Skip navigation

Royal Clipper: A tall ship of the Caribbean

< Prev | 1 | 2
  Top slideshows
Image: The Empire State Building at night
Getty Images
  The Big Apple
Long referred to as the center of American business, New York is a melting pot of cultures and landscapes. Take a visual tour of some of the Big Apple’s most famous attractions.
Image: Waimea Canyon, Kauai
Lonely Planet Images
  Hawaiian paradise
The Hawaiian Islands are the perfect vacation destination for travelers of all types.
Image: Mount Rainier National Park
Lonely Planet Images
  National spectacles
Nearly 400 national parks can be found all across America, and feature breathtaking vistas, rock formations millions of years old, and more.

Food and entertainment
Dining is another easy pleasure, as guests happily forgo tuxedos and ball gowns for more casual, but sophisticated, evening wear. Breakfast and lunch are buffet-style, while the evening meal is a la carte dining; all meals offer a good selection of well-prepared entrees. I will say some entree combinations perplexed me. For example, an amazingly large, perfectly cooked lobster was set atop a bed of mashed potatoes; it left me screaming "Nooooo" in my head.

Dining is open-seating and most guests look forward to mixing and mingling for the week for the pleasure of the company. My husband and I dined with many German passengers who were eager to practice their English. It was during these dinner conversations that I learned why there were so many Germans on board. In Germany, the Royal Clipper is the setting for a television drama called "Under the White Sails." As one guest told me, when he saw the ship on TV he knew he had to experience it.

There are no casinos, glitzy shows or nightclubs aboard the Royal Clipper. Instead there was music in the Tropic Bar provided by the crew musicians and by guest musicians including, on my trip, a great steel band from Grenada. There were some silly entertaining moments during the cruise, too, including a crab race complete with wagering and a passenger-and-crew talent show.

Story continues below ↓
advertisement | your ad here

Guests craving edification could turn to our captain, Klaus Mueller. Every evening he held forth on the bridge, telling stories about the great windjammers of the past, naming and describing each of the ship's 42 sails, and giving learned accounts of celestial navigation. Sunsets were a big event, and passengers gathered each night near the bridge to watch and listen as Captain Mueller shouldered the bagpipes of his adopted Scotland and played tunes as the sun set over the bow. It was magical.

Adrift among the islands
The shipboard experience is wonderful, but it's drifting among the less-traveled islands of the southern Caribbean that the Royal Clipper does best. From Barbados we sailed to the Grenadines, Grenada, Bequia, Martinique and St. Lucia. A full day in the Tobago Cays gave us the run of an island to soak up the sun, try the ship's water toys, snorkel and chill out with a barbecue.

On larger islands, excursions catered to the adventurous and comfort-loving alike. On Grenada, some guests toured historic St. George's by bus while others hiked to the Seven Sisters waterfall in Grand Etang National Park. Those of us who went zip-lining in St. Lucia came back to the ship exhilarated. The unusual shore excursions in out-of-the-way destinations made this itinerary perfect for dreamers wanting to get away from it all. In fact, when we disembarked in Barbados to an overabundance of duty-free malls and cruise-ship throngs, I was dismayed. As seven large cruise ships disgorged their passengers to swarm the town and surroundings, I was already missing the Royal Clipper.

Less is certainly more in the world of cruising and, as Royal Clipper passengers quickly discover, there are few things in life better than the simple pleasures of life at sea on a sailing ship — and even fewer better ways to explore the world. I can't wait to go back.

If you go
From mid-November through the end of April, the Royal Clipper sails several itineraries from Barbados around the southern Caribbean. From May until the beginning of November, the ship sails the Mediterranean and Aegean seas. Prices for seven-day Caribbean cruises start at $1,745 per person; prices for seven-day Mediterranean cruises start at $2,095 per person. Visit the Star Clippers Web site for details.

Sound off! Do you have a comment, an idea, a complaint or a problem for Anita to solve? Send her an e-mail and you might find yourself in her next column. And check out her blog, ExpertCruiser.com.


< Prev | 1 | 2

  MORE FROM CRUISING  
  
Cruising Section Front
 
Add Cruising headlines to your news reader:
 

Resource guide