us as the “Lower 48.”

And you’re never far from that overwhelming beauty—as you will see from the towns’ settings. We enjoyed them immensely and know you will too. Here, as briefly as possible, are my highlights of the ports of Juneau, Skagway and Ketchikan—all easily walkable from the piers:

Juneau—If you’ve been to San Francisco, you’ll understand when I say a few minutes walking

Juneau, Alaska's capital

through the streets of the Juneau will reacquaint you with your calf muscles. On one of those hills is the unassuming St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church that, with its small onion dome, looks strangely out of place. You can find other reminders of Alaska’s Russian past in the shops, with their array of nesting dolls. For those of us not planning a trip to Russia anytime soon, they make fun and different souvenirs.

 
The state capital is small and we saw it all before lunch. We then grabbed an inexpensive bus (the vendors lined up along the pier) to

The icy waters of Mendenhall Glacier

Mendenhall Glacier, only 12 miles away. You get great views of the glacier in the park, which provides several vantage points.

Skagway—This is a literally a town made for tourists. There are only 950 or so full-time residents, one school, one AM and one FM radio station, and a post office that closes for lunch. But when the cruise ships are in town, the population swells to more than triple its usual size.

Skagway: Ft. Lauderdale of the North?

With its frontier-style buildings, some dating back to the Gold Rush days, Skagway was the most charming of the three ports. At the turn-of-the-century Red Onion saloon, it’s not hard to picture down-on-their-luck miners dulling the pain with camaraderie, drink and women more than happy to take their last dime.
 
Here’s a funky piece of Skagway trivia from the Golden Princess’ Princess Patter: because Skagway is in one of the driest (as in less rain) parts of Alaska, it attracts college students on spring break and has become known as the “Ft. Lauderdale of the North.” Not sure about that comparison, when late springtime temps in Skagway barely make it out of the 50s!

Ketchikan—Just shopping alone can keep you busy the whole time you’re here. Whether you’re after pricey Eskimo art or cheap trip mementos, you’ll have plenty of choice. And if you like salmon, you’ll be in seventh heaven in Ketchikan, the self-described “Salmon Capital of the World.”

Scenes, spots and shops of colorful Ketchikan

Beginning in June, fish traveling up the Salmon Ladder for spawning becomes a tourist attraction. We were there too early for this show, but got our fill of the fish, tasting our way through the shops selling it canned, smoked, spiced or petrified.
 
One of the many areas where you’ll find the salmon shops is Creek Street, the town’s old red light district. Today it’s a cluster of cutesy shops built on wood pilings over a clear, rustic rushing brook.
 
Then there are the totem poles—on the streets, in the parks, in front of shops and inside them.

You can bring one home to sit on your desk or to fill an entire corner of your living room. They’re colorful, intriguing and expensive.

Alas, you’re likely to see all this fun stuff from beneath the rim of an umbrella. Ketchikan gets an average of 153 inches of rain a year. Which explains, said the Golden Princess’ Juneau-born cruise director, why “in Alaska, we don’t tan, we rust.”