My OTHER vacation - Island-hopping the eastern Caribbean

[zackiedawg]

Been away a while on my other favorite type of vacation - a cruise! This has been a funfilled few months, what with Disney trips in October and for Mousefest in a few weeks, Thanksgiving and my birthday, two business trips for work, and the cruise I just returned from (also explaining my general absence from the boards here!!). I got back Saturday from a lovely trip onboard a lovely ship, and thought I'd share some photos.

Here's Port Everglades in Ft. Lauderdale as we pulled out of port - I liked the industrial sunset look as the sun set over the port and oil facilities, as well as the other ships still in port:

A lovely, rock-strewn and empty beach on the island of Grand Turk in the Turks & Caicos islands:

Our boat, hiding behind the sea grasses:

Some of the sunsets you see out there are stunning (and I snapped every one of them!), but sometimes the post-sunset skies out in the open ocean are downright surreal. This looked like some artist had just gotten happy with the oils as he blotted a bunch of random colors into the sky:

A crazy island near Soper's Hole in the western British Virgins, just at the western entrance to Drake's Channel - the infamous pirate passageway through the myriad islands:

A typical Tortola street...originally designed by the Dutch for horses and carts, and now having to accomodate cars. As you can see...it's 1 car at a time through these narrow streets!:

A view inside our beautiful boat, the MS Zuiderdam. This is the ship's library:

The casino:

Here's another ship sitting out in the harbor in St. Thomas with us...some of you might recognize the name - the Disney Magic:

Here, a few other ships were in port with us at Charlotte Amalie, capital of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. At sunset, the Mariner of the Seas was still with us at dock, while the Disney Magic steams away in the background:

A pelican making a fly-by of our ship at sunset...I could almost reach out and touch him:

Here's our lovely ship as seen from the shore of Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas:

The waters there, and the beaches, are just ridiculous perfection. Between the fake clear blue water and the baby-powder-fine white sands with not a rock or shell in it...this fits most people's description of perfection. And finding an empty stretch with not a soul on it, and seeing your ship out there as you swim, just puts the icing on the cake:

Feel free to check out the whole gallery from the trip:

http://www.pbase.com/zackiedawg/zuiderdam_nov_2007

Back to real life for a few days while I get back to work and get caught up, then it's Thanksgiving, my birthday, another week of work, and Mousefest after that!

Comments, questions, or critique always welcome.

 

[gary]

nice shots, great to see some other cruise line pics, all of our cruises so far have been dcl, i think charlotte amalie is my favorite caribbean port so far, although i'm thinking of taking a southern caribbean out of san juan in 09, if you fly down there you can get into the real deep southern caribe
we are doing the may 08 westbound panama canal repositioning on the magic, with a couple of days at disneyland post cruise
looking forward a lot to the canal transit, that's something on my personal 1000 things before you die list

 

[PolynesianMedic]

I agree with you Gary on the canal trip. I am actually going to be on the Magic just before you. I am going on the Western Caribbean cruise the 19-26th of April. I was on the Western Caribbean with the Caribbean Princess this summer. I am anxious to compare the two.

zackiedawg - these are brilliant pictures. The waters in the caribbean are amazing. I can't get over the color of it.

 

[Roger]

Gosh I LOVE the sky pic. Gorgeous.

 

[Craig]

those are great photos zackiedawg. I too love the sky shot, as well as the first of the port.

 

[DisneyGeek92]

Those are all fantastic. To copy everyone else I like the sky one as well.

 

[zackiedawg]

Aren't those sky colors just nuts!!?? I can't take much credit for it...I can only thank Mother Nature for that one - I was just the monkey that pressed a button when I saw it.

Gary, the canal transit is fantastic, and definately something everyone should see. Just an amazing architectural and engineering masterpiece! And the southern Caribbean cruises are wonderful because they take you to a whole new class of island completely unlike those of the east or west Caribbean routes...the southern islands are volcanic in origin, and much more mountainous, jungle-laden, and lush. Most east Caribbean islands are semi-arid (even the Virgins...you see alot of cacti and they all have a 'dry' side). The lower islands of the Antilles are higher and usually have more rainforest and more volcanic activity. This was my 24th cruise - I've done the Mexican Riviera on the Pacific side, the Panama canal, and the east, west, and southern Caribbean. BTW - you don't have to leave out of San Juan to see the Southern Caribbean - several 10-day cruises leave out of Florida and go all the way down to Aruba, Curacao, Antigua, Barbados, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, Martinique, Grenada, and Dominica. I've taken southern cruises out of San Juan and Florida - I would recommend at least considering the Florida cruises because they tend to get the newer, sometimes nicer, ships. Several vessels leaving out of San Juan are older ships (not to say they might not be wonderful and in great shape - but your odds tend to be better on the newer, fresher ships that have recently been built or are fresh out of dry dock).

Polynesian...I still can't get the waters out of my mind. Even living in Florida, where we have some pretty stunning beaches and beautiful water...the colors in the Caribbean are jewel-like, almost neon, and unbelivably clear. It's like they dyed it just before the ship came in!

Thank you everyone for the compliments.

 

[Scottwdw]

Quite the contrast to my snow photo. I've been to the Caribbean a few times and I have yet to see water colors like that. I just have had bad luck with weather down there to the point i don't believe the commercials. : Thanks for giving me back faith that it is indeed real. Someday I hope to see that it is too.

 

[zackiedawg]

Someday we'll have to work out a trade: I'll give you the tropical warmth and turquoise waters, and you give me a nice cold snowy winterscape. I miss the winter...it's been too long since I've experienced one!