Insight Guides Caribbean Cruises (Travel Guide eBook) by Insight Guides

Author:Insight Guides
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Travel, Caribbean
Publisher: Apa Publications
Published: 2019-04-30T16:00:00+00:00

If you want a more unusual itinerary, pick a cruise that goes from point to point rather than round-trip; there are small ships, like those of Noble Caledonia, for example, that roam the region, focusing on more out-of-the-way ports.

Motorized craft off Playa Valdez, Isla Margarita.

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New experiences

With an increase in world voyages every year, and variations on these, like extended round-South America cruises, many lines are heading back through the Caribbean to end these winter getaways in Miami. This broadens out the scope of Caribbean cruising. You could, for example, combine a journey along the Amazon with a few days chilling in the islands afterwards, or even, in theory, sail most of the way round South America, taking in the glaciers of Chile and the Caribbean sunshine on the same vacation.

Panama, too, has evolved as a cruise destination in recent years. Over the last decade, billions of dollars have been spent on developing cruise ports at Colón (and Balboa) on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal, and cruise lines have been given financial incentives to call there. Frequent Caribbean cruise passengers needed no incentive to pay Panama a first visit, especially since, from Colón, a historic railway link to Panama City has been reactivated. Now, with the opening of the new locks, much bigger ships are able to transit, meaning the biggest ships on long world voyages may now build in the Panama Canal and Caribbean into their itineraries.

Although the investment has not been as large, the Central American countries of Belize, Costa Rica, Honduras and Guatemala (for more information, click here) have also been sprucing up to encourage cruise calls. Usually found on western Caribbean cruise itineraries, the attractions here include the rainforests and the Maya ruins, and – like Panama– they provide a fascinating contrast in lifestyles to the Caribbean islands.

Meanwhile, ‘new’ islands are coming into fashion: the relatively unknown Saba and nearby Anguilla; the tiny island of Montserrat, all but destroyed in the mid-1990s by its active volcano, but now welcoming cruise ships once more; and the gorgeous Iles des Saintes, a yachting hideaway off the coast of Guadeloupe, visited by the smallest and most exclusive ships.

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