Day 5 Friday April 29, 2016
Despite knowing we could sleep in, I was awake pretty early, so I ended up out on the balcony to see what we could see now that it was daylight. Pretty soon after I walked out there, Royal Caribbean’s Independence of the Seas docked too.
Nick woke up and we headed down to Parrot Cay for breakfast. We’d been pleased with the offerings the day before and the relative calm.
When we approached the buffet we noticed what felt like an excessive amount of CMs standing around. It became quickly apparent that they were serving us today.
Uh oh. I'd seen trip reports from other cruise lines that mentioned this. I guess this explains why the Mickey pool was closed for cleaning by the hazmat team for “accidental release” before the ship even sailed on Wednesday. I immediately felt queasy at the mere thought of the stomach bug being on board. Nick and I both had that in February and well…not that I want it again, if he ever gets the stomach bug again, it'll be too soon. And I didn't want to think about a stomach bug in those tiny bathrooms.
Nick, blissfully unaware, had his plate filled and joined me at the table commenting on the increase in customer service from its already high standards. Yes, honey, that's it. I quickly explained that people must be sick. Nick looked just as not pleased as I felt, and promptly asked “Who lied on the health form?”. My thoughts exactly.
Once we finished breakfast, we headed back to the room to get ready for a morning in Nassau, noting that they were now handing out wipes on our way out of the restaurant as well. They mean business!
It took us very little time to get ready for our day in Nassau, so pretty soon we were heading down the aft stairs to deck 1. As we cruised down the stairs around deck 2, we heard a father yelling at his son that “no you cannot go in that room because youre brother is throwing up in there and if you go back in, you’ll start throwing up and then you’ll be stuck in the cabin for the rest of the vacation too!”. Well...guess we found one of the sick people.
We hightailed it away from deck 2, and down to the exit. We noticed a huge increase in the presence of sanitizers as we left the ship, and there was someone enforcing their use, as opposed to yesterday’s loose monitoring of sanitizer use upon leaving the ship. Hmm. I wonder just how many are sick.
Nassau was a port that I’d read quite the variety about. We hadn’t wanted to spend the premium to go to Atlantis (we could have spent a whole night there for the price they wanted for the excursion), and the excursions that looked interesting left at times that wouldn’t allow us to accomplish Nick’s main goal: bring home rum from the pirate island. We had even brought bubble wrap with us so that we could get it home safely.
In the end, we decided to just hit a couple of tourist spots and get back on the ship. Both Zootopia and the Jungle Book were showing this afternoon, so that sounded like a good combination. I’d thought about hitting the adult pool area too, but if there was a stomach bug on the loose, I figured it might be best to stay out of the people soup.
Anyway...Nassau. We got off the ship and joined the people walking towards the port area. It was kind of cool to see all of the bright colors that we don’t see at home.
The biggest complaints I’ve seen in the reports are of the people trying to sell hair braiding and carriage and taxi rides just before you pass through the gate and out of the port area. The day we were there, these people were on par with those trying to pass out Mardi Gras beads on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. Nothing a “no” didn’t solve. I’m sure each day is different though. And I did understand why they brought the buses for the excursions right to the ship.
Once we were out of the crazyness of the port area, we started walking along Bay Street. It was still fairly early (9?), so a lot of the stores were still closed. Eventually we found our first destination, quite frankly, by pure luck: The Pirate Museum.
As Nick put it, “If we’re visiting a pirate island, we must go to the pirate museum”. This is where I (correctly) expected to have the attention directed at the guy in the group. Our visit at the museum was fairly quick. Honestly, it was better done than I had expected, given all that I have heard about Nassau. Was it worth the amount they charged? No. But it WAS better than I expected.
From here, we continued walking to John Watling’s Rum Distillery. To get there you climb what I’m pretty sure is the only hill on the island. And here I was thinking the Bahamas were flat! We made it to the distillery just as it was opening. From here we could actually hear the Disney tune that the ship plays at the start of a public announcement. You can totally tell that rum production is a money maker for this island. They’ve done a nice job with the property.
This was a self-guided, free, quick “tour”. It was brief but informative. Then we walked into the store. We got a bottle of Buena Vista rum, and a bottle of the pale rum to bring home with us. The people working here were exceptionally friendly and the building was immaculate.
Purchases made, it was time to head back to the ship to deposit the precious cargo. We were amused to walk by a McDonald’s on our way.
We also stopped at the straw market on our way back to the ship, since Nick had heard this was the “thing to do”. I had read about it and wasn’t interested, but followed him anyway. It was completely uninteresting and we were on on our way within a couple minutes. As we approached the entrance to the Wonder, I did a bit of picture taking. The Norwegian Escape was making its way into port.
Back at the ship we passed off our contraband to the CMs that were tagging it for retrieval on disembarkation morning. They gave me a receipt and told me to pick it up at Wavebands between 7 and 9 that morning. I can do that!
From there we headed back to the cabin. I promptly continued picture taking, as the Norwegian Escape was docking and the Carnival Victory was close behind it.
After documenting all the happenings, it was time for lunch. I needed to make a trip down to Guest Services, so I stopped to check the menu for Triton’s before we decided to eat. The Navigator app is wonderful for schedules and dinner menus. But because of the ever changing breakfast and lunch menus, you need to actually walk by the restaurant to see what’s being served. I took a picture of the menu so that I would actually know what was on it when I got back to the room. Remember...I have vacation ADD. Actually, no...I used to have vacation ADD. Now Nick calls me “shiny” as in “ooh shiny object”, because I’m so easily distractible. So...here’s a sample lunch menu.
Once I’d finished at Guest Services, it was back to the room, so that we could make some lunch decisions. On my way back, I couldn’t help but notice that there were certain rooms where linens and room service trays were being bagged in special bright yellow bags that had not been in use the day before, and that one stateroom host in particular was wearing a mask, apron, and other intense protective gear. I guess that stomach bug has hit our hallway too. I happened to see Sentana as I approached our room, so I asked him if there were a lot of people sick to cause these precautions or if this was more proactive. He said it was a small number and they were being proactive. Hmm.
Nick and I quickly decided that we weren’t excited about the Triton’s lunch menu, so we went up to Beach Blanket Buffet for lunch. This was our first visit here. This buffet was also crawling with CMs and we couldn’t even access the soda machine. While I wasn’t thrilled with the reason behind the need for this, I must say, this is a really good way to exercise restraint with eating on a cruise ship. After asking for 3 items in a row that are all totally unrelated, you begin to feel a little funny and move on to the next CM. Just saying...
Once again, the food was very good, and pretty soon we were heading for the dessert buffet. I chose a couple desserts that looked appetizing at that moment. As I was walking back to our table, it became clear that in the small amount of time I was getting dessert, a protein spill had happened at a nearby table. NOOOOOOO. It’s everywhere! And...appetite gone!
After an abbreviated dessert, we headed for the Buena Vista Theater, where they show the movies. We wanted to see Zootopia again, especially since we could see it at no additional charge. We had really enjoyed it when we saw it in NH a couple weeks before that.
I’m not sure what we were expecting of this theater, but it probably wasn’t full on theater. But in true Disney fashion, this space was beautiful too.
Eventually, the red curtain moved, and the movie started. We enjoyed it again, but it became very apparent that the late nights and loads of sun had done me in, and there was no way we were going to pull off sticking around to see the Jungle Book immediately after this. Or at least I wasn’t. I couldn’t stay awake!
