Now that I’ve been back in the frozen tundra (man, does that sound way too dramatic to anyone else?) of Wisconsin for a couple of weeks, it’s time to give a recap of my cruise to the Caribbean with the fine people of Bare Necessities.

Let me preface my recap with a statement:  I’ve noticed that with each successive trip I venture on, the number of times I take photos with all the camera gear I take, drops exponentially.

I took photos with my DSLR on two islands:  Guadeloupe and St. Maarten.  The rest of the time I carried my phone with me and took quickie snaps, mostly of Cedric and Charlie.  There is one phone of Mr. Muse and I aboard the cruise ship all dressed up for dinner one night (yes, even on a nude cruise) – so photographic evidence that we were actually on the cruise ship exists.  Now that I have that little bit of information out there, let’s get on with the rest of the story.

So, Sarah, tell us about the CRUISE!!!

Okay, okay!  The cruise was great.  The End.

Okay, the cruise.  So, for the average cruiser, I’m sure that this cruise ROCKED!  Seriously.

Mr. Muse and I were “General Staff” for the cruise, our third year being members of the General Staff, and it was a great cruise.  That said, being part of the General Staff, when combined with the work ethic that Mr. Muse and I possess, means that we always feel “on”.  Is there something we should be doing?  Somewhere we should be?  Even the days we had “off”, we felt like we should still be working.

So, Sarah, what does that all mean?  It means we were tired.  It was a great cruise, but we were tired.

Now that I got the “we were tired” out of the way…  We had a great time.  Knowing that I’m pretty much a hermit if left to my own devices, Mr. Muse and I met a lot of really wonderful people that I hope we get to see again-and-again over the years.  We also got to revisit with people we’ve met on past cruises, George and John – if you’re reading this – I think the world of you both!

Island oasis number one was CocoCay in the Bahamas – the private island owned by the Royal Caribbean.  To be honest, if I had to pick between CocoCay and Half Moon Cay (owned by Carnival Corp) – Half Moon all the way!!  CocoCay was okay, but the beach was really rocky.  I also spent most of the day assisting or modeling for photo shoots.

Our second stop was the island of St. Barths, the yachters & celebrity playground.  As I was suffering from a pinched nerve in my hip and my wallet didn’t want to open THAT much, Mr. Muse and I spent most of our brief time on the island at Shell Beach and eating glace (ice cream) and sorbet.

Stop number three was the island of Guadeloupe.  Guadeloupe is a relatively new cruise port and I recommend taking excursions for now rather than venturing off on your own (unless you hire a cab).  We took a tour of the botanical garden, Les Jardins de Valombrouse and the distillery Domaine de Severin.  The garden was beautiful in spite of the overcast skies and that’s also where we met a wonderful couple, R & S, whom we got to know better throughout the rest of the cruise and who treated us to ice cream when we got back to Fort Lauderdale.  We also got to watch a lot of hummingbirds in the gardens and I was in heaven.

The distillery?  We thought we were getting a tour of the distillery… it was just a drop-off at the store and we could walk the “grounds” (a circuitous walk around the shop) if we chose.  Our tour guide was great, the grounds were interesting, but the rum?  “Rot Gut”.  Mr. Muse and I have had  much, much better rum.

Our fourth and final stop was the island of St. Maarten, where Mr. Muse and I have visited twice before.  I love St. Maarten, and I wrote about our time there and my being Captain Oblivious last week.

I still have a bunch of places to write reviews on at TripAdvisor, but at least all of my laundry has been washed AND put away since then!

Want to know more about a port?  Let me know!