Haunted Ports of Call Categorization (HPoCC)

In a previous post about best cruises for paranormal enthusiasts, I talked about how I determine the percentage of haunted ports of call based on the itinerary.

I call it the Haunted Ports of Call Categorization (HPoCC) and here’s how I break it down:

• 25% or under haunted ports of call
• 50% haunted ports of call
• 75% or more haunted ports of call

 

A CRUISE WITH A 25% HPoCC

For example, our cruise to the Western Caribbean a few years back fell in the 25% range. It embarked from New Orleans, a port city which accounted for 25% all by itself. The other ports were kind of lacking in any haunts. Although the two stops in Mexico allowed for tours to Mayan ruins.

We took a tour to the ruins of Chacchoben outside of Costa Maya, Mexico. They were amazing, but…there were no ghost stories to be found.

Apparently there are tales of paranormal activity at Chichen Itza and Tulum. We had wanted to tour Tulum during a stop in Cozumel on that same cruise. However, it was going to be a 10 to 12 hour tour day and we didn’t want to spend our whole day doing that.

A CRUISE WITH 50% HPoCC

The Southern Caribbean cruise we took from San Juan, Puerto Rico with stops at St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, Basseterre, St. Kitts, Oranjestad, Aruba and Willemstad, Curacao comes close to a 50%er.

Puerto Rico had some very interesting haunted places. The one I most wanted to see was the Devil’s Sentry Box in one of San Juan’s haunted forts, San Cristobal. (It’s rumored a guard on duty disappeared during his watch one night and was never seen again. Some started claiming that garita is a portal to somewhere else…)

However, Aruba had haunted shipwrecks to be explored and a place called Frenchman’s Pass that’s nothing special but is rumored to be inhabited by the ghosts of Frenchmen who died there.

Also, something that was sad and haunting was the thought of Natalee Holloway. I loved Aruba’s “One Happy Island” tagline, but apparently it was drummed up to help buffer the stigma from the Natalee Holloway case.

A CRUISE WITH A 75% HPoCC

The cruise we took to Bermuda fell into the 75% category. It was just a five day cruise: two days at sea, an overnight in King’s Wharf, Bermuda. Spending the night at the tip of the Bermuda Triangle? Are you kidding? Almost 100%!

If the port we’d left out of had been someplace like Boston or Charleston, that’d be a 100%er. (Something I once upon a time thought was impossible. I just hadn’t looked hard enough.)

However, we left out of the perfectly functional, but not very spirited port, of Cape Liberty in New Jersey.

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