WHICH CARIBBEAN ISLANDS ARE STILL IN GREAT SHAPE?

Q –  We have been collecting data on various two-week Caribbean itineraries next year on one of the top-rated smaller ships. There has been lots of information on the damage done by Irma, Maria and their friends in the Caribbean but we have not seen any listing of those islands unaffected. We’re new to luxury cruising but this one will be celebrating our 30th Anniversary as well as my wife’s retirement from government service in January. It would enable us to choose an itinerary we like if you might point us in the direction of a list of islands where “a destruction tour” is not part of the program. Don’t mean to be insensitive but you know what we mean. Any help would be appreciated. 

A – There is a list that we are currently sharing with our clients. Please find it below. We would make one comment and we trust you will take it in the spirit in which it is intended. You are looking at a longer than usual itinerary. There are very few two-week Caribbean itineraries. Consider 10-days or two back-to-back seven-night cruises that visit different islands. That would be ideal and you would have some new people to meet. But while you are spending about two weeks in the islands, please consier visiting one or two of the islands that got hot really badly. They need your support and your spending ashore to recover. They really do. Here is the best list available from Travel Weekly Magazine:

The following islands were outside the paths of Irma and Maria and suffered little or no damage from the storms:

Aruba

Barbados

Belize

Bonaire

The Cayman Islands

Curacao

Guyana

Grenada

Haiti

Jamaica

Martinique

Saba

St. Eustatius

St. Lucia

St. Vincent

Suriname

Trinidad and Tobago