THE LIFE AQUATIC

The cave swim clinched it. After two nights at sea, my 17-year-old son, Ben, and I stood in a downpour in the rainforest of Dominica, an impossibly lush volcanic island in the Caribbean's Lesser Antilles. Drenched and shivering, we eased into the icy waters of the island's famed Titou Gorge and swam against the current into a sliver between two crags. Instantly, we were in an Indiana Jones movie. To navigate the narrow, winding canyon without getting washed back out, we grabbed on to ropes bolted into the stones and hoisted ourselves toward our destination: a thundering waterfall deep in the cave. Halfway there, we paused in a wider spot to catch our breath, and the rush hit us. We looked at each other, broke into big smiles, and laughed as we kept swimming.

The start of a vacation can be uncomfortable as you shake off the heavy layers of real life and acclimate to a slower, softer pace. That moment in the gorge ripped off the Band-Aid for us, and we returned to our plush cabin on the Explora II cruise ship refreshed and ready for pampering.

Of course, we'd been spoiled from the moment we boarded. Explora Journeys is the two-year-old luxury division of MSC Group, a Swiss-Italian company founded in 1970. The line's second vessel launched last September, and when I was invited to join a February cruise to the Caribbean, a mother-and-son trip quickly formed in my mind. Ben, the second of my two boys, is a high school junior, and it was timed perfectly to his winter break—the last lull before college prep would steamroll over everything, including future school holidays.