We booked an 8 day cruise on the Tere Moana, Mar. 11-19, beginning in Colon, Panama and ending in St. Maarten.

On the first day we were notified that we would not be sailing until the next day to allow the swells to diminish from Colon to Cartagena. We were also told we wouldn't be stopping in Les Saintes due to losing a day of travel. The swells didn't get smaller, so we sailed anyway. After docking in Cartegena in the p.m. and leaving again at noon the next day we sailed onto Aruba where we were supposed to be for a full day. That was adjusted to just 3 hrs. which didn't allow for any beach time, but we did pick up Mr. Bailey/wife, CEO and also the president of the line, which appeared to be the main reason for stopping there since we had no time to go to the beaches.

Originally Les Saintes was cancelled, but now was on the agenda once again and St. Barts was cancelled instead, once again due to swells. That seemed to be the standard reason whenever they changed the schedule. The swells were always present on the entire voyage, but that didn't seem to make a difference on going to Les Saintes.On Les Saintes we headed off to the beach with our snorkel gear hoping to spend the day there. There were no bathrooms on this beach (which the ship recommended). The sand was brown and grainy (not the white sand we had come to expect in the Caribbean on other islands). There was a dead fish floating in the edge of the water along with trash (paper plates, cups, etc.) and crisp sea weed that had been there for days. Needless to say no one went into the water except to relieve themselves (i.e. no bathrooms). Later in the a.m. a couple guys from the crew brought down a cooler with water, beer, wine and a couple plastic chairs, umbrellas and noodles for swimming. There were portable gas barbeques on the ship which stayed covered and on the ship, never to be used the entire cruise. We had lunch in town at a French cafe since the beach was not useable. Read more