Saint Barthélemy

Cinnamon Beach on St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands is one of the most beautiful beaches you’ll ever encounter

After anchoring just off Guadeloupe on Christmas Day we had two more stops on our cruise. First up was St. Barts, a decidedly upscale island we visited just a year ago. We went ashore without any clear agenda but after walking through the main town with every elite designer store you can imagine we decided to to go lunch at a restaurant that we’d loved last year. It was a significant hike up a pretty steep hill but once we got there we remembered why we liked it so much. The food was really good – it is, after all, a French island – but the views are just spectacular. We got there an hour before they opened for lunch so we just sat there with a glass of wine and a book and the view and chilled. Until they started serving food and that made it even better.

Lunch at Beefbar in St. Barts was the exact same table as a year ago, with pretty much exactly the same view

The final stop then was St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. We went ashore thinking we’d probably go to a beach, though there was a chance maybe we’d find something charming in the town. Not so much charm so we took a local taxi out to Cinnamon Beach. It was a stunningly beautiful beach but the services available were more limited than we like. You could rent chairs but they weren’t very comfortable, the restaurant was mostly just junk food, and it was all way more crowded than we’re used to. So we spent a couple hours on the beach in the shade and then headed back to the ship for lunch.

More of Cinnamon Beach. Beautiful but very limited services available.

Now, then, the big question is whether we’ve become cruise people. And the answer is decidedly no. The shipboard experience was just about perfect. Great spaces, great food, great service, good entertainment in the evenings, good drinks, very comfortable room, a lot of opportunities to meet and socialize with fellow passengers. The onboard experience was everything I could have hoped for.

The restaurants available included a great sushi bar. And while normally we avoid the carbs in rice sometimes it’s worth splurging. This splurge was definitely worth it.

Once ashore, though, we just don’t enjoy having a few hours to “explore,” maybe in an organized tour or maybe on your own, before it’s time to jump back onto the ship. If we’re going to the beach there are way better options than what’s available for a day pass in a big crowd of people; we just never had a particularly good beach experience in any of our stops. And if we’re going to a city – The Ritz does a lot of tours in the Mediterranean – we want more time to explore the city. In other words I loved everything onboard and didn’t care for pretty much anything ashore except for one good lunch.

Thus the question is answered. We’re not cruise people.

The harbor in St. Barts

Can you tell it’s a Christmas cruise?

Captain Keith gave us a tour of the bridge. Fifty years ago I spent a lot of time on the bridge when I was on a ship in the navy, but that was a World War II-vintage ship. This bridge was very different!

A lot of the entertainment onboard was when we would be eating (we eat late…) but some of what was playing when we were around was pretty good!

Some of the bartenders hamming it up, with our new friend Delila joining them on the end

Another great dish. The food was universally great, without a buffet line to be seen.

The moonrise over the Caribbean. Long ago I learned to love being out at sea at night.

The night I ran into some show girls

And finally no, this isn’t the Caribbean. This was the view from our dining room when we returned to New York. This isn’t exactly awful either.

Our stunning beach, Anse des Flamands

Our French Caribbean adventure continued in the neighboring island of Saint Barth. This whole trip was really planned around our desire to stay at a hotel here called Cheval Blanc. We’ve stayed at two Cheval Blanc hotels previously — in Paris and in Saint-Tropez — and they are extraordinary places.

Our resort was connected by boardwalks through jungle

We had one dinner at a beautiful restaurant in a dazzling jungle setting

The Cheval Blanc hotels are owned by the French luxury brand juggernaut, LVMH. This is a splurgy place on a gorgeous beach called Anse des Flamands. It is staffed by armies of young, beautiful people, almost exclusively from France.

Saint Barth is a stunningly beautiful island. It’s also known as a playground for very wealthy people, which has its advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side that means there are some really nice resorts — and an endless supply of high quality restaurants to choose from. We ate very well here, but we actually tire easily of overly “fancy” restaurants with crazy prices.

The rich party crowd apparently also likes restaurants and clubs with a lot of noise. A couple we met in Saint-Martin told us about a couple restaurants we needed to go to, which apparently turn into pounding music venues as the evening goes on. That sounds like hell to us, so we carefully tried to stick to calmer choices.

I was kind of fascinated, if somewhat repulsed, by the people-watching in a place like this. You see parents with such over-privileged children that it’s hard to imagine these kids not being really messed up. And then you have the guys with trophy wives that they’ll eventually get bored with. And people coming out of designer boutiques loaded up with bags of flashy clothes. It’s fun to watch for a few days. But it makes us feel very, well, normal?

We loved the gorgeous beach here. And watching the scene. And five days was just enough. And now it’s nice to return to New York, and leave this beautiful shallowness behind.

The weather is mostly perfect. But most days deliver a brief rainfall, followed by a gorgeous rainbow.

Lunch in the main town of Gustavia, overlooking a harbor full of yachts and mega-yachts

…and the moment when the weather suddenly turns bad for a few minutes!

Our hotel is owned by the French luxury giant LVMH. So they had an evening reception to promote one of their fashion brands, Bulgari. People were trying on necklaces covered in diamonds at god-only-knows what kind of cost (Hundreds of thousands? Millions?). It was fun to witness, but we did not buy anything.