Santa brought us a cruise to the Bahamas for this weekend. First we drove up to Charlotte and had no problems with our flight to Miami. Our taxi driver was a very talkative fellow who spent the whole time talking about being book smart vs common sense smart. He was from Jamaica or some other island nation, and so sometimes he was difficult to understand, but he was funny.
We got on the cruise ship with no difficulties. They have that process pretty streamlined. (Wish I could say the say for the departure.) As soon as we got on board we headed for the buffets for lunch. The food was pretty good and there was plenty of it. We wandered around the ship for awhile until we had to do the safety drill. Let me just say that if it had been a real emergency, we all would have died. We managed to entertain ourselves though by pretending to be Sumo wrestlers with the lifevests.
We booked the main seating dinner since we are used to eating at about that time. We had two other couples with at the table. One was an older couple from Charlotte, North Carolina and the other was a young couple from Miami. The older couple were very friendly and we had a good time talking to them the entire trip. The younger couple were not as talkative, mainly because the man was very seasick. (I was lucky that my pills from the flight were still working.) Once we had pulled completely out of the dock we noticed the ship was rocking pretty good because the winds were strong. I went to get myself and my fellow seasick dinner buddy some pills at the deck, and the line to get them was all around the lobby.
After dinner we went to grab our coats, because it was that cold, and went on deck. The winds were so strong you had to lean into them to make it to the front of the ship. We headed to bed pretty early but fell asleep to the Dark Knight movie. The next morning we arrived at Coco Cay, the private island of Royal Caribbean cruises. The winds were still very strong and so it was too dangerous for them to take us to shore. We had purchased the all day package to go snorkeling, so we were bummed we couldn't do that, but after watching them try to deliver supplies to the shore and have to come back, we understood.
Instead we spent the entire day in the jacuzzi or on deck. We met a family of twenty-two celebrating the birthday of the grandmother. She had bought tickets for all the members of her family to come along. (Which I think is a fantastic idea and would completely support my in-laws if they decided to do the same.) They were mostly from the NY area and were very funny. One aunt in particular kept saying, "Make you wet, make you sweat, hot tub!" So whenever she saw us the rest of the vacation she kept calling us Mr. and Mrs. Hot Tub.
We went to the fancy dinner that night and the couple from Charlotte was with us. I must say the food was amazing on this cruise. The only thing I didn't like was some empanadas I got from the buffet. Everything else was great and I ate a ton of it. We went to the Captain's reception and then to the comedy show which featured a hypnotist. It was completely unfunny, but what do you expect for free.
We arrived at Nassau in the early evening, which made dinner that much more enjoyable without the rocking. We got up early that morning, ate some breakfast, and headed to the Pirate Museum. It was more along the lines of Disney's pirate ride in the beginning, but they did have some historical facts and exhibits set up. I loved it though despite the cheesiness. We took lots of funny pictures and I got a pirate shirt (not a puffy sleeve one though) and a new rubber pirate ducky.
We went walking around to find a free beach, and found a great one not far from the ship. We went to the Straw market and picked up a few gifts. The whole area from the ship to the market is filled with people trying to sell you something, which is annoying, but they didn't keep pushing so it was bearable. Back on the ship we got some lunch and our suits and headed back to the beach.
The water was amazing, but a tad cold at first. We swam around for about an hour and then decided to try to make it to the barrier rope about 100 feet out. The water was calm and fairly shallow so I wasn't afraid despite not being a strong swimmer. We made it to the rope and I managed to wrap my leg around it to hold me up and give my arms a rest. That was a huge mistake. As we started to swim back to shore my leg felt like it was on fire. (A feeling I was very familiar with after my rash last week.) I swam all the way to shore and got out to check what was going on. The entire back of my leg was starting to turn red and swell with hives. Unfortunately I had to get T out of the water and we headed back to the boat. I was in so much pain I went straight to the medical center. There was no one there, so we had to page someone. When they arrived they could only give me a plastic bag to put ice in (they didn't even have ice) and they wanted to charge me for hydrocortozone. Luckily I had brought my tube with me fearing that I might have a relapse. I took a cold shower, some benadryl, put on the cream, and sat with ice on my legs. I am still not sure if I had a reaction to the seaweed growing on the rope or if there was critters on the rope that got me.
After a while I got tired of being in the cabin so we went on deck to read and watch the ship pull out at sunset. It was much warmer and less windy then it had been other evenings, so it was pleasant to be on deck until dinner. The couple from Miami were celebrating the girl's 21st birthday that evening, so there was singing and a cake along with our dinner.
We went to bed early because we had to wake up early to leave the ship. They had an express depart that only ran from 7-8 and we didn't want to stay until our departure time of 10 because we were going to try to catch an earlier flight. Well the express departure was chaotic due to the massive amount of people trying to do what we were doing. See the cruise tells you that you need to book your flight no earlier than 6 hours after we were scheduled to port just in case of weather delays or customs delays. (Which we had for about an hour while they searched someone's room.) So our flight was for 4pm, but we were at the airport by 9. We got on standby, but the flight was full, so we waited in the airport till our 4pm flight.
On our flight home we were making such good time that when we arrived they didn't have a gate for us yet. We sat on the tarmac for 30 minutes and then pulled forward. Then it turned out that they had too many planes trying to leave and arrive, so we along with about a dozen other planes were lined up just outside of the terminals for another 15 minutes. It looked like a parking lot for planes. We were very happy to get off that flight.
On our way home it started to rain and the weather reports were calling for 1-3 inches of snow in our area. It wasn't that much, but when we woke up this morning there was at least half an inch on the grass and it kept coming (and melting) in big fat flakes all day. It wasn't enough for work to be canceled though for T or for my dentist appointment. (But that ended up being good fortune because the internet went down right before the inauguration and I was able to watch it at the dentists while getting cavities filled.)
