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Young couple going to the caribbean


aaingc

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My wife and I are in our upper 20s without children and looking for a fun 5-7 day cruice in teh Caribbean. Need help with ports to see and not to see? Was told that needed to go with Celebrity as 1st pick or Priness as 2nd? Any ideas would be helpful.

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Welcome to Cruise Critic.

 

I don't believe Princess or Celebrity offer cruises shorter than 7 days on the Caribbean, and Princess has a limited Caribbean schedule. Both of them are less of a party ship than some other lines like Carnival, NCL & RCCL.

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celebrity and princess are good from what ive heard. royal caribbean carnival and some others cater to the younger bunch. wife and i are sailing rc and we are in our 30's... it will be our first cruise

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Recommend a 7-day. By day 2 or 3 you will be having so much fun you will not want to go home anytime soon and 7 days will fly by! If this is your first cruise, you will have a wonderful time no matter which of the lines mentioned you select.

 

I have been on RCCL, Carnival, Princess and NCL. Will be trying HAL in November. Some cruises I enjoyed more than others, but I have never been on a bad cruise. NCL is my least favorite because I am not a fan of freestyle dining...I just feel more pampered with the traditional dining where my waiter can anticipate my needs an provide what I want even before I ask (but others prefer the freestyle). That said, if I found a great deal on an NCL cruise tomorrow, I wouldn't hesitate to book it.

 

My personal experience has been to anticipate a little higher level of service on Princess and RCCL (I think you would find that on Celebrity as well) with perhaps a little more of a party environment on Carnival.

 

Rather than focusing on the line, I would look first at which embarkation port works best for you and a lot of that depends on where you live. If you live near Florida, Mobile, New Orleans or Galveston, that could influence your decision. If you live in the Northeast, you mind find a ship departing from NY or other eastern seaboard ports. If you live in Seattle, you will have a long flight no matter which embarkation port you choose and it won't matter. If there is a port that works better than other for you, then look at who sails from there and where do they go. Pick the one that fits you best.

 

Most Caribbean cruises have a variety of ports. For example, you might stop at a private beach (usually my favorite port), a port that has a big shopping influence (like St. Thomas) and a port or two where you might focus more on zip lines, jeep excursions, historical ruins, etc. Key West has nice art galleries to wander through, some great history and fun bars to relax in during the evening. It depends on your personal interests which ports you will enjoy most. Some people love Jamaica but it is probably my least favorite port because the locals push their wares nonstop. I prefer beautiful beaches, warm, clear water and a pina colada under a palm tree (Grand Turk). Think about want the two of you will enjoy most and let us know. You will get better recommendations.

 

You will both have a wonderful time and these boards are a great source of information! Happy shopping!

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We live in NC so will be leaving from Florida. I like the 7 night cruise. I've done a 3 night Bahamas and 7 night Alaska and would highly recommend Alaska.

We are looking for the nice white sand, blue water beaches. I like to be able to stop at more ports so the Western has more stops but I don't really know if they would be the best for the beaches?

I've had some friends that have bad luck on Carnival lately so don't really care to go with them.

So looking for 7 night/day with beachy stops.

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Celebrity has 4/5 day sailing from Miami on Century. But any ship will do for your first experience. They will all seem huge, no matter how small they are. Go for itinerary and price. Get the most bang for your buck. EM

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We live in NC so will be leaving from Florida. I like the 7 night cruise. I've done a 3 night Bahamas and 7 night Alaska and would highly recommend Alaska.

We are looking for the nice white sand, blue water beaches. I like to be able to stop at more ports so the Western has more stops but I don't really know if they would be the best for the beaches?

I've had some friends that have bad luck on Carnival lately so don't really care to go with them.

So looking for 7 night/day with beachy stops.

 

My soon to be wife and I are both 30 and we decided to do the Carnival Legend out of Tampa. I know you said you didn't want to go with them but for what you want to do they might be good. We are on a 7 night Western Caribbean itinerary. The ports are Grand Cayman (stingrays and turtle farm for us), Cozumel (private beach Nachi Cochum), Belize (cave tubing and zip lining), Roatan (private Victor Bodden Tour). The private beach in Cozumel might be up your alley seeing they only let 100 people per day there and it is all you can drink and a meal is included. Also the beaches in Roatan are fabulous too.

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I'm in my mid 20's, and I've done Eastern Caribbean (St. Thomas, St. Martin, then the private island) on Princess' Caribbean Princess and Royal Caribbean's Mariner of the Seas. I don't think those particular ships are on that same route anymore, but they've replaced them with other ones. Like was previously mentioned, Princess has limited sailings in the Caribbean, as they don't sail there during the summer months. I went during March for Spring Break. It definitely wasnt a party ship like Carnival, but I still have a great time and wouldnt hesitate to go again. I went on Royal Caribbean during 2 summers ago, and had a great time, but I liked Princess better. As far as the islands go, like others have said, St. Thomas has a lot of shopping, but they also have great snorkeling and beaches. St. Martin is basicly split down the middle because its controlled by 2 countries. Both sides have nice beaches and shopping. If your into aviation at all, St. Martin has Maho Beach which is directly at the end of the runway at Princess Julianna International Airport. It's one of the best places in the world to spot low flying aircraft. Go during the afternoon, and 747's will fly just a few feet over your head as they are landing.

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My husband and I are in the same boat (no pun intended) as you...married, upper 20's, no kids, sailing for the first time. We ended up booking a 10 night southern caribbean cruise on Princess. We went with Princess because I got several glowing recommendations from friends and family about them and we wanted to be on a ship that didn't have as much of a party atmosphere as Carnival or RCL (from what I've heard). Plus Princess has the choice of traditional or anytime dining...we booked traditional, but i was told that if we don't like it we can switch to anytime once on board (a big plus in our book).

 

To pick our itinerary we sat down and made a list of the the things that were important to us...we found that nature and culture/history were at the top of the list, from there we started looking at ports that were going to offer a good mix of both. Additionally, we wanted to make sure we had at least 2-3 days at sea to really enjoy the ship. We also made a list of the types of excursions that we wanted to do (sailboat/snorkel tour, Jeep rental, river tubing, island tour, etc) and looked at what ports offered the types of excursions we were interested in. We ended up going with the 10 night because in addition to the more frequently visited ports (st. thomas, aruba), there were some ports that we we didn't see on many other itineraries (bonaire, grenada) and that really appealed to us. I also spent a lot of time browsing the "Port of Call" boards...they are a wealth of information! I'm not assuming that your tastes are the same as ours...but I think that the way we went about picking our cruise really helped us to tailor our selection and narrow down our choices from the hundreds that are out there. We cruise in January, so I can't give you any port-specific reviews...but hopefully this helps a little. :)

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