southern Caribbean destinations

A vignette....about a thousand years ago in another life I was buddies with an old Scot in NYC who grew up on Barbados but worked in NY as our building Super.....a Brit Army serious vet who taught me how to shoot big bore..the hard way.....if you could see it you should be able to hit it..not something your average city kid could do...(little did I know how valuable his lessons would be)...he eventually made it back and retired there and kept inviting me down after div from ex #1...I usually stayed with him..I think I made about 6-7 trips on airlines that no longer exist..some of you might remember which...he used to brag he owned a piece that was as far east as you could get...next stop Dakar..once we went to a party with some friends of his out at Sam Lords Castle...thats how far back this goes...it was eventually abandoned and burned, but it was a hellacious place to stay if you were visiting Barbados. If I ever get to live this life over, ....my forwarding address would be on that spectacular island, not just to visit, either....whats the point? well...visiting these "islands" as a cruiser for a few hours is a waste of time/energy...to truly experience them, you need to stay awhile.......otherwise, if someone didn't tell you where you were, you wouldn't know the difference...which also explains why we rarely get off the ship anymore...aaaah memries!!!

That seemed to be a common theme in the reviews I've read so far.

The Southern Caribbean is our favorite. But it’s been a bit of time since we’ve been. We have it booked for October and are looking forward to it. We enjoy the “Dutch” islands because it “feels” like they not only want your money (like many of the islands) but they want you as well.

Actually I have been looking at those. I started looking at the reviews on here for Aruba,but there are thousands. Many are quite dated and others are undated. I'm sure I would enjoy any of those, I was just hoping for some current feedback from some of the regulars here.

How far south did you want to go? i just got back from Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao. Aruba is 20 miles off the coast of Venezuela...can't get much more south than that!

Depends on where you differentiate between east and south. Some group Barbados, St Lucia, Grenadine into the south. Generally I view anything north of Barbados as east. We did all 3 of the ABC a few years ago and loved all of them. Each had their own unique charm and quality. Some of the other southern ports are available but not very widely. I have wanted to do Grenada, Trinidad, Tobago but those are not common and some of those have safety issues. Hope you find a good one.

Thanks for your reply. My purpose for asking here was twofold. First, there are some regular posters here whose opinions have some value to me. Second, I didn't want to wade through a bunch of one time cruiser's reviews that were either glowing because it was their only experience and they fell in love with cruising or they were the opposite entitled type person that couldn't be pleased by anyone.

But hey, if I don't get any feedback, it's no biggie.

From your last line, one might think you prefer the sea days and have lost interest in the ports of call anyway.

Whatever, smooth seas and favorable winds to you. Keep calm and cruise on!

IMHO - go to one of two locations. Either the top of this page, second column REVIEWS, or go to our Shipmate.com app and read the various posted reviews for the various ports. There are tons of reviews already posted on these two sites.

Even though the folks here are good looking and knowledgeable, our input is limited. For each reply here, there could be 500+ reviews already posted on the two resources I mentioned. All information/knowledge is posted, you just have to spend a little time researching. Best wishes.

P.S. I like the Southern Caribbean cruises due to the extra sea days.