Michele and I just completed a 12 nights Southern Caribbean Cruise with Royal Caribbean on the “Anthem of the Seas”. The ship departed Cape Liberty (Bayonne, NJ) on 3rd of February and stopped in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Philipsburg St. Maarten, St. John’s Antigua, Castries St. Lucia, Bridgetown Barbados, and Basseterre St. Kitts. I fell in love with St. Lucia and need to go back there again. My two favorite ports were St. Lucia and Barbados. I would not mind going back and staying in St. Lucia and Barbados for a week.
I had my concerns about cruising out of New York in February. Usually, February is Northerner season. Back on February 7th, 2016, the “Anthem of the Seas” faced hurricane like conditions. Royal Caribbean’s Anthem of the Seas fought through 30-foot waves and wind gusts as high as 125 mph for several hours Sunday, according to passengers aboard the ship who posted to the Cruise Critic message boards. The ship was tossed from side to side, scattering chairs and tables in dining rooms and lounges all across the liner. We had a good cruise, the roughs it got was 9 foot seas. We experience 6 foot sea on day going to southern Caribbean, and one day coming back 9 foot seas. The only problem with the cruise was that it was out of New York, and therefore 5 days of cruising (2 days cruising going south and 3 days of cruising going north. Once we got into the Gulf stream, the weather got warm (in the mid-seventies). The majority of the people onboard were from the Northeast, Canada, and the Mid-West, so mid-seventies was warm to them. There wasn’t a lot of kids on cruise, mainly retire people. Michele and I took over 3,000 pictures between 4 devices (2 iPhone and 2 cameras). The Olympus Tough 5 worked out great for underwater pictures. Michele got to swim with the sea turtles. We went on the cruise with Michele’s best friend from childhood. Miss AnnMaria and Michele grew up 3 doors down and been friend for life. Unfortunately Miss AnnMaria and I did not get along. I have ADHD (inattentive, impulsive, and hyperactive) and love chocolate (maybe that is cause too much sugar). So I drove Miss AnnMaria up the wall. My wife (Michele) must be used to it. I made the best of it and stood out of her way.
I can’t post all 3,000 pictures in this blog or the “best of”, what I can do is to provide a link to what I think are my “best of” on Flickr. Because I was in the U.S. Coast Guard, I had to take pictures of Coast Guard boat in the U.S and other countries. The U.S. Coast Guard give boats to St. Maarten, Antigua, St. Lucia, Barbados, and St. Kitts so they look familiar. And I took a lot of pictures of sunrises and sunsets. We went snorkeling in 3 locations (Antigua, Barbados, and St. Kitts) and in St. Lucia took a Spanish Gallon to mud pits and volcano, and on all the excursions they played BeeKaayBeats “Lucky Tonight”. In St. Maarten, we went on sunset cruise, therefore 5 islands and 5 sailing experience and 5 days of rum punch. Did you know that beer is cheaper in St. Maarten than a bottle of water. So, in St. Maarten we drunk Presidente Beer, a Pilsner beer breweries in the Dominican Republic.
To keep the blog short, I am going to break it up into pieces.
Cape Liberty, Bayonne, New Jersey
You could not ask for a better day to depart New York. It was clear sky and mid 50s on the 3rd for February. I got some nice pictures of New York waterfront and the Statue of Liberty.
Day 2 – Cruising
February 4: What can I said, we are cruising to San Juan. We did see a nice rainbow on the way down. We were off Hatteras when the rainbow picture was take at 14:30.
Day 3 – Cruising
February 5: Cruising again. There was nice sunrise on the 5th. The sunset could had been spectacular, but every time we could have a spectacular sunset or sunrise the ship sails into a cloud.
To keep the blog short, I am going to break it up into pieces. Continue in “Southern Caribbean Cruise San Juan and St. Maarten”
