Here is Part 2/2 about our most recent vacation.
We went on a 7 night cruise through the southern Caribbean (Carnival Valor was the cruise boat). Here are the ports we visited and my opinions about the ports/our activities:
1. San Juan- Our cruise left from San Juan and returned here. We arrived a couple days early and stayed in Old San Juan. It  reminded me of Europe with a Caribbean flare.

After the cruise we stayed a couple more days in San Juan at the Caribe Hilton. This resort was right on the beach. The resort was beautiful! We enjoyed this section of San Juan better than Old San Juan. This was a great way to finish our trip!

2. St. Lucia- What a beautiful island! We’ve always wanted to go here and actually looked for our honeymoon but there wasn’t enough to do for 2 weeks on this island for us. This port is actually why we selected this particular cruise. We took an island tour through James Touring so we could see all the beautiful spots on the island. We were not disappointed. If you go to St. Lucia, take an island tour because the island is large and a taxi to get to the pitons costs more than a tour.

 

3. Barbados-This was our favorite day! We went swimming with the turtles with a company called Calabaza Sailing Cruises. They picked us up at the cruise port and it was a five minute drive to a beautiful catamaran. There were about 8-10 people on our boat and then 3 staff members (who were incredible_.

It was 2 weeks before Christmas so the crew wore Santa hats 🙂

Then we arrived at the site to swim with turtles! A guide was always with us while we were swimming with the turtles to ensure we were safe and to take pictures. They emailed us the pictures (for free) a few days later and they turned out amazing! See below.

This was one of the coolest things we have ever done! Later in the day we went snorkeling over an old abandoned ship and then had a delicious lunch.

It was an incredibly fun and relaxing day! If you ever go to Barbados, make sure you do this excursion! It was worth every penny.

4. St. Kitts- we weren’t too excited to go here because we couldn’t find much to do on TripAdvisor. We were in for a surprise, this island was BEAUTIFUL!!!! We took a taxi to Carambola Beach Club on South Friar’s Bay. This beach club is a really nice restaurant right on the beach. They have chairs and umbrellas that you can rent for the day. This is the prettiest beach in St. Kitts and the club had the nicest amenities.

We rented two chairs and an umbrella for the day and couldn’t have had a more relaxing day on this beautiful beach!

5. St. Maarten- We did an excursion through Viator at St. Maarten. The shuttle picked us up and went to Orient Beach for a couple hours. Little did we know this was a nude beach! We didn’t participate but we were very entertained to say the least. 😉

The shuttle then took us to Maho Beach and my husband was in heaven! Judd works in the aviation career field and boy was he in his element at this beach! Maho Beach is right next to the runway at the St. Maarten Airport. You’ve probably seen this beach on TV before… it’s the beach where planes fly directly over you (looks as if the plane is going to hit you).

6. St. Thomas-This is a very pretty island. At this port we went zip lining. We had a blast and the views were beautiful!

We then went to the world’s largest ice bar. The whole bar/inside is made of ice. They give you a coat, gloves, and leg warmers. I am glad we went, it was something different but it’s not something I will do again. After about 20-30 minutes in the bar, you will be ready to leave.

We had an incredible vacation! I will be blogging about traveling quite often this year…we are going to 12 countries within 3 continents.