Cruise vs ‘normal’ holiday

Myself and my family have just returned from a two week holiday in Cuba.  We had a fantastic time and the weather was brilliant.

Hotel Entrance

We stayed in Varadero at the Melia Peninsula Hotel which is a 4 star All Inclusive hotel on the beach set in beautiful gardens.

Hotel Gardens

Varadero has beautiful beaches and we did a snorkelling trip too which was amazing.  We saw so many different types and colours of fish and got to feed them bread from our hands.  The sea is so clear and a lovely turquoise colour.  From the beach, you can walk out quite far as it’s so shallow for quite a distance.

Varadero Beach

Varadero Beach

My children loved spending most of the morning in one of the two pools or on the beach before coming back in the afternoon for a ‘siesta’ then heading out for dinner and a bit of evening entertainment.

Pool Area

Chilling by the pool

Our rooms were cleaned daily and the maid even left us flowers each day in our bed which were put to good use of course….

Who said boys can’t wear flowers?

The whole of the ground floor of this ‘villa’ was ours

Aimee loved getting a coconut from the ‘Coconut men’ on the beach and drinking the coconut milk.

Fresh Coconut milk.

The wildlife was……interesting…..

He’s not doing a good job of camouflaging….

That’s more like it….

And the sunsets were beautiful…..

Sunset

Sunset

We took hundreds of photos on this holiday so I’ll include a few more here.

Baby blanket art courtesy of the maid.

Mexican Speciality Restaurant.

Japanese Speciality Restaurant.

Lobby Area

Lobby Area

Dolphin spotting in the pool.

A rare moment when siblings prove they CAN share.

We did have a lovely time but after our last 3 holidays being cruises, myself and my husband couldn’t help comparing EVERYTHING to how it is on a cruise ship.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a fantastic hotel but you just don’t get the experience you do on a ship.  The out of this world food, the amazing service, the world class entertainment and of course, the ability to be able to visit so many different places.

It’s made us realise that for us, cruising is what we want to do.  Upon asking my 5 year old ‘Did you prefer this holiday or the ones on the big ship?’, she told me she preferred the ones on the ship.  I asked her why and the first response I got was ‘Spongebob was on one of the ships’ (see my earlier post about the NCL Epic).  I delved a bit deeper and she told me the pools were better and she preferred the childrens play area (kids club) on the ships.

There are lots more Caribbean Islands I would love to visit but I think I’ll be doing them on a cruise next time.

Maybe……