Caribbean Cruise Queries

Factual Questions
1

My occupation (veterinarian) requires me to participate in continuing education. Just so happens that this time I have chosen to learn aboard a Celebrity Cruise Line ship that will cruise the Caribbean for a week. Having never cruised, I have a few questions:

  1. Is November 5 - 13 a problem with regards to hurricanes?

  2. Is it Car i be an or Carib e an?

  3. Are some islands better than others? My cruise starts at San Juan, Puerto Rico, then stops at - casa de campo, dominican rep - bridgetown, barbados - st. georges, grenada - st. johns, antigua - charlotte amalie, st. thomas.

  4. I speak very little spanish. Is that a problem? Would brushing up be suggested?

  5. I have chosen to go solo. Am I likely to run into other single folk?

  6. Any inside tips you can offer?

Gracias,
Mark

Mods– If you feel another forum would be more appropriate, feel free to move this thread.

2

Hurricane season officially runs until Nov. 30, but I don’t recall many problems in November. So you’re probably safe, but this year, who knows.

When I went the second.

Depends on what you want in islands, and it also depends on what kind of tours and activities you will take part in. When we went, 17 years ago, we did the southern Caribbean and then went up the Orinocco River, with a side trip past Angel Falls to a lake in the jungle fed by seven or eight waterfalls. That was the best, the second was a trip to see Mt. Pele on Martinique. If you are a beach person, YMMV. The best thing to do is to get a list of tours, and sign up for the ones you want early.

BTW, we did stop at Grenada, but I wonder what shape it is going to be in now, since it got whacked pretty badly by one of the hurricanes.

Not all the places you are going are Spanish-speaking. Again, it depends on what you do - I would suspect the people who run the tourist places are quite proficient in English. Not that it ever hurts to speak Spanish better. I never needed mine in Venezuela.

Under 70? :slight_smile: The cruises we’ve been on didn’t have a lot, though I understand there are singles cruises. I bet the cruise line can tell you.

Ask for a big table for meals. There’s more chance of meeting people that way. When we went to France on the QE2 we were at the table where the Chief Engineer and Deputy Chief Engineer alternated, and we got to go to a cocktail party in their quarters.

Book your shore trips early.

Nice to know that veternarians have the same continuing education scam as physicians. :slight_smile:

3

:slight_smile:
Funny thing is, I didn’t choose based on location. My office manager realized that I needed to do CE before the year ends, and she got online and found what was available. She then came to me with a list of topics. I chose the topic I wanted and it just so happened to be Caribbean cruise! Coulda just as easily been Cleveland.

Lat time was “Advances in Ophthalmology” in Jamaica.

4

I mis-read the OP as “Vegetarian” and figure I could do that if it meant training like THIS!

No Spanish needed, unless you want to impress someone. Some islands are better for shopping, but may suffer in snorkling opportunities. I’m confident they will all be different, and if you got ten folks together to rank their favorites top to bottom, no two lists would be the same.

Even if there WERE a hurricane, the ship would alter it’s route to avoid trouble, no worries there unless it is hitting to port of embarkation about the time you embark.

As for the singles, I have met a few on cruises, but most folks are family groups. You may end up with the Swedish Bikini Team tour, so all bets are off from cruise to cruise.

5

I have heard this from a number of people.

Thanks Voyager and UncleBill for the input.

I have never snorkled. Is it really all that?

6

So where do I sign up to be a veterinarian??? My career – teacher – requires CE, but it’s NEVER on a cruise!!!

Check websites for the various countries you’ll be visiting. We went on our first cruise out of Texas. The passengers were heavily Texan, with a few other states mixed in. This gave everyone something in common to talk about.

Spanish was handy, but not required. I was able to impress my kids by talking to a Mexican cab driver about our homes, families, etc. Other than that, people who wanted to talk to us wanted our money. They figured out a way to sell to us. It wasn’t a problem. You’re going to mostly English speaking places anyway, so I wouldn’t worry.

Don’t know about singles. I went with the wife and kids, so that really put a damper on the carousing. :smiley: Next time, I’ll take the wife, but leave the kids at home. Getting romantic in a small cabin was challenging enough without the kids barging in all the time. It was a real buzz-kill!

7

Veterinary CE can be obtained locally as well as in a great location. A friend who teaches compared my career to hers and pointed out that we both deal with “little animals”. :wink:

Well…I wasn’t really thinking about carousing (looks up definition of carousing) err…yeah, guess I was.

8

It depends. If you want to investigate wrecks, then you will want to learn to dive, but snorkellers get to see ~85% of the interesting stuff just puttering along on the surface. Some of it is really, really beautiful. Till the day I die, I will probably remember chasing angelfish through a reef in Mexico that looked like something out of a Jacque Cousteau special.

OTOH, snorkel trips from cruises tend to be cattle-car operations. It can get crowded even on the reef itself, with dozens of cruisers all swimming in front of and across each other. I suggest you ask how many people will be on the excursion.

9

When boarding smaller boats it is polite to ask the captains permission to come aboard (IIRC). Is there any similar situation on a big ship?

Also, when boarding…is it OK to shout, “Prepare to be boarded!”?

10

We went to Cozumel this summer and wondered the same thing. The answer is absolutely yes. The fish and colors are amazing. We snorkeled for 3 days straight and never got tired of it.

11

As to the last one, the staff will probably say “Great. Another cute one.”

As to the first, you would nto get the chance – in the mega-liners your initial boarding may resemble more the goings-on at the airport checkpoint combined with getting into a major arena event. Only you get to keep your shoes on.

BTW, I hope y’all get some reasonable time in PR rather than being frantically shoved from SJU to the docks and back – that can be out of your power due to flight or ship delays, though. BTW, depending on what terminal you fly into/out of, SJU airport may be just the usual amount of pain and suffering or an extra helping thereof (B has been in a state being demolished and rebuilt while still in use since, it seems, the first Bush Administration).

5-13 November, as mentioned, is the tail-end of hurricane season. We DO run into statistical outliers now and then, but as mentioned the cruise can always reroute.

Speaking of which, looking at your itinerary, I strongly suspect you may find yourselves diverted away from Grenada. They got hit full-smack-head-on by Hurricane Ivan earlier in the season and something like 90% of the place got leveled.

Of the other destinations, only 2 are in Spanish-dominant isles (DR and PR). Casa de Campo is a resort-enclave location in the DR, you’re very unlikely to interact with people not already in the business of dealing with the foreign tourist. San Juan is the capital and main business center and port of PR so you should do just fine. You’ll recognize the native 'Ricans – we are the ones totally overdressed for this climate.

As to “Caribbean”, well, the Spanish pronunciation us ca-RI-be, so I follow that cognate, but in the English-speaking isles it varies.

12

The thing about cruises is that they do everything they can to keep you on the boat (gambling in their casino) or on their excursions (for which they usually charge extra) or in the tourist trap markets near the docks. If you’re a sheep, do let them herd you whererever they want.

But if you really want to have a good time, get a good guidebook on the islands (I like Fodors) and read up on some of the more out of the way places on the islands you’ll be visiting. I’ll relate two stories from my 1992 cruise to the Bahamas.

The guidebook suggested that the best way to get around the island was to rent a scooter near the dock and explore at your own pace. When I asked one of the ship’s staff about this he strongly recommended against it, saying the scooters were unreliable and broke down a lot. When we got off the ship, I asked the very nice lady (Rose) in the Tourist office about that, and she said, If you have a problem, someone will stop and help you.

So we rented the scooters, went out, had a lovely time exploring the botanical gardens, beaches, and old ruins that no one else on the Big Red Boat got to see. And sure enough, at one point my scooter stopped working. I was poking around, trying to figure out what was wrong, and in less than five minutes a pickup truck with three teenage boys pulled up. Within a minute they reattached the spark plug wire under the seat and ran off before I could offer them a dollar or two for their help. Everyone we met in the Bahamas was friendly and charming.

(A warning about a real risk of the scooters: they drive on the left in the Bahamas, and it takes many Americans a while to get used to it. I didn’t have that problem, but accidents from driving on the wrong side of the road are not uncommon.)

Later, while most of the sheep…err, other passengers…were at the Captain’s Dinner (it was the second night of the cruise–they could have had the big dinner on our first night at sea, but no), my friend and I went into town to look for one of the restaurants we’d read about in the book. We found it, practically deserted, even though there were thousands of people eating dinner on the ships at the dock. We heard some music from around the back, and in a small back room found a fellow playing the piano. He welcomed us warmly. We had a seat and ordered a pleasant dinner of conch with beans and rice (a traditional native dish), and a little later he came over to our table. He said, Do you have a Bahamiam dollar? I pulled one out of my pocket, and he said, See that signature (i.e. of the treasurer of the Bahamas)? Pointing to a distinguished looking gentleman sitting with a few friends at one of the only other occupied tables, he said, That’s him.

We had a lovely time, thanks to not staying on the boat.

The only ship’s excursion I recommend you go on is to snorkel. Do not miss snorkeling. It’s wonderful.

13

I am flying to San Juan the day before my ship sails. Any “must see” stuff in San Juan?

I’d be happy to buy you a drink if you are around, and thanks for the info.

14

Great travel stories, commasense. I bought the latest Frommers and plan to use it as you describe.

I went to Jamaica in 2001 and I can relate to much of what you are saying. The enclave I stayed at was great, but seeing the “real” island was also a blast. A bartender I met within the resort (who was 15 or 16) took me on a tour and acted as “protection” .

15

Thanx. We’ll see 'bout that – I work politics and that’ll be 2 days post-election so I may be tied up quite a bit.

SJ is an absolutely urban location – its Big Ticket item is history. In the Historic zone (old SJ) there are the Morro and San Cristóbal fortifications, managed by the US Park Service; the Ponce de León family house at Casa Blanca; San José Church and the area round its square are filled with Institute of PR Culture facilities and museums in the large old buildings to the W side. Their gift shops (if open: they can be maddeningly haphazard at that) contain culturally-relevant stuff. Just a walkabout around the perimeter of the walls (either topside on on the shoreside around Princesa Blvd to El Morro, which includes the old waterfront, and Plaza Dársenas is usually a good place for crafts and such) can be a good part of a day, if the weather cooperates.

Being 2 days after the election don’t be surprised to find yourself caught up in the traffic of some candidate or other’s victory rallies. Or to find a stupendous amount of campaign material still littering the environment :rolleyes:

Across from San José along San Sebastián St. are quite a few bars, restaurants and nightspots for later in the evening; however for eating/dining in general I prefer Fortaleza St. or lower Cristo St.; Recinto Sur St., (on the other side of the Big-Ass Parking Building from the docks), where many people don’t get past, is the more “touristy” area, it even as a Starbuck’s for Christ’s sake! (though in a small step forward, our Hard Rock Café burned down back in '03). What you may get a chance to actually do will, of course, depend on whether your hotel is closer or further from Old SJ vs. the Airport and how much time the line gives you to check in and board. The cruise package may even include a SJ tour to begin with!

Your hotel must have available for you the main tourist guide, Qué Pasa or other such resource that includes maps. While in SJ tune your radio to WOSO (1030AM), the secular English-language news-talk station.

My address is available in my board profile, so e-mail me for anything else.

16

The British English pronunciation (and that goes for lots of former/current British colonies in the Caribbean - BVIs, Jamaica, Anguilla etc etc) is Ca-ri-BEE-uhn.