The Best Cruise Ports to Visit on a Caribbean Vacation in 2020
A cruise can be one of the most relaxing vacations you will ever go on. The Caribbean is a popular choice and these are the best cruise ports to hit.
The Caribbean Sea is home to many tropical islands, each offering its own set of wonders to explore. This includes diverse wildlife, including nine-banded armadillos, ocelots, and certain New World monkeys.
It can’t hurt that it makes up half of one of the largest islands in the region.
However, that’s just one of many places to visit. The Caribbean hosts some of the best cruise ports in the world, and a cruise allows you to see a lot of them on the same trip.
We’ll talk about some of our favorite ports in the paragraphs below.
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Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is the most popular island in the Caribbean, and by a wide margin. It also can’t hurt that it takes up half of one of the largest islands in the region.
Their status as a tourist destination has created a veritable entertainment district in various ports. Among these attractions are beaches and waterparks, as well as ziplining, shopping, dining, and a whole lot more.
Some of the country’s most popular destinations are Amber Cove and Puerto Plata.
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Labadee, Haiti
Labadee is one of the most beautiful places in Haiti and has been since the 1990s. It’s a beautiful place to relax, go ziplining, and buy products from locals.
This port has met with its share of controversy over the years. People have criticized the port, and its owner Royal Caribbean, for creating a luxury vacation spot in a country where a good portion of the population lives in poverty.
However, things are a little more complicated than that. Royal Caribbean hires a few hundred native Haitians to help build and run the port. About two hundred others sell their wares to tourists at a market in the port.
While Royal Caribbean can almost certainly do more to help the people of Haiti, it can’t be argued that the Haitians gain nothing from the business. Royal Caribbean pays the Haitian government $6 per visitor in addition to providing employment for a few hundred.
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St. Martin
The next entry on our list of the best cruise ports to visit is St. Martin. Two of the most popular destinations are Philipsburg and Marigot.
St. Martin is unique in that it has two different cultures to explore. Originally owned by the Spanish, it was turned over to the Dutch and French in the 17th century. The island was divided between the two nations and those cultures can be seen on their respective sides of the island even today.
The Dutch side boasts incredible shopping, beautiful beaches, and plenty of old colonial buildings. The French side also has great shopping, as well as excellent food, and gorgeous beaches, many of which are clothing optional.
The clash of these two cultures is definitely worth experiencing.
The Best Cruise Ports in the Caribbean
The Caribbean offers some of the best cruise ports in the world. We’ve talked about a few of them in the paragraphs above, but there are more out there. We encourage you to do more research on your own.
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