Bahamas Cruise

Hello there...

Just before I jump into it, a quick update on our happenings since last post. Where we were staying in Ft Lauderdale was extremely nice. It was the Bridge At Cordova and comes highly recommended. Our room was great, we had a seperate kitchen, big screen TV with clear reception (Olympics & the All Star Game were on), Nice pool, and everyone was super friendly. The guy that checked us in was a douche, but thats a separate story. Anyway we have been there until today where we caught the early bus back to Orlando, and once again I come to you from Maccas Free Wi-fi.

So the cruise, It was priced quite nicely for a treat for us. $85 with taxes & Bahamas port charges, and that was all inclusive. Breakfast Buffet (that we visited more than once) Dinner buffet, included drinks, and not just stingy ones, Mimosa’s, Bahama Mamas, Pina Coladas. The Works...

Now of course this excited me a little, so after a couple of mimosa’s with breakfast (everyone was doing it. I asked for OJ) we made our way around to check out the ship. It had 2 lounge bars, a casino, a kids game room ( Wii, Table tennis etc), and a sun deck on top of the boat filled with banana lounges. The whole boat was serviced, so they would bring you drinks wherever you were.

The problem with this brilliant plan however, is that by 8am, it was hard to tell whether the boat was rocking or I was. Turns out it was fairly choppy and it was quite amusing to watch the whole boat stumbling around with vomit bags, holding their stomachs. It was only for a small portion of the trip but it did trigger our responsible... bone?

We found solace from the choppy seas on the sun deck. Being outside helped, as did laying down and just relaxing...Perhaps a little too much though, we had a snooze & got a little sun burnt.

So, we wake up, not too long after to continue with a few Cocktails and again wander the boat. We made some friends, and met some other people too. Ben had a quintessential one way conversation with your stereotypical black guy Damn!


The Bahamas Island we went to was the one closest to the coast of Florida, Grand Bahamas. Once we got to the island we were all herded much like sheep through the customs, again, then into taxi’s. We weren’t really too sure what was happening as we thought we were free to roam, but they advised we get in the cab as nothing was walking distance from the port. Once all this had occurred we were dropped at the beach and had just less than 2 hours to explore the area, and the Port Lucaya Shops and markets.

We had a lot of fun there; it was clearly a tourist hub as we were constantly being called out to & being coaxed into stores, with store owners seemingly desperate for our money. There was an abundance of beautiful traditional clothes though, but also lots of tacky tourist stuff.

The Beach was stunning, What you would expect I guess, Palm Trees, White Sand, Crystal Clear waters, it was breathtaking. It was sunny, but a little too cold to swim.

Once our time was up, we were again into the taxi to get back, and re-herded onto the boat for an evening of over indulgence. We drank less cocktails in the evening, as we had learnt from the morning. But definitely got our money’s worth. But we did lap up the buffet dinner. We played Wii, Chilled out on the Deck, and just generally wandered the boat.

We were fascinated by the whole aspect of having a time limit on what we were doing. Only having that time and then in groups being rushed back made us very very thankful we haven’t booked any tours or so forth. It is far too rushed, and because you rush to do it, I found we even finished kinda early because we were checking boxes as opposed to relaxing & taking it all in. Definitely was not my kind of travel.

The customs line to get back into the country was torture once we docked. We waited at least 45min for clearance to disembark and a further hour easily in queues to get to the customs officer. When we came into the country they asked if we were leaving & coming back and we answered no as at the time this was not planned, so we weren’t advised to constantly carry our Visa Waiver Forms, which caused a bit of a hassle. Apparently they shouldn’t have even let us on the boat without them. We thought the stamps in our passports were enough, evidently not. Was indeed a lesson well learnt. It’s probably something well known for regular travelers, but for any soon first timers. Carry it. Cranky customs are not nice. So all in all, it was a long day. We woke at 5.30am and got home well after 12…and had to get up early this morning to catch a bus, so we’re tired.

Although it may seem I have run it down in the post we had an amazing time, everything was in excess and as backpackers we don’t get to do that very often so it was lovely for many reasons. It I highly recommended to anyone wanting to do one, but I would probably prefer to stay for a day or two in the middle to not feel so pressured.


Great Day.
Hope everyone is well

Cheers
Mel xxx