Nassau on the Run

Cruise - Day 2, August 30

We awoke around 7:30 am to Craig, the Cruise Director, on the in-cabin intercom announcing we had arrived in Nassau, Bahamas, but were waiting to dock. Of course, we weren't supposed to dock until 8:30 am, and with all of Tropical Storm Erika's remnants, apparently it was too rough to dock yet. So about every half hour, Craig announced to please not make your way down to Deck 0 until he notified everyone. Then, "Ta-ta for now" was followed by a groan from Dean, still in bed.

After several hours of this repeating, the all clear message came and people began heading to the gangplank. At that point, we got up, dressed and headed to Deck 9 for breakfast. It was now about 10:30. We watched people filing down the gangplanks, heading toward Nassau. There were lots of people from our cruise ship as well as the Royal Caribbean cruise ship docked next to us. 

We left the ship around 11:30 and went into town. Robin wanted to experience the Straw Market and Bay Street for herself. Dean had already been to Nassau when he was in high school. 

We walked down Bay Street, looking in the various shops. Since it was Sunday, many of the bigger stores were closed. We found a large t-shirt shop where Bob Marley's face was everywhere. Dean found several other island t-shirts he bought. By the open-air entrance sat a man rolling cigars with several other men testing them out in front of the table. It was quite a unique place.

A little further down the street we were met outside on the sidewalk in front of the Straw Market by one of the vendors who took us inside to see her wares. Once inside, vendor after vendor tried to get us into their stall area to see what they had to sell. We didn't stay long because junk is junk!

After Robin bought a sea turtle t-shirt in another shop, we made our way back up the street. On one of the side streets as we got closer to the ship, we found a Starbucks. Dean was very excited, so we had to go. When we walked inside, a college student approached Dean, asking for a quarter. She and her mother needed Wi-Fi so they had come to Starbucks. The only problem was that in Nassau, Wi-Fi at Starbucks cost $3.25. The girl said she didn't usually carry much cash, but they wouldn't use her Starbucks card on the her phone for Wi-Fi. She and her mother had gone through their purses and gathered $3.00. Dean gave her a quarter and she got her Wi-Fi. Luckily, Dean carried some cash so we were able to get our drinks. We were happy campers.

We continued on Bay Street towards the ship, only stopping at the Queen Victoria statue out in front of the big pink Parliament buildings. The British queen had reigned from 1837-1901. The statue of Queen Victoria as a young woman was unveiled after her death in 1905

We passed the large, red Bacardi Rum store, a local favorite, but we kept on walking. We had to be back on the ship by 1:30 for a 2:00 departure. We hadn't had much time to explore anything further, but we had done what we started out to do. Besides, we were so hot. There was very, little breeze. As we showed photo ID to leave Nassau and head to the ship, we only stopped to take our picture in front of the big Bahamas sign. We also took a photo of Atlantis Resort from across Nassau Harbour.

We boarded the ship and headed straight up to Deck 9 to get something to eat and drink. Senor Frog's was visible on the side of the ship where we were sitting. It was a very hopping place. We watched the ship back out and away from the Royal Caribbean cruise ship. Once the turn was made, the ocean was now on our side of the ship. The view was beautiful...well, except for the gunboat pulling up along side of our ship.

As we began leaving the harbour, Robin spied a huge home directly on the narrow stretch of land between the harbour and the ocean. She claimed it for her own. Dean quickly showed her the little lean-to shelter close to the end of the strip of land. It looked like it would fall over in a wind gust. He said that was more the speed we could afford.  

The water on both side of the little strip of land was various shades of blue. It looked so refreshing. As the ship got to the end of the land, we saw the lighthouse. It was small but strategically placed for all to see. The water breakers lined both sides of the land right around the tip. 

Finally, we were back in open sea. The Atlantis Resort was visible down the beach in the distance. However, the coloring of the water was breathtaking.

We headed back down to our deck to shower, rest, and get ready for our first elegant dress dinner. Once all dressed up, we stopped on Deck 5 and had photos taken. The ship photographers had so many fun backdrops and they changed every night. We chose several, and had fun pretending to be glamorous in various scenes.

Finally, it was dinner time. Jennifer and Heath were the only ones to join us at our table for 10. As we found out later, Bradford thought he had brought his dress clothes, but turned out he left his pants at home. Therefore, they had to eat on Deck 9. We had a great time getting to know Jennifer and Heath as well as our servers. We had 3 servers - Marichu, Elmer, and another man whose name was very long, but went by Yudi. We loved all of them,especially Marichu. She was very outgoing and tended to join right in to our humor. She and Elmer were from the Phillipines and Yudi was from Indonesia. We thoroughly enjoyed our dinner, especially the lobster and jumbo tiger shrimp. 

After dinner, we went to the comedy show, featuring Louis Johnson, Jr. He was absolutely hilarious. However, one of the guests provided his material for the show by stepping on the stage and walking in front of him while he was performing. She had gone to the bathroom and took a shortcut to get back to her seat. He stopped the show and then ragged on her for the next 20 minutes. She finally got upset and told him to get back to the show. He told her he wasn't finished with her yet. Talk about improv...wow! We don't think we've laughed so hard for a long time. It was fun!

By the time the show was over, it was close to 12:30 am. We were welcomed by our elephant towel animal. It was time to go to bed, or at least try to go to sleep. Our hallway seemed to be a stage for people to yell back and forth between rooms.We put the tv on a timer and then tried to tune out the noise in the hall. Somehow, we were successful!