Day Five: How to Feel Rich & Famous for A Day!

Bon Appetit!

     I have yet to stay in a hotel where you go to your room, nod off for the night, and wake up in a new destination. This cruising life is awesome. We went to bed in our cabin and when we woke up we were parked on the dock of an island paradise. Beam me up, Scottie, I must be dreamin'.
    This was the big day, Our Shore Excursion. Did we get on the boat to come here or did we come here to get on the boat? I don't know but either way, here we are! Now if you've been reading the blog you know that before we boarded the ship we were given a list of shore excursions to choose from. On that list was one of the biggest dreams of my life, to ride a horse bareback on a white sandy beach in a bikini. Okay, don't freak out, I've toned that down a little, I'll use a saddle and will wear my swimsuit under my clothes. I was so excited to see that excursion on the list. Although, it felt weird that my sister wasn't here to take that ride with me. Since they wouldn't let us sign up for that excursion online, I assumed we would have to sign up on the ship. I coached Connor all week that riding horses through an island paradise was the shore excursion of choice. But when we got to the Shore Excursion desk they said all of those excursions had been sold out prior to our sail date. Several of the other limited space excursions were also sold out. We'd have to make a second choice.
    Some of my shipmates were going to go out on their own and find some local tours, including horse back rides on the white sandy beaches. They advised it was cheaper than what was being offered on the ship. I had talked to an experienced cruiser, aka my Dad, the night before and he recommended that we did sign up for an excursion since we were new to the port. Once you learn your way around a port you can make a better decision if you want to have a guided excursion or play it ear like my shipmates. I decided not to chance it and opted for the guided tour since we had no idea what we were in for. I signed us up for something I thought would have some interest for both us, the Combo Snorkeling and Our Lucaya Resort Day, which came with lunch at the resort after our snorkeling adventure. And this excursion was teenager friendly as we didn't have to meet our tour until 9:30am. That gave us time to sleep in a little and still enjoy the ship's breakfast buffet before heading down to Deck 4 to meet our group.
    We had signed up for the excursion the night before and our tickets along with instructions, times, and receipts were slid under our  door sometime before we got back to our cabin last night. When we met with our group our tickets were checked and we were all given a wrist band that corresponded to our specific excursion choice. Some were just Resort, some were just snorkeling, and some were both. So we got banded red and handed a towel and led off the ship.

Shore Excursion?

    After immigration to the Bahamas, we were led to our charter bus and rode 12 miles over to Freeport where another guide met us and walked us over to the docks. We boarded our chartered catamaran, met our Captain, and were issued our snorkeling gear: a life jacket, goggles, snorkel, and fins. On our leisurely biat ride out of the bay we were instructed on how to wear and use our gear. After warming our bright white, now kind a pink, skin up in the sunshine for thirty minutes, we arrived at the reef and were assisted in disembarking the boat. Oh man was that cold!

Snorkeling Over the Corral Reef

    That first plunge was so cold I could hardly breath. Once I caught my breath I started testing out my equipment. You have to suck the air out of your mask with your nose to keep your mask from leaking (something I was very concerned with as I didn't want to loose my contacts). Then you have to breath through this tube with your mouth while your nose is suffocating. I kept thinking of my Dad when he woke up from surgery still hooked up to the ventilator. They kept telling him to just relax and let the machine breath for him but let's just say he was not a happy camper about that. It's hard to relax when you can't breath!
   I fought it for awhile and then once I got over the idea that I was going to get cold, salty water in my ears no matter what, I relaxed. Now it was time to swim around and look at some really cool fish along the reef.  I do want to point out that as cool as this was, this snorkeling thing looks a lot easier on the postcards than it is in person. I was getting pretty worn out just floating along the top of the water. Of course, the ocean waves I was drinking didn't help either. Just as I was getting used to it, I noticed our Captain was throwing bait over the side of the boat to attract the fish. That was all well and good until our first mate yells from the reef, "Now if you see the sharks don't worry-- they are just nurse sharks." Bait. Sharks. I think I'm done.
   On the way back we soaked up some more rays. The bar opened and many of our shipmates started telling some interesting stories of their adventures on the sea. It was a rather fun ride back to the dock where we again met up with our tour guide who check our bands and took the red  banded tourists back to the resort for lunch and more sun and surf. I must say, lunch was not impressive but tasted good as we had worked up  an appetite.

   The rest of the afternoon was quite relaxing. We had seven pools and the Atlantic ocean to choose from to swim in. Connor and I spent the afternoon going from one pool to another and walking up and down the beach. I took a little nap in a recliner on the beach while Connor made sand castles. And not just any kind of sand castles, he got sand castle making instructions from a fellow shipmate and I must say, construction quality went way up.

Look who was waiting for us
in our Cabin- Thanks Jay Ar!

    Then it was back to the bus. Glad we chose the 4:15pm bus as we were walking back up the gangway at 5:15pm.  We were all to be back onboard no later than 5:30pm and I think they meant it because we were pulling away from the port at 6 O'Clock sharp. The last bus left the resort at 5pm... I am not so sure those folks could have made it onboard by 5:30pm.

So many SWEEET CHOICES!

 
 I was so glad Connor had requested a late dinner reservation. We both took a shower and a well deserved nap before dinner and then dressed up in our finest cruise attire for our five course, formal meal at the Crystal Dining room. So much fun with my young gentleman. And then a couple more shows at that View and that was about all I could squeeze into one day. I was pretty wiped when I hit the bunk. Connor snuck in sometime around 1am when the Open Water Club closed.
    I wasn't quite ready to call our cruise complete but then again, not sure I had it in me for another full day on shore. If our cruise was any longer I would have to really pace myself with the shore excursions. There is always the option of staying on board a half day or all day if you choose. I noticed the onboard services don't stop just because the ship is docked. They continued to serve meals and offer activities on board all day long.
   Didn't take long for the ship to rock me to sleep tonight.
 
TRAVEL TIPS: WHAT ELSE WE LEARNED ON OUR VACATION
1. Sign up for any "Dream Excursions" as soon as you book your cruise.
2. Use the convenience of ship arranged Shore Excursions until you to know a port well enough to know how to get around and what is offered locally.
3. You don't have to book a shore excursion every day of your cruise: there is plenty to do on ship if you decided to stay on board part or all of the day.
4. Sunscreen, Sunscreen, Sunscreen!!
5. Take a camera and don't be afraid to ask your fellow cruisers to snap a shot of you and your whole party.
6. Offer to take pictures of others for them especially if they are buying an underwater camera on the snorkeling excursion. How cool to be able to send a shot of yourself in that snorkeling postcard!
7. Allow enough time to relax in between your scheduled events cause guess what? You're on vacation!
8. Bring a backpack along to take on your excursion with you and don't forget to pack a book for the beach.
9. The ship automatically charges for gratuities (interesting concept). We paid $12/day/person that is divided up among the staff. But you can tip extra for those staff members that go the extra mile for you-- it's the only thing  you can spend cash for on the boat.
10. Keep a bottle of water with you to stay hydrated and don't drink the salt water in a foreign country!