How to see the sights on a Caribbean cruise with Windstar
Secrets of a successful shore excursion away from the crowds.
When I tell my husband, James, I want to take a Caribbean cruise for Christmas, he looks at me like I’ve suggested we name our firstborn child Pineapple. Taking a cruise, he says, is akin to being trapped in a sterile megaresort. “Can’t we just go to St Barts for the week?” he says hopefully. Er, no, we can’t. Seven days there in the festive season would cost about $US35,000 ($51,000), not including flights or food, which far exceeds our holiday budget. But I’ve discovered an all-suite yacht, Windstar Cruises’ Star Pride, which accommodates just 212 passengers and is heading to St Barts and other Caribbean islands that larger ships don’t get to.
On the seven-island agenda is Montserrat, the volcanic British territory of black-sand beaches, and Virgin Gorda, where granite boulders loom over turquoise tidal pools at the Baths, a national park with a $US3 entrance fee. The cruise will set us back just over $US4000 for seven nights, including all food, from sit-down restaurants to 24-hour room service. James acquiesces, with one stipulation. In lieu of buying into the canned shore excursions, we will seek out our own adventures on each island.
We’re an adventurous couple, to a point. We’ve driven Iceland’s back roads in a winter “snurricane” and watched lions mating just metres from our rental car in South Africa. So the cruise’s tight itinerary gives us FOMO, fear of missing out. How can we truly experience the isle at each port in 15 hours or less?
The trick, we learn, is haste. Like any smart rodent stowaway, we scurry from the dock as soon as we strike land. Others dawdle even less. We meet a 50-something couple who have run about 70 marathons each and who literally sprint from sight to sight as soon as they hit each dock.
At our first port of call, St Thomas, we have just 14 hours before the ship sails on. The minute we disembark, we zip past the homogenised duty-free shops and schlocky rum bars that line the port and hop in a cab to Red Hook’s harbour, on the island’s east coast, for a 20-minute ferry to St John. About 60 per cent of St John is Virgin Islands National Park, and we hike there from the dock, manoeuvring around hermit crabs and flitting butterflies until we see frothing surf between jungle trees. Salomon Beach is a screen saver sprung to life and, for a moment, we are the only ones on it. We ditch our backpacks on the sand to dive in. At that point, we slacken our pace, ambling on to adjacent Honeymoon Beach, where I order a freshly whirred pina colada at a seaside shack and sink happily on to the sand.
One of the next islands where we drop anchor, Montserrat, rises vivid green and seemingly untouched from the sea like Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park. The population is just 4649, due in part to the Soufriere Hills volcano, which began erupting in 1995 and has made most of the terrain uninhabitable. Windstar is one of the few cruise lines to stop by with any regularity, and the island is devoid of tourist bric-a-brac relative to St Thomas. We decide to hike the hour-long trek to Rendezvous Beach, Montserrat’s only sliver of white sand. There are no signs, but after getting lost briefly in a maze of industrial yards, we finally find our trail, dotted with hardened lava.
When we crest the top of a grassy hill, the sea unfurled below, I can feel the O’Shea half of my blood running hot. (The Irish were indentured servants on this island in the 17th century; even today, the St Patrick’s Day festival lasts 10 days). We descend through thick jungle, ducking tillandsia air plants the size of my head, and suddenly hear waves. Before us is nothing but the ocean lapping against tawny sand. Aside from a local couple splayed out like starfish in the far distance, we are the sole visitors.
Life back aboard the Star Pride feels equally uncongested. Our 26sq m cabin, lined in blond-bleached oak with a marble-walled bathroom, has a living room bathed in natural light and sleeping quarters with queen bed and crisp linens. When we are exhausted from our boisterous daily exploits, we can hole up, watch a DVD and order room service. (Later this year, Star Pride will go to Sicily for a four-month renovation, returning with 50 additional cabins and a larger pool.)
The morning we awake at much ballyhooed St Barts, we find an altogether different sort of playland; one where Lionel Richie’s yacht reportedly roosts in the harbour, and a Hermes boutique sits across the dock in the 18th-century port of Gustavia. We pay about $US60 to rent a Peugeot scooter to zip around the 2.5ha island, which has hills like a de facto rollercoaster. Our first stop is the beach on Baie de St Jean, where the hotel Eden Rock-St Barths sits. We lie on pristine sand watching boys backflip off Eden Rock’s floating dock, with only the occasional private plane overhead to disturb the silence.
We skip pricey lunches in seaside restaurants and instead buy Gruyere cheese and baguettes at the grocer in Gustavia, and beeline to Gouverneur Beach. Later that night, we spring for our only Windstar-planned excursion — a sunset catamaran sailing around the yachts. On the open water, in the fading twilight, James has the satisfied air of a cowboy who’s learned how to break a bronco and walk off unscathed.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
IN THE KNOW
Windstar Cruises has multiple seven-night Caribbean itineraries from $US1599 ($2300) a person, twin-share. The San Juan and Virgin Islands return voyage departs San Juan in Puerto Rico and visits St Thomas, Gustavia, Virgin Gorda, St Maarten, St Barts and Monserrat; from $US1799 a person, twin-share, including all meals, 24-hour room service, all non-alcoholic beverages and the use of kayaks.
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