Sunday, February 15, 2009

The Bahamas

We took our tour over to Freeport, Grand Bahama on Discovery cruises. The cruise ship was a bit of a bucket, but it was cheap. At least the fair was cheap, once you were on the boat, they wanted to be tipped for every little thing. They even posted suggested tipping amounts all over the place. There was a complimentary breakfast buffet, that had some nice items on it, and some questionable ones. We had stayed up all night and done the drive from Key West up to Ft Lauderdale to catch the boat, so we spent the majority of the cruise sleeping in our cabin.
We stayed at the Sheridan, which was a fantastic resort hotel, right on the beach. We arrived on Tuesday and were scheduled to leave on Thursday. We checked with the dive shop there to see if there a diving tour we go on, but it was on Thursday. We looked into staying, but it was going to cost way too much to change our plans, so we decided not too. On our way back from the dive shop we were looking for a place to have lunch (not an easy thing for us, since Darrell is allergic to fish). There was a couple sitting in a little restaurant we were passing they were being served some pretty nice looking burgers, so we went in. I had the best burger I've had in a very long time. In fact if I've had a better burger I don't recall. Needless to say, we were there two nights and three days, so I had three of the best burgers I have ever had.
We spent the majority of our time in the Bahamas on beach chairs in the sun, but on the second day we were hit up by one of the many gals who man the middle of the road trying to track down clients for timeshares. We had nothing else to do, and there were some nice little perks for going, so we decided what the hell. No we did not buy a time share in the Bahamas. Had there not been a 900 dollar down payment required right away, the story may be different, but luckily they weren't willing to wave it and we couldn't afford it. We did get a couple bottles of rum, some tee shirts, and a free activity for going. We chose to go on the sunset booze cruise that night, and OMG we had fun.
The booze cruise was serving all you can drink Bahama Mama Rum punch, and Agnes, our bartender, made sure our cups were never empty. Agnes was a lot of fun, she had about six teeth in her mouth, and posed for pictures with everyone, and kept us drinking all night. We also met a couple fellow Canucks on the boat. Two french Canadian Sisters, Fran and Claire. Claire lives in Ottawa, and Fran now resides in Ft. Lauderdale. We had a great time drinking and dancing with them, and they were even on our return cruise so we all went up to the top deck to watch the sunset together.
Just a sidebar about the sunset, we have been jipped on it three times now. In Key West when we went to watch it in the "Top" rooftop bar, it was all going very well, and then the damn thing went behind a wall of clouds on the horizon. On the sunset cruise it was behind a bunch of buildings and we never got out of the canal in time to see it, then on the cruise home, there was another line of clouds along the horizon.
After the booze cruise docked we went to a little stand called rum runners that sold two corona for $5 so, needless to say it was a very drunken night, and we were both quite hung over the next day for our trip back to Ft. Lauderdale. In fact I was so run down I had a scratchy rough voice, and could barely talk. There was a karaoke contest in one of the lounges on the ship and I went ahead and participated anyway, even though I was having a rough go of it. I won.
Once we got into Ft. Lauderdale, Darrell gave a call to Underseas on Big Pine Key, to see if there was any chance of getting out for a dive. They said there was, so we traveled down to Florida City and got a hotel there for a couple nights.
I'll post about the dive later.
The vacation so far seems like three or four little vacations in one. We are getting very close to having to come home, and I'm feeling like I'm ready.

No comments: