Friday, Feb 10. Yoriko is still in Japan for 13 more days. I’ve had eye appointments for the last three weeks, preventing the booking of a normal adventure. Yoriko has never wanted to visit the Caribbean. Norwegian Cruise Line offers single cruiser bookings and had a killer offer. So . . .

Tomorrow I fly to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Sunday I’ll board the Norwegian Epic, a megaship of 4,600 passengers, for a seven night cruise that docks in four countries. My reasoning for taking this cruise has everything to do with the port visits. Just the thought of sharing a ship with 4,600 people makes me itch. Especially considering that vaccinations aren’t required. I had done research into island hopping without the ship, but the transportation costs are surprisingly high.

CruiseCritic contains reviews of ships. In the case of the Epic, the latest batch have been uniformly negative, all having to do with crowds. On the plus side, forewarned is forearmed. I’m going with low expectations. My stateroom is an Inside Berth, which might be a plus. I’ve been thinking of roaming the ship at night and sleeping during the day.

The ports I’ll visit are Aruba, Curaçao, St. Lucia, and St. Kitts. The main draw in each country is the scenery. Perhaps I’ll get good photos.