Grand Princess 8 days/7 nights from San Juan - Which Itinerary Should I Choose?

[IndyKid]

I was quite excited to hear that the Grand Princess was being based at San Juan, PR for the Fall 2025 - Spring 2026 season. Looking to go late January or early February 2026 for a week. They are offering 2 different itineraries - Option 1 features stops at St. Thomas, St. Maarten, Antigua, St. Vincent and Barbados. The second option is St. Croix, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, Grenada and Barbados. Would love to hear from those of you who may have been to these islands as to what your preferences would be?

[Honolulu Blue]

11 minutes ago, IndyKid said:

I was quite excited to hear that the Grand Princess was being based at San Juan, PR for the Fall 2025 - Spring 2026 season. Looking to go late January or early February 2026 for a week. They are offering 2 different itineraries - Option 1 features stops at St. Thomas, St. Maarten, Antigua, St. Vincent and Barbados. The second option is St. Croix, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, Grenada and Barbados. Would love to hear from those of you who may have been to these islands as to what your preferences would be?

 

I decided not to choose and booked a back-to-back with both voyages.  Here's a thread with a long story of my reasoning:

 

TL,DR:  I'm heading to St. Vincent instead of Dominica.  I haven't been to St. Vincent before and am somewhat looking forward to visiting for the first time.  I've been to all of the other islands before.  They each have their charms and places worth visiting.  I'd lean a tiny bit toward your option 1, but you really can't go wrong with either.

 

Enjoy your cruise.

Edited May 20 by Honolulu Blue

[IndyKid]

17 minutes ago, Honolulu Blue said:

 

I decided not to choose and booked a back-to-back with both voyages.  Here's a thread with a long story of my reasoning:

 

TL,DR:  I'm heading to St. Vincent instead of Dominica.  I haven't been to St. Vincent before and am somewhat looking forward to visiting for the first time.  I've been to all of the other islands before.  They each have their charms and places worth visiting.  I'd lean a tiny bit toward your option 1, but you really can't go wrong with either.

 

Enjoy your cruise.

Thanks. Unfortunately I can only get 1 week off from my job, so a B2B is not an option. But if the Grand stays in San Juan then perhaps we could do the other itinerary the next year.

Edited May 20 by IndyKid

[capriccio]

Personally, I've been to all the ports, most multiple times except St. Vincent and St. Croix both of which are infrequent stops on Caribbean cruises so that's a toss-up since I'd like to see both.  I'd pick option 2 because we've enjoyed the other ports more than those in option 1.  St. Thomas is on almost any other itinerary and we found Antigua just 'meh' - but that was 10 years ago.  On the other hand we really enjoyed St. Lucia and Grenada (and Barbados which is on both itineraries).  But whichever you chose, I'm sure it will be wonderful.

 

 

 

[skynight]

Have been to all those ports. They are all nice. Choose the one that fits your schedule the best. You will have a good time regardless of which one you choose. Remember to allow sufficient time to reach San Juan. I searched and did not see any direct flights from Indianapolis. Looks like all the flights have connections and take 6+ hours. It is recommended to fly in at least one day early.  

[Torfamm]

Have you been to any of those ports before? Is there anything in particular that you want to do? If so, are you comfortable booking independently? 
 

I’ve been to all but St. Vincent so I’d pick Option 1. Outside of golf and scuba diving, which might drive me to pick option 2, I think both cruises offer what matters most to me, an opportunity to get away from winter weather.

 

For example, if you want to scuba dive and stick to ship excursions, that’s offered pretty rarely, often only in St. Thomas, and it’s sometimes cancelled. In St Kitts and St Lucia though, it’s easy to get to private dive boats at the port, no taxi needed 

 

For golf, I’d pick St. Kitts and Barbados.

Edited May 21 by Torfamm

[IndyKid]

21 hours ago, skynight said:

Have been to all those ports. They are all nice. Choose the one that fits your schedule the best. You will have a good time regardless of which one you choose. Remember to allow sufficient time to reach San Juan. I searched and did not see any direct flights from Indianapolis. Looks like all the flights have connections and take 6+ hours. It is recommended to fly in at least one day early.  

We definitely will fly in the day before. It's hard to find any non-stop flights from Indy to anywhere outside the lower 48, although we did manage to score NS flights to Cancun last month.

[rodndonna]

We went with the itinerary with St. Crioix and Pointe a Pitre as that gives us 2 "new to us" ports and is the latest sailing (March 29) which we "hope" means less spring break kids/families. 

 

I like the "14 day, no decision required" and  would be our choice as well, but that option was veto-ed by our dog 🙄

 

[skynight]

I would like to add. St. Thomas, St. Maarten & Antigua are popular ports as they can be reached on week long cruises from Florida. You are likely to encounter multiple ships in port. The other itinerary has some less busy ports. 

[Dididi]

St. Vincent is the only port we haven't visited so the itinerary with it is our choice.  In December 2022 we visited St. Thomas, Grenada, Dominica, Bonaire and Curacao on the Sky Princess.  Loved the river tubing tour in Grenada!  Very well run, beautiful course.  After the tour we had time to go to the city market, very close to the pier. Both itineraries are very appealing!