Blog: Cruise to the Bahamas
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Cruise to the Bahamas - Wednesday, February 13, 2013
I've always wanted to see the Bahamas. And now I have, thanks to Priscilla's travelholism and her parents generously paying for a cruise to the Bahamas for the four of us.
Last Wednesday, Priscilla and I flew from San Jose to LAX, where we rendezvoused with her parents and caught the red eye flight to our layover at Dallas/Fort Worth, and then the morning flight to Jacksonville, Florida. From there, it was a short shuttle ride to the Port of Jacksonville, where all the cruise ships sail out of. Our ship was the Carnival Fascination, and this was the second time I've sailed with Carnival. Once we passed through the TSA-like security checkpoint (minus full body scanners), we were on the ship and enjoying lunch on the Lido deck.
This time around Priscilla signed up for "your time dining", which gave us more flexibility in allowing us to eat dinner in the fine dining hall on own schedule. The food options were fine indeed - escargot was one of the starter items, and for the main course it was difficult having to choose between the lasagna bolognese, pan-seared tillapia fillet, chicken a la grecque, cinnamon pumpkin and veggie pot pie, or the braised beef briskey in gravy. I finally opted for the chicken, though we ended up ordering a few different main courses and sharing. Sharing is caring!
And how can a night be complete without entertainment? At night we caught the welcome show, where our cruise director Paul gave some introductions and a mini-comedy show. Two other comedians also did short routines, a preview of the longer programs that they would do the rest of the cruise. Fun times.
Friday at noon, we disembarked at Freeport, our first stop in the Bahamas. There wasn't a lot to do in town and we didn't sign up for any shore excursions, so we just walked around the small shopping plaza and Straw Market where there were tons of vendors selling souvenirs catering to tourists. It seemed like the same kind of stuff you could buy anywhere else, minus the logos that read "Bahamas" and whatnot. Priscilla did buy two postcards for herself, and her parents bought a souvenir magnet, but overall the stuff there just didn't interest us.
Not to be deterred, I looked around at our food options - I wanted something authentic. I passed on an authentic-looking (as much as possible) shack selling seafood for exorbitant prices - a $20 fish sandwich wasn't my thing. We passed by a bar that was offering $1 shots, which was cool but their food looked pretty Americanized. Finally, we took a look at the menu of a place called Senor Frog's, a seemingly pretty popular place for tourists. They touted their authentic Mexican food. Wait, Mexican food? I must be in the wrong country! Their menu had things like a fish taco plate for $17 - loco! We had lunch back on the ship.
The attire for fine dining that night was dressy. After dinner, we took advantage of our swanky looks to take photos at the various professional photo stations set up on the venue floors. Finally, we caught a night show called "Divas" in which male and female performers danced and did a cover of many popular diva songs. Two particular performers, both guys, really stood out in their vocals. The show was pretty cool.
Having learned our lesson from Freeport, when Saturday rolled around and our ship docked at Nassau at 8am, we had tickets (purchased through Carnival for $70/person) for a "sea and see" excursion. A short walk into town brought us to a ferry that took us on a harbor tour. We saw mail boats (the method of mail transportation between islands), bridges carrying traffic over the harbor to Paradise Island, and waterfront mansions owned by celebs including Tom Cruise, Chuck Norris and Oprah (who has two properties next to each other).
Our ferry was met out in the water by a semi-submarine and we transferred over for a short sea tour. Our tour guide threw rice overboard to attract fish, and we sure saw a lot of them! Everything from grunt fish, ballyhoo and yellow snapper. We didn't see any sharks, unfortunately.
The third part of our tour was onboard a bus, which took us past Bay Street, the police station, a Methodist church, the Parliament buildings and the Supreme Court. We stopped for 20 minutes at Fort Fincastle and the Queen's Staircase. The bus tour felt pretty short, and we ended earlier than the brochure claimed. Booo.
We then walked through the Nassau Straw Market, stopped at McDonald's to use their WiFi (and bought a crispy chicken sandwich so that we didn't look cheap), and then finished up the afternoon at the free Junkanoo Beach, where we just sat on the shore due to not having swimwear. We didn't eat any real food in Nassau, but we did buy a coconut from a shack at the beach for $5. I liked how they chopped off the shell on one side right in front of us, and stuck a straw in there for us to drink the coconut water. Everybody in the cities we visited accepted U.S. money, and supposedly the Bahamian dollar and the U.S. dollar have a one-to-one exchange rate.
Nassau was interesting. It had a small town feel but did have a steady amount of cars on the street. The buildings aren't dirty but do look worn with time. The aggressiveness of the locals trying to sell taxi, sightseeing and other services kind of put me off. We certainly didn't experience this kind of aggressiveness in Hawaii! Though perhaps that aggressive desire for our business could've been used in our favor as a bargaining tool had we been interested in their services (we might've scored a better deal than we did through Carnival).
Back on the ship after dinner, we briefly visited a piano bar and listened to a really talented guy playing requests from a list. Then we looked at our photos from the night before that were posted in the photo gallery. We were pretty tired after that long day, so we then called it a night.
Sunday was the day at sea. After waking up late and having a light breakfast, we went to a towel-folding session, where we learned how to make some of the towel animals that the cleaning staff had been making and putting in our stateroom every night.
After lunch, Priscilla and I went to a comedy show called "The Game of Love" where our cruise director picked three couples from the audience, two senior couples and one newlywed couple, and asked them questions to see how well they knew each other. The result? Pretty well overall for each couple. The show was hilarious, thanks to our wise-cracking cruise director.
In the evening we caught another show called "Motor City", a dance and musical performance that went through a few decades of oldies music. I liked this one better than "Divas" and loved the singing and all the costume and background changes. I think this show is done by the same performers that did "Divas". They actually had both shows playing that night and Friday night. Mad props to those performers for having to memorize songs and choreography for two different shows in the same night!
Monday morning after breakfast, it was time to debark! The debarkation process was pretty smooth, and most of the time spent waiting (15 minutes?) was waiting to get off the ship. Various shuttles were waiting to take people back to the airport, and we caught one for $10/person. Our flight from Jacksonville to DFW wasn't for another five hours, so I used that time to get caught up on friends' Yelp reviews. Our flight from DFW to San Jose was rough at almost four hours long! We finally got home around 8:30pm and were pretty exhausted.
Overall it was a fun trip, but we could've done more in the Bahamas. I learned that I don't really enjoy stuffy plane rides, and even on a cruise I get restless when there's not much to do. I also gained four pounds temporarily, even though we were going to the gym every day. Just something about being in the midst of so much good food every single day makes me want to eat a lot despite my body telling me to slow down. I don't think I could handle a longer cruise; four days was already plenty. It was fun, but I'm glad to be back home.
Last Wednesday, Priscilla and I flew from San Jose to LAX, where we rendezvoused with her parents and caught the red eye flight to our layover at Dallas/Fort Worth, and then the morning flight to Jacksonville, Florida. From there, it was a short shuttle ride to the Port of Jacksonville, where all the cruise ships sail out of. Our ship was the Carnival Fascination, and this was the second time I've sailed with Carnival. Once we passed through the TSA-like security checkpoint (minus full body scanners), we were on the ship and enjoying lunch on the Lido deck.
This time around Priscilla signed up for "your time dining", which gave us more flexibility in allowing us to eat dinner in the fine dining hall on own schedule. The food options were fine indeed - escargot was one of the starter items, and for the main course it was difficult having to choose between the lasagna bolognese, pan-seared tillapia fillet, chicken a la grecque, cinnamon pumpkin and veggie pot pie, or the braised beef briskey in gravy. I finally opted for the chicken, though we ended up ordering a few different main courses and sharing. Sharing is caring!
And how can a night be complete without entertainment? At night we caught the welcome show, where our cruise director Paul gave some introductions and a mini-comedy show. Two other comedians also did short routines, a preview of the longer programs that they would do the rest of the cruise. Fun times.
Friday at noon, we disembarked at Freeport, our first stop in the Bahamas. There wasn't a lot to do in town and we didn't sign up for any shore excursions, so we just walked around the small shopping plaza and Straw Market where there were tons of vendors selling souvenirs catering to tourists. It seemed like the same kind of stuff you could buy anywhere else, minus the logos that read "Bahamas" and whatnot. Priscilla did buy two postcards for herself, and her parents bought a souvenir magnet, but overall the stuff there just didn't interest us.
Not to be deterred, I looked around at our food options - I wanted something authentic. I passed on an authentic-looking (as much as possible) shack selling seafood for exorbitant prices - a $20 fish sandwich wasn't my thing. We passed by a bar that was offering $1 shots, which was cool but their food looked pretty Americanized. Finally, we took a look at the menu of a place called Senor Frog's, a seemingly pretty popular place for tourists. They touted their authentic Mexican food. Wait, Mexican food? I must be in the wrong country! Their menu had things like a fish taco plate for $17 - loco! We had lunch back on the ship.
The attire for fine dining that night was dressy. After dinner, we took advantage of our swanky looks to take photos at the various professional photo stations set up on the venue floors. Finally, we caught a night show called "Divas" in which male and female performers danced and did a cover of many popular diva songs. Two particular performers, both guys, really stood out in their vocals. The show was pretty cool.
Having learned our lesson from Freeport, when Saturday rolled around and our ship docked at Nassau at 8am, we had tickets (purchased through Carnival for $70/person) for a "sea and see" excursion. A short walk into town brought us to a ferry that took us on a harbor tour. We saw mail boats (the method of mail transportation between islands), bridges carrying traffic over the harbor to Paradise Island, and waterfront mansions owned by celebs including Tom Cruise, Chuck Norris and Oprah (who has two properties next to each other).
Our ferry was met out in the water by a semi-submarine and we transferred over for a short sea tour. Our tour guide threw rice overboard to attract fish, and we sure saw a lot of them! Everything from grunt fish, ballyhoo and yellow snapper. We didn't see any sharks, unfortunately.
The third part of our tour was onboard a bus, which took us past Bay Street, the police station, a Methodist church, the Parliament buildings and the Supreme Court. We stopped for 20 minutes at Fort Fincastle and the Queen's Staircase. The bus tour felt pretty short, and we ended earlier than the brochure claimed. Booo.
We then walked through the Nassau Straw Market, stopped at McDonald's to use their WiFi (and bought a crispy chicken sandwich so that we didn't look cheap), and then finished up the afternoon at the free Junkanoo Beach, where we just sat on the shore due to not having swimwear. We didn't eat any real food in Nassau, but we did buy a coconut from a shack at the beach for $5. I liked how they chopped off the shell on one side right in front of us, and stuck a straw in there for us to drink the coconut water. Everybody in the cities we visited accepted U.S. money, and supposedly the Bahamian dollar and the U.S. dollar have a one-to-one exchange rate.
Nassau was interesting. It had a small town feel but did have a steady amount of cars on the street. The buildings aren't dirty but do look worn with time. The aggressiveness of the locals trying to sell taxi, sightseeing and other services kind of put me off. We certainly didn't experience this kind of aggressiveness in Hawaii! Though perhaps that aggressive desire for our business could've been used in our favor as a bargaining tool had we been interested in their services (we might've scored a better deal than we did through Carnival).
Back on the ship after dinner, we briefly visited a piano bar and listened to a really talented guy playing requests from a list. Then we looked at our photos from the night before that were posted in the photo gallery. We were pretty tired after that long day, so we then called it a night.
Sunday was the day at sea. After waking up late and having a light breakfast, we went to a towel-folding session, where we learned how to make some of the towel animals that the cleaning staff had been making and putting in our stateroom every night.
After lunch, Priscilla and I went to a comedy show called "The Game of Love" where our cruise director picked three couples from the audience, two senior couples and one newlywed couple, and asked them questions to see how well they knew each other. The result? Pretty well overall for each couple. The show was hilarious, thanks to our wise-cracking cruise director.
In the evening we caught another show called "Motor City", a dance and musical performance that went through a few decades of oldies music. I liked this one better than "Divas" and loved the singing and all the costume and background changes. I think this show is done by the same performers that did "Divas". They actually had both shows playing that night and Friday night. Mad props to those performers for having to memorize songs and choreography for two different shows in the same night!
Monday morning after breakfast, it was time to debark! The debarkation process was pretty smooth, and most of the time spent waiting (15 minutes?) was waiting to get off the ship. Various shuttles were waiting to take people back to the airport, and we caught one for $10/person. Our flight from Jacksonville to DFW wasn't for another five hours, so I used that time to get caught up on friends' Yelp reviews. Our flight from DFW to San Jose was rough at almost four hours long! We finally got home around 8:30pm and were pretty exhausted.
Overall it was a fun trip, but we could've done more in the Bahamas. I learned that I don't really enjoy stuffy plane rides, and even on a cruise I get restless when there's not much to do. I also gained four pounds temporarily, even though we were going to the gym every day. Just something about being in the midst of so much good food every single day makes me want to eat a lot despite my body telling me to slow down. I don't think I could handle a longer cruise; four days was already plenty. It was fun, but I'm glad to be back home.