A family vacation; A cruise half way around the
world; One of the severest winters seen by Europe; The warm Caribbean weather
living up to its name; Captivating Caribbean is where I will be covering the
stops we made in this 14-day cruise with some photographs and the occasional
tips to make your cruise day stop worthwhile.
Any vacation, even one that includes riding the high seas comfortably on a luxury ship can take its toll. When you have only a day to spend on each port, you try and squeeze in as much as you can into that day because let’s be honest, the chances that you will fly half way across the world to visit the same place are pretty slim. The “At Sea” days might sound relaxing but with the barrage of activities that are planned onboard, you don’t get time to even eat and end up running around trying to participate in as many activities as you can. The problem is that you don’t realize how tired you are until you somehow return back to your cabin to take what is apparently a breather but ends up being the next morning. Eventually everything catches up and the only way to rejuvenate is to finally skip some of the port days.
Antigua gave
us no choice. Intermittent heavy rains made the decision to stay at just the
port and drink some beer seem more and more favourable. I would however like to
add that Antigua boasts of having 365 beaches, one for every day of the year. I
say, give me a year-long visa first, and then we will talk. Unfortunately the
only negative aspect of staying onboard in Antigua was that we got to see St.
John’s Bay fill up with what I can only assume was waste from the ship as they
went about cleaning it. Luckily a beautiful rainbow followed by an equally
gorgeous sunset was all it took to bring the day to a lovely end.
For us St.
Lucia turned out to be the savior because when we started the day we were not
aware of the ordeal we would be facing over the next two days as we made our
way back from the vacation. Delayed flights and heavy snowfall in England meant
we had to spend the night at the Airport, so all the rest we got at St. Lucia
by not traveling too much was welcomed at the end.
In reality we
did make it to the beach in St. Lucia, but some rather strong waves scared our
little one and having scrapped that idea we simply spent an hour at the shops
before heading back to the ship not really wanting to explore the place in a
taxi. Nevertheless, it was time to pack as our trip came to an end, just like
this series of Captivating Caribbean comes to an end here and now...
