Caribbean Christmas Island Hopping

Southampton offers fast and efficient check-in areas, spacious departure lounges with seating areas, café-bars and smart washrooms. If you wish to travel by car and park for the duration of your cruise, you can pay for and reserve parking in advance directly with the relevant company. Alternatively, if being dropped off or collected by taxi or private car, they can drive right up alongside the terminal building.

At the north western tip of Spain, La Coruna is Galicia's largest city - from where in 1588 the Spanish Armada sailed to its fate. It's the port of call for nearby Santiago de Compostela, in whose ornate 11th century cathedral rests the body of St James. With Jerusalem and Rome, it remains one of Christendom's most holy places - to which in the middle ages up to two million pilgrims came each year.

Sophisticated Santa Cruz - Tenerife's capital - is built around boulevards and wide avenues that link elegant squares and parks. Well-preserved buildings feature in the old town, including the colonial Church of the Immaculate Conception and the 18th century Palacio de Carta, which has impressive Baroque and neoclassical features. Recently redesigned by the architects Herzog & de Meuron, the city’s largest square, Plaza de España, is a pleasant spot to lose a few hours. Lively beaches such as Playa de Las Americas are within easy reach of Santa Cruz too. Away from the capital, many of Tenerife's highlights await on tours, including the exotic Botanical Gardens or the mystical lava stone Pyramids of Guimar. Exploring the volcanic El Teide National Park to marvel at majestic Mount Teide, or even climb Spain's highest peak, is an unmissable experience.

What St Lucia's little capital may lack in sophistication it more than compensates for in its colourful Creole mood. Wander amid the lively street market before exploring this most scenic of the Caribbean islands, whose green mountains are draped in lush vegetation, and whose landmarks include the twin peaks of the Pitons rising sheer from the sea, and the steaming sulphur springs of the ‘drive-in' La Soufriere volcano.

An island that blends the exotic mood of the Caribbean with a hint of home (it was British for over 350 years). Here rum punch and calypso meet afternoon tea and cricket in perfect harmony, and Bridgetown's Trafalgar Square is older than our own. With over 30 miles of beaches, 3, 000 hours of sunshine a year, welcoming ‘Bajan' smiles, excellent shopping in the port and flying fish for lunch, Barbados is for many British visitors the quintessential Caribbean island!

Home to fewer than 6000 people, the tiny island of Bequia is a quiet, sun kissed paradise with beautiful sandy beaches, lush green hills, small traditional villages and barely any traffic to contend with. A homely island with friendly locals, tourists are always warmly welcomed to Bequia, so whether you spend your time by the beach soaking up the sun or in town sipping cocktails, you are sure to find that perfect solitude.

Martinique's lively, unmistakably French capital is, like the island itself, a flamboyant fusion of Gallic sophistication and Creole exuberance. It was, after all, the birthplace of the Empress Josephine! Its many bistros, restaurants and boutiques will provide temptations in plenty, while to visit St. Pierre, engulfed a century ago by volcanic Mont Pelée, is to recall an epic moment of island history.

Discovered by Columbus on a Sunday (hence its name), Dominica was once inhabited by fierce Carib Indians and is still home to 3,000 of their descendants. Arriving at Roseau you'll definitely find the welcome friendlier today! And to travel from the capital into the island's exotic tropical interior - which soars to 4,700 feet - is to discover a wonderful environment of dense (and now protected) rainforest, deep lakes, glittering waterfalls and fast-flowing rivers quite unlike any of its neighbours.

Tortola Island is a famous pirate haunt of old, and Road Town is typically old-world Caribbean and still retains a surreal charm. Capital of the British Virgin Islands, this picturesque town sat between rolling hills and white sandy bays, has a history to match its beguiling beauty. Situated on the horseshoe-shaped Road Harbour, Road Town is home to the Sunday Morning Well, the site where the Emancipation Proclamation was read in 1834. Among the old buildings of Main Street – some still complete with their original red tin roofs, shops stacked with local produce and an abundance of restaurants can be found. The oldest building on the street, HM Prison, was built in 1774. Away from the town along the waterfront, the town’s craftsmen and women sell their own textiles, paintings, rugs and ornaments. The legendary Pussers Bar is the perfect place to try some authentic Caribbean rum, while nearby Cane Garden Bay offers an expanse of gorgeous, sugar-white sands.Show less Exploring further w…

The world's smallest island shared between two nations – its 16 miles square (and more developed) southern part is Dutch and the northern, French – hilly St Maarten in the Windwards is a dual personality setting of absorbing contrasts. Philipsburg, built on a sand bar, is the old capital and still preserves some attractive colonial architecture, though the island's enticing beaches, excellent restaurants, and shops stocked with duty-free bargains will probably detain you longer!

One of the smaller, less-visited gems of the Caribbean beckons us -Nevis offers a glimpse of an old-style Caribbean, with elegant plantation houses and hotels recalling the elegance of a past era. We will be welcomed here in truly wonderful style by the friendly locals.

Whatever rugged Antigua may lack in tropical scenery the island more than makes up for with what are some of the best watersports conditions found anywhere in the Caribbean, and 365 beaches ('one for each day of the year' say the Antiguans) from which to enjoy them! For many, too, the great bay of stunning English Harbour and historic Nelson's Dockyard (Britain's West Indies naval base now restored to its 18th century prime) will prove a magnet. It is thought that the Arawaks first inhabited Antigua about 2,000 years ago; around 1200 AD, they were evicted by the Caribs. It was not until 1493 that Columbus first sighted Antigua, and named it after a church in Seville, Spain. The British colonised the island in 1632, and in 1674 Sir Christopher Codrington arrived to establish the first sugar plantation. By the end of that century, the plantation economy had developed, slaves were imported and the central part of the island was stripped of its forests and replanted with sugar cane. In th…

The picturesque whitewashed capital of this mountainous Portuguese island, 350 miles off the coast of Africa, has a timeless charm, delightfully enhanced by a benign climate that fills this ‘floating garden' with the year round colours and perfumes of subtropical flowers and fruit. Much painted by Sir Winston Churchill, Madeira has been offering the British visitor a warm welcome for three centuries, its famous wine the perfect aid to total relaxation!

It was from historic Lisbon, built on seven low hills beside the wide Tagus estuary, that some of Europe's greatest explorers set sail in pursuit of the riches that built Portugal's former global empire in the New World, Africa and the Indies. Memories of that glorious past linger amid the grand avenues and elegant squares of the attractive capital's 18th century lower town - a vivid contrast with the colourful honeycomb of cobbled streets in the old Moorish Alfama quarter and the bohemian mood of the hilly Bairro Alto.

Southampton offers fast and efficient check-in areas, spacious departure lounges with seating areas, café-bars and smart washrooms. If you wish to travel by car and park for the duration of your cruise, you can pay for and reserve parking in advance directly with the relevant company. Alternatively, if being dropped off or collected by taxi or private car, they can drive right up alongside the terminal building.