Bermuda Cruise Travel Guide

Posted on July 12, 2018

As you may have noticed, I have been sharing little tidbits about our trip to Bermuda over the past month or so. Today, I am finally sharing my Bermuda Cruise Travel Guide! I will be sharing details about what we did, where we went and what I wore (obviously!) First, I wanted to share a little background about this trip. Back in the fall, Eric was at my parents house enjoying a weekend with them (without me). Somehow they got into a conversation about the next family vacation and all of the sudden, we were booking a trip with the whole family! That includes my parents and my sister! We haven’t gone on a real family vacation since we went to Napa before Eric and I were married (and before I even started a blog)!

My sister and I grew up cruising, so we decided to do a cruise to Bermuda out of NJ, which made it very easy for us since we didn’t have to fly anywhere. We boarded the Celebrity Summit and headed straight to Bermuda! For those of you who are not avid cruisers, you have certain days that are “Sea Days” and then “Port Days”. We had two sea days before we docked in Bermuda and those are usually the best days for hanging by the pool, getting in a workout, enjoying a spa treatment, checking out the ship’s amenities, going to the shows, playing BINGO and trivia and meeting people. One thing I have always loved about cruises is that you are stuck with the same people for the duration of the trip, so you made friends quickly!

Eric, my sister and I shared a room together. I am not going to lie…it was tight, but we made the best of it and had fun together regardless. The dinner’s are fairly formal (no shorts/jeans/flip flops, etc.) so I actually made an excel spreadsheet so that the whole family was coordinated for dinner. This may seem silly, but it atually made packing and getting ready much easier!

For the days that we were docked in Bermuda, my mom and I picked out some really fun excursions to enjoy!

Horseshoe Bay

Even if you know nothing about Bermuda, I bet you have heard of Horseshoe Bay. It is one of the island’s most famous beaches and had pink sand and aqua water! On the plus side, Horseshoe Bay has bathrooms, showers, a restaurant and bar and had beach chairs and umbrellas available. The downside is that this is the most touristy beach on the island, making it a bit crowded. We all agreed that if we were to do it again, we would ask a local to direct us to an equally beautiful but less touristy beach!

Hamilton

That same evening, we took a ferry from where we were docked in King’s Wharf to Hamilton. Hamilton is considered the “concrete jungle” on Bermuda and is where many restaurants, shops and businesses are. Every Wednesday evening during the summer, Hamilton has a Harbor Festival. The festival includes street vendors selling trinkets, clothing, food, drinks, etc. There is live music and dancing and countless bars and restaurants to check out! After walking up and down the streets and checking out the music, we went into a restaurant called Portocall. We had some drinks and some apps there. To be honest, I would stick with the street food in Hamilton, because most of the restaurants seemed overpriced!

Adventure Tour

On our second day in Bermuda, we decided to get a little adventurous! We booked a tour that would take us all over the island and would include some out of the ordinary stops! The small tour bus took us to Blue Hole Park, which is a Nature Reserve and Park that includes hiking trails, crystal caves and blue lagoons. We started the day by hiking a short trail until we reached the crystal caves. Some of the caves have polished crystals inside and some have natural stalactites and stalagmites. We donned hard hats and climbed through the ancient caves.

From there, we hiked over to another cave that actually had a swimming hole in it. The crystal blue water was very densly packed with salt, making it very easy to float in. I was brave enough to jump in, along with a few others and I do not regret doing it at all! It was probably one of the most unique things I have ever done before!

After swimming in the cave, we backtracked a bit and stopped at the lagoon, which had a few cliffs that people are able to jump from. The cliffs weren’t too high, only 10 and 15 feet, but I was too scared to jump myself. Instead, Eric jumped off of them a few times and enjoyed himself!

The tour stopped at Elaine’s Fine Dining for a quick lunch. We had ice cold ginger beer waiting for us and fish & chips. Everything was absolutely delicious. One fun little tidbit is that Elaine’s Fine Dining used to be the old McDonald’s before it closed. From the outside, you can tell that it used to be a McDonald’s despite the attempts to paint and disguise the building!

As I was saying above, I would skip Horseshoe Bay and look for a more secluded and less known beach. On our second day in Bermuda, we did just that. Our tour took us to a small cove beach off of Cooper’s Island Road. We had almost the entire beach to ourselves except for one other family that just happened to find this hidden gem as well. They were able to just tax a taxi there, so you don’t need to be on a tour to go there. We did some snorkeling and laying out in the sun and it was so beautiful and peaceful!

Our last stop before heading back to the ship was to Bailey’s Ice Cream Parlour for some homemade ice cream! Despite being slightly lactose-intolerant, I had the caramel ice cream on a waffle cone and didn’t regret it one bit! Overall, we all really enjoyed our adventure tour around Bermuda!

Sunset Catamaran

Since we were docked overnight in Bermuda for a few days, we decied to plan evening activities in addition to daytime ones. Similar to the Hamilton Street Festival, we decided to go out again the next night on a sunset catamaran ride! The catamaran was a white themed party, so the entire crew and all of the guests donned their best all-white outfits! The catamaran left from the dock at King’s Wharf and went around the northern shore of the island, including Hamilton. The music was blasting the rum swizzles and prosecco was flowing and the crew just happened to be a bunch of handsome 20-somethings! If you are heading to Bermuda and you are looking for something to do, I would highly recommend booking a boat trip with The Rising Son!

King’s Wharf

If you cruise into Bermuda, you will likely dock at King’s Wharf. Even if you fly to Bermuda, King’s Wharf is a great place to spend some time exploring! King’s Wharf is a bustling area just off of the ships dockyard, which is easy to walk to! Bermuda is well known for their Rum Cakes and King’s Wharf houses the Bermuda Rum Cake Factory! You can go in and sample all of the different types of Rum Cakes and purchase various sizes. We taste tested everything…obviously…and chose to bring home the Chocolate Rum Cake. Our cake didn’t last more than 20 minutes in our house before it was devoured! There are restaurants, bars and so many other activities to do there, making it a great place to spend the day!