Cruise Program

Main stops of your itinerary:

Miami - Florida
It’s a city of wildly diverse districts, jigsawed into a vast urban corridor from two technically separate cities: mainland Miami and the huge sand bar known as Miami Beach.
If you’re sticking to the most popular areas in Miami Beach and downtown, though, you can zip around easily by bus and on foot. During an MSC cruise in the Caribbean most people spend their time in South Beach, a fairly small area at the southern end of the sand bar, where you’ll find many of Florida’s leading art galleries, trendsetting restaurants, and much of its boisterous club scene.

Heading north, Central Miami Beach was where 1950s screen stars had fun in the sun and helped cement Miami’s international reputation as a glamorous holiday spot. Surprisingly few tourists venture beyond Miami Beach, and so miss out on some of the most enticing parts of the city.

Tucked away in the Miami-Dade Cultural Center are the city’s excellent history and art museums, while Bayside Marketplace is the staging post for boat tours of Miami’s most exclusive offshore keys. To the north sits the city’s buzziest neighbourhood, the strip of land along and around Biscayne Boulevard, known as the Biscayne Corridor; it includes the dazzling Performing Arts Center, the art galleries and showrooms of Wynwood and the Design District, and even the grubby but thrilling immigrant neighbourhood known as Little Haiti.

The first of Miami’s Cubans settled southwest of downtown, just across the Miami River, in Little Havana. This is still one of the most intriguing parts of the city, rich with Latin American looks and sounds, though it’s less solidly Cuban than it used to be.

Philipsburg – St. Maarten
During your cruise in the Caribbean Sea, after disembarking from your cruise ship in the Dutch port of Philipsburg and visiting the Court House, the heart of the city (a white and blue building dating to 1793 that now serves as the Post Office), don’t miss out on an excursion to the French side of the island.
Marigot, the capital of Saint Martin located on the island’s western coast, is protected by the great lagoon of Simpson Bay. It has retained the atmosphere of late 17th century, when it was founded. It is worth your while to visit its historical centre, which is crowded with wooden houses dotted with delightful shops.
Next, treat yourself to an excursion to Fort St. Louis, built on a hill on the orders of Louis XVI. From here, you can enjoy a stupendous view of Marigot Bay and its beautiful yacht club with the majestic docked luxury yachts.

However, a better view can be enjoyed with a trip to Pic du Paradis, where you will be able to see as far as Anguilla, Saba, St. Eustatius and St. Barth. Since here the sea is the sovereign, don’t miss out on St. Maarten’s beaches, starting with Great Bay Beach, a crescent of sand one kilometre and a half long located in front of Philipsburg. Going beyond the heritage that is Fort Amsterdam (a Dutch fortress constructed in 1620 housing a beautiful exhibit of historical finds) will take you to the intimate Little Bay Beach. From here, you can reach the base of Cay Bay, flanked by a beautiful sea bottom that’s great for snorkellin

San Juan – Puerto Rico
San Juan is one of the world’s top cruise ship destinations, with most of the pleasure boats docking at the port by the old town. 
As recently as the 1970s, Old San Juan (Viejo San Juan) was a reminder of better times, a run-down collection of Spanish colonial relics, in little better shape than the collapsed empire that constructed them. Now, however, after extensive and careful restoration, this seven-block-square area is considered one of the best-kept troves of Spanish colonial architecture and has become a World Heritage Site.

Before continuing your holiday across the Caribbean you just have to stop off at San Juan, with its steep, narrow streets distinctively cobbled with smooth, iridescent bricks known as adoquines, originally used as ballast in ships, and feature buildings – some of the oldest in the Western hemisphere – with bright pastel facades and wrought-iron balconies abloom with plants and flowers.
The old town occupies the headland of a 4km-long island (connected by bridge to the mainland) that shelters the San Juan Bay, for centuries a key port in the New World. It was originally known as Puerto Rico, or “rich port”, because its position made for such a fine stop for shipping.

Nassau - Bahamas
The largest open-air aquarium in the world, it has over 100 different species of colourful tropical fish. In Nassau, you can interact with dolphins and go on excursions to neighbouring islands in motorboats. The historical centre of Nassau boasts charming colonial-style buildings and numerous pastel-coloured wooden shops that alternate with Georgian-style structures.

However, to get a taste of the local style of living, take a trip to Cable Beach. Located just 5 km west of the city, on it you will be able to admire the Bahamian Riviera and its fantastic colours: golden sand and lively nightlife. In addition to the casinos, which are very popular with gamblers, one of the most appealing characteristics of a holiday in Nassau is the possibility to do some low-cost shopping. 
At the Straw Market, where the typical Bahamian souvenirs are sold, be prepared to bargain: here, bartering is a tradition that is almost a duty. A ride in a surrey, a horse-drawn carriage, is an excellent way to discover the old city while listening to stories told by the driver on the ride between monuments, numerous island fortifications and the intriguing Queens Staircase, a large, hand-made stone staircase from which you can enjoy a magnificent view of Nassau, Paradise Island and a good portion of the Bahamas.