With Tony’s family living in Poland, we alternate who we spend Christmas with. Last year was in Poland with Tony’s family; this year was in the Caribbean with mine!

Yes, the Caribbean. My parents love a good family vacation, so why not marry it with a holiday cruise? Nothing says Christmas like sand, sun, salt water and many, many margaritas. 🙂

I’m lucky that my family (mostly) appreciates my type-A personality. After much searching, we agreed on a 7-night Royal Caribbean cruise that had us hitting up 4 islands over Christmas. What I liked so much about it besides the sunshine, was that it took me to 2 countries I had never visited before – Jamaica and Haiti. As of December 21, we were off to Miami, ready to embark!

Our rooms weren’t ready once on board, but we had brought our swim gear to take immediate advantage of vacation mode. That included the pre-paid drink package we needed to get our money’s worth from.

By 3:30pm the Scarpaci family was all on board and reunited. We were ready for a great vacation!

After a few drinks by the pool, we got into our rooms and met up at dinner. Our first full day on the ship was at sea on our way to Jamaica, and we found ourselves quickly falling into an easy routine:

Breakfast together –> sleep/pool/excursion –> afternoon nap (at least for me) –> dinner together –> drop off kids at kids club –> shows/games/gambling –> pick up kids/bed

What was so great about this humungous ship was that there was something for everyone – both in terms of entertainment and food & beverage. We were together a lot, but also got plenty of “me” time and broke off into smaller groups based on interests.

Arriving in Jamaica, we had a tour booked that took us through downtown Falmouth and Montego Bay, and ended with the beach. Our guide gave us a history of the island while we drove through the sunny and colorful cities. I loved seeing these brightly colored buildings decorated in Christmas fair.

I learned a lot from our guide, Richard. Jamaica means “land of wood and water” and was originally responsible for 80% of the sugar used in Europe. “Ya mon” is the equivalent of “no problem” and it was fun to hear it everywhere we went. We also learned that “irie” means “awesome” and spent the rest of the day describing our time as “irie, mon!”

We enjoyed lunch at the beach, and our guide shared that curried goat was a regularly eaten dish. Tony and I are always interested in trying what the locals eat, and I was pleasantly surprised. While goat isn’t exactly at the top of my list, it was so delicious. We wanted to order seconds!

The beach was irie! The drinks were flowing and a really entertaining MC hosted a few beach games. And on the drive back, Richard our guide, quizzed us on all we had learned. I took lots of notes and paid close attention because I was so interested. However, my brother accused me of cheating given my copious notes. It’s called being a good student, dear brother. Sorry you lost!

We docked in Jamaica on Christmas Eve. Therefore, we dressed up for a nice dinner as we sailed on to Haiti. While the kids played in the kids club, we watched a Beatles cover band, listened to bad karaoke, and watched my brother insert himself with the local musicians. It was a magical night before Christmas. Tilly ended up losing another tooth as well, meaning Santa would be partnered up with the tooth fairy that night!

Waking up in Haiti, Santa had found us – even in the middle of the Atlantic ocean.

Labadee is a small city in the northwest corner of Haiti that is “run” by Royal Caribbean. Unfortunately, Haiti is not the safest to visit under normal circumstances, which is exceptionally sad. It’s also a big part of the reason I wanted to visit even this small portion of the island via this trip. We booked a walking tour to learn more about both Haiti and Labadee, and saw just how beautiful the island is.

What’s interesting about Haiti is that it shares an island with the Dominican Republic. Our guide explained that the Spanish were originally running the island, calling it Hispanola. The French then arrived, and per usual, conflict ensued. The French ended up with Haiti, the Spanish with the Dominican Republic. This explains the differing languages of Spanish vs. French even though the entire island is only 400 miles long.

The tour was an hour long and gave us a good overview of Labadee and Haiti. On our way back to the ship, we ran into none other than Santa Claus!

We enjoyed another great dinner together and ended the evening at the casino.

The day after Christmas was our second sea day. Next stop in the Caribbean was the Bahamas and Coco Cay. We took full advantage of the pool by setting up shop early. This was also the pool where both the belly flop and “sexiest man” contests occurred.

We made sure to have front row seats. Guess who participated in the belly flop contest!?!

The next few days flew by. Most of us repeated a day at the pool when docked in the Bahamas, and the weather was rainy and cold when visiting Coco Cay.

It was also around this time that I started to realize 7 days was probably too long for me to be on a ship!

It goes without saying that I loved this special, quality time with my family. I am also thrilled to add two new Caribbean countries to my travel log! But it’s difficult to capture every special detail. Aside from the obvious things like sun and sand, there were so many wonderful, small moments with my family and on the ship that made this trip so memorable.

• Watching my brother jam on stage multiple times
• Tilly losing another tooth
• Our walkie-talkie user names
• Endless pizza, available 24/7
• Winning $1200 in the casino!
• Falling asleep to ocean sounds
• Tanning with my sister
• Sneaking cocktails to my family members
• Forming a special bond with our two dinner waiters
• Lots and lots of people watching

Merry Christmas and Happy 2024 from my family to yours!