Western vs Eastern vs Southern Caribbean - Which is best?

In 2012 the year I'll hopefully get to go to the Caribbean for the first time, which is best a regular 7 Day Eastern/Western or the 10 Day Southern? In my opinion I really want to get our money's worth, so I heard Southern has the best ports. I saw there are 7 Day Southern but with 2 ports not worth it. So please share opinions I would love to hear all

Love the 10 day Eastern/Southern cruises, and have taken them the past 3 Decembers. They offer a nice variety of snorkeling, beach, historical, and just plain interesting excursions.

Let us know what you like to do while in port, and we can answer to your preferences. For instance we love snorkeling and keep shopping to a minimum, so would base our recommendation on that preference.

In order of my preference... Southern, Eastern and then Western..

I am doing the Southern again this year. 5 ports!

The weather is good going out- depending on the time of year you may be a bit cool out of Fl.

Check airfare Unfiortunately, PR is really costly at the moment compared to Fl.

As much as I am ready to do a 10er....being your first time you may want to consider the 7 day...just to make sure you are good with cruising...(oh wait...what am I talking about? You are going to LOVE it!! :D) As I enjoy the Southern and probably my favorite; in order to get the ports I prefer I usually have to fly into San Juan to embark. Eastern has some beautiful scenery but overall Western is my preference. I feel the people are more humble and ready to serve you ..opposed to Eastern ..IMO I have experienced to be less hospitable. Some of the best snorkeling is done in the western..if that is something you would like to do.

Anywho....any of the itineraries will be better than work!! oops...parden that nasty 4 letter word!:eek:

Oh...and WHATEVER you do...at all possible costs..avoid San Juan (embark or disembark) on the weekend..especially Sunday! worse crowd I ever saw in an airport.

My preferences, in this order .... #1 Southern, #2 Eastern, #3 Western

I find fun things to do in all of the ports, but the bigger question is how many sea days do you want? Do you enjoy the beach day at Princess Cays?

My preference is the Southern out of San Juan because I prefer port days over sea days and for me, Princess Cays is just another sea day.

Others love the sea days...

The eastern and western get boring after a while because the itineraries are basically the same. How many times can we go to the same places, cruise after cruise. The Southern itineraries mix it up a bit, and go to more unusual places, keeping it fresh.

In order, my preferences are Southern, Western and Eastern. (I put western before eastern because I think that there is more to do at the western ports, even though the eastern ones have nicer beaches)

In 2012 the year I'll hopefully get to go to the Caribbean for the first time, which is best a regular 7 Day Eastern/Western or the 10 Day Southern? In my opinion I really want to get our money's worth, so I heard Southern has the best ports. I saw there are 7 Day Southern but with 2 ports not worth it. So please share opinions I would love to hear all

Most people will do the Western Caribbean as their first cruise. It seems to be everyone's "starter cruise". The advantage of a Southern itinerary is that you get more ports, but only if indeed you do. I know RCCL does Southern Caribbean's out of San Juan that have 6 ports in 7 days.

The other big advantage is that you are already in the Caribbean when the cruise begins. It's worth noting that the water temperature in Florida or the Bahamas is not as warm as the Southern Caribbean, where it can be bathtub warm. The point is, if your cruise begins in New Jersey or Baltimore or Florida, your first day, they will have just refilled the pools. If your cruise starts with a sea day, you may be facing a rather cold pool for a day or two. Out of San Juan, your freshly filled saltwater pool will be warm from the get-go. (You don't heat a saltwater pool. It is what it is.)

Hope that's helpful!

Southern then Eastern then Western

I like Southern best due to sea days

I did Western and Eastern and prefer the Eastern the most. Doing my first Southern April 2012 (we may be on the same boat if you are thinking southern.

I can not wait for 10 days over 7 and an extra sea day is so worth it to me...

Teri

I'd love to try the new 7-day southern itinerary. We did a similar one on a HAL ship a couple of years ago. But I love days at sea. We've only taken one 7-day southern cruise from San Juan. I hated having so many port days. After a few ports, they start to all look alike.

I like the eastern itinerary, although the addition of Grand Turk doesn't really do much for me. When we first started taking cruises, all of the eastern itineraries seemed to go to San Juan, St. Martin, and St. Thomas. All three of those ports are great. San Juan has tons of history. St. Martin has Orient Beach. St. Thomas has great shopping and beaches.

Absolutely do the 10 day Southern! You will be spoiled starting out with that one. My preference is Southern, Western, Eastern. I agree with other posters - Western they seem to really appreciate the tourists and taxis, food, drinks, etc. are cheaper at these ports, with the exception of Grand Cayman.

Thanks everyone, the 10 Day Southern Medley on the Emerald Princess looks really nice(has alot of ports I really want to try, Princess Cays, St. Thomas & Aruba) or it would be none and maybe a cruise to the Panama Canal, another destination that work out great for school reasons and I really want to go there as well as my mom :D (lol)

Oh...and WHATEVER you do...at all possible costs..avoid San Juan (embark or disembark) on the weekend..especially Sunday! worse crowd I ever saw in an airport.

You can stay a night before and a night or two after the cruise. THat's what we did and the airport was DEAD :) And our vacation we even longer! YIPPEE! Love San Juan!!!

I did Western and Eastern and prefer the Eastern the most. Doing my first Southern April 2012 (we may be on the same boat if you are thinking southern.

I can not wait for 10 days over 7 and an extra sea day is so worth it to me...

Teri

Teri, Are you doing the 10 day April 16th Southern on The Emerald Princess?

Thanks everyone, the 10 Day Southern Medley on the Emerald Princess looks really nice(has alot of ports I really want to try, Princess Cays, St. Thomas & Aruba) or it would be none and maybe a cruise to the Panama Canal, another destination that work out great for school reasons and I really want to go there as well as my mom :D (lol)

Don't just sit there, book it. We have a pretty good roll call going, but could use a few more menbers.:p

I would do the 10day Southern, or even look at flying to Puerto Rico and doing the 7day from there. Sometimes there are some good deals to fly to Puerto Rico and the cruises tend to be cheaper.

Lol we have a cruise booked the repo on the CB May 1st :D:D

I like the Southern route best. Even if it's 7 days. The 10 days really makes it a winner, but I like the islands best on the Southern route. Also I prefer leaving from San Juan. I know some southerns leave from FL, but leaving from San JUan justs adds to the cruise feel.

My first cruise was a 9 day out of NYC sailing to Bermuda, then down to Bahamas. It had 5 sea days , 2 days in Bermuda, 1 private island day at coco cay and 1 day in nassau.

I really enjoyed the extra sea days as I was looking more for veg out relaxation than super busy port days.

A few thoughts ... I came from a vacation background of many western caribbean AI resorts all 7 day vacations. First off I MUCH prefered Bermuda and Bahamas to Mexico and Dominican Republic ... I found the infrastructure, feeling of safety, ability to go off on my own and explore to be much greater. I would imagine this will also be true on eastern and southern itineraries.

Second ... The extra days of a 9 or 10 day cruise compared to 7 day may not seem like much, but it makes a MASSIVE difference in how relaxed you get at the end.

On our previous 7 day vacations we would bebjust starting to relax by day 4 or 5 and then it would be like "darn we are leaving in 2 days". On our 9 day cruise we were TOTALLY relaxed by day 4 and it was like "OMG trip is not even half over yet!"

We LOVED having the extra days and it barely made a difference in cost ... Actually it was CHEAPER than many 7 day itineraries.

Wife and I are doing 10 day Southern Melody on April 13 on Star Princess (our first princess cruise too!) We are so excited we an barely breath. With southern melody you get a couple traditional eastern stops like Bahamas and St. Thomas, but you also get some really exotic ports like Dominica and Grenada which are not really typical cruise ports ... I like the mix of eco stops and beach stops, also a nice smattering of sea days to relax too.

I think you can't really go wrong with eastern or southern but eastern cruises tend to have common itineraries and more ships to pick from (likely you may get a better deal). The flp side of that is that if you can get a deal on a southern cruise jump all over that sincebyou are far more likely to do an eastern itinerary in the future than southern due to prices and availability.

Finally as others have mentioned, southern itinerary you are practically guaranteed 30 celcius weather and bathtub warm oceans no matter the time of year you go ... Something not guaranteed on western and eastern itineraries if traveling in winter.

So in closing

A. 9 - 10 day itinerary is amazing and you WILL be RELAXED by the end

B. Do southern if you see a deal on it

We really enjoy the 10 Southern over either the Eastern or Wester. On a 7 day cruise you are on the ship 6 full days with the seventh day being a partal first day you board and the morning of the 8th day you leave. On a 10 day you have 9 full days plus the first and last days. As some said above on a 7 day about the time you get relaxed you realize your cruise is half over. On a 10 day you still have 7 days to go.

Also on the 10 day you have 6 of the 9 full days at a port. On a 7 day you usually have 4 out 6. This would mean 3 sea days as compared to 2 on a 7day. No big deal, only 1 more sea day which we enjoy.

One comment on the canal is that be aware unless you are doing a full transit the ship will only go in the first set of locks and then turn around and go back out after letting everyone on tours off via a tender. On our cruise we did not do a tour so we could not get off the ship until we went back thru the locks. the tours to go thru the canal on a small boat and then come back to join the cruise that evening are good but fairly expensive..

In order of my preference... Southern, Eastern and then Western..

Me too!

In order of preference, Southern, Eastern, Western (but insert Panama Canal between 1st and 2nd above).

We just returned from 14 day Southern. LOVE Curacao and Barbados. But BIG problem with the 14 day Southern. It is over too soon.

So we just booked 7 day Mexican Riveria and 14 day Hawaii back to back.