Christmas in the Caribbean, flying out to the ship

There are two ways to take a British cruise ship to the Caribbean for Christmas. One is to sail from home: a fortnight or more, most of it spent crossing the Atlantic, with the first week in the grey seas and short days of a northern winter. The other is to fly out to the Caribbean and join a ship that is already there. You cross the Atlantic in about nine hours by air and are on board in Bridgetown, Barbados, in time for a warm evening on deck. For a Christmas holiday of a fortnight, the second way gives you nearly all of it in the sun.

How the fly-cruise works

Barbados is the natural starting point. It is the easternmost island of the Caribbean, the closest to Europe, and it has a long-established deep-water cruise port beside its capital, Bridgetown. The time difference from Britain is only four or five hours, depending on the time of year, so jet lag is modest, and the first night on board usually feels like a holiday rather than recovery.

Ambassador's Christmas Caribbean Celebration flies from Heathrow or Manchester to join the ship in Bridgetown for fourteen nights over Christmas. Its ports include Grenada, the spice island whose flag carries a nutmeg; St Lucia, with the volcanic twin peaks of the Pitons; and Tobago, the quieter of the two islands of Trinidad and Tobago. It also calls at Guadeloupe, St Kitts, Antigua, Sint Maarten and the British Virgin Islands. Further south are Curaçao, Bonaire and Aruba, the Dutch islands off the coast of Venezuela. The ports differ slightly between the two departures, so it is worth checking the one you choose.

What the islands are like at Christmas

The eastern Caribbean in December is at the start of its dry season, after the official end of the hurricane season in late November. Days are warm, the trade winds are steady, and the rain, when it comes, usually passes over in a shower. The islands take Christmas seriously, in their own way: church services, carols, Christmas lights in the tropical heat, and food of their own, from black cake, rich with rum-soaked fruit, to ham and sorrel, a spiced drink made from hibiscus flowers. It is a long way from a British Christmas, but recognisably related to it.

Each island also has a character of its own. Willemstad, the capital of Curaçao, has a waterfront of pastel-coloured Dutch gabled houses that is a World Heritage Site. In Antigua, Nelson's Dockyard at English Harbour is a restored Georgian naval base. Guadeloupe and Martinique are part of France, with the euro and French bakeries. Grenada's capital, St George's, is a horseshoe of red-roofed houses around a deep harbour.

Barbados itself is worth arriving early for, if the flights allow. Bridgetown and its Garrison, with their eighteenth-century fortifications, barracks and parade ground, are a World Heritage Site, a reminder that this was one of the oldest and most important of Britain's Caribbean colonies. Sint Maarten, another of the ports, is one of the smallest islands in the world divided between two countries, with the Dutch side in the south and the French side, Saint-Martin, in the north. Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao, off the South American coast, are much drier than the green volcanic islands further north, with cactus on their hillsides, and they lie south of the main hurricane belt.

Christmas or New Year

For those who would rather be at sea for the New Year than for Christmas, Ambassador's New Year Caribbean Celebration flies from Heathrow to Bridgetown for fourteen nights over the turn of the year. Its ports include Curaçao, Aruba, Bonaire, Guadeloupe, St Lucia, Grenada and Tobago.

The practical points are few. The flight is long, so most people take something to make it pass. The sun is strong even in December, so take a hat and sunscreen. The ship's itinerary can change if the weather requires it. And the trip home brings you back to a British January, which is the only real drawback. Some people find that a reason to book the next one before they leave.