What is weather like in the Carribbean in early January?

[Marilyn]

I am thinking about booking the Jan.4th western cruise and I am wondering what the weather will be like during that time of year. Is it hot enough to really WANT to swim and snorkel? Any threat of storms or rain at that time. All details you can give me will be much appreciated. We had kind of a bummer vacation this past June in WDW...it poured rain 5 of the 7 days we were there!!
Marilyn

 

[d'Isigny]

** BUMP **

Sure would like your experience on this one.

we have booked for the 1-18-03 cruise and would like to know traditional weather patterens.

thx to all who post...you've made our disney vacations wonderful.

 

[Fawn]

We are going 1/4/03, and I'm counting on Great Weather! We went in January, 2000, and it was perfect. Warm and sunny, without being overpowering. Water on Castaway Cay was cold for the first two minutes, then perfect!

The only problem you may have is that I read on another thread that the week was booked up. Worth a shot, tho...we did order the special weather package and all!

 

[edith76]

We've gone on this cruise(1st week in Jan) for the past two years and are booked again for the western Jan. 4. The weather has been beautiful. St. Thomas and St. Martin were hot and the ocean was great for swimming. Castaway Cay was beautiful but I thought the water temp was a bit cool. Others were swimming though.

 

[prymsu]

we have gone on cruises in January and we have never thought it too cold or the waters too rough. We love to snorkel, and never had a problems with water temps being cold either. Of course we are from Iowa so in January anything above freezing temps seems like a heat wave to us.

 

[NCRedding]

Because DCL just started Western cruises this May (?), there are no DCL experiences with weather in January. If you don't get responses for the western cruise, you may want to try cruisecritic.com which has message boards for multiple cruise lines, etc.

 

[prymsu]

on a different cruise line I have cruised the western itinerary in January. No problems with weather for either the eastern or the western ports for the same ports you would have with DCL.

 

[Jhalkias]

In the last year, we cruised in May, then January. We MUCH prefer January. The temperature was hot, but not unbearable, with wonderful breezes. May was much too hot for us. We snorkled in St. Martten, and it was wonderful. CC water was a bit cool at first, but we got used to it fairly quickly.

This year we are going in mid-December, which I hope will be fairly similar to January!

 

[PiperG]

Jhalkias,

We sailed in mid-Dec last year and the weather was just marvelous. Of course, I should mention that anywhere other than Minneapolis in Dec or Jan seems warm to us LOL