Monday, August 10

We woke up and were already in port at Nassau, Bahamas.  I hadn’t even felt the boat come in, I slept so hard!  Kile said he did.  I was a little glad the boat had stopped moving, so I could reorient myself.  I wasn’t feeling sea sick but there was a certain amount of instability and wooly-headedness.  Kile had arranged for the little ones to go back into the nursery from 1-3pm and Harry to go to the Oceaneer’s Lab so that we could get off the ship and explore, sans kids.  Sounded good to me!  Though I had to admit that I wasn’t too excited to go see Nassau.  We hadn’t booked any excursions.  Most of them were too expensive and didn’t appeal to me.  I would have liked to see the Atlantis hotel (which we could see clearly from our boat) but didn’t feel like risking the cab ride over there and it seemed a little far to walk in the heat.

Oh, and I forgot to mention on Day 4 that cleanliness is a BIG thing on the Disney Wonder.  Before we even got on, our hands were sanitized by wipes and gel within an inch of their lives.  And there were constantly crew members wiping surfaces.  No Noro Virus there!  And we got rather used to it, to be honest.  It became no big thing to wipe down our hands obsessively coming and going from restaurants, theaters, shops, etc.  My hands have never been so clean in my life!  And for days afterward, I missed having those handy wipes around every time I did something.

We decided to try the less formal buffet for breakfast, Beach Blanket Buffet, up on Deck 9.  I kind of wish we hadn’t.  It was a little to informal for my tastes and breakfast was fairly chaotic.  Harry was still feeling funky but I urged him to drink plenty of juice and water and to have something to eat to get something on his belly.  He seemed to perk up after that.

I’m a little hazy on what we did for the rest of the morning.  I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s because we went back to our room and did nothing more exciting that peruse the movies on the television.  Which, at the time, I was more than happy to do.  I was feeling a little bitter about how difficult it was to do anything FUN with such little kids in tow.  I didn’t feel free to do much of anything interesting.  There was a little “woe is me” going on.  I was LOVING the cruise, don’t get me wrong, I just wanted to be free to enjoy it more.  Kile and I kept cracking that we would have to do this again… WITHOUT the kids!

I’m trying to remember what we did for lunch that day.  And I’m drawing a blank. Did we even HAVE lunch?  Surely we did.  But right now, it’s a blur.  Oh well.  Whatever it was, I’m sure it was yummy. Maybe I had a sandwich!  Or a hamburger!  Who knows??

Around 12:30 or so, we got the little kids together and went to drop them off at the nursery.  Then we dropped Harry off at the Lab.  And then… footloose and fancy free!  We headed down to Deck 1, Forward, where the gangplank was set up.  There was a good line of people trying to get off and we came to find out that it was because these were people who were signed up for a shore excursion.  We showed our IDs and passports and got off the boat.  We could have waited for a tram to take us to the terminal, but we chose to walk the short distance ourselves.  I took a picture of what I thought was our porthole:

I think it’s the smaller one (the larger ones are on Deck 3), above the little door there.  Or maybe to the left of that.  One of those.  I think?  Or maybe it’s the slightly bigger on on the far left.  Anyhow.  You get the idea!

We moved on to the terminal and snapped a few pics of the boat before heading inside:

The terminal was brightly colored and cooled with somewhat smelly air conditioning.  I learned that pretty much all the air conditioning that I came across in Nassau was smelly.  Curious.  Anyhow, the terminal spat us out into a county-fair style collection of booths, only a few of which were stocked with goodies to sell to the tourists.  Maybe it’s busier on weekends?  We came out onto the city streets and there were several cabbies there, ready to whisk us away.  No thanks!  We’ll walk.

We crossed the street and a woman chased after me, wanting BADLY to braid my hair.  Almost as badly as I didn’t want my hair braided, even.  I won out and my hair remained unmolested.  I’d heard those hair braiders charge an arm and a leg.  And I couldn’t fathom trying to unbraid those tiny tiny braids I saw girls and women on our boat later on sporting.  I’d probably have to chop my hair off.

Oh and another thing:  I have full comprehension of what it means to be “steamy” outside.  I had an idea before, but now I KNOW.  Florida and the Bahamas taught me that.  It’s a lesson that, frankly, I could have done without.  But… I did get somewhat used to it.  Still, it would be nice to find a place to be there was somewhere in the middle.  You know, not swimming in sweat and not moisture sucked from your eyeballs.  A happy medium!  My mom would be the first to holler, “California!  Move back to California!”  And to that I say: “NO THANK YOU.”  California and myself are both better off apart.

Anyhow, back to the topic at hand.  The first place we stopped in at was, of all things, the Hard Rock Cafe.  They had a great selection of t-shirts and we promised to stop back there on our way back to the boat.  The next street was Bay Street (I think?) and there was a lot of shopping there.  But… I’m not much of a shopper.  So we wandered up and down the street, took a few pictures, and tried not to get pick pocketed.  You know, in a lot of ways, Nassau reminded me of Tijiuana.  And not in a good way.  But still.  We were there!

So, after all that fun and delight, we were feeling a little tired, hot and parched, so we walked back to the Hard Rock Cafe where I proposed we have a drink.  Kile thought it was a GREAT idea.  And, I have to admit, it may have very well been the best idea I ever had.  Like, in the history of ideas.  We got comfy at the bar and Kile ordered a pineapple juice and rum while I went full boar for the classic Hurricane.  Cuz, duh!  It’s a drink AND a souvenir!  And it had rum in it, which was important.  If you’re gonna have a drink in the Bahamas, it pretty much HAS to have rum in it or you’re just not doing it right.

After we finished our drinks (we were very leisurely), we headed back to the boat.  And this time we took the tram.  Because it was there and we were tired.  It was almost time to pick up the kids from the nursery so we went up to deck 9 and got some snacks and gazed out at Pleasure Island (which besides Atlantis, has some VERY NICE houses on it, holy cow.

We tried to pick up Harry from the Lab, but he was having a good time and wanted to stay.  So we left him.  We picked up the wee ones and found the rest of my family playing a trivia game in the Promenade Lounge so we joined them.

My sister and brother in law, two very fine people.

Our team lost the trivia contest, though I’m not even sure HOW because I rock at trivia.  I blame the Hurricane.  There was a little time to kill before dinner so we went to the room to freshen up and then on our way to the Animator’s Palette, we stopped to get Harry.  He was already at dinner with the rest of the group, they told us.  Traitor.  So we went to dinner without him.

I loved the Animator’s Palette.  Triton’s was fancier and had some great food.  But Animator’s Palette was a little more informal without being chaos (like that morning’s buffet).  It was fun watching the restaurant bloom with color over the course of our dinner.  Evie loved the movie screens depicting famous Disney movie scenes and the music that accompanied them.  The food was AWESOME, even if I can’t quite remember what I had.  But it was good.  And I made sure to try as much as I could of everything. I do remember ordering butternut squash soup.  The soups on this ship were outstanding.  And I love soup.

Sometime during dinner, the boat left port in Nassau.  And I swear, I felt it.  I could tell when we went from staying put to steaming out to sea.  But the motion wasn’t bothersome and somehow even less noticeable than it had been the day before.

After dinner, it was time for another show.  This time it was “Toy Story: The Musical”.  We put our foot down and dragged Harry out of the Oceaneer’s Lab so he could join us.  We got to the theater a little late and had to sit down front, but as you know, with stage shows sometimes being down front isn’t such a bad thing!  And yet again, the little kids surprised us with how they sat still and watched the show.  Plus, it was really kinda cool how they managed to translate Toy Story into a stage production.  Very cool.

Harry decided to stay in my parent’s room that night so after the show we sent him down there with his backpacked packed with pajamas.  We got the little ones to bed (again, didn’t take long!), pulled the curtains as strategically as we could while poking the TV out so we could see it, and called room service.  Kile ordered another cheese platter and I requested a side order of fries.  The fries were awesome on this ship.  And right then, exactly what I wanted.  We watched Star Trek and munched and reminisced about the day.  It was one of the nicest moments on the cruise.  Completely laid back and relaxing.

We were pooped though, and dropped off fairly early.   We are totally turning into old duffers, I swear.  But it was a good day, at the end of it all.  I dare say I was getting used to cruising.

Coming up: Castaway Cay!