For two weeks this February, my family and I took a 11 day cruise in the Caribbean. While it was our second cruise in the region, we only repeated visits to 2 islands, so it was a pleasant trip with many new sights.

The itinerary was as follow

• Depart San Juan, PR
• Philipsburg, St. Maarten
• Gustavia, St. Barthelemy
• Basseterre, St. Kitts
• Castries, St. Lucia
• Bridgetown, Barbados
• St. Georges, Grenada
• Isla Margarita, Venezuela
• Willemstad, Curacao
• Orenjestad, Aruba
• Return to San Juan after a day at sea

As you can see, it is quite the itinerary. The weather was phenomenal as was the cruise itself. The demographic of this cruise was heavily on the senior citizen side, probably nearly 85% of the passengers were of retirement age. Cohen and Hayley only had a dozen or so peers their age on the ship, out of nearly 2000 passengers, so as a result, they were treated like royalty by the crew.

Each island had its own flavor and culture, some better than others. We didn't see much value in the stops on St. Barts with its ridiculously expensive prices and arrogant french culture, or Isla Margarita on the opposite end, with its aura of fear for your safety and very limited resources. However, we also found some new favorites, early on we were most impressed with St. Kitts, with its warm people and undeveloped state, but Curacao took the cake with its mix of culture and natural resources. We were heartbroken to find Grenada, our favorite from our last cruise, to be in a ruinous state due to Hurrican Ivan last fall. But the destruction didn't seem to hamper the friendly, easy-going nature of the people on the island.