Taking a cruise... which islands should we visit?
 

We are planning a cruise for March of 2004, but unsure of what islands we should visit. The options we are looking at are an 8 day Southern Caribbean to St. Maarten, Martinique, and Barbados or an 8 day Western Caribbean to Belieze, Costa Rica, and Panama. This will be our 4th cruise as we have already visited the Bahamas, Cozumel, Grand Cayman, Jamaica, San Juan, and the Virgin Islands. Any suggestions would be great or information on what there is to do in each island. Thanks for your help!

try cruisecritic.com

ya got more of the independent travel types here who just go to 1 island

if ya wanna feel like a frog, go So Carb

if ya want lush rainforest, go west

>)

My husband and I also will take our first cruise in March 2004. We opted for the Southern Caribbean - it's a nice itinerary and all of the islands are really nice. Although we have not been to Belieze, Costa Rica or Panama, they are much more primitive and jungles. I prefer a little sophistication of the Southern Caribbean. Barbados is our favorite island. However, on any of these itinerarys you need to really get out and explore a lot for your hours in port to make it worthwhile.

Lois

I took the 10 Caribbean cruise in 2000. We went to Columbia (Cartagena), Panama Canal, Costa Rica (Limon), Mexico (Tulum)and Grand Cayman. We thoroughly enjoyed it, expecially the arial tour of the rain forest in CR. In fact, we enjoyed CR so much we returned the following year to get married in Sloth Park in Limon and then toured for 2 weeks. According to the various posts I have read here Belize certainly sounds interesting. While we did enter the Panama Canal we only went in as far as Gutan Lake, turned around and back out. For those who have never seen how lock systems work you would find this quite interesting. I have been to St. Maarten and would not return. It is not the prettiest island of those I have been to. When the cruise ships come in to Philipsburg you can hardly walk around 'Little Switerland' for shopping.

I think you'd much prefer the Southern Caribbean cruise. That was definitely my favorite over East Carib and West Carib cruises, although we really like Mexico.

The islands we saw on the S. Carib cruise were rather varied as far as being rather poor looking (Antigua) to looking very progressive (Barbados) and other islands that fell in between. Really enjoyed seeing a different island almost every day.

Saw Belize last year. Not too exciting but the boat ride on the green Wallace River was pretty ... never saw water that green before. I believe the best part of Belize is its island, Ambergris. Unfortunately, our cruise tour didn't go there.

Costa Rica. Almost got there by flying; many people rave about it but hear the best areas aren't where the cruise ship stops.

I just like to see everything down there! Whatever you choose for next March, see the other in March 2005. No problem!