Hello from Jost Van Dyke in the British Virgin Islands.  If you’re following along on the Windstar Cruises & Porthole Magazine Caribbean Celebration, the last post here was all about Barbuda.  I’ll move along from that truly meaningful port of call shortly but need to throw a short story into the mix first.

When we sailed away from St Maarten with Windstar Cruises, docked next to us was Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas.  Interestingly, the last time we sailed on Freedom was just after the devastating earthquake that hit the already-struggling island of Haiti.  It was the first sailing by any cruise ship after the earthquake, brining much needed relief supplies to Royal Caribbean’s private destination of Labadee.  There, many passengers chose not to leave the ship, thinking it inappropriate to be relaxing on the beach while the rest of the area was ruined.

“NO, please tell them to come ashore!” said our friend Franclyn, met on previous visits to the place.  “We need the business.  We don’t want a handout.  Give us a chance to make it back,” he nearly begged us to tell others on the ship.  Unfortunately, Royal Caribbean received harsh criticism for coming back quickly.  But doing what is right as cruise lines do, they never looked back.

Fast forward to our visit to Barbuda and the marvelous school children we met when making a much-needed $cash donation. Here we have a rather obscure difference between big and little ships that is notable.

No, that’s not exactly accurate

Here we have an enormous difference between tiny Windstar Cruises and the world of big ships.  Just as the small physical size of any ship in the Windstar fleet gets us closer to tiny ports that big ships can not access, they were also able to pinpoint where need was the greatest: the adorable children. 

Frankly, we don’t know where pallet after pallet of bottled water and supplies actually went from Freedom of the Seas.  We know exactly where our aid went to Barbuda because we saw that exchange and the recipients of it first-hand.  This is something that can be done with a couple hundred people.  A couple thousand people? We would hear of it on the ship, feel good about it and move along to the hairy chest contest.  

On Windstar?  Tears.  Full hearts.  Lifetime-quality memories.  

Also a Windstar advantage, they can move their passengers on and off the ship much faster. If half the ship goes to the beach, that’s a couple tender’s full of people, maybe.  On a big ship like easy-to-pick-on Norwegian Epic, the line  of people we saw while attempting to shop in Tortola:

Interestingly, it is rather easy to get spoiled on Windstar.  I left Wind Surf with a few other passengers to go ashore in Tortola for some shopping.  After arriving, we walked through the Norwegian Epic hive of people, stayed a few minutes and came back.  The consensus of opinion:  too many people. 

In the afternoon we would make another stop, this one a snorkeler’s treasure: Norman Island.  This is a place I had never heard of before, let alone traveled to.  And it’s in the Caribbean. There will be no photos of snorkeling because the only way I will be in the water with schools of fish (which will attack and eat me) is if I fall off the ship.  I have no plans to do that. 

So catch our breath did many of us onboard. There are few sea days on Windstar Cruises because of the keen interest Windstar passengers have in seeing the world.  Two ports in one day works just fine for that. 

The evening brought one of a number of signature Windstar events: the deck Barbecue, followed by line dancing.