Best Caribbean cruises:
three routes, one horizon.

Port highlights

• El Morro and the San Juan National Historic Site, centuries of Spanish fortifications and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• Old San Juan's blue cobblestones, squares, and candy-colored houses on a walkable headland beside the cruise piers.
• A short hop inland to El Yunque National Forest, the only tropical rainforest in the U.S. National Forest System.

Interesting facts

• San Juan was founded in 1521 and is the oldest city in the United States and its territories.
• La Fortaleza in Old San Juan is the oldest executive residence in continuous use in the Americas.
• The islet of Old San Juan was once ringed by city walls, and long sections, including the old city gate, survive today.

Something not everyone knows

The famous blue cobblestones of Old San Juan are ballast stones cast in Spain and carried across the Atlantic in ships; when rain wets them they take on their signature blue sheen.

Port highlights

• The cable car to Paradise Point for the postcard view over the harbor and the lines of visiting ships.
• Magens Bay, a wide arc of white sand framed by green hills and calm, shallow water.
• The old Danish-era streets climbing above the harbor, plus duty-free shopping along Main Street.

Interesting facts

• The United States bought the Danish West Indies, including St. Thomas, from Denmark in 1917 in a $25 million gold transaction.
• St. Thomas is among the most visited cruise ports in the Caribbean, welcoming well over a million passengers a year.
• Charlotte Amalie is named for the wife of King Christian V of Denmark.

Something not everyone knows

No one agrees on how many steps make up the famous 99 Steps: the sign says 99, but counts range from 99 to 103 depending on where you start and who is counting.

Port highlights

• Atlantis Paradise Island, with its water slides, marine exhibits, and casino, a world of its own across the bridge.
• The Queen’s Staircase and Fort Fincastle, carved from a solid limestone hillside in the 1790s and just minutes from downtown.
• The Straw Market and Bay Street shopping, plus Junkanoo Beach a short walk from the piers.

Interesting facts

• The Queen’s Staircase was cut by hand from solid limestone between 1793 and 1794 by roughly 600 enslaved workers, and was later named for Queen Victoria.
• The Bahamas became an independent Commonwealth nation in 1973, after more than 250 years as a British colony.
• Nassau is one of the Caribbean’s busiest cruise ports, often hosting several ships and thousands of visitors in a single day.

Something not everyone knows

The glamorous island across the harbor was called Hog Island until 1962; a developer bought it and renamed it Paradise Island, then set about making the name true.

Port highlights

• Palancar Reef and the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, the world’s second-largest reef system, with some of the clearest water in the Caribbean.
• San Gervasio, Cozumel’s largest Maya ruin site, set deep in the island’s jungle interior.
• Beach clubs and snorkeling at Chankanaab and Playa Mia, plus San Miguel’s lively restaurants and bars.

Interesting facts

• Cozumel was a Maya pilgrimage destination: San Gervasio was dedicated to Ixchel, the goddess of fertility and the moon.
• Palancar is part of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, which runs more than 600 miles along the coasts of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras.
• The island's name comes from the Maya word Cuzamil, which means place of the swallows.

Something not everyone knows

Palancar made the drift dive famous: gentle currents carry divers along the reef face, so the expert move is to ride the current, not fight it.

Port highlights

• Stingray City, a shallow sandbar in the North Sound where southern stingrays glide among visitors in waist-deep water.
• Seven Mile Beach, a long ribbon of soft white sand and calm turquoise water lined with low-key resorts.
• Snorkeling on the coral walls, the Cayman Turtle Centre, and George Town’s spotless streets and duty-free boutiques.

Interesting facts

• The Cayman Islands are a British Overseas Territory with one of the highest standards of living in the Caribbean.
• George Town is one of the world’s largest offshore financial centers, a key reason the island is so prosperous.
• The Cayman dollar is fixed at US$1.25 to CI$1, and most shops happily take U.S. dollars.

Something not everyone knows

Stingray City began by accident: fishermen cleaned their catch in the shallows for decades, and generations of stingrays learned to gather there, so the wild encounter today follows a habit nearly a century old.

Port highlights

• Eagle and Palm beaches, wide ribbons of white sand kept cool by the island’s ceaseless trade winds.
• Arikok National Park’s desert landscape: bent divi-divi trees, cacti, and the wild natural pool of Conchi.
• Dinner at The Flying Fishbone in Savaneta, where tables stand in shallow water right on the sand.

Interesting facts

• Aruba sits south of the hurricane belt, one reason its weather stays dry and stable through much of the year.
• As a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Aruba’s official languages include Dutch, Papiamento, and English.
• The island's trademark divi-divi trees grow permanently bent by the trade winds, all leaning southwest.

Something not everyone knows

The Flying Fishbone sits in Savaneta, Aruba’s original capital, a modest fishing village that predates Oranjestad by more than a century.

Port highlights

• The Handelskade waterfront and its rainbow of 17th-century Dutch facades, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• Queen Emma Bridge, a floating pedestrian pontoon that swings open like a gate to let ships pass.
• The Curaçao liqueur distillery at Landhuis Chobolobo, where the island’s famous blue liqueur is made.

Interesting facts

• Willemstad's historic inner city and harbor were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.
• Queen Emma Bridge was built in 1888 and remains a free pedestrian crossing, swinging open for boat traffic about thirty times a day.
• Curaçao liqueur gets its flavor from the dried peels of the laraha, a bitter native citrus descended from Valencia oranges.

Something not everyone knows

Blue is only part of the story: Curaçao liqueur is made in orange, green, red, and clear too, but the blue version rode the 20th-century cocktail boom and became the one the world remembers.

Port highlights

• World-class shore diving: dozens of marked sites you can wade into from the roadside, with the reef minutes from the beach.
• The flamingo colony at Pekelmeer, one of only four Caribbean flamingo breeding grounds on Earth.
• Washington Slagbaai National Park, a windswept northern wilderness of salt ponds, cacti, and secluded coves.

Interesting facts

• The Bonaire National Marine Park protects the island’s entire coastline, from the high-water mark to a depth of 60 meters.
• Bonaire is the B in the ABC islands and, since 2010, a special municipality of the Netherlands.
• Pekelmeer, Dutch for salt lake, sits beside the solar saltworks that have shaped the island’s southern coast for well over a century.

Something not everyone knows

The flamingos' pink comes from the brine shrimp and algae they filter from the salt flats, and locals say the Pekelmeer colony's rich diet makes it one of the most vividly colored in the Caribbean.

Port highlights

• Historic Bridgetown and its Garrison, the island’s UNESCO World Heritage site, with the 17th-century synagogue and colonial buildings around the Careenage.
• Carlisle Bay’s wreck dives and calm waters, minutes from the port by boat.
• The Mount Gay welcome center, where the world’s oldest commercial rum distillery shares its craft.

Interesting facts

• Historic Bridgetown and its Garrison were inscribed by UNESCO in 2011.
• Mount Gay, established in 1703, is the world’s oldest commercial rum distillery still in operation.
• Barbados became a parliamentary republic in 2021 while remaining a member of the Commonwealth.

Something not everyone knows

The Careenage, Bridgetown's narrow inner harbor, takes its name from the old practice of careening: tall ships were tipped onto their sides there so crews could scrape barnacles from their hulls.

Port highlights

• The Pitons, Gros Piton and Petit Piton, two volcanic spires rising more than 2,400 feet straight from the sea, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• The Sulphur Springs at Soufrière, the attraction famously called the world’s only drive-in volcano, with bubbling mud pools.
• Castries Market, a vibrant covered market of spices, fruit, and local crafts near the waterfront.

Interesting facts

• The Pitons were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004 and are the most photographed sight in St. Lucia.
• St. Lucia changed hands between France and Britain fourteen times before settling as a British colony.
• Soufrière, on the island’s west coast, is built around the crater of a dormant volcano.

Something not everyone knows

Castries rarely makes the postcards, and that is fine by locals: after a catastrophic 1948 fire leveled much of the old town, the capital rebuilt itself as a proudly working city while the beaches kept the beauty role.

Port highlights

• Nelson’s Dockyard at English Harbour, the world’s only surviving Georgian-era dockyard still in use, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• Shirley Heights lookout, where a Sunday steel-drum party overlooks the twin harbors of English and Falmouth.
• St. John's Cathedral, with its twin towers and wrought-iron details, plus the duty-free shops of Heritage Quay by the pier.

Interesting facts

• Antigua famously claims 365 beaches, one for every day of the year.
• Nelson’s Dockyard was inscribed by UNESCO in 2016, recognizing the Georgian naval base where Horatio Nelson once served.
• St. John's is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the Caribbean, founded in the 17th century.

Something not everyone knows

Sugar built Antigua: at the industry’s 18th-century peak more than 150 windmills dotted the hills, and their stone ruins are now among the island’s most photographed landmarks.

Port highlights

• Brimstone Hill Fortress, a towering stone citadel nicknamed the Gibraltar of the West Indies and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• The scenic narrow-gauge railway that circles the island, advertised as the last railway in the Caribbean.
• Basseterre’s Circus, a small traffic circle modeled on London’s Piccadilly Circus and crowned by the Berkeley Memorial clock.

Interesting facts

• Brimstone Hill Fortress was inscribed by UNESCO in 1999.
• The scenic railway runs on tracks laid between 1912 and 1926 to carry sugarcane, long after other Caribbean islands tore up their cane lines.
• Basseterre is one of the oldest towns in the Eastern Caribbean, settled by the French in 1627.

Something not everyone knows

St. Kitts and Nevis form the smallest country in the Americas by both area and population, a two-island federation that often disappears from maps entirely.

Port highlights

• Grand Anse Beach, a two-mile sweep of soft white sand minutes from town.
• The spice gardens of the interior, where nutmegs dry on racks and tastings are the norm.
• A snorkel or dive of the Molinere Underwater Sculpture Park, the world’s first, where figures rise from the sand beneath shallow waves.

Interesting facts

• Grenada is among the world’s leading producers of nutmeg, the source of its title as the Spice Isle.
• The Molinere sculpture park was created in 2006 by sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor and is widely recognized as the first underwater sculpture park anywhere.
• The Carenage at St. George’s is a natural harbor formed from the crater of a dormant volcano.

Something not everyone knows

When Hurricane Ivan tore through in 2004 it destroyed an estimated 90 percent of the island’s nutmeg trees, but Grenadians replanted, and the industry has been climbing back ever since.

Port highlights

• The walled Old Town and its fortifications, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1984.
• Castillo San Felipe de Barajas, the vast fortress that protected the city for centuries, with tunnels you can walk today.
• The Getsemaní neighborhood’s street art and late-night plazas, where Cartagena’s modern rhythm lives.

Interesting facts

• Pedro de Heredia founded Cartagena in 1533, and within a century it had become one of the most important ports of the Spanish Empire.
• San Felipe de Barajas is one of the largest fortresses ever built by the Spanish in their colonies, its labyrinth of tunnels still open to visitors.
• As a Colombian port, Cartagena gives the Southern arc of the Caribbean a distinct South American flavor.

Something not everyone knows

Cartagena earned the nickname La Heroica by repelling one of the largest invasion fleets of the colonial era, Admiral Edward Vernon's 1741 British attack, which the city's walls and defenders turned back.