NASSAU,
BAHAMAS
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Ready to leave on our adventure
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Our first friend on board ship
- Funship Freddie
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Forward view on pool deck
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Aft view on pool deck
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Disney Wonder ready to go too
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Leaving Port Canaveral
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Atrium area
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Docked in Nassau
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| Big Ship 100 ft by 855 ft |
Underway on smooth seas
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| Our snorkeling boat | Rear view from snorkeling boat |
Views from snorkeling boat
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We are ready for this!
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| Parrot Fish | Trumpet Fish | Barrel Sponges |
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| Snorkelers behind the boat |
Towel animals made by our steward
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Ice sculpture demonstration
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From 300 lb block to this in 20 minutes | |
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Getting our shipboard tans
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Shipboard friends
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Last night dinner and dancing
with Biljana, the waitress
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Dinner ice sculpture
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Dinner vegetable sculptures-flowers
made from potato slices
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Our cruise started when a couple stopped by the trailer
to check on reservations for next year. We talked about their traveling and
they mentioned that they were taking a cruise leaving the next week. That night
we looked at the Carnival Cruise web site and found specials for the next weekend,
leaving from Port Canaveral, right down the road from our campground. We decided
that we should do this since we were already in Florida and any cruise later
would involve air fare back to Florida.
We booked the cruise the next day with a local agency and Lois started making
all the other arrangements, boarding the dogs and most importantly, deciding
what to pack.
Our cruise was to leave on Thursday at 4:30 p.m. We headed down that way on Thursday morning hoping to get on as soon as the boarding started at 1 p.m. We had one little glitch in that with the late reservations, they did not have us assigned to a room. We were personally escorted on board the ship and waited patiently for our room. The best part of waiting patiently for a room is that we found out we could begin eating immediately. We finally got a room and got everything unpacked.
We went up to the front of the ship as we headed out to sea. We went out of the port area right by the pier where we watched the shuttle takeoff last October. As the ship got into deeper water we saw porpoises and big sea turtles right on the surface. Soon the shore disappeared and we were really on our cruise. Lois had been concerned with sea sickness, but the seas were smooth all the way and there was just small movements of the ship. Believe it or not, with 2,700 people on the ship, hardly an hour had passed before we met the couple that had stopped by the trailer the week before. We are all in the photo above.
Our first big event was our 5:45 dinner in the main
dining room. In our dining room we met Biljana, our waitress while in this dining
room. She is from Macedonia, part of the old Yugoslovia. She works on the ship
on a 9 month contract and only has a Visa that allows her to work on the ship.
If her contract is not renewed, she has to go back to her home country. Lois
asked her how to pronounce her name, she said "Bill - ya - na "; she
said it was a very common name in her country. Almost all the support staff
were from countries from eastern Europe; all were very friendly and spoke very
good English. Our steward was from Estonia.
Of course, after dinner we toured the ship trying to get our bearings. The ship
had 10 decks, several lounges and show rooms. Besides being on the right deck
you had to decide, "do we go forward or aft" to get to our destination.
We just about got that down as it was time to leave 3 days later.
Trying not to miss anything, we went to each late night comedy show, then on
to the midnight buffet with food everywhere.
We pulled into Nassau at 10 a.m. the next morning. We had planned to go snorkeling
at 1:45, so we left the ship and did a little shopping in downtown Nassau. After
lunch on the ship, we left and boarded the snorkeling boat and headed out to
Athola Island, a National Marine Preserve. The ride was about 30 minutes long
and we passed many huge home and yachts. Arriving at the island we got our instructions
on what to do and what not to do and jumped into the water; 74 degree water
is cold. The reef was anywhere from 5 ft below the surface to 20 ft deep. The
water was unbelievably clear and there were fish everywhere. It was certainly
something we will remember forever.
Life on the ship was as full as you wanted to make it. We made the most of each
day, from rising to a buffet breakfast to the midnight buffet after the late
show. We both decided we could probably not survive a longer cruise; there is
too much to do.
We headed back to Florida at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday and that day was to be "a
fun day at sea". The sun was out and we worked on our tans. Lois did splurge
and got a foot massage.
We pulled into Port Canaveral at 7:30 a.m. on Sunday and finally got off the
ship at 10:00 after waiting for our color tags to be called; it was very organized.
It was a wonderful trip and we would recommend the experience to everyone!
8 Dumbest Questions asked of the Cruise Director
1) Is this ship moving?
2) What do they do with the ice sculpture after it melts?
3) Do the waiters and bus boys live on the ship?
4) A lady came over to him, by the pool, and asked, "Is the pool water,
sea water?". He said, "Yes, we pump it in." The lady yelled back
across the pool, "See Evelyn, I told you it is sea water, that is why it
is rough in the pool."
5) A lady called down to the pursers office yelling, "I can't get out of
my room." Mark asked her what is wrong. She said, "I can't get out
of my room, it only has two doors, one is the bathroom and the other has a sign
on it 'Do Not Disturb'."
6) Do you have cable TV?
7) A man was looking at the wall of photos of passengers and asked Mark, "How
do I tell which ones are mine?"
8) A man, obviously lost at the rear of the ship on one of the lower decks,
asked Mark, "Will this elevator take me to the front of the ship?