Kelsey's Travel Blog!
I travel not to escape life, but to be sure that life will not escape me! Come join me!
Caribbean Cruise
I have a lot of mixed feelings about cruise line travel. This trip was my fourth cruise I have been on, so I believe I do have a bit of insight to offer when it comes to cruising, from a young adults perspective, obviously.
When my mom emailed my sister and I in the middle of our fall semester finals December of 2012 asking if we would be interested in going on a family vacation, as two poor college students, we were estatic to have even just one more vacation on our parent’s dime. Those become more and more rare as we get older, so any chance to go somewhere cool is worth it. I have always had a great time on cruises, and in terms of vacationing, this is ideal; traveling? Not so much. Yet for 7 days over spring break following midterms, a vacation was exactly what my sister and I needed: low maintenance, to a warm destination, with lots of alcohol, food, and entertainment. A cruise embodies the perfect low maintenance vacation.
The Norwegian Epic is Norwegian Cruise Line’s newest and largest cruise ship. The ship has absolutely everything: awesome entertainment, great evening activities organized by the crew, and all the food you could ever want to eat. The cruise was a seven day cruise out of Miami that stopped in St. Maartin, St. Thomas, and Nassau, with three days on the ship at sea. Everything was organized for us, from the nightly entertainment like the Blue Man Group, or Cirque del Sole, to shore excursions. Regardless of my preferred method of travel, I couldn’t deny how awesome this ship was!
Philipsburg,
St. Maartin
St. Thomas,
US Virgin Islands
Nassau,
The Bahamas
Norwegian Epic
Entertainment and Food
If there was one thing I had to say that the Epic had over all of the other cruises I had done, it would be the entertainment and food. There was never a shortage of things to do, especially in the evenings once everyone was back on board and we headed off into the sunset towards our next destination. You want to hear some Jazz? Hit up the Fat Cats Jazz club every night for some soul, some classic jazz, and even the occasional 80’s throwback. Want to drink a martini and listen to some beautiful piano? The Martini Bar will be the place for you! Want to sing along to songs with the dueling piano guys? Hell yea! Hit up the dueling piano bar. There is literally something for every taste and preference.
Personally, my choices of evening entertainment were always the dueling piano bar, the night club the floor above it, and every theme night the crew hosted on the main deck, which ranged from 80’s night, to Latin night, to dance night, to the white-out party. And when finally everything closed around 5am, you would always head to the casino to watch fellow cruise patrons gamble the night away. I also enjoyed the shows that we attended, which most often needed to be booked in advanced. These ranged from seeing the Blue Man Group (definitely the coolest) to Cirque del Sole, to Legends in Concert (definitely the lamest), and even a hybrid comedy-magic show.
The food on the ship was also incredible. The ship has seven complimentary dining options, as well as other additional restaurants with everything from Sushi, to a Steakhouse, etc. A family, like mine, can stick with just doing the complimentary options and never be sick of the food. The drinks were great at every bar you went to, but be careful, it was easy to rack up a hefty bar tab at the end of the trip without actually seeing your money leave our pocket. How hefty? How about nearly $2000 for seven days amongst three people (since my step-dad doesn’t drink)? It was pretty crazy.
The Island of Sint Maarten, or also known as St. Martin, is located in the more eastern part of the Caribbean, past Puerto Rico and both the British and US Virgin Islands. It is an interesting island with a complex history, which trickles into the present. It was a part of the former Netherlands Antilles, an autonomous Caribbean country that was comprised of two island groups until Aruba became a separate country within the Kingdom of the Netherland and the Antilles was finally dissolved only in 2010. This helped both Sint Maarten and Curacao become something call “constituent countries”.
The island itself had been split into two nations since 1648. The southern Dutch part is known as Sint Maarten, and the northern French part of the island is written as Saint Martin. We landed in Philipsburg, which is the capital city of the Dutch Sint Maarten and left the boat for our eight hours on Sint Maarten Island. After a bit of pre-cruise research, we determined that, in light of Marc’s birthday, we would do a shore excursion called America’s Cup Regatta, where the four of us, along with other cruise participants, were split into three teams and leaned how to crew classic racing boats that had actually been raced previously in the America’s Cup boat race. It was an incredible experience since I had had no previous experience on a racing boat like that.
Following the shore excursion, I split up from my mom, step-dad, and sister while they went to the beach located a few kilometers down the island, and I wandered around Philipsburg and the Great Bay, shopping, eating lunch and having cocktails, etc. I love solo travel, so I enjoyed having a bit of time to myself to wander the streets of the city.
Thanks to the intense heat and nearly passing out, I decided to make my way back to the boat and hang out for the time being in the room to get ready for the dinner birthday festivities.
Our second destination, locate not too far west of Sint Maarten, was St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands, one of the five US territories in the world. The US Virgin Islands are made up of three islands: Saint John, Saint Croix, and Water Island. This former Dutch colony was acquired by the United States in 1917 as a part of a defensive strategy during World War One.
We woke up to see the beautiful hill side of the St. Tomas Harbor and the crystal clear blue and turquoise colored water. With no shore excursion plans for this port, we hopped off the boat after a rejuvenating breakfast and coffee, and headed towards to Main Street. We were stopped by a local who was chartering a bus to head over to the opposite side of the island to a semi-secluded beach, aside from a small time-share resort that backed up onto the beach. The island itself reminded me a lot of Agia Napa in Cyprus that I had visited only a few months previous. The jagged rocks, the beautiful ocean water, and my massive hangover brought me back to my German spring break.
After some snorkeling and lunch, we headed back to the port to then reenter the ship and continue forward to Nassau.
After one last day at sea, we arrived at our final destination on this seven day cruise. The next day, we would return to our port of call, Miami, and my family would bid our farewells and head to our corners of the country: Philadelphia, Tucson, and Denver. This will be my second time on the city of Nassau, yet the memories have faded, so it was nice to see the city and a bit of the country again. We didn’t want to return to the Atlantis, partially because I have already seen an exact replica in Dubai, but mainly because we did that on the last cruise that brought us here. Since we had not done any organized snorkeling excursion on the cruise, we strapped on our bathing suits, flippers, and snorkels and headed for the ocean.
There is nothing more freeing than swimming in the beautiful ocean water, diving down to get a closer look at the colorful coral, and reaching out and watching the fish scatter. Thanks to the genius of a follow cruiser on our excursion, we had plenty of fish around using mashed up dog bones as bait. He would open up the zip-lock baggies and dump the dog bones into the water, as the fish swam as fast as they could to get a bit of the food. This is definitely a tip I am going to take with me on my next beach vacation, whenever that might be. Unfortunately, my sister is not the biggest fan of fish, and the water was still a bit cold, so after about 30 minutes of water time, I got out, dried off, and enjoyed the sun as we cruised back to the mainland.
Just as all good things, our seven days on the Epic had to come to an end. Having this be my typical American vacation in about 5 years, it was interesting to see how my perspective and attitude towards travel had changed since then. I really loved cruises—granted, I still have a soft spot for them, yet my preferred method of travel, that is backpacking, hosteling, and more budget way of traveled verses the luxury, big spender, do nothing, nice hotel style that is most often seen amongst vacationing Americans. I still met plenty of interesting and fun people while on the ship and my experience finally being 21 and able to go do the adult activities definitely gave a good twist to it. Nevertheless, the ship was still filled with the types of college students and adults that I can’t stand. The ones that believe that traveling means having your entire itinerary planned out for you, and experiencing a new culture can be done from the view of a yacht or a balcony suite. These are the college students that immediately head straight for Senor Frogs and other tacky establishments, never to venture off onto the side streets with hopes of finding something a little more authentic. The same ones who believe that travel is best spend tanning all day and drinking all night, never having the curiosity to find out more about the history of the US Virgin Islands, or why Sint Maarten is split in two. These are the young people I have trouble relating to, and they often have a hard time relating to me.
I am incredibly thankful that my mom and step-dad funded this amazing trip though! I had an incredible time spent with my family, especially since I don’t get to see them as often as I would like. Although cruising is not the type of travel I would spend my money on, it still holds true to the saying: it’s not about where you are, it’s about who you are with. Being with my family was exactly what I wanted to be doing, and I think Norwegian Cruise Lines for giving us a great family holiday, full of beautiful pictures and even better memories.
In Conclusion