Anna and Gary cruised to the Caribbean, Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia on Feb 19, 2023

The entire plane burst into a round of applause as we landed in Montego Bay, Jamaica. We were all elated to be in the Caribbean sun, miles away from beastly cold New York City.

Passing through immigration took a bit longer than anticipated but as soon as we were out of the airport, we jumped into a taxi and headed towards our floating home for the next two weeks. 

We passed through Montego Bay on the way to the port and we’re happy to know that we would have more time to explore Jamaica once we returned from the cruise. 

We booked a private tour and met our driver and tour guide Juan right outside the ship. We visited the beautiful Cahuita National Park on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, looking up into the tweets to find wild monkey’s, sloths and colorful birds.

We had a beautiful lunch right there in the national park and then visited Costa Rica’s only sloth Rehabilitation Center which takes care of injured and abandoned sloths. This was definitely the highlight of the day.

Here are some of the interesting facts we learned about sloths:

🦥 they’re not lazy, just very energy efficient

🦥 their diet is low in nutrients and their fit thick, so they have to conserve energy

🦥 they have an extremely complex digestive tract, with four stomachs (like a cow). Digestion takes long and they only use the bathroom once per week to deposit 1.5 liters of urin and 💩

🦥 females have a 100% success rate of getting pregnant and carry their babies for 11 months

🦥 baby sloths need to be with their mother for one year to be able to survive in the wild

🦥 there are two different types of sloths recognizable by the number of fingers 

🦥 12 Mio years ago they were huge like dinosaurs

The sloth is Costa Rica’s national animal and it was nice to see how well they are taken care of.

On the way back to the ship we stopped by a local market and bought some Costa Rican souvenir and sweets (roasted cocoa candy - yum). 

Our ship arrived in Colon on the Caribbean / Atlantic side of Panama. We took the Panama Canal Railway which goes all the way along the Panama Canal from Colon to Panama City (about a 90 min ride). The historic rail car was beautiful - I’m talking old world charm - and very comfortable. The history of Panama and of the canal is fascinating. Seeing the thick junge and lush vegetation gave us a better understanding and appreciation for what the Canal builders had to contend with. We passed the Gatun Locks and watched in awe as multiple huge container ships made their way through the narrow waterways. Once we arrived in Panama City we boarded a tour bus to drive all the way to the Pacific coast and through Panama City itself, which has a beautiful old town and a magnificent skyline and coastal promenade. Definitely a highlight of our trip. 

Lonely Planet calls this destination the undisputed queen of the Caribbean coast, and they are absolutely right. Cartagena (or Cartagena de Indias as it is officially known) is an incredible city and definitely one of the highlights of our trip. Approaching this port from our ship was a sight to behold - the sunlight skyline of this massive metropolis appeared out of nowhere and made us wonder whether we were entering a Latin American version of Miami Beach. 

The first thing you will notice when you walk off the ship is a gorgeous green area right around the port with wild animals roaming around. This award-winning sustainable port oasis is part of a 1,000 square-metre garden, which was set up by the Colombian government to display a variety of the country's flora and fauna. The space was free for people and wild animals to come and go, and we had so much fun being greeted by all the parrots and tropical birds, iguanas, howler monkeys, flamingos and peacocks. 

We hopped on a taxi to the city center and made our way to Muelle de la Bodeguita to catch a hop on hop off bus, which took us all around Cartagena. The city's Old Town is a Unesco World Heritage Site – surrounded by city walls,  and sporting colonial architecture, a maze of cobbled alleys, colourful buildings, ornate churches and historic sites. 

While many tourists focus on the Old Town, the rest of Cartagena also boasts vibrant neighborhoods and incredible beauty. Our bus tour showed us glamorous beachfront areas, hipster areas and the glamorous districts of Castillogrande and Bocagrande

Sadly, we did not have nearly enough time to properly explore Cartagena, and we hope to return to this jewel sometime in the future. 

We left the cruise ship and looked for a taxi at the port to go to the beach. While the port area is beautiful there really isn’t much else around once you leave. We spoke to the taxi dispatcher at the port and (somewhat grudgingly) agreed to pay $75 to take one of the available taxis to Bayahibe Beach. This is one of the nicest beaches in La Romana and located about 20-25 min from the cruise terminal. Bayahibe Beach is a public beach with beach chairs for rent, water sports, restaurants and shops. We spent a beautiful beach day right there, swimming in the sea, relaxing under a palm tree and drinking fresh coconut water.

Bayahibe Beach is also the departure point for boats leaving on day trips to Isla Saona - a gorgeous island which is part of the Parque Nacional del Este. Located off the southeastern tip of the Dominican Republic, Saona offers beautiful wildlife and pristine beaches that are ideal for swimming and snorkeling.

Unfortunately, we arrived too late in the day to go to Sanoa Island but next time we go to La Romana we will definitely book a tour ahead of time. 

This was our second time in Antigua - a gorgeous island I had been excited to return to. We left the ship and took a taxi through St. John’s to Dickenson Bay Beach a long stretch of beach with beach chairs, water sports and various hotels, including the famous Sandals resort. The beach is only a 15-minute drive north of the cruise port so it’s an easy ride from the ship and there's a nearby taxi stand when you’re ready to go back.

We walked all the way to the end of the beach, had some nice caribbean food at one of the beach bars and spent a nice relaxing beach day. To be honest, while I liked Dickenson Bay, the beach and the setting was not nearly as beautiful as the beach we had been to a few years ago across the island. I can’t wait to go back to Antigua once more - after all it is an island with 365 beautiful beaches - one for every day of the year.

On the way back onboard there was a special treat for us - 3 AIDA ships were in port at the same time on that day, wach with their signature kissing mouth 👄 painted at the front of the ship next to one another. It was a sight to behold and very fun once the first ships were ready to take off. 

This was our third time in St. Kitts. We were initially tempted to go to the sister island Nevis this time but in the end opted to stray out.

We took a taxi from the port area - which btw has been growing substantially with every visit - and drove to South Friars Beach. St. Kitts dramatic scenery is impressive on every visit and it was beautiful once again to drive through its mountain tops.

The taxi dropped us at Carambola Beach Club - a beautiful private beach club with chairs / umbrellas, restaurant and bar which is a popular landing spot for cruise ship passengers on shore excursions. The area by the beach club is nice but the beach is much longer and has ample of space so it’s very easy to keep walking and find a spot if you like things to be more secluded.

While the sand in St Kitts is not the typical white powdery sand (it’s more dark yellow) and the water isn’t the typical turquoise blue Caribbean Sea, this beach is beautiful and a great snorkeling spot. The water is extremely clear and there's a coral reef right behind the shore with sea urchins. we saw lots of colorful fish swimming all around us and in one instance were surrounded by a school of thousands of tiny fish circling us.

We had a beautiful time relaxing virtually by ourselves (I always marvel at how empty it is here, especially after 2 pm when most cruise ship visitors have left).

Friars is nice beach to unwind and take it easy and I actually prefer it to Frigate Bay (which is the most popular tourist destination).

St. Maarten is normally one of our favorite islands but this time around it only gets two stars. 

We came to Orient beach by taxi as we always do, but this time, instead of the gorgeous crystal blue Caribbean sea bordered by powdery white sand we found mountains of sargassum on the beach. There was so much of this sea weed that it was pretty much impossible to swim in the sea. A sad sight caused by climate change that we had never seen here. Apparently it is a problem all over the Caribbean at the moment. 

We still made most of the day relaxing on the beach but then couldn’t find a taxi to take us back to the ship for almost an hour. We literally ran back on board, arriving at the gangway with about 30s to the all aboard time. 

It was our third time docking in the British Virgin Islands. After having visited Tortola and Virgin Gorda in the past, we were determined to hop on another boat to Jost Van Dyke, the smallest of the four main British Virgin Islands.

It was an easy and beautiful sail on a smaller boat from the port to Jost Van Dyke. From there, we hopped on a safari bus that climbed up a hill and rolled back down on the other side to drop us all at the beautiful White Bay Beach, a secluded half-mile white sandy beach on southern Jost Van Dyke.

We had a fantastic day relaxing on the beach, complete with an island barbecue and a Painkiller - the notorious coconut, pineapple and orange juice concoction drowning in dark rum and topped off with a little nutmeg. This drink was invented here at Soggy Dollar - a local beach bar.

It was the kind of beach day you wish would never end but unfortunately it did. As a special treat on our way back, we saw wild dolphins swimming in the water around us.