Caribbean Cruise - Travel Agent Diaries
June 27, 2024
Our first Family Cruise - Marella Explorer
Being able to cruise the Caribbean has always been a dream holiday to me and this trip really did live up to expectations. I was worried about how my children (both 6 years old) would react to the long flight and staying on a cruise ship but I really had nothing to worry about!
On arriving to Barbados everything went really smoothly, one of the best benefits of a fly-cruise with TUI is that you don't have to collect your luggage. It is collected for you and transported to the cruise ship and taken to your cabin so once you check in for your flight in the UK you do not see your luggage again until you get onboard. This might seem daunting but with children it was great as it meant no waiting around and we could start out holiday in the best way possible.
We spent seven days onboard the ship and visited 6 different Caribbean islands. This helped me tick off lots of destinations in one trip, it was perfect as my plan is to visit as many countries as possible and cruising is definitely the way forward. Depending on which islands we were visiting also then depended on the activities we got up to, some of the beaches in the Caribbean were just irresistible so we just spent the days relaxing, on other islands we had a bit more of an adventure trekking through the jungles, zip wires and even tubing down the rivers.
Having done a number of cruises before (mainly larger ships) my expectations of a smaller ship were quite low but I was pleasantly surprised and overall loved the whole experience. Having the smaller ship meant it was easier to dock at smaller islands rather than having to tender to shore which again was much easier with the kids.
If you are thinking about visiting the Caribbean on holiday then I highly recommend thinking about cruising it instead. Waking up at a new Caribbean Island every morning was just fantastic.
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