Help! Need *New* Caribbean Vacation Destination

On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 18:04:12 GMT, "Skip Elliott Bowman"
wrote:
Tom is right. There is no more crime per se in the Caribbean than in NYC or
San Francisco, the two most popular tourism destinations in America.

We are not out to avoid the Caribbean because of the
general/background level of crime there. Hardly! We are only seeking
to avoid those very few islands and locations where we have
specifically been told or read of (or personally observed) elevated
crime rates specifically targeting tourists. With so many other good
choices, why would we want to go to an island or location where crimes
against tourists are not being properly controlled?

And let me be clear... there are plenty of locations within the USA
where we do not go and certainly would not choose to go on vacation.
The fact that a particular Caribbean island or location has "no more
crime per se than New York City" is not, to us, a very impressive
selling point. But we are comparing apples with oranges here. Crime
or not, there is only one NYC and folks understand and accept that
when they choose to travel there. If they don't, they will become
victims rather quickly! On the other hand, there are dozens of great
Caribbean islands and locations offering friendly, safe vacationing...
so why not choose one with a good reputation for safety?

Chuck

On Mar 6, 10:50 am, Chuck & Chris wrote:
On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 13:18:31 GMT, Rosalie B.





wrote:
Tom Withycombe wrote:
In article , Rita Daggett
writes

St. Lucia was not one of our favorite stops. It was in the midst of a
serious crime wave at the time... or so they told us... and we were
warned to be extremely careful. In view of that, it's probably not our
best choice even if the resort itself is quite fine.

Chuck

Been to St Lucia three times now and would not hesitate to go back - I dont
think the 'crime' is any worse than anywhere else - just be careful!
Antigua is supposed to have some of the best beaches but cant make a
recommendation re a hotel. Other than the beaches, its not very scenic tho.

Sorry .... have to disagree a bit on ANU. The south western quarter of
Antigua is very beautiful indeed. English Harbour, Freemans Bay, Shirley
Heights etc. are extremely attractive both scenically and historically.

But I _do_ agree with Rita and others on St. Lucia. I have visited on
several occasions and never seen/experienced any crime problem and the
scenery in the Southern half of the island - again especially the
south-west - is absolutely spectacular. I recently had the opportunity
to visit the new Jade Mountain part of Anse Chastanet. Absolutely
amazing ..... if this sounds like a commercial I apologise but take a
look at the website to get an impression -
http://www.jademountainstlucia.com.

I feel the same way (about crime) in the USVI. I've never had a
problem there in all my visits, nor felt unsafe. OTOH, I have been
to Spain and members of my party have had things stolen from them
while walking in the street. The perception of safety and the actual
hazard from crime often are at odds with each other. For instance, I
have no problem visitingAruba. A similar problem toAruba(a woman
visitor being murdered) happened in the BVI some years ago, and yet
the BVI doesn't have a bad reputation for crime.

I've talked to cruise ship visitors to Cozumel who were warned not to
get off of the main streets because it was unsafe. They said they'd
seen a TV program about crime in Mexico City and so they were sure
that what the cruise ship people said were true. But that is kind of
like my mom writing to me in Monterey California that a sailor's wife
had been raped in San Diego, and that I should keep my doors locked.

It is indeed a case of warnings and perceptions becoming our
reality... no matter how unfair or even inaccurate. I have no doubt
that we could survive a trip to St Lucia and probably enjoy every
minute of it given the right resort... but why would we choose the one
island from our cruise itinerary where the cruise folks warned us
(rather explicitly and vividly) about the high crime rate specifically
targeting cruise ship & vacation visitors. With so many other good
options, why choose one with any reported elevated crime risk at all?

We cannot know everything about every place. To some extent, we must
rely on what we read and hear... even if that means sometimes missing
out on some fine properties that would have served us well. We are
older now and possibly more attractive personal crime targets than we
used to be... when younger and poorer but far more physically fit! I
don't think it's unreasonable for us to seek out an island or location
with a low-crime reputation.

Chuck- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

IMHO...the publicity that Aruba received as a result of the
disappearance of that young lady was unfairly reported. We have been
to the island close to a dozen times in the last 10 years and have
never witnessed an unlawful or even susupicious act. The people of
Aruba are wonderful! Hard working, honest, sincere and, above all,
friendly. They are the main reason we return every year. And...we do
NOT own a time share in Aruba, sad to say!!

Chuck & Chris wrote:

On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 18:04:12 GMT, "Skip Elliott Bowman"
wrote:
Tom is right. There is no more crime per se in the Caribbean than in NYC or
San Francisco, the two most popular tourism destinations in America.

We are not out to avoid the Caribbean because of the
general/background level of crime there. Hardly! We are only seeking
to avoid those very few islands and locations where we have
specifically been told or read of (or personally observed) elevated
crime rates specifically targeting tourists. With so many other good
choices, why would we want to go to an island or location where crimes
against tourists are not being properly controlled?

And let me be clear... there are plenty of locations within the USA
where we do not go and certainly would not choose to go on vacation.
The fact that a particular Caribbean island or location has "no more
crime per se than New York City" is not, to us, a very impressive
selling point. But we are comparing apples with oranges here. Crime
or not, there is only one NYC and folks understand and accept that
when they choose to travel there. If they don't, they will become
victims rather quickly! On the other hand, there are dozens of great
Caribbean islands and locations offering friendly, safe vacationing...
so why not choose one with a good reputation for safety?

Because often the perceptions are wrong, and you might go to somewhere
with a good reputation and be robbed and you can go to somewhere with
a poor reputation and have a wonderful time.

Not that you need to ignore the possible problems. Just take it with
a bit of skepticism.

AFAIAC, the high prices in the Virgins would be more of a problem than
the supposed crime rate for your scenario.

If you wanted white sand beaches, the Gulf Coast of FL around Ft.
Walton Beach would be perfect, especially as March would be off season
and there wouldn't be a lot of people around. Of course it wouldn't
be as warm as the Caribbean.

On Wed, 07 Mar 2007 18:22:32 GMT, Rosalie B.
wrote:

If you wanted white sand beaches, the Gulf Coast of FL around Ft.
Walton Beach would be perfect, especially as March would be off season
and there wouldn't be a lot of people around. Of course it wouldn't
be as warm as the Caribbean.

We've both done Florida many times... both coasts and the Keys... and
I'm sure we will do them again! Chris was thinking Key West at one
point for this vacation, but I talked her out of it. For this
particular vacation, some nice, wide, white sandy *Caribbean* beaches
are the order of the day.

Chuck

On the other hand, there are dozens of great
Caribbean islands and locations offering friendly, safe vacationing...
so why not choose one with a good reputation for safety?

Chuck
I think all that people here are trying to say is that perceptions vary.
You appear to be writing St Lucia off because of what you were told on your
cruise; various people here have maintained that what you were told was an
exaggeration (in their opinion).
I suspect that all the islands are much the same regarding safety etc.
(there's been a huge fuss on a Bonaire forum about whether Bonaire is 'safe'
or not for example).
What do you think about Jamaica? (my perception is that Jamaica is less
'safe' than St Lucia, for example, but I've never been to Jamaica.
The only crime I have personal knowledge about was a camera stolen fron a
person's room in Dominica...


--
Rita Daggett

On Thu, 8 Mar 2007 09:42:40 -0000, "Rita Daggett"
wrote:

What do you think about Jamaica? (my perception is that Jamaica is less
'safe' than St Lucia, for example, but I've never been to Jamaica.

From my own business travels there (as well as those of my
co-workers), I do not consider Jamaica to be a low-crime Caribbean
vacation destination for Americans. In fact, I am hard pressed to
think of anyplace worse right now other than possibly Haiti.

Chuck

On 7 Mar 2007 09:14:16 -0800, "Darryl61"
wrote:

IMHO...the publicity that Aruba received as a result of the
disappearance of that young lady was unfairly reported. We have been
to the island close to a dozen times in the last 10 years and have
never witnessed an unlawful or even susupicious act. The people of
Aruba are wonderful! Hard working, honest, sincere and, above all,
friendly. They are the main reason we return every year. And...we do
NOT own a time share in Aruba, sad to say!!

I'll admit right off the bat that I am not very big on Aruba. I
vacationed there once a few years back and had a terrible time. I
found the island neither pretty nor culturally interesting. Believe
it or not, it was overcast and rained every day I was there. My
resort's beach and pool were horribly overcrowded on the few sunny
periods and I found the hotel staff to be abysmal. Food was extremely
expensive, extremely slow in coming and only fair at best. In fact,
Chris and I are specifically looking for this vacation to be the
"anti-Aruba" vacation. We want to learn from that costly mistake.

That all being said, I do not consider Aruba to be a high crime
island... at least for adult vacationers... and felt quite safe there
as an American tourist. But the Natalee Holloway case does clearly
show that if a crime against an American does happen down there, don't
expect to find any answers or justice. It simply ain't gonna happen.

Chuck

Chuck & Chris wrote:
On 7 Mar 2007 09:14:16 -0800, "Darryl61"
wrote:

IMHO...the publicity that Aruba received as a result of the
disappearance of that young lady was unfairly reported. We have been
to the island close to a dozen times in the last 10 years and have
never witnessed an unlawful or even susupicious act. The people of
Aruba are wonderful! Hard working, honest, sincere and, above all,
friendly. They are the main reason we return every year. And...we do
NOT own a time share in Aruba, sad to say!!

I'll admit right off the bat that I am not very big on Aruba. I
vacationed there once a few years back and had a terrible time. I
found the island neither pretty nor culturally interesting. Believe
it or not, it was overcast and rained every day I was there. My
resort's beach and pool were horribly overcrowded on the few sunny
periods and I found the hotel staff to be abysmal. Food was extremely
expensive, extremely slow in coming and only fair at best. In fact,
Chris and I are specifically looking for this vacation to be the
"anti-Aruba" vacation. We want to learn from that costly mistake.

That all being said, I do not consider Aruba to be a high crime
island... at least for adult vacationers... and felt quite safe there
as an American tourist. But the Natalee Holloway case does clearly
show that if a crime against an American does happen down there, don't
expect to find any answers or justice. It simply ain't gonna happen.

Chuck
I'm certainly not trying convince you to go there, but...
As you might have noticed from my Web site, we've been to Aruba a number
of times (one or twice that I didn't bother doing trip reports). But,
we have a rather specific reason for going... Windsurfing!! Aruba and
Bonaire are two of the best Windsurfing sites in the Caribbean.
Truthfully, if it was not for windsurfing, there would not be a lot on
Aruba to attract us. We like to 'do' things, not just sit around and
we've pretty well done all the non-windsurfing things already.
On the other hand, we have had very good success with restaurants and
such there. There are certainly some expensive ones, but we found any
number of good, moderate priced ones. Food was certainly better and
more reasonably priced than on, say, Grand Cayman. One rule/guideline
that we use when traveling is to avoid eating in the hotel restaurants;
they are typically overpriced and/or lower in quality and service.
On a "political" note... in my opinion the Holloway thing was vastly
overblown... If the same crime had occurred in the US the result would
have been the same, except that the 'suspects' would have spent at most
one night in jail instead of several months.

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

On Thu, 08 Mar 2007 13:25:54 -0500, Mike bellsouth.net@mhammoc
wrote:
On a "political" note... in my opinion the Holloway thing was vastly
overblown... If the same crime had occurred in the US the result would
have been the same, except that the 'suspects' would have spent at most
one night in jail instead of several months.

Only if the suspects were members of the Kennedy clan.

Chuck

In article ,
Chuck & Chris wrote:

On Thu, 08 Mar 2007 13:25:54 -0500, Mike bellsouth.net@mhammoc
wrote:
On a "political" note... in my opinion the Holloway thing was vastly
overblown... If the same crime had occurred in the US the result would
have been the same, except that the 'suspects' would have spent at most
one night in jail instead of several months.

Only if the suspects were members of the Kennedy clan.

Chuck

The same kind of crime has occurred in the US (even outside of
MA) weekly if not daily. Sometimes they find the perp, many times they
don't. Sometimes they get a person of interest who is actually guilty
and sometimes they need to let the guy go because of lack of evidence.
Just because Nancy Grace thinks he's guility (BTW: Talk about wastes of
protoplasm. Never thought I"d EVER find someone who made Geraldo look
like Edward R Murrow)) doesn't make it so.