In a recent article, we wrote about why you should take a Caribbean cruise. We covered the main attractions of Caribbean cruises, including some of the many activities you can participate in while going on such a cruise, as well as the fact that you are going to, well, the Caribbean, a vacation destination that needs no defense. We trust we were sufficiently persuasive, and so now the question before us is this: where exactly can you go to on a Caribbean cruise? The Caribbean is, after all, a rather large place.
To get a handle on the many different places you can visit on a Caribbean cruise, we picked a major cruise line at random (that is, we selected a Google search result without paying heed to the cruise line with which it was associated), which ended up being Princess Cruises. Where Princess Cruises sails in the Caribbean will give us a good overview of where you can go in the Caribbean in general.
Let’s divide the Caribbean in half in terms of east and west, and we’ll begin with the former. The Eastern Caribbean is home to some classic travel destinations, like the Bahamas, that fine string of 29 islands with white-sand beaches and turquoise waters. Speaking of white sand and turquoise water, the Eastern Caribbean also contains St. Maarten, an island that is divided between France and the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Because of the French-Dutch fusion, St. Maarten is known for their excellent cuisine, among other things. Yet another cruise destination in the Eastern Caribbean is St. Thomas, which, along with a few other islands, is part of the Virgin Islands, an unincorporated territory of the United States. St. Thomas is known for its excellent views and the pastel-colored houses that are scattered about the island.
On to the Western Caribbean. This area includes the largest island of Mexico, Cozumel, another iconic Caribbean cruise destination that offers incredible scuba diving. Another area of the Western Caribbean that offers great scuba diving is the Cayman Islands, a British Overseas Territory that consists of Grand Cayman (where, by the way, Princess Cruises has a port), Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman. If you get sick of looking at stingrays (one of the many marine creatures in this area of the Caribbean), you can check out a few shipwreck sites that are popular tourists attractions. No discussion of the Western Caribbean would be complete without mentioning Jamaica in general and Montego Bay in particular. Along with enjoying the natural beauty of this part of the Caribbean, you can also sample two of Jamaica’s most famous goods: coffee and rum.
It goes without saying that we have in no way exhausted the list of all of the places you can cruise to in the Caribbean – we didn’t even touch on Aruba, Grenada, and Puerto Rico, for example – but hopefully the above gives you an idea of the bounty of areas you can visit on a Caribbean cruise. There is much to enjoy in this part of the world.