We started Day Five with the breakfast buffet at Cabanas on Deck 11 – out our stateroom, left, left again to the elevator, up to eleven and left a final time. It’s quite the spread, highlighted (for the kids) by Mickey Mouse Belgian waffles with whipped cream and strawberries. Yum.
Soon tho, it was time to go ashore at Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas, a sight that had appeared in our porthole as soon as we awoke.
(We had an inside stateroom at the aft of the ship, but the ‘porthole’ was linked to a camera that transmitted to the screen whatever was actually outside at a given moment.)
We disembarked through security, being extra sure to take along our citizenship papers for the authorities. [ Although we had blown a lot of time and some money on the effort, not once were they asked to be seen in the Bahamas. ]
We’d paid for a glass bottom boat tour excursion, much as we had eight years before. Lisa remembered it as dull, but I had fond recollections and wanted to give it a go. Unlike last time, when an energetic Bahaman native gave the tour and fed the fishes oatmeal, this one was run by a heavily tattooed Hispanic American who tossed a few slices of bread overboard.
Not quite the same ambiance.
We started the trip on the main deck, where the highlight was some free fruit punch, but I soon meandered upstairs with the kids to the ‘viewing deck’, and I’m glad I did. In the open air the trip was much more exciting. Just as a tour of the harbor the trip was worth the cost. We saw military vessels, legitimate shipwrecks, houses owned by Oprah Winfrey and J.K. Rowling, and lots of gorgeous sights. Over the rails the kids saw schools of fish, a stingray, and more.
Lauren drove me crazy. She’s a bundle of energy and sometimes common sense leaves her, and more than once I thought she’d hop right over the rail and into the water. I was very grateful when Lisa came upstairs and gave me an extra set of eyes to watch her.
[In the picture where Junie is standing by the pole, note the woman in the gray dress kneeling with her back to the camera. Along with two other Asian women in her party, she insisted on leaning so far over the railing that their dresses rode up, showing the world their panties. While normally I’m in favor of such things, I thought it inappropriate given the time and place.]
The actual glass bottom portion of the trip was a bust. We were escorted down to the viewing room but didn’t see much more than we had over the rails, and certainly less than when we snorkeled later in the cruise.
Keep in mind this wasn’t a Disney excursion, but a private party. The men’s room was broken, as was the toilet in the ladies room. The latter didn't stop people from doing what nature demanded, and by the time the lady in front of me had a chance to use it it was disgusting. Instead, she held her young daughter over the sink to urinate (or so she told me). I don’t blame her. When it was my turn, I peed in the sink too, rather than overflow the nasty multi-person mess that was the toilet. Yech.
After the viewing and the restroom fiasco, the tour guide ran a trivia contest where the kids each won a Bahamas keychain.
If the excursion sounds awful, it wasn’t. It wasn’t the best, but I enjoyed it more than the one in 2006. The kids seemed more enthused by the sights and the sea than I had hoped, and the views were breathtaking. It was worth the (comparatively) small amount we paid for the tickets.
Much of the day lay ahead . . .
