2 comments about The Complete Guide to Caribbean Cruises: A cruise lover's guide to selecting the right trip, with all the best ports of call (Special-Interest Titles).

1. This is the best guide for Carribean Cruises! I checked out others before ordering this one and this one was the most comprehensive. I have never been on a cruise before but, after reading this book, I feel very prepared!



2. I'm in the travel industry and am oftentimes disappointed by the out-of-date information found in other cruise guides. I consider The Complete Guide to Caribbean Cruises, however, to be one of the absolute best resources to use when planning a cruise vacation. The guide has a great layout, is highly accurate, and provides the kind of information useful to both novice and "expert" cruisers.
   
   In my opinion, The Complete Guide to Caribbean Cruises is a must read for anyone considering a cruise!

No comments about Dive the Bahamas (Interlink Dive Guide).

No comments about National Geographic Traveler: Caribbean 2nd Edition (National Geographic Traveler).

No comments about 2008 Country Profile and Guide to St. Kitts and St. Nevis - National Travel Guidebook and Handbook - Caribbean Basin Initiative, Partnership of the Americas, Energy (Two CD-ROM Set).

3 comments about Puerto Rico!.

1. If you are just looking for pictures of Puerto Rico...this is one book you need to buy. It emphasize more in the island coast, mountains, and forest areas; a few pictures of cities and people, but great pictures to take a look.It also has a brief history of Puerto Rico in english and spanish I bought 3, two for me and other for a pen-pal of mine in Asia.



2. Wonderful photography journey into the vast beauty that is Puerto Rico. The book, part of a two-book series on the island (the other is on it's capital) are excellent additions for anyone interested in Puerto Rico and it's diverse physical and cultural beauty. The book's great price, format (paperback) and the excellent editorial team who assembled this book make it hard to put down. Buy one for yourself and one for a friend. You will feel that you are on the island once you open the first few pages.



3. Puerto Rico! -- Volume 1, featuring majestic photography from Rick and Susie Graetz and Larry Mayer, and written in both Spanish and English by Patricia L. Wilson and Anne Catesby Jones is an amazing look into the beauty of Puerto Rico's enraptured landscapes. From sea-side vistas to observation towers, Puerto Rico! is a full tour of what the complex combination of natural features has to offer. Enhanced with 150 visually impressive photographs, Puerto Rico! gives a brief but thorough description of what the reader is seeing. A very highly recommended book for vacationers having been to, or anticipating the coming trip to Puerto Rico.

5 comments about Sanibel & Captiva: A Guide to the Islands.

1. We had the best vacation EVER thanks to this book! Even when our flight was postponed, this book gave us a few options of activities in Fort Myers on the way to the airport. Who would have thought Sanibel/Captiva had so much to offer. The authors share ever bit of important info and more. Have Fun!



2. Wow! This is a really great book. We're going to Sanibel Island for the first time and couldn't find any travel books that would give us the lowdown on where to go and what to do - until this book! It gives you a "must do" intinerary if you are planning on staying 3 days, 4 days, etc. It also includes tips for shelling: when to go, where to go and a comprehensive guide to help you identify what you find. I really enjoyed this book and it's now packed in my suitcase ready for the trip.



3. I have been visiting sanibel for many years and still got a lot out of this book. It gave me ideas of new things to do while on the island, and the candid restaurant reviews were spot on. Great Book.



4. This is by far one of the best travel books I have ever used. It kept us busy the whole time- beaches, nature preserves , shelling, accomodations, great great restaurants. everything!!!!! If you go to Sanibel/Captiva this is a must buy!!



5. This is indeed a great guide book for Captiva and Sanibel Islands. We stayed on Captiva in a private house and used this book for dining and shopping recommendations. (Didn't need it for the recreation -- who needs anything more than beach, pool, shells, ocean??!) Weren't disappointed once! We referred to the shell guide more than once.
   
   I usually devour multiple guide books before we go on a trip because it always enhances our vacations immeasurably. For Captiva, the typical (Fodors, Frommers) books were a little sterile. This one felt very local and authentic. I definitely recommend it for anyone lucky enough to visit these beautiful islands! Toast the sunset for me!

No comments about Caribbean Lesser Antilles Map by Nelles (Nelles Maps).

2 comments about Six Days in Havana.

1. "Six Days in Havana" is Michener's companion volume to the novel "Caribbean." Though the narrative is rather short, Michener's tradition of never failing to please holds up here, and the brevity is more than made up for by John Kings' absolutely fantastic color photos of Cuba. This volume serves both as a behind-the-scenes tour of the Cuban chapters of "Caribbean" and as the closest tour of Cuba an American is likely to get anytime soon. Perfect for the almost-complete Michener collection. (Also features a short section by Kings.)



2. I will admit right off that I am biased because, as Public Affairs Officer in the U.S. Interests Section, I hosted James Michener's stay in Havana while he collected data for "Caribbean" and later collaborated with John Kings on the photography used in the book. Despite his glowing praise for my services (page 27), Michener was an old hand at adapting to circumstances and hardly needed me to orient him. He arrived with a fixed agenda and stuck with it. We departed from the agenda from time to time as his curiosity grew and Cuban contacts of mine beguiled him. As for his impressions, they are lucid, provocative, insightful and of course superficial. To know Cuba requires years of delving into the psychology of the quixotic Cuban people and their turbulent history. Michener's kitchen Spanish was adequate in restaurants but hardly up to a good conversation. I wondered how his early masterpiece "Iberia" could be so complete without a solid knowledge of Spanish? Anyway, he asked me to take 1000 photos of Havana which I did happily under the watchful eyes of Cuban security forces. His editors selected 70 or so of mine and 12 of Kings for inclusion. (No reference to my photopgraphy is given in the book by my own request as a diplomat shouldn't be caught moonlighting for the presses). I believe Michener used them for references to his quick glimps into Cuban society. His light comments tell the tale of a tourist abroad who is infected with the aura of Cuban life under the tyrant...,excuse me "comandante en jefe" Castro. Not a bad read for someone who likes their rum with coke--better known as a Cuba Libre. Viva Michener! Comments to jerrywscott1@cs.com

3 comments about The Cayman Islands: The Beach & Beyond.

1. The book is O.K. if you just want to know about the Caymans, but if you're planning a trip, it's weak on practical information. There are no names or phone numbers for any rental car company, hotel, condo, or restaurant, but many pages of organizations (with phone numbers) such as the Cayman Islands Dominoes Association (yes really). If you are able to find a car rental company there is a chapter on exploring the island, and if not there are chapters on hiking, running, bicycling, horseback riding, kayaking, and swimming



2. Like the previous reviewer, the book is a compilation of interesting places and finds on the Island, rather than a travel-itinerary. Maps of trails, hidden beaches and brief historical quips throughout, it is entertaining but not "fact-filled". I also believe that, in comparison to other Cayman books, it is a bit over-priced at $19.95.



3. I would have to disagree with what the first reviewer has to say about this book. First of all, it is NOT out of print, and is readily available through Amazon or through Martha K. Smith, herself. Also, there are tons of phone numbers included in this book for everything one would possibly want to know about the true culture of the Cayman Islands and how you, yourself, can interact with the people of this culture through adventure and recreation. In fact, playing dominoes is a very popular national and regional pastime integral to the culture of the islands.

1 comments about Eastern Caribbean in Focus: A Guide to the People, Politics and Culture (In Focus Guides).

1. This slim book is a helpful and fact-filled introduction to the history and socio-economic trends in the Caribbean basin. Its focus is on the gentle arc of islands stretching from Anguilla to Trinidad. Sugar, bananas, and oil are among the commodities that have and continue to play a role in the economic life of the region. The author gives us a brief history of the Caribbean's past reliance on the slave trade to support its agricultural economy and the sometimes bloody uprisings prior to its eventual abolition in the nineteenth century. It is the kind of information you will not find in Fodor's or most travel brochures (I write this note standing at a Curacao resort photographing an idealized mural of healthy black servants - the second I have seen today). Of greater interest to the curious North American may be the history of colonial involvement which has left its ethnic mark on the islands' culture along British, French, and Dutch lines. Anglo-Canadians will almost certainly be amused to recall that it was in the Treaty of 1763 that Britain opted to retain Canada - dismissed by Voltaire as a "few acres of snow". In exchange, the delighted French retained a dotted cluster of islands that for all its imagined similarity to paradise is extraordinarily difficult to locate on any map - Guadeloupe. The impact of tourism is tremendous in the Caribbean today and it seems only destined to grow with cheap airfares and travel 'channels' of information breathlessly promoting the regions' splendid climate and recreational amenities. While some voice reservations about the cultural or ecological impact of this recent 'invasion', others might argue that the material benefits imparted to the island economies are real, needed, benign, and re-occurring. Each island's cultural identity is a dynamic asset that can be protected but not totally controlled from change with civic planning and an eye toward promoting the preservation of local traditions. In this way tourism and local identity can evolve together. The cultural impact of tourism, the development of off-shore banking enterprises, an ever-present awareness of the United States (the CNN Effect) get little attention and are generally beyond the scope of this book. The sinister threat of the drug trade moving through the islands is noted (A vacationing Amsterdam physician tells me to read SNEEUW OVER CURACAO, J.van den Heuvel [untranslated]). These are topics that warrant serious attention. Reading Ferguson's introduction is a reasonable place to prepare for that more serious study.