Any experience Southern Carribbean Itinerary (Martinique, Guadeloupe, Barbados)?

[kad56]

I'm thinking of booking one the cruises that go all over the southern Caribbean. The Virtuosa is sailing it this year. I'm curious if anyone has had any experience with this trip. The itineraries look absolutely amazing, but I've hear the food sucks (on you tube) and that the crowds are terrible (word of mouth). I also think MSC has a made a lot of changes in recent years, so the negative feedback I've heard may not be relevant anymore. FWIW, I'm American, I sail more for the itinerary than the ship, I don't drink (so I don't care about long lines at the bar), and I like quiet sea days and reading.

[8420PR]

I think it is one of the best cruise itineraries offered by any of the mainstream cruise lines.  Each day you are in a different paradise island.

 

To answer your questions/concerns:

- food is the standard MSC European menu - not the Americanized menu served out of the US ports.  

- MSC is flying people from all over Europe as well as selling the cruise to people living on the islands (mainly Martinique and Guadeloupe).  The overall majority will be French, with very very few Americans.  

- There will be crowds by the pool and at parties and events, but it in my experience it is always possible to find a quiet area (often with live music - e.g. the sky lounge).

- Some people hate MSC - if you've never sailed them before consider the risk you are taking and manage your expectations accordingly. 

[kad56]

1 hour ago, 8420PR said:

- There will be crowds by the pool and at parties and events, but it in my experience it is always possible to find a quiet area (often with live music - e.g. the sky lounge).

 

Meh... this doesn't seem like a huge issue to me personally. I'll be out exploring the ports.

 

Thanks for your feeback. I'm booked on my first MSC cruise going out of the US in a month, and this one is really tempting if I my first one goes well.

[Fissues]

I’m doing this cruise. Flights are tough from the states. Something to consider. 

[kad56]

42 minutes ago, Fissues said:

I’m doing this cruise. Flights are tough from the states. Something to consider. 

True. I'm looking at tickets simultaneously, and I'll only book it if I can find decent tickets. At this point the options are acceptable for the dates I'm considering. I guess my biggest worry is long delays in getting off the ship at port (I heard on another cruise that it took ~2hrs to disembark at a port stop for other cruisers). I really am interested in the trip for the itinerary, so slow really slow disembarkaction would really affect the trip.

[no1talks]

2 hours ago, Fissues said:

Flights are tough from the states.

Egad, you can say that again!

I've been wanting to book this for more than a year. We generally allow a day before and after a cruise for unforeseen circumstances. However, the flight schedules don't synch well with the cruise schedules in this case. The extra time needed for flights from/to the US are essentially a deal-breaker for us at this time.

So, next year, we will be seeing some of those islands during a Cunard cruise instead.

[8420PR]

10 hours ago, Fissues said:

I’m doing this cruise. Flights are tough from the states. Something to consider. 

Flights for these cruises are a challenge from everywhere.  I have been very surprised that MSC has deployed larger ships on this cruise (with another bump in size with MSC Virtuosa this winter), as they are constrained by flight capacity.  MSC arrange charter flights from Brazil, Italy, Germany, France and UK to Martinique and Barbados, but it is a lot of flights needed to fill up MSC Virtuosa.....

 

My experience is there are sometimes last minute bargains available, as the charter flights are full but cabins still remaining, so MSC offer big discounts.  If you can arrange flights you can get quite a bargain.  

[dexddd]

Looks like that trip would make me dizzy with all the circles.

 

Briefly looked at those trips but getting to Barbados from US not easy.

 

Found food, except last trip, even in YC which was not good, to be good.

[Fissues]

American has flights to Guadeloupe every Saturday from Miami. 

Edited May 28 by Fissues

[KINGBOBOFTHENORTH]

I did the 7-nt version of this cruise on MSC Preziosa back in 2019. At the time Norwegian Airlines flew from Fort Lauderdale to Fort-de-France for a really decent price but they no longer fly the route. For the return, their flight back to FLL departed too early to make it after disembarking off the ship. Thus, we were stuck flying American Airlines and a much higher price. There just isn't much demand from Americans to go to the French islands.

 

If you can digest American Airlines' prices, the ship's itinerary is amazing. Besides Martinique & Guadeloupe, you get Grenada and St. Vincent, places few cruise ships go to. Ours also went to Trinidad that year but it doesn't look like they go there any longer. Very few Americans on the ship; just about all Europeans. When we landed at FDF, Air France & XL Airways from Paris landed behind us along with Condor from Frankfurt. The shipboard currency is the €.

[Fissues]

Norwegian Air was 175 each way from PTP to JFK. 

Miss those days. 

[reedprincess]

It's a fab cruise. Yes, very diverse demographic.

Yes, a lot of us Caribbean people aboard - particularly as we don't need US visas to sail this itinerary! Woo hoo!  

Majority is from Europe, given no US visas needed either.  

It's loads of fun.  Our friends have done it 4 or 5 times, we've done it 3 times, for another booked this winter.. 

 

Of course, we ferry from St Lucia. Super easy...

But flights are getting better, although I doubt we'll ever see $175 pricing from US again... There are some solid options..

 

Fly into St Lucia and take the ferry to Martinique. (Express des Isles). Not an inexpensive option though. 

 

Several non-stop weekly MIA-FDF. (Martinique) (This is what some of my fam is doing. Flying into FDF Thursday for a Saturday sailing, flying out Sunday).

 

Multiple nonstops daily MIA-BGI (Barbados).

 

Haven't bothered checking Delta or JetBlue as AA is the airline of choice for us.  

 

It's not as cheap as precovid, but the itinerary really is fab.   

 

[kad56]

@reedprincess Thank you! You're the cruiser I've been looking for!!! How are the crowds on the ship? Are there delays with embarcation and debarcation at ports like I heard? Are any of the ports particularly challenging? I've docked in Antigua, Fort-De-France, and St. Lucia on other cruises, and I think Fort-De-France is the easiest to navigate, and Antigua and St. Lucia aren't bad, though I prefer walkable place like FDF.

 

I would use points to get there, so the flights are less of a concern. I'd really love to hear about the onboard experience and the ports.

[reedprincess]

6 hours ago, kad56 said:

@reedprincess Thank you! You're the cruiser I've been looking for!!! How are the crowds on the ship? Are there delays with embarcation and debarcation at ports like I heard? Are any of the ports particularly challenging? I've docked in Antigua, Fort-De-France, and St. Lucia on other cruises, and I think Fort-De-France is the easiest to navigate, and Antigua and St. Lucia aren't bad, though I prefer walkable place like FDF.

 

I would use points to get there, so the flights are less of a concern. I'd really love to hear about the onboard experience and the ports.

I'm trying to remember which ships were there for our sailings - Poesia and Seashore?  I think. Smaller than upcoming Virtuousa anyways (all precovid for myself, my friends have sailed from FDF since then)

But to be honest, never noticed any delays or struggles with embarking or disembarking... Always seemed same as any other ship.  I can't imagine why it would be any different - unless there was some particular delay unique to said port at said time.. 

Embarking in FDF was easy and early - which is why I was taken aback by my "assigned" time of 20:15 for our next cruise, and actually asked about it, lol..😳. That seemed so out of the norm from past experiences..

We're looking forward to it, going with sister and brother in law for their first cruise - should be lots of fun!  

Assuming you're familiar with MSc to begin with, you should be all set.  We enjoy the nightlife, we'll be off ship in virtually every port, assigned dining doesn't bother us, etc.  And we thoroughly enjoy the much more diverse demographic than mainstream US lines. (And fortunately, our Kweyol is well understood by our French neighbors!).

 

Enjoy!