Cruise Day Four

So our final day of the cruise had us 'At Sea' all day. We finally got to sleep in! So when we finally got up we headed up for breakfast.

So we decided for our day at sea to be lazy, lay out to get some extra sun and just hang around with no real plans. So after breakfast we stopped to get temporary air brush tattoos. Here's a pic of our ankelets we got on one of the islands.

Here is my temporary tattoo...Froggy!

Dominique's tattoo - Pretty Butterfly!

After that we went to a seminar where they gave us information for the next day deboarding, customs procedures, what to do with our luggage, etc. We then wandered around the gift shops to see if there was anything interesting to buy. We didn't really find anything but there really were some deals on jewelry. :) After that we went to an art auction on the ship, the papers said we'd get a free piece of art if we attended. Never realized how boring an art auction could be. :) I couldn't sit through it so after a bit I left and went and laid out to get some sun.

Here's another Carnival ship that was heading the same direction we were. Don't know where they ended up going. But there were tons of people on our ship who kept coming and blocking my sun to have their picture taken with this ship in the background. :)

After a couple hours I decided it was time to go and try to find Dominique. :) I tried the auction room, that was cleared out, stopped by the casino, she wasn't there; I finally found her in our room. I thought she'd be napping but she was actually talking on her cell phone. Her phone now had reception, mine didn't though. She finally got through to her sister so she could finally check up on her puppies. :) Found out after the auction she did hit the casino slot machines for a bit, but then headed back to our room for a short nap, but found her phone was now working.

She had an appoinment to go and meet with the art dude to get her free piece of art. We went and picked it out, then wandered around the ship for a bit.

Finally it was getting to around sunset time and I still hadn't gotten a picture of the sun almost on the sea....finally got it. :)

We asked a lady passing by to take our pics with the sunset in the background.

We headed off to dinner in the dining room and then went out to catch the moon shining off the sea. Here's D looking at the reflection.

I was trying to get the reflection to show with different settings on my camera. This one came out the best...the moon looks a little bit funny but it's a long shutter and my hands aren't totally steady.

When we finally headed back to our room here was our towel 'animal' for the night.

We had to get our 'checked' bags ready before 11 p.m. and outside our room door for the ship staff to collect and take to shore first thing in the morning. After that we then tried to get to bed at a deceant time as we were to dock at 7 am. In the morning we deboarded on the general boarding group where most of our luggage was in the building. We quickly found our bus that would take us to the airport. The luggage check in line was forever long, but we still had time to take a detour to the Disney store where I could get a new Vinylmation set:

Then it was homeward bound. Hope you enjoyed seeing my vacation!

Cruise Day Three

The third day of the cruise took us to Nassau. Here's a welcome sign from the 'customs' building we had to go through to get between the ship and town to do our shopping and excusion.

View of the port/customs building from the ship

How we got off the ship

Our ship:)

D posing in front of the ship, our ship is the one in the middle

We had to meet our water ferry at 8:30 to head out for our excursion...which was power snorkeling. Our group walked past while we were waiting on the dock and let us to our boat:

There was also clear kayaking on our boat as well...clear kayak boats so they could see under the water as well. Below is a picture of our motor we used for the power snorkel. When you push down both the little thumb pedals the motor goes and I don't have to kick. :)




We had an hour to snorkel. They warned us on the boat of two poisonous things to avoid. One was coral with white tips that would have you burning like you had stepped on a fire ant hill. The other was in the picture below. It's called a King fish...it's fins almost look like wings. If you look below it's the thing by the big rock in the upper right corner....brown with white tips on the fins. D missed that warning as she was going potty on the ship, so when she was taking pics of this fish she kept getting closer and closer and I kept trying to motion her to stop getting so close. Luckily soon there after they called us back to the boat to head back to dock. :)

After awhile they started to throw fish food off the side of the boat, which happened to be right where D and I were at that point. So all of a sudden we turned around and there were walls of fish. Here are some pics of all the fish...they are really this close...no zoom on these underwater cameras. :)



















See how close they are getting to D?



Me on the boat afterwards as we are heading back to the port.

When we were almost back I saw a bar called Senor Frogs. Had to take a picture! We didn't go inside but it looked pretty cool from the boat.

After we were done snorkeling we headed back to our ship and showered off the salt water. :) We grabbed a quick lunch and then headed back to shore to do the shopping and exploring around Nassau. We then headed back to the dock area to catch a water taxi over to Paradise Island where the Atlantis Hotel is located. Most of Paradise Island has no road between homes where lots of stars live....they have to get there by their own personal docks. Here's a pic of one portion of the Atlantis Hotel from the water.

The little building on the right is the casino and the bridge connecting the two buildings is actually a 10 room suite that we were told costs $25,000 a night with a 4 night minimum reservation requirement...and is now booked solid for the next 5 years. Crazy oppulant!








Here's a Chihuly glass artwork piece that was at an interior entrance to the casino at Atlantis.




Here's one waterfall on the outside of Atlantis near the pool area.

Another waterfall and their private beach/pool area for Atlantis...we couldn't go there...only guests of Atlantis can get access to it.

Atlantis also has a huge aquarium inside of the hotel. This portion in the next few pics also has an upper access outside the entrance...where some guests can even snorkel in.

Sharky!

Stingray

After we toured Atlantis we took a water taxi back to Nassau...those were way cheaper than taking an actual taxi, and faster as well. :) We then wandered around the Straw Market there and jewelry stores where our ship shopping expert got us deals for free jewelry. Cute little pendants, it was pretty fun. :) The straw market was another intense journey into intense sales women. We got what we were looking for for souvineers and then headed back to the ship.

We dropped off our bags and headed onto dinner. We tried to catch a later show, but were just too exhausted. We stayed for 30 minutes or so and couldn't take it. So we walked around the deck outside for a bit then headed back to our room where we found our new towl animal for the night:

Here's D reading the boat itinerary in bed.

After awhile I got a bit slap happy, so I took a video of our new towl animal....froggy!!!

I made D pose with Mr. Froggy hehe. :P

I was kind annoying....here's D and I laughing for no good reasons. :)

We quickly fell asleep. Our ship actually stayed in port in Nassau till 6 a.m. the next morning. We so slept through the take off. :)

Cruise Day Two

Day two had us arriving at Freeport, Bahamas

Here's a pic of the front of the ship from port

Here is the tail end of the ship...it's pretty long.

After we got into port around 9 am we got off the ship and took a taxi to the actual town area. Now the taxis in the Bahamas are really more like 10 to 12 passenger vans. If you can get a group together to fill up the van it only costs $5 per person to take the taxi ride. But if you didn't want to wait to find a group it would cost around $27 to $30 per person each way. Thankfully we were able to find groups each way so it was a cheaper ride for us. :)

We first went to what is called the Straw Market, which is like a swap meet, huge souvineer booth collections. There was tons of items to look at and buy but those booth owners are so intense. I mean they becon you over in a way that really brooks no argument and then you go over and it's like they try to pressure you to buy something. And at these markets you can bargain on prices. We were told by our taxi driver that if we didn't bargain we'd get no respect cause no one buys by list price. We didn't stay in the straw market too long, so we then walked across the street to where 3 hotels surrounded the free beach area. We found some changing rooms in one of the hotels and changed into our swim suits.

Here's a pic of the beach there at Freeport

See the pretty water?!

My footprint being washed away

Here's me in the water...bad pic but i did get in the ocean. :)

After we were on the beach for 1 1/2 hours to 2 hours we headed back to our ship....we were kinda bored and there were even ladies walking the beach trying to sell their souviners. So we headed back to the ship to have lunch and lay out on the boat decks, where we wouldn't be so hassled...and I wouldn't have to stay so awake making sure our bag didn't get stolen. :)

Here's a pic of the colorful water, view from our ship

View of the adult deck only (just had some extra hot tubs and kids couldn't come through there) which we laid out on to enjoy the sunny afternoon. See my feet? :)

Afterwards we went to our room to put our stuff away and shower. D took a nap and I walked around the ship a bit outside. Here's a video of the rear of the boat while we were leaving Freeport Harbour:

Sunset on the ocean. :)

When I finally woke D up from her nap we headed to the dining room for dinner. When we came back we found the turn down service had left us a cool folded towel accent. See our little friend:

We went to a dance show that night and an adult comedy act, which was just okay. Hung out in the casino for a bit, D likes the slots. :) We then headed onto bed so we could get up early the next morning. Bye, bye Freeport!