Southern Caribbean Cruise on the Emerald Princess--The Prologue

The posts covering this cruise were orignally written as a review on the Cruise Critic forums online. In an effort to consolidate the memories from our cruises into one place, I've transferred the narrative and photos from Cruise Critic onto this blog. Hope you enjoy!

Our crew on this cruise consisted of myself and my husband, Bob, from Minnesota, along with our friends, Kent and Laurel, from Illinois. Our friendship dates back to the mid 1970’s when Laurel and I were college roommates…and Bob and Kent were roommates. Over the 35+ years since we have stayed close (in friendship…but not geographically) and have vacationed together a few times. A cruise to the southern Caribbean was first discussed back in 2009, but due to some health issues and a huge storm that sent three huge trees crashing through Kent and Laurel’s roof, those plans were abandoned. The money they had saved for the cruise was spent on rebuilding parts of their house instead.  Kent actually carved a huge giraffe out of one of the tree stumps that was left in their yard and it is named, Aruba, in memory of the cruise that never happened. 

As it does, life got in the way and it wasn't until spring of 2013 that we once again started talking about sharing a cruise. All of our previous six cruises had been on Carnival. Kent and Laurel's only cruise was with us on the Carnival Paradise back in 2004 (when it was still a non-smoking ship.) We had visited many of the Caribbean islands on our cruises, but Dominica was one island still on our bucket list so I started looking for cruises that visited this island. 

I discovered the 10 day Emerald Princess Southern Caribbean Medley…and at about the same time also ran across Pescado Amarillo's Blog. I read…and then re-read every post and decided this itinerary was ideal. This wonderful couple had spent several winters at sea on the Emerald Princess…and she faithfully blogged about each and every day. 

Initially we chose the February 7th sailing, but ended up switching to the cheaper December 7th cruise instead. In searching for airfare, we found lower rates going two days early…enough that the savings would pretty much cover the cost of an extra night in a hotel. As the days and weeks passed, we were able to take advantage of some price drops in both the airfare on Southwest and also on the cruise fare as well. I really liked the idea of doing a Southern Caribbean cruise out of Florida. Our last cruise on the Carnival Victory left from San Juan and the airfare was a killer!