Nassau,
Okay, this would be the third time I’ve been to Nassau. Its
not that I don’t like it, I just find it boring. But after trip 3, I might have
to change that tune. I read on the boards that the horse carriage rides were
nice and in-expensive. So, my friend and I decided to try that out. First, they
charged us an extra $5 more than the person had said, even when I questioned
them. Then when get to the “carriage”…okay.
BTW, Did I mention above that my friend and I
are…………….well……………we have more deck space on our afts.
The carriage has a backseat and front. The back has like a
little (I mean pretty small) foot pedal to step up on. The front, does NOT. I
went and stepped up on the back and got in. The guy looked at me and said, “Why
don’t you let your friend ride in back.” Well, not that I didn’t like my
friend, but why couldn’t she ride in the back with me? I mean, we would
be……..squished, but it would have been fine. I guess proportion is key. So, I had to get out and back down and let
her get in the back.
Btw, did I mention I was wearing white capris?
I looked at the front and quickly realized there was no foot
pedal. Ummm?????? “Put your foot up on wheel.” Seriously? Okay, Up I go and
promptly lose my balance and tumble into the floor of the carriage where all
the nasty dirt of those riding got all over my capris. YAY! Then I had to move
over so the driver could squeeze in next to me (did I mention the front seat
was smaller?). Not only did he promise us a 25 min. ride and not do 25 mins.
but he solicited me and my friend for…………..mmm……….use your imaginations. At the end, I didn’t care about the money, I
just wanted off and back on the boat. Great, now I have to get off the thing.
So, promptly put my foot over the big wheel on the side and slide down, where
more black marks got on my pants.
BACK TO THE BATCAVE!
Okay, so its one experience. It doesn’t mean the whole
island is bad. But I haven’t had any “WOW!” times on the island and after three
times, I officially know that I probably will just stay on the ship. Yes, I
might pick an Itin. That goes there again, but if ports mattered to me, then it
would be a big deal.
We went back to the room, threw my pants in a laundry bag
for cleaning and got our bathing suits on. We went to the aft pool and found
plenty of chairs. We spent some time in the sun, in the pool, and grabbed some
lunch and a drink.
My friend, being in love with the T-pool had to go make a
visit, so off we went to drop our stuff by the room and up our secret staircase
to the spa. Tonight was the first
elegant night, so we knew we needed a little more time to get dressed. My
friend had really wanted a pedi and I needed to fix a chip in my pre-cruise
pedi. So, we asked if they had space and they had one around 7, I think. We
thought that was cutting it close to dinner, but we came up with the plan to go
back to the room and get showers, do our hair and make-up. With that done, all
we had to do was throw on our dresses. Brilliant.
We got the fire and ice pedi. You get a menthol like rub put
on your legs and then wrapped in a hot towel. They do the scrubbing and so
forth first, then the menthol wrap, then a hot stone massage on the legs and
finally they complete it with polish. I got a French (btw, still holding up
really good) and my friend got color. The French wasn’t extra. The girl wasn’t
very talkative, but she was nice and really paid attention to her work. I mean,
that’s all you can really ask right? She was a bit nicer when she saw my tip.
Our planned worked and we made it to dinner on time. Again,
no food pics, sorry. After dinner we had some time to kill before that nights
performance, so we headed up to deck 11 around the pool. We were all dressed up
and pictures were needed. (I had a couple shots done downstairs) So, we used
the wind on the deck and captured some fun shots. Don’t judge.
I can’t remember the show, I think it was “Get Ready” which
is a tribute to the working man. My friend and I were both kinda………..asleep by
the end. Not that the dancers weren’t great, it was just kinda slow paced. The
show director needs to make things flow better. I might have to change this
later, b/c I really don’t know if that was the show.
We went to Superstar Karaoke after the show. My friend did a
song and she was great. I did one the next time they had it………embarrassing,
lol. They have this girl now……..don’t know what her title is, but she sings at
events with the show band. She leads the Superstar Karaoke too. She has a GREAT
voice, um but she opens Superstar Karaoke by singing a song herself. I’m a theatre
and music major, so I’ve done stuff like this before. It really isn’t polite
for the Hostesses to set standards like that. Who wants to be the first one up
on stage after that? Carnival should really consider this. She also sang at the
end sometimes and I thought that was fine, but it’s very intimidating
otherwise. I’m used to embarrassing myself, so it didn’t matter to me, but it
might keep others from doing it. Otherwise, she was really nice and a good
hostess.
So, we had a sea day next, so we didn’t have to hurry back
to the room, but we weren’t interested in the dance club or piano bar, so off
we went. I think we ordered room service. This became a tradition for my
friend, lol. A few times I think I passed out (asleep, people) and woke up to a
room service guy in the room, ha!
Btw, the first morning we ordered breakfast to be sent to
the room. We scheduled it around 7:30-8am. There was a knock on our door at
7:26am……………..so those of you who are keeping track of room service
times………there it is. We went up to the lido for BK after that, mainly b/c we
were being too lazy to be woken up that early.
We slept in a bit on the first sea day and then took our
time getting in our suits and heading up to BK.
Btw, people like or do not like the BK buffet. I generally
have no problem with it. It is like most buffets. It is gonna have some good
things, some bad things……….some good days, some bad days. If I had to cook for
about 4,000………sometimes things will be a little out of sorts too. The only
thing that I say happened (and my friend and I had a good giggle out of it, so
no harm, no foul) was that three days in a row I picked up a milk that was bad.
I first though it was frozen, then I tasted it and NOPE, bad. Funny, b/c it
still had three days until the date on the carton went out. This happened about
three days in a row. When I finally got a good milk……….I almost wanted to do a
dance, lol. Was my life ruined b/c of it, no. I figured that this section of
milk had just been left out somewhere too long. I noted this on my email
survey, so they could know about it in the future. Though, the funniest thing
was, I never saw another person complaining or showing a problem with the milk.
I hope a bunch of people weren’t drinking sour milk!
Anyway, I knew b/c of the time of day that we would not
score two loungers near the pools, but we were looking for some sun and quiet
so no big deal. We found some chairs on deck five, with plenty to spare. Did we
get any drink service, not really, but that was okay. We enjoyed about an hour
outside with a nice breeze and around 75 degrees and decided to go inside. I
think I went for ice cream at this point. Then we made our way up to the spa
for another round of “I love the T-pool.” I think we had room service delivered
to the room for lunch and we took a good three hour nap. Back up for a round of
T-Pool and then got ready for dinner. Doesn’t seem like you could use an entire
day with what I just wrote, but you totally can.
I’m sure you can see a pattern forming of how we spent our
time. So it will be no surprise that we went to dinner (no pics), took some
cheesey photos, went to the show, possibly some Karaoke, comedy club etc. and
then off to sleep.
St. Thomas-Day 3
We didn’t get up too early b/c we didn’t want to crowd off
the ship with the rest of the cattle. We took our time and had breakfast then
headed off. We walked right out of the gate and a guy asked us where we wanted
to go. Megan’s Bay was on our agenda for the day and he loaded us on a taxi and
in a few mins. we were off. This is my second time in St. Thomas. It is a
beautiful port, the people drive like nutballs, in fact, our driver knocked the
side of the taxi into a guard rail at one point. We arrived at Megan’s Bay
alive though. The taxi was $7 (I think) pp and the fee for Megan’s Bay is $4. I
wasn’t laying in the sand so we went over to get some chairs.
Btw, you need to go up to the gift shop to purchase the
chairs. You have to pay a $5 refundable deposit and then the chairs are like $7
a piece I think. You take the paper she
gives you down to the guys and you can either tip them to take the chairs down
the beach for you or you can do it yourself. Remember to keep the paper b/c
it’s the way you will get your deposit down for the chairs. It wasn’t that hard
to drag the chairs, but we did tip the guy to take them down for us, but we
took them back ourselves. They have a little restr. Area, they have restrooms
etc. Nice beach.
It was pretty crowded when we got there around 11am??? It
started clearing around 1-2pm. We left around 3pm. The sand is nice and soft, the water (this
time of year) was just cool enough to keep the sun from eating you alive.
Funny, this was the day I got my sunburn. Mainly, b/c I was in the water so
much and the reflection really cooked my shoulders. I had 45 sunscreen
(waterproof) on and reapplied it each time I got out of the water. But I’m pale
and sparkly like a vampire, so it’s not a good judge of the sun there.
We left around 3pm and took the drive back over the mountain
back down to the valley into the port. We wanted to do a big of shopping.
Nowadays, the only thing I buy from ports is a shot glass. Since I’d been here
before, I didn’t need one. I also
usually forget to buy things for people back home until the last stop anyway.
But the one thing we did want was some liquor. Now, I will get lectured for
this I’m sure, but what is done is done.
My birthday was on Thursday and I had originally planned to order some
booze from Bon Voyage, but I doubted we could really drink a whole liter (not
lushes) b/c the only night we really planned on drinking was my bday. So, in
honor of my 28th bday I decided to take off my goody two shoes hat
and try on a pirate one for a while.
Back in 2009 on my first Carnival cruise, my friend was the
rebellious one and snuck some booze on board in St. Thomas by way of down the
back of her shorts with a plastic top on the bottle, of course. So, I knew that
the one store would have bottles with plastic tops. The guy in the shop knew
exactly why we wanted those kinds of bottles and was happy to share some
smuggling secrets (nothing new) with us. My friend and I found a bathroom and
went in to find a place to hide our stash. (We got two fifths of rum each). The
logical place for us women is the top area. My friend who
is……………blessed…………easily concealed her rum this way. However, I was not as
blessed. My bathing suit in the back was too loose to put the bottles down like
my friend did. So, I figured I’d try the next technique my friend used. On
another island she grabbed a big bottle of pre-mixed booze and it was obviously
too big for her shorts………so she wrapped it in a towel and put it in her bag.
Was she busted? HECK YEA! Did she walk away acting like she was taking it to
the table, yep. Did she then take off in a sprint up 7 flights of stairs to our
room, yep.
Well, you won’t catch me running………..anywhere, which is why
I knew that security and the table didn’t give her a second look. So my plan
was to put the bottles, in the bag they gave me, in my beach bag and just send
it through. Of course, they would tell me to check it and at this point I would
just walk on by the table.
What really happened? I sent my bag through, the guy didn’t
give me a second glance and I walked up to the elevator, stepped on and up to
the our room. They probably though two
fifths wasn’t enough to stop me for, but I like to think it was my somewhat
“honest” approach and possibly my good looks.
I still bought drinks while I was out, so don’t rain on my
parade. We did wait until my bday to crack them open too.
Of course, we used the spa again this day and spent the rest
of the evening relaxing, doing some karaoke and then dinner/show as usual.
No comments:
Post a Comment