The Bahamas

Trivia: Wifi on the ship costs $$, and I tried their pay as you go plan, but a scant two minutes of time cost me $4.25, so from that moment on our phones were silenced. On the trip last time WDW had paid wi-fi, something they now offer for free, so I’m hoping it will change on the cruise line before our next trip. Even without wifi the ship allows you to access the Disney Cruise Line Navigator on your phone. The app keeps you up to date on showtimes, locations and times for character meet and greets, and dinner menus. There’s also a built in chat function, which on board was pretty much our only means of communication with Grace LOL

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So the glass bottom boat tour ends, and I try to take the family for a walk through Nassau, thinking to myself “How often do you get to walk in another nation’s capital? Maybe this is the only chance for the kids to do it.” 

But the trouble is, nobody *wants*to do it. Lisa is tired and put off by the nagging street vendors. Smiley and Junie  want to go to “the club” (although LK briefly rethinks her position later, just to make me happy). LuLu wants to go swimming, and while YaYa is willing to sightsee, one vote isn’t enough to sway the masses. I feel a little betrayed and say “fine, ixnay the sightseeing.” Our trip through Nassau lasted all of ten minutes, tops. 

I petered around the ship for awhile, wasting time while the kids did their thing and Lisa took a nap. In my gut though I knew I was going to head back out, and I tracked down the older two at the pool to ask for volunteers. YaYa  agreed and went and changed, but this was the time the crew wouldn’t let me take her off the ship because she was registered to a different (Lisa’s) stateroom.  It took awhile for the paperwork to get ironed out, but eventually we made it back onto land and did what Americans do best: we went shopping. 

My budget was small, but through some careful searching and some unexpected help from YaYa (not a girl known, by reputation, for unselfish gift-giving, but she rose to the challenge BIG TIME), we scored the perfect set of gifts. A braided leather bracelet for Smiley ; a white seashell anklet for LuLu; a less mature pink and white seashell bracelet for Junie; a set of three handmade bracelets that said “Bahamas” for YaYa (the cheapest gift of the group, at a buck a piece; a fourth was bought for Lu). For the house I bought a set of coasters housed in a wood turtle, as well as a hand painted magnet that vanished en route to Milwaukee.  For Lisa I bought a nice necklace that she would later,  sincerely call “gorgeous”. 

And then it was time to wade through the security checkpoint – manned, a little disturbingly, by a somewhat aggressive solider – and return to the boat. 

Oh, the soldier’s farewell to me as he waved me through? “Goodbye big mon Daniel.”