Your brave circumnavacators have been taking a long, lengthy break in the lovely town of Durham, North Carolina, working on graduate school and being a good dog owner and creating mobile apps. But I came back to traveling this winter with a new partner this time: my mother! As it turns out, traveling is still a lot of fun and filled with new things, so I’ve written a few posts about the week-long cruise we took to the islands of St. Thomas, Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, and St. Maarten.
We departed last Sunday evening from the lovely city of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Most Caribbean cruises can leave from the Gulf Coast or Florida, but since we wanted to see some of the islands that lay furtherest south, we first both took plane trips to Puerto Rico and met up there. We sailed on the Carnival Valor, an incredibly large boat that proved to be a fairly good time. A few words about cruises: they are mostly for people who really want to be entertained all the time, enjoy a lot of food and alcohol, and get tanned. That’s my opinion, and I’m sticking to it. That’s not really my parents or me or Steve. However, as they are a large floating vehicle, restaurant and hotel in one, they are also a cost-effective and cost-efficient means of travel between destinations, especially islands. The last time we visited the US Virgin Islands, I was responsible for coordinating renting a car on one island and plane flights and hotel accommodations on three different islands. And I never want to do that again. Hence the cruise.
