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We flew in from Houston and arrived about 11am. It was a great contrast going from the country to the beach and hot tropical weather. We were only in Miami a few shorts hours, long enough to catch a cab from the airport to the cruise terminal. That afternoon we were setting sail on a 4 day cruise out to the Bahamas and back with Royal Caribbean. The boarding process went pretty smoothly. They take your suitcase as soon as you arrive and bring it to your room later on in the day. We had 2 rooms between us with a double each so we were pretty spoilt for privacy for the first time in a long time. However we were on deck 2, so we were far away from the top and the first to know if we were going to sink. Fortunately they had enough elevators and we never had to wait long.
Once we found our rooms and dropped our gear, we headed to the top deck to organise our drinks package. The best deal we decided to go for was the $55per day package which gets you all you can drink beer, cocktails and soft drink. There seems to be a different attitude on the ship to drinking. It's almost like, the faster they get you drunk, the sooner you go to bed. So they were mixing drinks with easily half spirits half mixer. After we sorted ourselves out with a cocktail, we joined everyone on the deck for the sail away party and took in the sights of Miami as we headed out into the open water.
Dinner is at set time that you choose when you book your ticket, so ours was at 6:30pm. Each night is a different theme with a different menu. It makes it exciting each night and our waitress was good fun too.
The first stop in the Bahamas is the capital Nassau. You could spend the day sight seeing and enjoying the culture….or you could take a bus across the bridge to the massive water park Atlantis. It has some pretty ridiculous facts about it - most notably it has water slides that pass through a shark aquarium. I guess you could say it's almost like a resort in Las Vegas but for water parks. Even just walking from point to point there are large coral reef pools, some with hammerhead sharks swimming around. We had to have a tour to get our bearings before we could run off and be big kids.
There are 2 slides that pass through the shark aquarium. The first one is like a speed slide where it's all over before you start and your attempting to lower your board shorts from awkward places. The second is at a slower pace on tubes where you stop in the middle of the aquarium and push yourself through at your own pace. It's very cool to be floating in a glass tunnel with huge sharks cruising past you.
My favourite part of the park though would have to be the rapids. There is a river that winds it's way through the whole park and you can grab a floaty ring and chill out along the river passing through caves and such. Then about half way they start dumping water down the river and it turns into rapids then further down, you can carry on back to the river or you can split off where the rapids take you to a ride back up the mountain without having to ever leave your floaty ring! You could literally spend all day in that part of the park.
Before we headed back to the ship we caught some rays on the beach - the weather was unbelievable but don't worry, us Aussies know how to slip, slop slap.
Back on the ship, each night they put on different entertainment. Things like a comedian or the Captain's dinner or game shows where they include the audience. Depending on your mood you could watch some magic comedy or cringe to some karaoke. Most times though, you had a cocktail in your hand.
The next day we docked in at Cococay which is a much more untouched island of the Bahamas. Sure there's plenty of tourist shopping at the dock but the island remains reasonably natural. The water around Cococay is amazing - it's the stuff of postcards. We had pre booked a snorkel day when we first boarded the ship, so after we arrived we picked up our snorkel gear and headed for the water. There is a natural cove that they use for the snorkelling and is full of tropical fish, a ship with cannons and a small plane.
Lunch wasn't offered on the ship today as they were doing a massive buffet cook up on the island. So much grilled meat!
Our stop on day 3 was in Key West, Florida where you can actually see Cuba from where you arrive. We didn't have anything booked for Key West so we just wandered the town, had a huge lunch and I bought a couple of local cigars. It was so so very hot in Key West, the tropical weather was upon us and made it very hard to walk around for any period of time.
Back on the ship it was our last night so for something different, Anita and I booked in the Italian themed dinner. There were only about 3 other couples that had booked in as well so it was really private and personal. The dinner consisted of a pasta making lesson as well as wine tasting plus a huge meal tasting menu. I don't think I have ever eaten so much food. During the dinner we made friends with an older English couple and went to one of the bars after dinner with them and had a few drinks.
Later on we met up with Georgia and Sav and we were ready for bed…. Well everyone except Sav who was determined to make the most of the last night on the cruise. The rest of us went to bed and the report the next day was that Sav returned at 3am rather intoxicated then proceeded to injure himself several times in an attempt to stand up straight in the bathroom. I will save his dignity from the details but the next morning when we were leaving the ship, he was a pure zombie.
The cruise was the first time on the trip that I really relaxed simply because I had nowhere to be or nothing to think about. Even though I have done and seen some amazing stuff on the trip, it was great to spend 3 days not doing anything.
Once we were off the ship, we caught a cab to Miami south beach hostel where we were staying for the next 3 nights.
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