[This was by Adrian so if it's scant on detail, you can't blame me.]
Today is our last full day on the cruise ship. We're relaxing at the moment, in fact, Claire is napping. We didn't have anything planned for this 'port': Great Stirrup Cay - NCL's private island. We're spending the day on-ship, since we didn't want to waste hours in queues waiting for the hideous tender boats [since GSC was a tiny island, the cruise ship has to anchor off-shore. The tender boats are ferry-sized boats that take you to the island from the ship.]
Day 1: Monday - Embarkation day.
Miami from the cruise ship:
Not a lot going on. We managed to convince ourselves that we were deserving of full body massages and seaweed wraps at the spa. It was really quite lovely except my (massuese, masseur, massager?) was sea-sick halfway through my massage. I didn't know what to think, but I was happy witha complimentary full-boday massage the next day. [Mine was also lovely - full body seaweed wrap, wrapped up in foil and towels, reflexology foot rub, scalp massage, rinse seaweed off, full body massage including facial massage. Ahhh. It was a lot of money, but worth it methinks.]
Day 2: Tuesday.
We went on a bicycle tour of the town of Freeport Lucaya. It started off well, but by mile 11 of 13 Claire was almost fainting from the heat.
[Yes, it was rather warm, say around 30 degC. I'm not sure why we decided to do this excursion - the biking on flat sounded ok, but when you think about it, we wouldn't even choose to bike 13 miles on a more mild day, let alone this heat. And because the guide was used to the heat, he just kept stopping in the sun to have a little talk! My legs were SUPER sore afterwards, I was actually seriously worried about them. So we went to the hot tub for 10 or 20 minutes. The next day they were fine! I need a hot tub at home...] We really just chilled out the rest of the day/night. Especially me as I had my free massage :)
[Authentic, artistic footage of Adrian in the sea at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5yz3j95u70]
Day 3: Wednesday.
View from boat at Nassau (the Atlantis Resort):
We had attended some presentations on how to go shopping for diamonds and emeralds in Nassau, because allegedly the place is a mecca for jewellery shopping. I'd believe it too. When our planned tour was cancelled for lack of numbers we went for a walk around the shops. There is no income tax or sales tax in the Bahamas, and ~80% of the shops in Nassau were selling perfume, jewellery, alcohol and souvenirs. We though we might find Claire a bargain emerald ring, but sadly no, still not quite our price range. We picked up one or two trinkets though, and lots of tacky free jewellery some of the stores were giving away. [Actually, it's not all tacky. I got some cool earrings and necklaces from Effy]
In the evening we discovered Bingo, lured in by a free game, but ended up buying more. I had a great time! [So did I, sad as that might sound. It was so exciting!] We topped off the evening with an organised pub crawl, which was very raucous and fun.
pub crawl night:
Our plan for the rest of today is to go to another presentation about emeralds where we are in the draw to win something. Then more BINGO! where there is a raffle to win a free cruise. Finishing up with some shows in the theatre. Tomorrow we pick up a rental car in Miami, and would you believe our good timing that a space shuttle is scheduled to launch while we're making our way up to Orlando. That would be sweet to see. Disneyworld should be fun too :)
1 comment:
What a great time you had
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