Caribbean cruise on board Celebrity Summit: How a sceptic was won over by cruising

By Steve McKenna
Updated December 19 2016 - 6:10pm, first published December 18 2016 - 12:15am
Colourful St Croix in US Virgin Islands. Photo: iStock
Colourful St Croix in US Virgin Islands. Photo: iStock

As I backpacked and flashpacked across 90-odd countries, I paid little attention to cruise ships. I figured they were mainly for retired folk and perhaps young families and honeymooners. Cruising surely wasn't for (fairly) adventurous, youthful(ish) travellers? It looked too easy, too regimented. I didn't fancy being cooped up on a giant vessel, deposited ashore in a port for a few hours, then picked up and ferried to the next place (and so on). Then earlier this year, while hiking in the Spanish countryside, my partner and I got caught in a biblical storm. Sheltering in a golf club bar, we started chatting to two die-hard cruisers from Scotland, and as we compared recent holiday experiences – ours an enriching, but enervating independent Thai island hopping trip; theirs a blissfully relaxing, yet adventure-peppered cruise around the rum-fuelled Caribbean – we suddenly wondered whether cruising wouldn't be so bad after all. Fast forward several months, and, desperate for a chilled-out, hassle-free break, a floating hotel that would dock at a clutch of exotic, sun-kissed Caribbean islands began to sound like one of the best things in the world.

DAY ONE: SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO

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