Zizou88

I've been trying to find the best places to visit in the Caribbean for a while now and I'm completely lost as they all seem gorgeous! I do not want to go on a cruise so that's not an option but I would like to combine the best islands/resorts.
The start point will be Orlando Florida on April 15 with an end date of May 1st from an island to London.
Bahamas is a must with seeing the pigs in The Exumas and staying in Paradise Island.
I wanted to pass by Havana but I'm not sure any more due to logistics. Jamaica is another option. Then there's Puerto Rico or Dominican Republic for a more adventurous part of the trip.
Then comes the confusing bit with all the other smaller islands.. St Lucia seems to recur in the top places to visit.. then Barbados.. there's also St. Kitts.. Antigua.. Anguilla.. Martinique.. Guadalupe.. Turks..

Can anyone help me with suggestions for a route please? And must visit islands/resorts for honeymooners.

Orlando > Bahamas 6 nights> Somewhere with a bit of an adventure 4 nights (Havana/Puerto Rico/Dominican Republic) > End at a nice resort in St. Lucia and/or any of the adjacent islands 6 nights.

Not into partying or anything like that.. good seafood and beach relaxation with some different unique experiences in the middle of the trip.

Thank you very much!!

suze

I found Jamaica much more "adventurous" than the Dominican Republic myself.

blamona

swimming pigs in Exumas usually aren't done from Paradise and require a separate vacation. To Exumas you have to either fly from Nassau or Ft. Lauderdale

Orlando doesn't really fly to Caribbean, you must go thru Ft. Lauderdale or Miami

Very hard to island hop unless you stick to groupings, as you have to back track and spend night in Miami or PR.

So you're overly ambitious. You can spend a week in 1 place and still not see anything

No ferries between islands, tons of open water

Jamaica, DR, PR and Cuba are huge islands you need at least a week

So, start with Fodor's Caribbean to see what appeals to you and narrow down to:

Bahamas --Paradise with 1 week Exumas (Staniel Cay)

Anguilla/St. Barth/St Martin

Virgin Islands you can hope between them

St. Lucia/Grenada/ St. Vincent (but then hard to enclude Grenadines which are fantastic)

Maybe Antigua with St. Lucia or Barbados

Turks and Caicos is really hard to include other islands, technically could combine with Nassau or DR, but flights aren't the most reliable between them

You'll have to stick to the groupings I named above, as they're grouped (Ex. can't combine Exumas with TCI without loosing tons of travel time, can't do Anguilla and BVIs)

Once you narrow down which grouping, come back and ask where to stay

It's not Europe where you can easily country hop--

Or you can take a cruise which gives you different views every day

RoamsAround

You wrote : Orlando > Bahamas 6 nights> Somewhere with a bit of an adventure 4 nights (Havana/Puerto Rico/Dominican Republic) > End at a nice resort in St. Lucia and/or any of the adjacent islands 6 nights.

This routing is not as workable as it seems. To reach the Bahamas from Orlando you have to connect (both coming and going) through Miami or Fort Lauderdale.
You could then get from Miami to either Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic for the second leg of your trip. If you choose Puerto Rico you could fly on to St. Lucia for your third segment. I'm pretty sure you can't fly from the Dominican Republic to St. Lucia without going back to Miami or Puerto Rico. Of course, you'll have to check to see if you can fly from St. Lucia to London - if not consider changing to St. Kitts as British Air flies into that island a couple time a week.

If I were you, I'd limit myself to 3 destinations spending 4 full days in each place and allowing 1 day to reach the first destination from Orlando, 1 day to travel to your "second" stop, 1 day to reach your third destination and 1 day to travel back to London.

Zizou88

Thank you all for your replies!! Appreciated!

Zizou88

There are flights from Orlando to Nassau, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico.
If it was your choice to pick 3 destinations.. what would you choose?
Thank you!

RoamsAround

I'd skip Nassau (and the Bahamas) since it's difficult to go anywhere else without going back through Miami or Fort Lauderdale. So, from Orlando I'd go to Puerto Rico because once there you can get to most of the other islands in the Caribbean.

After your stay in Puerto Rico fly to St. Martin where you'll experience both a French and Netherlands island culture (a two for one experience). From St. Martin go to either Antigua, Barbados or St. Lucia - each offers a different contrast to the other islands you visited and is serviced by British Air so you can fly back to London at the end of your stay.

Zizou88

Thank you so much RoamsAround!

beachykeen

Or from Puerto Rico go to Anguilla for a few days, then St Martin/St Maarten, then to one of the other islands. It's a 20 minute ferry ride from St Martin to Anguilla, so even if you decide to stay in St Martin, you can still day trip to AXA