Adventures in Nassau, Toy Story Musical!, Tritons, and Pirates on the high seas!
We woke up the next morning to find ourselves docked at Nassau Bahamas. DW had been here once before, several years ago while on a RCL vacation with her family, but they had taken a tour and returned to the boat.
While planning our Honeymoon Extravaganza, we decided that we wanted to see more of Nassau on our own time. We didn't want to be pigeon-holed into an over-priced tour or site-seeing trip. So we booked no excursions on Nassau and planned to explore at our own pace. But first--we were starving!
We dressed for the day and headed down to Parrot Cay for the breakfast buffet. It was a nice spread, wonderful selection of fruit and pastries, pancakes, eggs, bacon, etc. We ate well -- which is true for the entire cruise!
After dining, we headed to the gangway and disembarked for Nassau. An experience that we...well...we just weren't quite prepared for. We strolled down the dock toward the city entrance. we followed a large group of people, assuming we'd be better off following the flow of people. Only to be turned down at the door -- not realizing that we were actually in a line of people for a guided tour....oops! :lol:
We walked through a crowed, noisy, tourist trap of an enclosed shopping center that marked the entrance to Nassau. We admired some of the overpriced goodies, and then headed into the city. Then the.....um....adventure begins.
As soon as we walk out of the building we are immediately approached by a crazy taxi cab driver wearing a large bright and fuzzy crown (not to mention he reaked of booze) trying to hard sell us on a ride over to Atlantis. He continually ignores our declining his offers, talking over us and following us as we walk. When he finished his spiel he looks at us like "how can you say no?" -- and when we say no thank you, he gets ticked off, shouts, and turns away from us, making somewhat of a scene. If only we'd taken this as a sign of things to come.
We walked toward the shopping areas, wondering in and quickyly out of several over crowded stores with pushy shopkeeps and no room to move around. Outside of one shop two ladies run up and try to put necklaces around our necks, once again ignoring our no thank yous....then "asking" for donations. We declined -- having just realized we'd left our cash locked in the safe back in our stateroom -- this more than upsetting the women who chastize and shout at us as they rip the necklace off of DW and cuss/mumble at us as they storm off down the street. Then we made the mistake of visitng the straw market. We entered the giant black tent filled with at least 400 billion people all selling the same tacky tourist gifts and straw goods, shouting at you, trying to shove goods into your hands -- there was barely room to move as you walked down the aisles. We made it down one aisle before seeing an opening in the back flap of the tent (not and exit, just an opening) and escaped the tent!
As we ventured farther into the city, we noticed signs hanging in several stores saying that 'due to the death of (insert name here) a VP at (insert company name I can't remember here) we will be closing at 1pm'. I glanced at my watch and realized that most of these shops were in the process of closing (we had a late start to our morning). We continued to walk around, visited the Torrtuga Rum Store, then wondered around the overtly loud Senior Frogs, and stopped to admire the crystal blue seas.
With most of the shops closed, we started to make our way inland hoping there would be more to see. But alas, there was not. And things grew a little less appealing with more suspicious looking individuals eyeing us, and insane traffic making traversing the streets dangerous. We took some photos of some historic buildings, and decided that maybe we should head back toward the docks. I'd been thinking it for almost an hour, but attributed it to me being an apprehensive type of person. Turns out DW was thinking the same thing -- neither one of us wanting to rush the other back to the friendly confines of the Wonder. Once we realized this, we beelined it back to the dock, up the gangway, and straight to deck 9 for some comfort food (yeah for free pizza and hamburgers!!!!!!) We took our newly acquired grub abck to the room and ate, before taking a shower to wash the Nassau experience off! We both agreed that should we return to Nassau, we would probably just stay on the ship.
We then took our gifts for fish extenders and distributed them throughout the ship. Unfortunately, we forgot the list of people on board, so we wondered up and down the halls of the ship stopping at each FE. We didn't have a whole bunch of time or $$ after the wedding & before the cruise, so we didn't have much to distribute. We passed out Findining Nemo stickers, crayons, and assorted candies in Disney Ziploc baggies. Hopefully everyone enjoyed them.
After this exhausting tour of the ship, we ventured up to deck 10 to watch the Disney Wonder pull away from the island. There was reportedly going to be a farewell celebration of sorts -- but nothing was happening up top. It was now all-aboard and the captain came on the PA and asked for certain people to call an onboard number....three families -- presumably not making it back to the boat on time. This call went out a few times as we made found a spot to sit and relax with a view of the island.
We were watching people make their way back from Nassau toward their non-DCL boats...lots of drunk people, loud and annoying people. One particularly memorable inncident happened that would become a topic of dinner conversation that night at Tritons:
A family of 4 Yankee fans (2 adults and 2 kids) dressed in NYY shirts were making their way back to their boat. When suddenly a group of loud and obnoxious Red Sox fans came up behind them and started shouting (loud enough that we could hear their cruel words on deck 10 of our boat). The loudest and presumably most intoxicated member of the group was a young woman in a dress. The family ignored these annoying people and walked on, when the young woman then starts "playfully" shoving one of her group members, who jumps out of the way and the drunk woman went face down into the concrete. We bust out laughing at the scene! Now, I'm no fan of the Red Sox or Yankees -- in fact I dislike them both equally -- but talk about kharma. This drunk loudmouth laid face down on the concrete and rolled around moaning for a while, before finally someone helped her up and carried her back to their boat. Frankly, I think she deserved it -- their berating language and treatment of that poor family was uncalled for, and this spill into the concrete seemed like a fitting way to put these people in their place. Maybe we're bad people, but we found the scene fitting and quite amusing.
We enjoyed the veiw for a while longer, expecting the ship to start moving at any minute now. But it never does, occasionally the captain calls for only one of those family names -- we assume someone is still lost. We make our way down to the Walt Disney Theatre for tonights show: Toy Story the Musical!
What a fantastic show! I love Toy Story to begin with and I felt the show was worthy of a standing ovation! The staging was perfect, the costumes, the music, all of it was perfect! The perfect thing to take my mind off of the experience at Nassau! After the show, we wondered through the gift shops on board, admiring some of the awesome merchandise. We considered buying some pirate gear, considering it was pirate night, but decided against it. Thinking back on it, I wish we had! Looked out the window and saw that we were STILL docked at Nassau!
Dinner at Tritons was a beautiful experience. I didn't care for the menu, as French food isn't my favorite, so I stuck with a lighter option -- Roasted chicken with white rice and green beans. It was delicious! DW had some duck --which she didn't care for -- she said it was ok, but tasted like duck stroganoff! :hurl: :lol: but dessert more than made up for it! I ordered the creme brulee and it was PERFECT! So good that we ordered and shared a second one -- what can I say, I have no problem admitting that I'm a fatty!
Unfortunately dinner took a long time -- maybe it was that 2nd dessert? Or it couldve been because our drunk Spanish ladies showed up extra late for dinner and the served our main courses together. :shrug: By the time we made it to deck 10 for the Pirate Party, there were no good spots to see the stage. But we enjoyed each other and the atmosphere, and the fireworks! wow....fireworks off of the ship in the middle of the ocean (apparently we left Nassau while we were dining at Tritons) TOTALLY AWESOME!
Afterwards we strolled back to our room, changed into our swimwear and hit the pool for a late night swim. It was much cooler tonight, and windy. The pool was nice a quiet, a perfect end to the day.
Afterwards we headed back to the room and watch a movie on TV. At midnight we ordered room service -- a light snack and some Mickey bars! Yummy! Before bed we made selections for our room service breakfast and finally fell asleep, dreaming of the paradise that would be Castaway Cay!
Well -- thats all for now! Hope you continue to enjoy my little story! Look forward to hearing from you all!
cheers,
Josh
Tune in soon for the next installment: Beautiful white beaches, snorkeling, sunburn, and tragedy at Castaway Cay!
