National Theatre's Amadeus revival is heart-stoppingly brilliant

The National Theatre's current production of Amadeus is one of the best things I have ever seen on stage. Definitely one of the top 10 theatrical experiences of my life. Probably in the top five. The whole run is sold out, but they're doing a live broadcast to cinemas on 2 February.

Clear your diary. Find your nearest venue. Book a ticket. Now.

Most readers will be familiar with the 1984 film version that won that year's Best Picture Academy Award and a host of other prizes. I love the film. But the play is much, much better. And very different.

The film is a fairly straightforward, fictionalised biography of Mozart's life. The play is more complex. It's  not only much more about Salieri, but explores more internal conflict. What happens when you work all your life to be good at the thing you love, and someone who hardly tries is better at that thing than you'll ever be? How does jealousy warp the soul? What happens to children when the parent (in this case, God) loves one more than the other? Much like the greatest of Shakespeare's plays, Amadeus uses this story to explore the mingled tragedy and joy of the human condition. The Salieri v. Mozart plot is a conduit to far deeper themes.

I love the film's opera scenes, which show us Mozart's great works in the lavish costumes and settings of his time. I assumed there wouldn't be as much music in the stage play. I was gloriously wrong. The Southbank Sinfonia is on stage most of the time, not just providing music but actively participating in the story. They walk as they play. They're the crowd on the streets and the guests at opulent parties. For the operas, they coalesce back into a traditional orchestra under Mozart's baton. Several top operatic soloists join the cast, so when we get the excerpts from Figaro, the Magic Flute et al, the sound is magnificent. (No matter how good your sound system is, nothing touches the soul like live music.)

The staging is remarkable. For the operas, the whole scene flips with the emperor and his court at the back of the stage, looking towards you. The orchestra is in the centre, in a pit that's sunk into the stage, while the operatic action takes place around an arc projecting into the audience. You find yourself backstage, very much a piece of the action. Later, when we get the musical climax of the requiem, the mingled cast and lights coming up from the horizon create a breathtaking, apocalyptic moment of which you are very much a part.

Lucian Msamati's Salieri is compelling and complex. Despite his evil behaviour, your empathy is all with him and you feel his pain. For the first time, the use of "Amadeus" as the title became clear to me, as Salieri wails the word heavenward. Ama Deus. Beloved of God. Why him and not me? It's a heart shattering moment. I was less enamoured of Adam Gillen's Mozart, who is played as such an obnoxious clown it's very difficult to like him for three quarters of the play. He does pull us in at the end, as we finally understand that he's a scared child, solidly on the autistic spectrum, unable to interact normally with others yet desperately wanting to be loved. Bring plenty of tissue for Mozart's death scene. This is a proper tragedy: nobody escapes unscathed.

Emotionally shattering. Visually beautiful. Soaring music. Remarkable acting. Spiced with witty comic relief and gorgeous costumes. Theatre like this doesn't come around very often. I suspect we might see a transfer to the West End. But don't take any chances. If you're at all intrigued, get to that cinema broadcast.

Puerto Rico's El Yunque gives easy access to exotic rain forest

There's only one tropical rain forest in the vast, impressive network run by the U.S. National Forest Service, so if you find yourself in Puerto Rico a visit to El Yunque should be near the top of your list.

The forest covers a mountainous area at the northwest tip of the island. The highest peaks of El Toro and the eponymous El Yunque dominate every sightline for miles. They loom benignly over the scene, deep green, summits ringed by clouds on most days. No matter how hot and sunny it is down on the beach, it's probably raining somewhere just half an hour up the road in El Yunque.

It is, therefore, a good thing you can see quite a bit without ever getting out of your car ... since it was pouring steadily through most of our visit. You can get a great sense of the richness of the forest, see a couple of striking waterfalls and admire stunning views simply by driving up to the Palo Colorado picnic area (about seven miles into the park) and back. Obviously, things get much better when you get out of the car to explore further.

Down near the entrance you'll find the official visitor's centre. It costs $4 a person to get in. Technically, you could bypass it and visit the park for free, but it's worth it for scene setting and a tiny contribution to what the costs of maintaining access through this wilderness must be. The centre is an open-sided, peak-roofed pavilion with some exhibits and a film (running alternately in Spanish and English) about the ecology and history of the area. The film is excellent, while the exhibits are basic pictures-on-a-board stuff. There's also a cafe (a good place to hang out and watch for birds), a nice little shop and ... when we were there ... a couple of ladies selling local crafts. Don't leave without picking up a map that shows the road to the top of the mountain with parking areas, waterfalls and hiking paths clearly marked.

The architects have cleverly positioned the visitor centre across a ravine from the car park; you cross on an elevated walkway that puts you up in the canopy. It's a great perspective, allowing you to see the lush productivity of this environment. Breadfruit, mango and all sorts of flowers were out, while those who were both lucky and observant spotted hummingbirds enjoying the bounty.

I've been in plenty of glass houses trying to re-create this environment in the great botanical gardens of the world, but they quickly pale to insignificance when you're in the middle of the real thing. The forest stretches as far as you can see and trees ... some of them more familiar as docile houseplants back home ... tower above you. But the most striking difference is the sound. The chirrups, whirring and clicks of insects and birds blend with the steady splashing of raindrops and a rustling of leaves so constant it almost sounds like waves hitting the shore. It's the soundtrack of a place that is vibrantly alive.

It may only be 7 miles to Palo Colorado but it feels longer, especially if you're the driver. The archingmake you take your time. One of the most dramatic waterfalls, La Coca, cascades right next to, and then runs beneath, the road. There are also some stunning viewpoints out over the island, frequently at the tip of those hairpin turns and with precipitous drops below. One spot about half-way has some shops and a cafe.
canopy of tropical flora above you is so spectacular you want to take your time. The frequent hairpin turns and the places where the potholes become road-crossing gullies formed by constantly flowing water

I'd recommend driving all the way to Palo Colorado without stopping, taking note of what you'd like to explore and where you want to stop on the way back down. We got out of the car a couple of times. I took one short ramble around a striking reflecting pool and even managed to glimpse the green streak of one of the rare local parrots. But a rain poncho good enough for the gentle mists of England was woefully inadequate for the deluges we encountered up there.

It wasn't worth taking proper hiking boots and waterproofs on this trip, but if I ever headed back to Puerto Rico for a two-week stay, I'd do it. I suspect taking the time for a leisurely hike off the beaten path would have been glorious.

Sport fishing is No. 1 highlight of this Caribbean holiday

I am an obsessive planner of holidays. But even I have to admit: sometimes, the most memorable bits of a trip are the serendipitous, last minute and unexpected. The time I will remember most from this trip, and the experience that far surpassed anything else we did, wasn't even imagined before we left England. We decided it on a whim, researched it in a few minutes on Trip Advisor and booked with a few quick emails.

Deep sea fishing aboard the Kon K'lma with Captain Andy was the highlight of our Christmas holidays.

I haven't fished since spending a sweltering day on a man-made Missouri lake, sitting in a tiny aluminium rowboat for hours, no sound but the crackle of a Cardinals baseball game on the radio, while my grandfather waited for a catfish to chomp the line hanging over the side. I was about 8 years old, and the experience defined my understanding of boredom for my life to come. (Fortunately, it didn't put me off baseball.)

There was another aspect of fishing quietly poking my awareness, however. Back home hung a photo of my other grandfather standing proudly beside a five-foot-long sailfish, suspended off the stern of a multi-tiered fishing boat hanging called The Skipjack. The fish itself hung on the wall above, vibrant blue sail and shining grey skin immortalised by a clever taxidermist. No offense to Missouri, or to the first grandfather, but beautiful fish, palm trees and ocean swells seemed more glamorous. It also seemed like something only serious fishermen did, however. Combined with the prices when I'd checked them in Florida, I'd never been brave enough to give it a try.

And then, on the cruise, someone mentioned how good the fishing was in the Puerto Rico Trench, and our interest was piqued. Why not try it?

I suspect it could have been a disaster for complete fishing virgins to bluster into big time fishing territory, but Captain Andy was a magnificent guide and tutor. A native Puerto Rican born on a hillside you see as you pull out of port, son of a local fisherman, who now splits his time between commercial fishing and running his charter boat with his brother, Andy has local fishing in his veins. The result is not only a fun day out ... as he can speak intelligently on pretty much every aspect of Puerto Rico you think to ask about ... but a higher chance of catching a fish.

We ended the day with a wahoo and a mahi mahi, both respectably sized and highly prized for eating. Andy had been on the radio to other boats and as of the time we were wrapping up our day, they hadn't caught anything. Since I'm a first timer, Andy's line configurations and choices of lure and bait all looked like arcane black arts to me. But they clearly worked.

We booked for a whole day, starting at 9 and returning to our car, filleted sides of fish in plastic bags, around 4. That included a stop for snorkelling and lunch. The cost was US$600. Yes, quite an investment in a day out, but not so much if you consider we were chartering a boat and the undivided attention of two crew members for the whole day. Andy said he didn't like to split charters, as it could quickly cause tensions when one person wanted to head home while others wanted to stay out. As the only guests, we controlled the timetable.

Realistically, to say that we caught fish is stretching it. Andy did all the work; we didn't take any action until the fish was on the line and it was time to reel it in. We started with a pleasant cruise along the coast, Andy pointing out highlights while he set out the lines. He explained how he always used live bait, and showed off shining, bright-eyed, 8-inch long sardine-like fish that would have been good enough for a grocery store fish counter. Onto big, nasty hooks those went, with a variety of colourful lures above them. Then came the line setting. Andy let out six different lines from different parts of the boat, including two from gallows-like contraptions projecting from either side. This ensured that nothing got tangled, and is clearly a real art.

One essential warning: this is not an outing for those prone to motion sickness. Though the day was beautiful, the sea was quite choppy thanks to the dying days of the Christmas winds. You're close to the water and, unlike a sailboat, you're bobbing along with the swells rather than slicing through them. I love being on the water and have delighted in sailing on some rough seas, yet here for the first time I approached the edge of sea sickness. Avoiding the cabin, keeping my eyes on the horizon and breathing in lots of fresh air kept the worst effects at bay but, to be honest, it wasn't completely conquered until the adrenaline triggered by a fish on our hook replaced it.

The excitement starts with a crack of sound when a line suddenly starts spinning out. Andy rushes to the correct spot, starts reeling the line in and directs you to the chair anchored to the centre of the deck. Then it's over to you, to crank the reel steadily as the reassuring weight on the line tells you that something good waits at the end of the process. Or not. My fish, a sleek and speedy wahoo, often swims faster than the speed of the boat and thus feels at times as if it's slipped the line. Thanks to Andy's experience, I kept reeling ... minutes seemed like ages, and it's actually quite hard work on your arm muscles ... until my catch was dragged to the surface and was clearly visible streaking through the waves. This is the most exciting moment of all, particularly magical when my husband was catching his mahi mahi. That glint of blue, yellow and green arcing out of the water was like a rainbow given animate life. At that moment, I almost wanted to release the beauty back into the wild. Then I remembered how tasty mahi mahi is. (And how much we were paying for this fish!)

As the fish broke the surface, Andy leaned over the side of Kon K'lma with hook and net, grabbing a wriggling, slippery creature who could do serious damage with a whack of its muscular tail. I suspect this is the bit that requires the most skill, and I was particularly glad we weren't attempting it.

Two fish ... and far more than we could eat before we left ... in the cooler, we had lunch and headed The Circle of Life) and the fillets went into plastic bags destined for the kitchen. Each fish could have easily served 12-16 in restaurant sized portions, so we sent about half of our catch away with Andy.

back towards shore. Andy makes a mean sandwich, and a cold beer tastes magical after exertion in the salty air. We moored for a bit off a small offshore island with a reef tailing off one side for some of the nicest snorkelling we'd had in the Caribbean. Then is was back to the marina, where Andy filleted both fish with a dexterity that would put many professional chefs to shame. The spines, heads and tails went over the side to feed the tarpons lurking in the shallows (I found myself humming

Very important lesson here: if you're going to do a fishing excursion, do it very early in your trip so you have time to eat what you catch. We spent the next three days eating fish. It was lovely to be able to make fish tartare with complete confidence, and mahi mahi (better known as dorade in Europe) is perfect for that. Grilled with a side of mango salsa was a triumph as well. The biggest revelation, however, was the wahoo. I'd never had it and had never heard of it, though I knew it's Hawaiian name of ono. It has the firmness of swordfish, the colour of mackerel, and a flavour somewhere between the two. It's spectacular, and a joy to cook with. A last chunk, frozen in a lock-top plastic box, actually made it home to end its days in a thai green curry the night after our return to a much colder, greyer England. It was a warm, comforting and colourful extension of the best part of our holiday.

Want to book with Captain Andy? You can find him here.

The more local you go, the better Puerto Rico gets

Puerto Rico is an island of quirky contrast. Its American territory status makes it both familiar and foreign. Much to my surprise ... and delight ... the foreign predominates.

At first glance, it's bizarrely familiar. American uniforms and processes fill the airport. Chains like McDonalds, Walgreens, Walmart and Wendy's line the roads, all built in the standard corporate architecture. U.S.-style license plates tag the cars. We followed a big, beautifully-maintained highway with standard U.S. signage west from San Juan. In the capital, Spanish colonial history and architecture house Bank of America, T.J. Maxx and Ben & Jerry's, while the ethnic and linguistic mix on the streets is about the same as South Florida.

Get out of San Juan, however, and things change quickly. English is obviously not the first language, and many people don't speak it at all. Chains and strip malls give way to vegetable stands and impromptu barbecue places comprised of a couple oil-can grills and a quickly hammered-together bar. Locals seem to populate them all afternoon. Packs of stay dogs lope through the palm forest and three-foot-long lizards bask in the middle of badly-potholed and poorly marked roads. Sat nav systems are useless at everything but zig-zagging you through poorly-paved lanes in small towns ... rundown but colourful ... where locals throw their hands up in amused rebuke when pointing out that you're taking the one-way system from the wrong direction. A mountain cloaked by tropical rain forest dominated the horizon. The beaches were gloriously strewn with coconuts and local fishermen nattering away in Spanish.

Welcome to an alternative reality where the USA goes all dusky and exotic.

I must admit, Puerto Rico was a second choice. I'd really wanted to spend the five nights we had between cruise and return flight in the Virgin Islands. Transport costs and logistics (we needed to be in San Juan airport by 9am New Year's Day) made this impractical, so Puerto Rico won by default. But I wanted to get out of San Juan, the default cruise extension. We opted for the northwest corner of the island, just beneath El Yunque national park and anchored by the town of Fajardo, where a ferry goes to Puerto Rico's smaller sister islands. Turns out these are Virgin Islands, too ... the Spanish Virgins ... and while not quite as spectacular as the American or British VI, the beaches, reefs and coastline can put up a fair fight.

Having had fantastic experiences with the website VRBO sourcing our rental properties in Sonoma and Gascony, we booked a beach-side condo through them and were delighted. While I wouldn't have given up the cruise, the five leisurely days in Elio and Maria's two-bedroom, ground-floor place in Casa Del Mar were just as special, in their own way. There was none of the characterless feel you often get from holiday rentals; the place was beautifully and comfortably furnished, complete with original paintings on the walls and cheerful, tropical colour schemes. Internet, cable TV (a bit dodgy on the connection), air conditioning and ceiling fans let the husband lounge without fear of sunburn, while I could take to the patio furniture, with sea views, or walk across a short stretch of exquisitely maintained lawn to be on the beach. The complex sits on a beautiful small bay, with short walks in either direction tipping backwards to other bays and other views. It's the Atlantic on this side of the island, so the surf and clarity are more like Florida than the Caribbean, but I was happy.

In fact, something about Casa del Mar reminded me strongly of the Floridian summers of my childhood. It wasn't very crowded until New Year's Eve, but the people who were there were all families quietly going about their own business. Everyone was exceptionally friendly; our next door neighbours even brought us a plate of traditional food on New Year's Eve so we could have the local holiday experience. (Indeed, that was the best traditional food I had while in the Caribbean.)

The overwhelming majority of our fellow residents were Puerto Rican. We saw few white faces. I was puzzled. Where were all the continental American visitors? Why hadn't all those people who flock to Florida discovered this spot, a bit further south, more exotic, cheaper than Floridian equivalents but reminiscent of their quieter past? A quick scan of real estate sites showed that you could buy a beach-view condo here for less than half the price of one in Ft. Lauderdale. Escalating values had priced my mother well out of the traditional family turf of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. She could have afforded to retire here.

We found all the Anglos when we stumbled into Richie's Cafe. Nestled near the top of a hillside, this peak-roofed, open-walled pavilion has jaw-dropping views. Rio Grande bay below, the town and bay of Luquillo beyond, the peninsula of Fajardo and some of the Spanish Virgin Islands on the horizon. Behind us, the slopes of El Yunque loomed and, as the sun set, the distinctive song of the local coqui frogs filled the warm, moist night. (To hear them, go here ... this is the sound of Puerto Rico.)

It's a friendly beach-style bar with even friendlier service, and it was as white and English-speaking as our condo complex what Spanish and brown. Our fabulous server explained. Mark was a midwestern guy who'd followed his Puerto Rican partner (who'd become his spouse just a week earlier) down to Puerto Rico, so he had a foot in both worlds. Yes, the Anglos liked Puerto Rico, but traditionally they stayed within the reliable confines of big resorts. The Rio Grande area was dominated by the Westin hotel and time share complex, with its own shops and restaurants. He said he'd started to see a bit of this change as sites like airbnb and VRBO gave people like us a chance to go local. But most visitors saw little of Puerto Rico besides their ride to and from the airport, and perhaps a day up at the National Park once they'd settled into their American corporate colony.

Restaurant owner Richie had figured this out years ago, laying on a free mini-bus to ferry guests to and from the Westin. They got a little adventure to a "local" restaurant with a great view, Richie got clientele. Clearly, clientele with more money than the average Puerto Rican, because Richie's prices are exorbitant, while his food is well below average.

The stuffed snapper special sounded good and looked great. A whole fish, filleted from the top to remove the entire rib cage (a tricky bit of knife work), deep fried, then the cavity filled with a shrimp and conch salad. Unfortunately it was badly overcooked, rendering the snapper chewy and almost tasteless. At $45 for the plate, it was the price of a course at Nathan Outlaw's Michelin-starred London fish restaurant ... a laughable comparison. Piers' tomato allergy made the menu tough to negotiate. He settled on jumbo shrimp, which emerged from the kitchen as a few medium-sized prawns, grilled without any particular skill and unembellished, plopped next to a pile of fries.

The food here was the worst value-for-money we've encountered in many years and many countries. If you find yourself in this part of the world, it's worth paying a premium for the view ... but spend your money on drinks and move on. We'd been planning to do the same, but so Anglo was Richies that college bowl games were on the jumbo TV screens above the bar, and we'd stumbled quite by accident onto the Northwestern Wildcats in the Pinstripe Bowl. Having watched the game to its victorious purple conclusion from a great table while the place filled up behind us, we got lazy and ordered dinner. Our Puerto Rican neighbours had warned us ... this place was for outsiders who weren't serious about local quality. To get that, we should have gone where they went: the ramshackle roadside BBQ places.

Sadly, we didn't get a chance to try any of these. Because by the next evening, we had a refrigerator full of freshly caught deep-sea fish to cook our way through. For more on that, read on...

Beware: Viking is still trying to figure out the Caribbean

We quickly noticed an impressive pattern on board our cruise ship. Well over half the people we spoke to were repeat Viking customers. Some had been travelling with the company for decades, and were well into double-digits on past cruises. Marketers would place everyone I spoke to solidly into the "advocate" column. That's incredibly impressive, and rare.

Most of that experience had been gained on Viking's established river cruises. This is Viking's first year in the Caribbean on their ocean-going vessels and, sadly, they have a long way to go to meet the expectations established by their original fleet.

Tours, in general, under-delivered. Aside from our magnificently-named guide "Mirage" on Antigua, all of the guides on the included tours had a set patter and couldn't go much beyond it to answer questions about history, economics, government, etc. Indeed, in most cases their English wasn't good enough to understand what was being asked. In our worst case, our guide in Guadeloupe seemed more like a local plucked off the street than a travel professional, going on endlessly about the rivalries between the locals of La Moule and Pointe-a-Pitre, or telling us where her family's favourite picnic spots on the island were, rather than giving us the expected tour. For example, an overview of what the island's typical products were, what to look for when buying local spices and whether or not bargaining was appropriate would have been just the thing before getting dropped off at a local market. Harsh? Perhaps. But Viking differentiates themselves on "enrichment", helping you to delve deep into a destination's history and culture. Their delivery in our Caribbean destinations was well below expectation.

It may be that Viking's model is not an easy fit with the Caribbean. It's easy to load people onto a bus in Prague, Bordeaux or Copenhagen and blow their minds with history, architecture and culture for four hours. While the Caribbean has similar highlights, they're fewer and further between. Thus we inevitably spent hours driving around looking at spectacular views, vegetation and ramshackle villages. Nice, but if I had it to do over I would have skipped most of the included tours and done my own thing. When you consider that those included tours are part of why you're paying a premium price ... not good.

Even when we got to something meaty, the destination had been woefully oversold. Stony Hill

was not the "resplendent estate" promised in the tour literature (at least not for any Brit with a National Trust membership); it was the lovely home of a prosperous professional with one hell of a view and a garden that, while nice, was mare national gardens scheme open day than what you'd expect from that "resplendent estate" billing. The much-lauded cemetery in La Moule was, indeed, impressive; but having driven by two almost identical ones en route, everyone on the bus wondered why we needed to drive an additional hour each way to see wasn't this one?

When it came to the not-included, additional fee excursions, I had other disappointments. Having paid the premium for a ship that markets itself in a different league, I expected similarly differentiated shore options. In every case we bought into, they were standard mass-market offerings, with passengers from Carnival or Princess embarking for the same things at the same time. (Though in different groups.)

The biggest debacle was the St. John's Swim and Snorkel. Our last day of the cruise. Our last opportunity to snorkel. We made a choice based on the title, and the promise of snorkelling. We passed up an alternative trip to snorkel with turtles, based on the reputation of St. John's reefs. Once on the boat, the captain made it clear that it was not a snorkelling excursion. (Though it was printed on our tickets.) And even though she had the equipment on board, health and safety wouldn't allow her to let us use it. (I, fortunately, had my own mask with me.) The same guidelines for some reason meant that, because it wasn't a snorkel tour, we had to take rubber rafts to the beach rather than just swimming the 100 yards from the boat. Perplexing, as clambering off and on a rib (rubber dingy) from a catamaran when both are bobbing about is a hell of a lot more dangerous than descending the cat's stairs and swimming off.  Everyone on the tour was irritated, and we made a point of registering our complaint in person as soon as we got back. Given Viking's marketing skill, I expected an apology at the minimum, and a refund as best practice. There was no reply. This, on our last day, left an unfortunately sour taste in my mouth.

I was surprised at how unhelpful the staff on the Explorers' Desk (the concierge service) was. Every time I asked for any information on shore excursions or a destination, they turned to the same web pages I already had access to. They didn't seem to have any personal experience of the islands or knowledge beyond what was in the brochure, thus were unable to make useful recommendations. We did have a great conversation with the customer services manager earlier in the cruise, who explained that they were still learning the Caribbean and encouraged our feedback. When I asked one of the desk guys for an email address, rather than their printed forms, so I could give them mine in detail, he promised to get back to me. Then never did. If you don't take the offer of my private constructive criticism, then I'm afraid you default to this public space...

Our final issues came around the unique circumstance of cruising at Christmas. Lessons learned for next time, should we ever do this again.

As I wrote earlier when I discussed what exceeded expectations, we loved the heavy Scandinavian influence on food and drink. My half-Danish husband pointed out that this was the reason that all the traditional holiday dishes were served on Christmas Eve. Fair enough, but they probably should have warned the primarily American and English customers of the fact. I overheard many disappointed diners on Christmas night, who'd not ordered the turkey and Christmas pudding the night before, or even worse had gone to the buffet, saving themselves up for the traditional meal on the 25th. A meal that wasn't on offer.

Worse for us was the celebration of Christmas itself. We'd decided not to go to a Christmas Eve mass in St. Kitts because a midnight service with readings and carols was on offer on the ship. We were expecting something gentle and serious, presumably with the captain doing the readings. (Commanding officers can double as religious authorities at sea, right?) Instead, we got the same entertainment team who'd just finished the all-singing, all-dancing holiday show leading a happy-clappy, evangelical style production that wasn't that different from the earlier razzle-dazzle. We lasted five minutes. Granted, we're perhaps in the minority as traditionalists who wanted something more solemn. My criticism of Viking here is only that I wish they would have been clearer about what was actually on offer so we could have made it to that mass on shore. (I was seriously tempted to join the Jewish passengers' DIY Hanukkah service, which I suspect would have been much closer in spirit to what I was after that the televangelist party in the main theatre.)

Viking charges more than the mass market cruise lines, and sets the bar much higher in their marketing. Surprisingly, they delivered the inverse of my expectations. Experiences on board were superlative; on shore deeply average. This won't stop me from booking with them again; their Viking Homelands cruise is solidly on our bucket list. But I'd steer well clear of any new destination and, if returning to the Caribbean, would think hard about arranging my own itinerary on land.

Eastern Caribbean Round-Up: Narrow view offers amuse bouche without a main course

CRUISE PORTS: San Juan, Puerto Rico; Road Town, Tortola; St. John's, Antigua; Castries, St. Lucia; Bridgetown, Barbados; Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe; Basseterre, St. Kitts & Nevis; Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas 

 Cruising is a double-edged sword. The same floating-hotel convenience that whisks you across many cultures in a single trip also deprives you of a deep local experience. Viking Cruises try to overcome this ... and succeeds to some degree ... by putting a heavier emphasis on learning. But once you've made your choice of an activity for your day ashore, you're inevitably thrown in with the masses for a limited view. It's like trying to evaluate a whole restaurant based on one bite of food.

This struck me most forcefully in Castries, St. Lucia, when I decided to take a long walk. While St. Lucia is a famed holiday destination known for luxury resorts, they certainly aren't in the capital. It is ramshackle, a bit edgy and resolutely local: the cruise passengers don't seem to wander around much and the sidewalk traders are there for residents, not tourists. It's the closest I've felt to the heart of Africa since visiting Zambia, and I didn't pass another white face for five or six blocks. (An excellent experience for any white person who thinks England or America is so integrated that being a minority is no big deal these days.) A market sold a mix of tourist tat, local spices and some bits of intriguing craft work, but very few cruisers had wandered in to wake the traders dozing beneath ceiling fans. There must be a love-hate relationship with cruise ships. Tourism is essential for job creation, but I saw little in Castries reaping the benefit. And once I was on a tour bus, little of what I saw reflected, or even admitted to, the challenges of life in town.

I'm setting that scene to explain why this roundup of Caribbean destinations is laughably broad-brushed, highly opinionated and doesn't come near an accurate view of any individual island.  Our days were a series of amuse bouche: some excellent, others disappointing. If you're ever cruising through the region yourself, they might help you to choose how you spend your day.

BEACH AND SNORKEL
My perfect day features floating placidly over a coral reef before recovering on a powdery sand beach with a rum cocktail in hand.  Thus three of our days featured catamaran sailing packages. I enjoyed them all, but they were bittersweet. The decline in the health of these reefs in the nine years since my last visit is shocking. I'm also now able to compare Caribbean offerings to Mauritius and the Maldives; both of these Indian Ocean destinations offer significantly better, and less crowded experiences. So the quality of all the these trips was a bit disappointing, despite putting me indisputably into my "happy place".

The sailing from St. Thomas to St. John is wildly picturesque as you cross from Atlantic to Caribbean and the horizon is dotted with an array of Virgin Islands. We moored off Honeymoon Beach on St. John; not as striking as Trunk Bay a bit further up the coast, but still picture-postcard stuff. The reef here had the most living coral of the places we visited, though not the variety of fish. Captain Theresa (a refreshing standout in a male-dominated trade) and her crew were highly professional, more attuned to health and safety, packed the boat for a high margin, sold extras and pushed tips more than the others. Probably no surprise that this was our only all-American, all-white crew. In retrospect, a half-day for this excursion just doesn't do it justice; it really needs a full day with confirmation that snorkeling, lunch and beach are all included. If any less, I would not book it.

Indeed, it was the day-long excursion from St. Kitts that was the best of the three. The catamaran left from a dock adjacent to the cruise ship (almost an hour of your excursion in St. Thomas is getting to and from the catamaran's dock) and sailed down the picturesque coast of St. Kitts before anchoring off the southern tip. The reef here was badly damaged by hurricanes and global warming; more a jumble of boulders than a collection of coral. But the sea life was actually better here than off St. John, allowing me to spot more than 20 different varieties including two types of sea urchin and three of parrot fish. We then crossed the channel between St. Kitts and its sister island of Nevis while having lunch, before dropping anchor for some time on the beach. A less crowded boat and a more laid-back Caribbean crew made for a more magical sail, especially as they allowed passengers to ride in the nets up front (prohibited by the Americans).

Weather made it hard to judge our Barbados excursion accurately: grey skies and steady wind made for choppy seas, and it rained at least half the day. The sail never went up. Instead we motored to a bay within sight of the cruise ship. I assume this was because of the weather. The snorkeling was pretty good, however, thanks to a nice little reef created by sunken ship. A few hundred yards over in the same bay, lazy giant turtles rely on expedition leaders for feeding, rather than doing their own hunting. The near-guarantee of seeing these magnificent beasts is wonderful, but the crowds were so bad as to almost destroy the experience. Up to 30 snorkelers were thrashing about in a circle around the turtle, many trying to prod it or otherwise get in its way. I felt terribly sorry for the beast, and the whole thing felt more like a zoo than a natural experience. It left a bad taste in my mouth..

SIGHTSEEING
San Juan is the obvious winner here. Where American oversight seemed to hinder a catamaran cruise, it's a boon for an old colonial town. San Juan is in far better shape than most of the other ports we visited, and clearly has a life beyond tourism. Wander down gracious streets with an old world feel, follow impressive old walls, explore two historic Spanish forts. I had a delightful clamber around Fort San Filipe del Morro, which looks similar to the fort at St. Augustine, Florida, but expands Tardis-like once you're through the main gate, spilling down the cliffs to the sea below. The nearby Ballaja Barracks are as spectacular as anything you'd see in Madrid, and have just benefitted from a multi-million dollar renovation as they were transformed into a cultural centre. Nearby, however, the crumbling, down-at-heel cathedral reminds you how difficult it is to preserve anything in this climate of humidity, pests and hurricanes.

Next comes Antigua, thanks to Nelson's Dockyard. This was the British Navy hub in the Caribbean, where ships put in to have hulls cleaned and sails and rigging refitted before return journeys. Now the restored historic buildings offer a museum, shops, a boutique hotel, restaurants and a yacht marina. While the museum was resolutely old style ... no interactive tech in sight ... it was filled with interesting stuff and we would have liked to have spent longer here. The place is perhaps more relevant to us as we live near, and have regularly explored, the dockyards in Portsmouth. Having the start of the naval journey in our heads, it was interesting to see the other end of the line. It's a shame that they don't have any historic ships, as at Portsmouth, to further bring it to life.

We only had a few fleeting minutes driving through central Charlotte-Amalie in St. Thomas, but it was enough for me to see the town's Danish roots in its architecture. Now that I know Copenhagen, I can recognise kindred elements in this tropical former colony. With more time, it's an angle we would have loved to explore more.

Viking tries hard to play the history and culture angle at other Caribbean stops, but without much success in this ... there first year in the region (see next entry for more).

STUNNING VIEWS
This could be the dominant theme of our cruise destinations. Unsurprising, considering most islands in this stretch of the Caribbean are in fact the tops of volcanoes. (Some dormant, some active.) On the ship, a guest lecturer gave a talk on the geology of the volcanoes and coral reefs that make up the landscape; a nice background for our drives.

Nail biting twists and turns on St. Lucia took us to a private house called Stony Hill with impressive tropical gardens and tantalising views of what I suspect were much nicer parts of the island than we'd seen on our tour.  Back on Antigua, the striking viewpoint at Shirley Heights makes it clear why the British chose to fortify the place; a stunning vista over critical sea lanes.  In Guadeloupe we drove out to Castle Point, where breakers slam into pillars of rock sending towers of white foam heavenward. Ironically, it reminded me strongly of the bay at Vik, Iceland, I'd stood on almost three years ago to the day. At different ends of the temperature spectrum, but sharing a magnificence of sea, sand and surf.

St. Thomas lays its American marketing flare onto its views, transforming the picturesque Mountain Top point into a vast barn selling tourist tat and flogging banana daiquiris, supposedly invented here. Ignore the commercialism and the view is indeed spectacular, particularly of the unusually long and narrow Magens Bay. I have fond memories of this place from a trip in my 20s, and was sorely tempted to skip organised shore excursions to just go to the beach here.

SHOPPING
If you stick close to the cruise ports, you'll assume the Caribbean is just one huge shopping mall for jewellery, with a few big chains operating in every port. Diamonds, emeralds, tanzanite ... there's bling to rival anything on Bond Street here. St. Thomas is probably the most commercial of all the ports, balancing the parade of jewellers with some galleries of local arts and crafts to break things up. San Juan does the same, but actually has department stores and offices where non-tourism happens as well. It would be hard to distinguish between the shopping areas in most of the other ports, with similar places selling the same brands at prices that seem fairly consistent.

As with any shopping these days, you need to be careful and do your research in advance. The Philip Stein watch bands I was after were significantly cheaper than any price I could get in the UK. But my husband, having shopped for and identified the Tissot watch he wanted, had it delivered home for more than £300 less via Amazon. From what I saw, the more you were planning to spend, the more vendors were willing to deal. It's probably not the best place to buy a single, moderately-priced item, but if you're planning to drop £40,000 on a diamond necklace I suspect you can negotiate a steal here.

Few places, sadly, have much local colour. The covered market at Castries had charm, but they weren't selling much beyond tee shirts, beach clothes and tacky souvenirs.  Point-a-Pitre has the elements of a fine local experience, combining its French heritage with tropical flair. There's a spice market in the centre of town with a magnificent cast-iron roof and a sound system piping in Debussy and French Jazz. Ladies in colourful local madras prints sell the island's vanilla, nutmeg, other spices and bottles of flavoured rum punch. It would have been better if all the bottles hadn't shared the same "hand painted" decoration, making me think there's some industrial production line hidden away that's churning everything out of one place. I got the same feeling about the spices, which were all bagged and priced identically, no matter the vendor.

Sadly, the vendors cling to the kind of French customer "service" that's mostly disappeared back in Paris. When I had my French-speaking husband along, vendors were polite but perfunctory. Once I was on my own, they ran the gamut from frosty to hostile. A few blocks further on I was enchanted by a thriving vegetable market, but when I tried to explain in my halting French that I was from a cruise, so wouldn't be cooking anything, the woman actually made angry motions to wave me away and stop wasting her time. A real shame, as in most markets around the world people who love food naturally share and enjoy a bond, whatever the language.

Still, this was the island where we did the most shopping, coming home with spices, cinnamon oil and jewellery hand-crafted in silver with a stone called larimar, found only in the Dominican Republic.

MISSED POTENTIAL
Without a poor tour (of that, more in the next story) and bad attitude, Guadeloupe might have been my favourite of all the islands visited. Distinct architecture ... including magnificently creepy black-and-white cemeteries climbing up hillsides ... intriguing history and two lobes of a butterfly-shaped island with radically different terrain (one mountainous, one flat) invited further exploration. It was the place that seemed to have the most distinct local culture, technically a part of France but very much its own beast.  It's the island on which Death in Paradise, one of my favourite BBC mystery shows, is filmed, so I have a sense of the bits we didn't see.

BIGGEST DISSAPOINTMENT
Everyone knows about the Caribbean's hurricane season, but the tourism industry seems to conspire to keep the Christmas Winds under wraps.  Turns out that December is actually the end of the rainy season in the islands, and most locals will tell you that the Christmas holidays are always peppered with storms. By the first week of January everything calms down, opening the legendary high season when the Caribbean Sea is calm as a lake and it rarely rains. But if visiting for the holidays, expect storms, choppy seas and reduced visibility for snorkelling.

We still had mostly sunny days, with only two complete wash-outs. Frustratingly, one of those included high winds and driving rains so bad they prevented us from getting ashore in the British Virgin Islands. (We were to have dropped anchor and taken the ship's tenders in to port.) I had fully expected Tortola, and our half-day excursion to Jost Van Dyke, to be the highlight of the trip. Only the delights of an exceptional ship kept me from being seriously disgruntled by my extra day at sea.

IN SUMMARY
Though the ship was exceptional, our excursions were average. Every island had its high and low points; no single destination stands above the rest. If returning by cruise ship to most of these islands, I would probably now organise my own activities in advance with local guides. But we're more likely, if returning to this part of the Caribbean, to stay on land. The Virgin Islands is the obvious choice, with their spectacular beauty, great snorkelling, British and American flavour and ferries allowing visitors to island hop. Though I have to admit, Guadeloupe is the one that leaves a wistful "what if" dancing in my head.