Prudence Schmidt Arnold has fond memories of growing up in Bermuda.

In celebration of her 90th birthday, the great-grandmother returned to the island this week with 27 family members on board the Norwegian Breakaway to show them where she was born.

“I planned it that way,” Ms Arnold said. “I just felt that it would be the best thing to do.”

She said it had been “just great” to show them around the island, adding that some had been before, some not for a long time and others had never visited Bermuda.

“I felt they should all come back and see where I grew up,” she told The Royal Gazette at a special cocktail reception at Elbow Beach Bermuda Resort on Wednesday.

Ms Arnold is a relative of Richard Berry Johnson, the original builder and owner of the South Shore Hotel, later renamed the Elbow Beach Hotel.

Born near Hungry Bay in Paget East on July 8, 1926, she was one of six children and described growing up in Bermuda as “fabulous”. She left the island in the forties, after marrying American Robert Schmidt and moving to Pennsylvania in the United States.

She had four children and after her Mr Schmidt’s death about 20 years ago, she married her second husband, with whom she visited Bermuda three or four times.

“She’s probably been to Bermuda once a year for the past four or five years,” said her son Bob Schmidt, who has tried to visit every year for the past two decades himself. “It’s heritage, it’s family, it’s everything,” he added.