The Honeymoon Diaries: Caribbean Cruise - Vista Tours, Bonaire

We were at port for 7 days in total over our 14 night Caribbean Cruise on Celebrity Eclipse and some ports were definitely better than others. If you're thinking of cruising the Caribbean I would recommend booking excursions for all of your stops as we found that there wasn't much to look at close to the ship at the vast majority of the ports.

Our first island on our trip was Bonaire where we booked a tour with Bonaire Vista Tours. We decided against booking Celebrity Cruise official excursions during our time away as we found they were far more expensive yet followed the same itinerary as the independent tours.  Having spent hours researching on Trip Advisor and Cruise Critic all of the tours that we booked came highly recommended by others.

Bonaire Vista Tours ran a 3.5 hour tour round the island for $35 per person which included an ice cold can of soda and a lovely intimate tour for 15 people in an air conditioned van.

Our tour began to the south of the island where the Bonairean Alps glisten behind the most beautiful pink coloured waters. The "Alps" are actually huge piles of salt, gathered from the salt flats below, Bonaire has been exporting its salt to America and Europe for over 350 years.

A short trip down the road we discovered the Slave Huts set alongside beautiful turquoise water - we saw some impressively coloured seas during our trip to the Caribbean but I have to say Bonaire had the most breathtaking sea views, I never truly believed sea could look like that before I arrived on the island.

The Slave Huts were used during the 1800s as small shelters for the slaves and although the little stone buildings you see now aren't the original huts, they serve as a reminder of one of the darkest periods of history.

One thing I was desperate to see during our time on Bonaire was the flamingos.  I didn't want to get my hopes up as they are a protected bird of the island and live within a sanctuary which tourists are (for obvious reasons!) not allowed access to.  With eagle eyes you can spot them from the road and if you're very lucky you can see flocks pretty close.

We managed to see quite a few although we were kicking ourselves for not having a better camera lens.  No amount of leaning over my fellow passengers was going to give us the lovely clear photographs that we wanted and it's definitely made us realise that we need a far better lens for wildlife photography.

Just as the weather turned even hotter we stopped at the Cadushy Distillery in Rincon for some cactus liqueur. Sounds strange I know but it was so delicious and there were plenty of varieties to try as well as a lovely courtyard surrounded by colourful birds to relax in. These Brits certainly appreciated the shade of the trees in the steaming hot temperatures.

Our tour returned to the capital of Bonaire, Kralendijk hours before our ship was due to leave so we got to spend some time exploring the beautiful little town. The streets were lined with colourful houses and we treated ourselves to a large ice-cream cone to cool ourselves down on the short walk back to the ship.

We loved our time on the little island of Bonaire and would definitely recommend Vista Tours if you ever find yourselves there.

Let me know if you've ever visited Bonaire, I'd love to hear about your travels.