I just returned from an awesome spring break cruise to the Caribbean with a group 16 MIT people. Below is a journal of what we did every day…
Day 1 (Traveling): We flew from New York to Ft. Lauderdale to San Juan via American Airlines, which I have decided is the worst airline of all time. Our flight was delayed 5 hours in Ft. Luaderdale because they had to get a new part for the plane from Miami. Eventually Praveen, Lauren and I made it to San Juan, but we got in so late that all we wanted to do was go to sleep at the hotel.
Day 2 (San Juan): We spent most of this day exploring San Juan. Delta made a mistake and game Mike and Schecter a free room at a 5 star hotel so we rolled over there and stored our entire groups bags for the day. We went to lunch at the Parrott club and then flew kites at a giant park for a couple of hours. A lot of people got sun burned because no one expected to be out as long as we were, but it was still a lot of fun. Around 5 we walked over to the port and got on the cruise ship, but not before we took full advantage of a duty free store which had the best prices on alcohol I have ever seen! I think we got all got a little too excited though because everyone bought way too much.
Day 3 (St. Thomas): This was the first day we went to an island on the cruise. The boat stopped at St. Thomas and we spend the day at coki beach. At this point we were still learning how to haggle with cab drivers so it was the most expensive cab ride of the trip ($16 round trip). The cab ride was also the most fun part of the day because it was more of a roller coaster than a car. I think we averaged about 4omph on a road where the speed limit was 10. Asiri decided that he should just run to the beach instead so showed up about an hour after we got there. Part of the group went to St. Johns island instead of Coki beach and the said it was their favorite island on the whole trip. If I went on the cruise again I would definitely try to go to St. Johns instead.
Day4 (Dominica): This island was very green because of a rain forest that covered most of the island. We took a $15 cab to trafalgar falls (http://www.visit-dominica.com/querydetail.cfm?Id=95) which was a beautiful waterfall up on the island. The ride was a bit long to get there, but it was well worth the trip. Climbing the rocks was my favorite acviity of the entire trip. The air was cool and the water was really clear. We spent half the day at the falls and the other at a black sand beach. A few people played cricket with the locals on the beach while the rest of us chilled.
Day 5 (Barbados): We spent all day at the Malibu rum factory beach. It cost us $10 for 2 drinks and a tour of the facility. The tour was pretty standard and uninteresting, but the beach was probably the nicest one we visted the entire time. The sand was soft, the ocean was clean, and there were not too many people (We even got hard hats for the tour).
Day 6 (Antigua): The beach we went to was directly behind the Sandals resort so there were a ton of people at the beach. The adventure for the day was taking a bannana boat out while being pulled by a power boat. The banna boat flipped 3 times while the 10 of us were on it, but somehow I was the only person not to fall off. Other than the banana boat there wasn’t too much that stood out about Antigua…pretty much a typical beach day.
Day 7 (St. Kitts): If I had to pick an island to live on, it would be St. Kitts. We went to a really isolated beach with only about 5 other people. There was a shack that served food and drinks which we ate at for a while. We also rented snorkels for the group. The beach wasnt very good for playing in because of the coral reef, but there was a ton of fish less than 10 yards from shore. A few people went looking for a shipwreck that was known for the snorkeling, but I didn’t go because it was pretty far away.
Day 8 (St. Maarten): This was the last island stop on the trip and it was well worth the wait. It had by far the most shopping of any island that we visited. We took a water taxi to the beach (which happened to be from an actual company so we didn’t have to haggle over the daily price) and we mostly sat on the board walk at a bar. A highlight form this day was seeing a guy that looked EXACTLY like Praveen. We only spent a half hour on the sand, which was nice because by this point people were pretty tired of th sun and needed a break from being outside all day long.
