We have been to Half Moon Cay in the past.

Donna wanted to go to Coral World Ocean Park. We booked a shore excursion from the ship which included transportation and the entrance fee.

We wanted to go to the beach on St. Kitts, and had originally decided to go to Cockleshell beach on the south end of the island, but the wind was fairly strong from the south and we were worried about the swell being bad. We decided at the last minute to try South Friar’s Beach which might be a little more protected.

Our ship docked at the commercial dock instead of the cruise ship dock, but the ship had some shuttles available for minimal cost if you wanted to go over to the other dock. We hired a bird guide, Bertrand Jno Baptiste, also known as Dr. Birdy, and he took us and two others to the Syndicate Trail for the day. He is very good at identifying the local birds and other animals.

We have a tour in the afternoon, so went birding on our own in the morning. There is a little canal that leads to Aimé Césaire park a half-mile from the dock. We started in the little green space by the hotel by the dock and then walked up along the canal.

In Antigua we booked a tour to go to the south side of the island to take a short kayak ride through the mangroves out to the sea and then go snorkeling out on the reef followed by lunch a beach resort.

The directions to find the meeting point were complicated, but our ship ended up docking on the pier right by the meeting point, so we didn’t need go out through the port complex and walk around. The directions would have been needed if we had docked on the other pier.

We visited St. Maarten in 2022 on our cruise to the Amazon River.

The cruise we booked is actually two back-to-back cruises sold as a bundle. The ship returned to Ft. Lauderdale.

This stop becomes our first chance to get in the water since our Half Moon Cay stop on the first day was canceled due to high winds.

We were notified by Holland America when our cruise left a few days ago that Roatan was turning into a tender port because another big ship came. It rained cats and dogs on Roatan yesterday and the forecast calls for more rain today. The wind and swell on the sea is also bad.