February is a grim month, so it was a logical idea to spend a fortnight on a cruise ship, using the long days to develop a new novel. Much to my surprise I’d enjoyed my first solo cruise so gave it another go. Marella Cruises were familiar and economic, and I carefully chose the dates to be away from school holidays. It’s not kids having fun I mind so much as the parents’ compulsion to constantly shout, chide and even swear at their offspring.
Our ship was the Marella Discovery, slightly smaller than the Voyager I travelled on last year and in consequence had a little less space. Curiously we had the same ‘Captain Derek’ in charge, an amiable but clearly tough Scotsman. Marella look after their solo travellers as we’re outnumbered about 90:1 by people in couples or groups and its pleasant to have dining companions and people to meet up with in the bar afterwards. There were about 20 of us, overwhelmingly female and mostly widowed. Last year’s solos were particularly lively but this year we didn’t form consistent groups. The nightly shows were high quality as usual, including an Elvis tribute act and Brian Connolly Junior revisiting his dad’s 70’s glam rock band the Sweet.
As my cabin last year had a porthole I glanced out of maybe once a day I went for an inside cabin to save a little money. Thinking it didn’t matter I didn’t bother paying to a select a cabin. This was a mistake as I ended up far forward, right next to the hum of the telephone room and directly below the stage of main lounge, meaning sleep before midnight or retreating for a quiet read wasn’t an option. A sad feature of cruising is that solo cabins are released late and they usually don’t allow us to have balconies. We also pay a large single supplement, although I’m used to paying £300-700 extra when travelling solo with companies like Explore.
Friends of mine successfully use the extended down time of cruises to get a lot of writing, editing and reading in. I managed to push a new archaeological mystery to 20,000 words on the trip but it was a struggle to find quiet places to work on the Discovery. The Voyager had more spaces away from music and deck entertainment and this year my favourite writing slot – the port lifeboat deck – seemed in constant use for maintenance and crew drills.
It could be climate change, it could be timing or it could be canny marketing building false expectations, but it does rain a lot in the Caribbean in February. We saw some very wet squalls last year, but this year seemed worse. It rained all three days we visited Puerto Rico, which had the added hassle of being American so requiring the usual tedious US immigration procedures. The payback was that we could then go on to St Croix and Charlotte Amelie in the Virgin Islands without going through this again.
The Dutch islands at first looked uninviting with their oil terminals and flat landscapes. But in Curacao we were able to snorkel off the beach to mingle with turtles. The town itself is a crazy Amsterdam pastiche dropped straight into the tropics and is a lot of fun. On Aruba I did something uncharacteristic and booked to visit de palm Island resort. which turned out to be lots of fun – safe snorkelling, flumes, flamingos wandering around and not crowded.
Rainforest trips always appeal, but it was (duh) raining in Puerto Rico. Every island has its colonial forts though, including the impressive Murillo in San Juan and the creepily ex-Danish Fort Frederick on St Croix. I found I’m not good at snorkelling from boats but did see a reef shark and had a close-up encounter with a Barracuda off Buck Island. One of the pleasant surprises was that Marella had added the option to go ashore on Isla Catalina off the Dominican Republic. I had planned a mainland excursion but our solo rep suggested that the island stop was a better choice. It was fun, laid-back and I could do some snorkelling off the shore which suited me better.
As usual there were various trips on offer, some good, some rushed by guides more interested in mugging for tips than allowing us to explore. The Dominican Republic itself looked interesting. I opted for a water park trip with zip-lines, which was fun and not marred by a little rain. On the final day I jumped ship and took a taxi out to the faintly bizarre mock-Mediterranean village at Altos de Chanos.
Sea days were enlivened by being buzzed by US Navy fighters and watching high-flying frigate birds bullying wavetop seabirds who were working to catch their own fish. We saw the USS Truxtun being pumped out in Ponce, Puerto Rico, following a collision at sea, clearly not as ‘seaworthy’ as the news bulletins announced. And salvage teams working to re-float the barge Defiant, washed ashore by a storm at the tip of the Murillo Fort. Yep, we had a storm. Even on a slick modern cruise ship, travelling is still an adventure.
Conclusions. The Western Caribbean is less interesting than the east in terms of geography and what we think of as Caribbean vibe. The islands are more Americanised, with more traffic and high rise buildings and higher prices, so if you only ever go once, go to the east. It’s worthwhile researching the ship and choosing a cabin in future rather than going for a last minute deal and trusting to fate. A balcony cabin would be nice, but they’re taken by couples; if travelling as a couple or with a chum I’d probably opt to see islands from the shore rather than by raids from the ship. As a final note to self, if I cruise solo again, a better plan will be to write in the quiet mornings, then go ashore after lunch when the tours return and the entertainment starts.
And the new book? Well, still bubbling under.
The trip – Caribbean Charms and Tropical Isles by Marella Cruises (TUI) taken back-to-back, leaving from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.