How do I love the Crystal Serenity? Let me count the ways.   By Charlie Huisking   As the Crystal Serenity pulled out of Antigua just before sunset on Tuesday, a recording of Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World began playing on the Lido Deck. The song is played as the Serenity leaves [...]

  A dream sail in Barbados, swimming with sea turtles—and the t-shirt in Aruba I decided not to buy.     By Charlie Huisking   I’ve just returned from the best shore excursion I’ve ever had in the Caribbean: a five-hour sail on a catamaran out of Bridgetown, Barbados. Only about 20 guests from the [...]

  It’s the trip, not the destination.   By Charlie Huisking   When friends asked me what Caribbean ports I’d be visiting on the Crystal Serenity, I told them I had no idea.   That wasn’t really true. I knew we’d be sailing from Miami to Aruba, Bonaire, Grenada, Barbados and Antigua before returning to Miami [...]

  I had planned to board a luxury liner. Instead, I was riding the Greyhound to Miami.   By Charlie Huisking   For a guy who left the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in September in part to become a travel writer, I found myself in an embarrassing position earlier this month.   In a spur-of-the-moment decision, a [...]