Fall 2005 Cruise ?????

[EPD]

Hi I have cruised before (Celebrity only and it was Alaska twice) and I am now looking at a Fall cruise for 2005. Thinking Caribbean, would prefer to leave from either Tampa, Ft. Lauderdale or Miami (more flight options for me from Canada that way) and I am seriously looking at RCI, just to try a different company and maby a larger ship...also looking at Princess....but that aside, just wondering everyone's thoughts on the different sailings, East or West or What else?

[wwinfl91]

You didn't say how long a cruise you wanted to take but if you want to look at 10, 11 or 12 days or longer you could do a Southern Caribbean cruise or a partial Panama Canal Transit.

 

We have been on both Princess (2) and RCCL (1) as well as HAL, Celebrity and Costa and all of them have been good cruises. Our next cruise is on RCCL and after that one on Celebrity. Trying different lines and different ships is half the fun of cruising.

 

Ships leave from Florida from the 3 ports you mention but they are also now leaving from Port Canaveral and Jacksonville so you have a lot of options.

 

Anyway IMHO the advantage of a Southern or partial Panama Canal cruise is that you would normally be going to some ports that aren't visited by as many ships. It isn't unusual to have 8 or more big cruise ships in St Thomas USVI on a normal day and maybe even more on a really busy day. That can mean 20,000 cruise passengers all competing for the tours, beach space and crowding the shops. ON the Western side the Cayman islands are getting the same type of crowding and in addition they occasionally are too rough to allow tendering so the ship may miss that port altogether.

 

We have done both Eastern, Western and Southern and enjoyed them all but the crowds on the Eastern and Western cruises lately have been getting worse and worse,

which is why I am suggesting checking into the Southern cruise routes. They do require more than a week unless you leave from San Juan but you may have a more enjoyable cruise.

 

Have a great next cruise whichever route you choose.