Caribbean

by

Cruising Away, December 2025 Winter Vacay: Part One

The colorful exterior of Nassau’s Straw Market

For our 2025 winter vacation, I wanted to keep things simple. Even back in March, I could tell it was going to be a hard year, and while I knew I would want a getaway at Christmastime, I also knew I would not have the energy to plan much.

My daughter C and I had cruised before: once with Royal Caribbean to the Norwegian Fjords in the summer of 2023, and again with Celebrity Cruises to the Southern Caribbean in December 2024. And though cruising never really fit my younger self’s travel style, these days I have found that while it isn’t how I want every vacation to go, it can be a welcome break from my more heavily planned, detail-oriented holiday.

By the time December rolled around, I was incredibly grateful to have a simple, straightforward trip set up—one that let us escape the Virginia winter, spend time with friends and family, and have ample mother-daughter time, with enough activities on the ship for both of us to allow for valuable time apart, and very little additional thought on my part.

To further uncomplicate our trip, I decided that we would drive to and from Port Canaveral, our port of embarkation. For last year’s cruise out of Puerto Rico, our flights were changed repeatedly between purchase and departure, each time becoming less convenient. I did not want to go through that again.

Traveling by car gave me back a small amount of agency, which felt good in a year where so much felt out of my control. Later, I realized that the decision also felt very on brand for 2025. We ended up with more road trips than I would have predicted, including drives to Lancaster, Philadelphia, and New Bern, our summer southern European driving vacation, and a road trip to Ohio for a friend’s wedding.

—

South Carolina’s South of the Border: Kitschy but quiet. Next time, we should time our stop for midday

On the Wednesday afternoon before the cruise, we packed up the car, stocked up on road trip snacks, and hit the road. We were excited to get out of town, and I was thrilled that traffic on I-95, notorious for traffic jams, was light. We made good time and stopped for the evening halfway through North Carolina.

The following day, we were up and on the road early. It would be a long slog to our condo in Jacksonville, Florida, our next stop. Driving I-95 can be mind-numbingly boring. We broke up the morning with a stop at South of the Border, just over the South Carolina border. On many a trip along this corridor, we have passed this mega attraction, but never stopped. It’s the quintessential kitschy 1950s roadside stop blown up to 2000s excess with a motel, camping, restaurants, oversized fiberglass statues, mini golf, and the largest indoor reptile exhibit in the U.S. Though, at 9 AM on a random Thursday morning in winter, it was nearly deserted. So, we just filled up on gas, stretched out our legs for a bit, and got back on the road.

It was many more hours and miles before we arrived at our condo in Jacksonville, where we would spend the next two nights relaxing and catching up with my aunt. It was wonderful to have the temperatures warming between North Carolina and Florida, to gradually shed our coats and sweaters. We had nothing in particular planned. Just spending time with family, which was another benefit to driving over flying. Then on Saturday, C and I once again loaded up the car and drove the last 2.5 hours to Port Canaveral to board our cruise ship.

View of the Royal Promenade inside Royal Caribbean’s Adventure of the Seas

There was the usual madness at the port—parking, walking to the cruise terminal, shuffling through the line—but overall it went pretty quickly, and we soon found ourselves on board in our cabin. Putting down our bags was like setting down the baggage of the past year. It would be temporary, but for a little while, I could feel lighter. Then C and I headed to the café on the promenade to meet up with my long-time friend CZ, her son Little CZ, and Little CZ’s dad to catch up and explore the ship for the rest of the afternoon and evening. That night, as we steamed off into the Caribbean, I slept the best I had in months.

The following day, we arrived at our first port of call: Nassau. When I booked the cruise, Nassau was not part of the itinerary. It was instead Labadee, Haiti, a 260-acre private and secure beach area exclusive for Royal Caribbean. However, after the State Department reissued the Level 4-Do Not Travel warning in July, due to an increase in violent crime and civil unrest, the cruise line suspended visits to the island. Though Labadee is really just a private playground with little cultural interaction with Haitians and it wasn’t clear to me how much money actually reached the locale population, I was still curious about the stop, though not heartbroken it was cancelled. We waited many months to find out the alternative destination, which online sources indicated could be Nassau, Grand Cayman, Grand Turk in the Turks and Caicos, or Puerta Plata in the Dominican Republic. I had my fingers crossed for the latter two as they sounded more interesting, but in the end Nassau it was.

Having been to Nassau many times, CZ opted to stay on the ship. Little CZ and his dad headed out on a food tour, while C and I disembarked for our own self-guided walking tour. The heat hit us immediately. The port was crowded and loud, full of Caribbean brass drum music and the buzz of excited passengers spilling off their ships. Little wooden shops, painted in bright Caribbean shades of fuchsia, coral, azure, lime, and yellow, lined the way. The energy was contagious. We were here! In the Caribbean.

The pink facade of Government House and C on the Queen’s Staircase, Nassau

And all my teen wanted to see in Nassau was Starbucks! Fine. That was our second stop after the Straw Market, which, unfortunately, was not quite open when we arrived. Some shopkeepers were just setting up, but most stalls still had tarps over their goods. Frankly, the goods looked like the same old beach wear, t-shirts, rattan bags and hats, and kitschy goods we had seen in so many Caribbean stores. Then we walked over to Government House, a beautiful, flamingo-pink Georgian colonial-style building in the center of the old town. Though that too was hard to see as metal bleachers, likely set up for a Christmas parade, blocked the view.

I then dragged C to the Queen’s Staircase, a 66-step limestone staircase carved out of the rock between 1793 and 1794 to link Fort Fincastle to the waterfront area. To reach the stairs, one walks through a shaded corridor between the limestone walls, covered in vegetation. It was really lovely. But it was also crowded. I waited quite a long while to capture my daughter’s photo on the stairs with few other people around. At the top of the stairs, my plan had been to explore Fort Fincastle, but it was closed for renovations. We decided to return to the ship for lunch, planning to disembark again later to see the Pirate museum and perhaps another museum, but we did not get back off.

A partial view of the Adventure of the Seas mini golf course

Day three was a cruising day (the cruise line counted boarding day as Day one), and we had a few activities planned. C and I had an early morning pickleball lesson on the sports deck, but it was very windy—the net wouldn’t stay in place, and the balls were quickly blown astray. We later tried mini golf, where the wind sent our golf balls skittering just as easily. Though we weren’t going to win any tournaments anyway. CZ and I took a short walk around the pool deck, our hair whipping into our faces; it was warm, but the wind made being on deck feel like an endurance sport. Thus, CZ and I retreated to the adult-only solarium to relax and talk. After lunch, C, CZ, and I headed to a lounge for a geography quiz and ended up taking first place. Later, all five of us joined up to watch family karaoke, where even C and Little CZ’s dad went up on stage to sing Men at Work’s “Down Under.” We followed that up with dinner together in the main dining room. All in all, a nice day at sea, and a great start to the cruise.

by

Southern Caribbean Cruise, Part 4: Three Days in Puerto Rico

C on a street in Ponce’s historic district

After our Southern Caribbean cruise, we ended up back in San Juan, Puerto Rico. I planned for us to spend three days in Puerto Rico taking in some sights.

On the first morning, we took a taxi from the cruise terminal to our hotel in Condado Beach, left our luggage, and headed out for a walking tour of Santurce, the largest and most populous neighborhood in San Juan, and a place with a long history of diverse immigration and cultural expression. I had read an article online about the murals of Santurce and was determined to see them. (I have a bit of a thing for murals, graffiti, and painted signs such as those we saw in Brussels, Luxembourg, Lisbon, Kenya, Malawi, and even Guinea.)

Some of the dozens of wall murals we found in Santurce

From our hotel, we walked about 30 minutes to Calle Loiza, which the article indicated was the center of the street art renaissance in Santurce. We crossed up and down streets and tried asking some locals, but I could not find the ones I was specifically on the hunt for. We did see many fantastic examples of street art, but none of those I saw in the article. It was more than a little frustrating as there seemed to be no information I could find online that would map out where to find these beautiful murals, some of which were painted by well-known international artists. Even those who lived in San Juan or in Santurce could not tell me where certain artworks I found online could be located. One of our hotel clerks told me Santurce was too large a place and the murals spread out. In an area of Santurce, where I had read that not only was there a large concentration of murals, but also a burgeoning restaurant scene, C and I found instead an atmosphere of neglect. It was Saturday late morning, and I had expected to see many people out and about, lounging in outdoor seating at some of these cafes I had read about, where I thought we might have lunch. Instead, we ran into only a few other people. An old man seemed confused when we asked him about murals, as if he did not realize we were even in San Juan. A drunk, stumbling about, who yelled something at us. The cafes listed in the article were closed, at least one permanently. After an hour of walking through Santurce, hot and a little confused, we returned to the hotel.

Scenes along the Paseo del Morro

We grabbed another Uber and returned to Old San Juan for lunch in a popular location. The place was packed and it took nearly an hour to get our food; we did not finish until about 2 PM. I was trying hard not to be frustrated by the hiccups. I was determined to show C more of Old San Juan, so we headed to the Puerta de San Juan, the main gate to the walled city built around 1635, during the Spanish colonial period. We took a leisurely stroll along the Paseo del Morro, the pedestrian pathway wedged between the waters of the Bay of San Juan and beneath the walls of the Castillo San Felipe de Morro.

A canon looks out at the Bay of San Juan from the Castillo San Felipe del Morro

We meandered along. A large feral cat colony lived alongside the water, and dozens were asleep beneath the bushes, among the rocks, in the grass, and on the path, much to my daughter’s delight. Iguanas lay on ledges in the rocks beneath the higher Castillo walls; their location likely keeping them out of the way of the cats.

I looked at my watch and discovered it was after 4 PM and the Castillo would close at 5, so we needed to hurry up to see it. It took us another 15 minutes to climb up to a Castillo entrance, leaving us about 40 minutes to race through one of the most iconic fortifications in the Americas. It was not our first high-speed tour on the trip, so by this time, we were getting pretty good at it. We quickly explored all three levels right up until we were being ushered out by park rangers. We walked out the front of the Castillo, across the expanse of lawn where kids were flying kites, families, friends, and dogs were enjoying the last rays of sunlight. We passed the Santa Maria Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery, where the dead have an amazing fabulous panoramic view of the ocean and the fort. I remembered I had wanted to walk through it, but now time would likely not permit.

On Sunday morning, on our second day in Puerto Rico, C and I picked up a rental car in Condado Beach and headed south into the interior. Our destination: the Toro Verde Adventure Park in Orocovis, about an hour southwest of San Juan. We were here to ride the Monster, the longest zipline in North America and among the top 10 longest ziplines in the world.

The view at Toro Verde Adventure Park in the rolling mountains of central Puerto Rico

C and I like to have a bit of adventure, not only in where we travel but also in what we do when traveling. For instance in London, we slid down the world’s longest tunnel slide, and in Amsterdam took a ride on Europe’s highest swing. We were supposed to take on the highest zipline in Norway when we visited Bergen, but C got sick. (I will admit I was also quite nervous about it!). I thought C and I were up for taking on the Monster that, at 1.57 miles (2.5 kilometers) long and reaching speeds up to 95 miles per hour, is not for the faint-hearted.

We stepped inside the store, paid for our go on the Monster, and then went around the side to get fitted into our gear. Unlike most ziplines where you sit upright, to ride the Monster you lie down so one wears a helmet and a long rubber-like apron, similar to what you might see a butcher wear. Fitted out, we shuffled over to the stairs that took us up a rise and then ascended the stories-high metal tower. With only five or six people in front of us, we did not have long to wait. C and I wanted to zip down side-by-side, but only one zipline was in operation. I decided to go first.

I had to step up to the platform and get into a plank position while the operator pulled the apron down full so it became more like a hammock cocooning my front and I was attached to the zipline in two locations. I had to put my arms behind me so my hands could grasp a handle around the back of my knees; the operator instructed me to keep holding on, with my arms tight to my side. Only at the end, I was told, should I release and put my arms out to the side. She swung me out part way from the platform and let go.

It was exhilarating! I must have been going really fast but as I looked down across the green valley, some 1200 feet below, it sort of felt that I was moving in slow motion. The foliage below was dense; I flew over a river. It was breathtaking. I could not stop smiling. But it was over in a minute. I waited for C to make her flight across the valley, then we had another shorter zipline to do before arriving at the truck that would take us back to the top. My verdict of the Monster? I would do it again!

The Fuente de los Leones (Fountain of the Lions) in Ponce’s Plaza las Delicias

After our zipline experience, we headed south through the mountains to Ponce; founded in 1692, it is Puerto Rico’s second-largest city. The road was windy, but the weather was fantastic and I enjoyed the freedom of being behind the wheel. It took about 75 minutes to arrive at the Plaza las Delicias, the main square. Except it turns out I headed to the Plaza las Delicias in Salinas, not Ponce, adding an extra 30-minute drive to our destination. Sigh. We had lunch in the Ponce suburbs and then parked near the Plaza for our sightseeing.

When I visited Puerto Rico in 2003, I wanted to visit Ponce but there were no rental cars available on the island, leaving me confined to San Juan. So, this time around, I aimed to rectify that. But a lot had happened since 2003. Most recently, Hurricane Maria in September 2017, two major earthquakes in January and May 2020, Hurricane Fiona in September 2022, and the COVID-19 pandemic led to physical and economic damage in Puerto Rico, but Ponce was hit particularly hard.

Around the Ponce Historic Zone

I parked a few blocks away from the Plaza las Delicias, at the heart of the city’s Historic Zone, and we began exploring. The plaza is beautiful. It is dominated by the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe to the west, the Parque de Bombas (the extraordinarily bold black and red striped building that was once a fire station and is now a museum) to the east, the Fuente de los Leones to the south, and a small park with statuary to the north. While not crowded, there were a good many people taking advantage of the good weather and festive spirit of the main plaza. Off from the plaza though, despite the stand-out buildings, largely in colorful Ponce Creole style (a mix of Spanish Creole and Neoclassical architecture), the air shifted perceptively. Buildings were weather-beaten, cracked, partially boarded up, and/or abandoned. While still lovely, they were hauntingly so, with an atmosphere of loss and neglect. My heart felt heavy and a little sad.

Left: the Parque de Bombas — built in 1882 for an Exhibition Trade Fair, it became the fire station; Right: Homes of firefighter descendants on Calle 25 de Enero (and yes, there is a horse in front of one of the homes)

After exploring more of the historic area on foot, I learned that a housing area with an interesting history was nearby, so we returned to the car and drove over. On January 25, 1899, a fire threatened the munitions depot and some local firefighters extinguished the flames. Hailed as heroes, the city gave them free housing, and, for some 50 years, another firefighter and his family were rewarded with a free home on Calle 25 de Enero (January 25th Street). Once we had visited the area, it was time to drive back to San Juan.

For our third and final day in Puerto Rico, C and I headed to El Yunque National Forest, the only tropical rainforest in the U.S. national forest system.

Flora on the El Yunque Visitor’s Center trail

I visited El Yunque during my 2003 trip to Puerto Rico. I took a group tour from San Juan. I remember that it was raining rather hard and that most of the group, including myself, bought cheap plastic parkas in a shop before beginning our guided hike. Also, during our walk we came across a waterfall where a couple had shed their clothes and were, um, making the most of their not-so-private time in the pool by the falls.

This time it was C and I and we had our own wheels, which gave us more freedom. We stopped first at the visitor’s center, where we picked up the guide pamphlet, learned a bit about the park, and took a short trail walk. Though the trail started just steps away from the parking lot, we spent the whole trail pleasantly alone.

We then drove into the park. I hoped to stop at La Coca Waterfall, located just near the road, but the area was congested, with cars parked on the roadside for some distance. So, on we went. Our first stop would be the Baño de Oro. The Civilian Conservation Corps built the bathing area in the 1930s in pits previously excavated by Spanish gold seekers; it is now a National Historic Property. We could only walk up a short set of stone stairs to the pool and on a path halfway around; trails that headed further into the forest were closed for renovations. Many trails in El Yunque remain closed for repair after the 2017 hurricane.

Yokahu Tower and the view from one of the Tower’s windows

We made it back to the car before the rains began. This on-again-off-again rain would stay with us for the rest of our visit, but I was fine with it for the breaks of bright sunshine we still had a chance to enjoy. I drove us to the top of the accessible road, and then we turned around. We stopped at the Rainforest Cafe for lunch, stopped for a panoramic view, and climbed the Yokahu Tower.

I took the scenic route back to San Juan and returned the rental car. C and I spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and soaking in the last bit of the warmth of the tropics before returning to chilly Washington, D.C. It was a wonderful way to wrap up our visit to Puerto Rico and our winter vacation.