Caribbean Cruises: Planning Tips For Your Caribbean Adventure!

Now that you’ve made up your mind to take a Caribbean cruise, it’s time to start planning the trip. With the variety of cruise lines to choose from, and islands to visit, this can look like a daunting task. However, help is at hand.

Carnival Cruises has an excellent, well organized, web site that can help you to decide where to go, what to do when you get there, and how long to visit. By dividing their Caribbean cruises into three geographical categories (Eastern, Western, and Southern), they’ve taken an important step to ease your decision. Carnival’s Eastern Caribbean cruises include the Lesser Antilles, the Western Caribbean cruises take in the Greater Antilles and Mexico’s southeastern-most coast, and the Southern Caribbean cruises tour the Dutch Antilles and the adjacent coast of South America. Each area has different attractions, and splitting them apart makes planning the logistics of a Caribbean cruise much easier.

Carnival Cruises can also help you to plan your shore excursions. As you cruise the Caribbean, you’ll make port-of-call stops at numerous islands and harbors, all of which have a lot to offer the curious tourist. With a well-planned shore excursion, you can make the most of your time at each stop. You’ll be able to choose from different attractions, such as snorkeling, scuba diving, or parasailing for the more athletic, or shopping and sight seeing for the more sedate. If you stop at the US Virgin Islands, make sure that you take advantage of any custom’s duty deals; this writer particularly recommends the Cruzan Distillery’s dark rum.

There are some basic preparations that you should always remember when you take a Caribbean cruise. First, make sure that your passport is updated, and do not forget it. Many of the islands are independent countries in their own right, and while the cruise line will usually handle passport control for you, it’s never wise to cross borders without a valid passport. Second, look up the currency exchanges for each port of call in advance. Again, the cruise line can assist you with this. It’s always wise to use local currency on a shore excursion, even though many merchants will happily accept US dollars, Euros, or British pounds. Banks and currency exchanges will always give you a better rate when changing currency.

So plan well, and have a great time in the Islands!

By: Brian James