December 2017 saw us boarding the Crystal Serenity, to enjoy a 14-day cruise throughout the Caribbean, disembarking in Charleston South Carolina allowed us to plan a driving golf trip through the region golfing at Myrtle Beach and finishing off with a wonderful round at Harbor Town, Hilton Head. An iconic course I can now be checked-off my list of dream golf courses.
The cruise was absolutely magnificent, with stops at large islands (e.g. Jamaica) small islands (e.g. Bonaire). Bonaire part of the Netherlands is famed for diving and we saw many visitors heading out to dive sites while we “drove” around the island on a golf cart. Also, Dorothy (the bird lover) viewed her first natural Flamingo habitat. Unhurried Terre-de-Haut gave you feel a little vibe of the south of France. We did a bit of damage to the credit cards buying fine French linen clothing (Dorothy still laments a hat she passed on). Next time we will rent a scooter and explore the tiny island beaches.
The Crystal ship, crew, food, and onboard activities were incredible. So much to do onboard, we overlapped the activities. Onboard was a golf teaching pro providing lessons and the ship has two golf nets for practice. We could attend many lectures and classes to learn and experience a variety of subjects and activities. After the days’ activities we joined passengers at the lounge to listen to piano and vocal performances while enjoying the days featured cocktail. The atmosphere was relaxed and friendly so we meet many other passengers and heard some great stories.
To enhance our golf experiences, we golfed in Jamaica at the Sandals course and at the Barbados Golf club on Barbados. We stowed our two golf bags under the bed in our cabin along with our luggage and had no difficulty bringing the clubs on board of taking them to golf on the islands. We choose to golf these islands because we had been before and even Barbados in September 2017.
We were impressed by the Crystal ship’s continual focus on cleanliness and sanitization of all the general community areas (I’m sure it will be even better after the pandemic).
Brian Durkin is Originally from Salford England and has been a Manchester United fan from the beginning, for the last 30+ years he has made his home in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He has been helping businesses get the most out of IT for most of his professional life. He now applies that experience to working in the travel industry. Brian's focus is GOLF. He has played courses in many parts of the world. St Andrew’s in Scotland, Greg Norman’s course on the island of Exuma and in South Africa.
