My Cruise to the Bahamas

I just recently returned from a wonderful vacation. My husband and I decided to go on our first cruise and we chose the Bahamas as our destination. I wanted to write just a little bit about it and how we saw things as "newbie's to the cruising world.

First of all, our flight was delayed – not once, but twice. We didn't head out to Orlando until much later than anticipated. Once landing we got a shuttle van to take us to our hotel. After this experience, my husband and I both agree that next time splurging on a taxi will be well worth it. We drove around from hotel to hotel taking different passengers to their home away from home for over an hour. We didn't check-in until 12:30 am. I will give the hotel a huge 10 star rating. They were wonderful. The name of it was Doubletree Hotel in Orlando. There are several of them in the area, so any of them I believe would be a good choice. They had warm cookies waiting on us. Being two exhausted and starving travelers, this was very impressive!

The next day was the day we boarded our ship. The ship is an older ship from the RCCL cruise line called "Sovereign of the Seas." When she was first introduced to the world, she was THE ship to be on. She was the biggest and grander than any other ship on the water. To us, she was still very impressive and full of charm and grace. Even though she is considered one of the "smaller" ships, she is still alarmingly huge when you first see her.

Getting onboard was relatively easy. We had all our required paperwork already filled out and in our hands. I believe we were on the ship in just 15 minutes, and this was all by 11:30 am. (We weren't scheduled to be permitted on until at least 12:00pm) This was a very nice surprise. Being one of the first onboard we got a chance to explore things before it got crowded. We took advantage of nabbing a couple of cocktails and let me tell you, they do not water these drinks down!! We decided to go ahead and get with the purser and get our travel arrangements settled for when we arrive back in port and to get our drink card. You would think that sodas would be included in your cruise price, but it isn't. I wasn't shocked by this because I had been warned about it. It is a pet peeve I have about cruising though. After paying for the cruise, you would think they could give you that much at least.  We found our stateroom, which was small, but I expected that.

Anyway, we left port around 5:30 that afternoon. We joined the "Sail Away" party on the upper deck and enjoyed seeing everyone having such a great time. To my great joy, I did spot two dolphins swimming along the front of the ship. A bit later we went to dinner and met our dinner companions. They were two girls from Michigan about the same age as we were. They were hilarious! We were relieved. I had heard a ton of bad stories where people were stuck beside others they didn't care much about. After that, the captain announced that instead of going to Coco Cay first, we were going to Nassau because there was a storm around Coco Cay.

So our second day was spent entirely at sea. On cruises they give you a daily itinerary that lists all the activities happening on the ship that day. It is amazing how much you refer to this thing! We carried ours around with us all the time! We watched a cooking show, hung out by the pool, looked at artwork up for auction, went to a cooking class, watched a belly flop contest, and a men's sexiest leg contest. All this before 1:30 pm! I was exhausted and forced Darrell to go back to the room so I could take a nap. That night was also our formal night, which I was really looking forward to. I couldn't wait to dress up! As silly as it may sound, it reminded me of prom night! Anyway, Darrell woke me up around 5 pm. He had been up on deck and saw glimpses of land ahead of us. We rushed out and sure enough, it was our first look of Nassau. We really wanted to see the island after we pulled into port, but we also had formal night. We decided that neither of us really cared so much about attending the formal dinner, so we changed into our formalwear, got our portraits taken, and changed back into street clothes just in time to leave the ship!

My first impression of Nassau wasn't a very good one. I was amazed at all the trash that scattered alone the beach where we came into port. Also a word of warning to the ladies out there, the locals will drive you nutty wanting to braid your hair. Expect them to ask, over and over. Be firm and look them dead-on and they will leave you alone. I was told to not to let them try because it has been said they can have lice under the fingernails. If you want braids, take your own gloves and hair accessories. Anyway, a taxi driver approached us asking us if we wanted a ride somewhere. My husband asked him where he could possibly take us at night because we were going to do most things tomorrow. He told us Atlantis because you can get into most things free. He only charged us $4 each. A great deal! We expected to go in a taxi, but you can imagine our surprise when we discovered he had a limo! And I don't know if you have to normally pay to get into things at Atlantis, but I can say that we didn't pay for anything. Atlantis is very beautiful, but I would compare it to Vegas casinos.

Our third day was spent on the beaches of Nassau, going through the famous "Straw Market" and doing more shopping downtown Nassau. The "Straw Market" was a disappointment to me. It is a flea-market type of place that has sections blocked off for people to set up and sell their merchandise. I was surprised to see how many have practically the same thing as the person next to them. We bought nothing from here. Most of our purchases came from downtown. The rest of the day we spent on the ship. This was the first night that we ate at "Johnny Rockets". A hamburger and fry type of place that was very good. At night we attended the hilarious show featuring "El Gaucho". He was very talented and was entertaining. We also caught the "Rockin' Dueling Piano's show. This is great and I highly recommend it. A word of caution, I wouldn't take kids to see this show!  Another must see, "The Love and Marriage Game". I laughed so hard I was crying watching this. You absolutely cannot miss seeing this one.

Thursday morning we were tendered at sea for Coco Cay. This is a private island that RCCL owns. It is totally beautiful. The beach is very clean and well-kept. The water temperature was just perfect. In fact, the weather for our whole trip was really pleasant. It wasn't too hot or chilly. We had decided to take an excursion here. We boarded on a glass bottom boat with the expectations of seeing things that we normally wouldn't get to see. We couldn't have been more wrong. This boat only had enough room for about 10 people to get inside to where the glass bottom was. Everyone else had to go on the upper deck where you couldn't see anything. We never even saw a glimpse of the glass bottom. To make things worse, it was really a rocky boat and my husband got really seasick, and this was almost a two hour ride!! I didn't think it would ever end. After getting off that and feeling like kissing the beach, we headed out for lunch. RCCL handles everything on the beach so the food is free. We headed back to the ship after eating and mingled around for awhile. We went onboard shopping, hit the casino, played basketball, climbed the rock wall, went to the gym, bought some portraits, and went back to eat at the Mirage Dining Room to eat. We took pictures of our dinner mates and compared our stories from the past few days. The food was great and our waiter never missed a beat. None of us could ever figure out how to pronounce her name, but she was really very sweet. After dinner we went to catch the farewell show, "Flashback". It was great! The dancers really put a lot of hard work and time into their show. After the show we went outside and walked around on the decks. The ocean is very beautiful at night.

The departure day was Friday. It went very smoothly and we were off the ship and back at the airport by 9:30 am. They didn't start letting passengers off until 7:30 that morning. We were surprised at how quickly and efficiently they get things moving. I've heard people say that Royal Caribbean is one of the best at this.

So, would I take another cruise? Yes! My husband and I enjoyed it. There are so many things to do onboard a cruise ship that you will never become bored. We never wanted for anything the whole time. If you want room service at 2 am, then all you have to do is call and order. Food is everywhere! The hard part is just trying to choose from all the many options! Cruising is perfect from the very young, to the very young at heart.