From Dallas we flew to Miami, arriving early in the morning Saturday, December 27. We spent the night at a dive of a hotel called the Runway Inn, which was probably a nice place to stay circa 1960. It was convenient, though, and relatively cheap by Miami standards.
The next morning we took a long, hot route from Miami to Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, where we were to catch our cruise ship, Caribbean Princess. We didn't want to spend $60+, so we improvised, traveling via a combination of hotel shuttle, taxi, Tri-Rail, bus, taxi, and finally arrived some hours later at the terminal. This trip only cost about $30, so it did save us money, but man was it a trade off for stress, confusion, and heat.
Anyway, now at the terminal, we had to wait over an hour longer, as the Princess check-in and security people were just swamped. One of them told us he had never seen it so busy.
Eventually, however, we got on the ship, and found our cabin, an interior one on the Aloha deck. It was close to three o'clock now, and we hadn't eaten lunch, so after dropping off our bags we headed straight for the buffet.
Geez, we were ever impressed with the food! Such good quality, so much variety, and so many restaurants to eat at.
We spent the rest of the day on board unpacking, exploring the ship, eating twice, and making use of the wonderful gym facilities. The gym was one of my favorite things about cruise life, since it's something I typically miss the most when traveling. Besides, running on a treadmill with the sea spread out in front of you is quite the experience!
Sunsets at sea are also pretty special, and this was the first one of our trip:
The next morning we began our day with breakfast while our ship was preparing for disembarkation.
We were visiting a spot on the island of Eleuthera called Princess Cays, a private Princess resort area on the southern tip of the island. Rather than docking, our ship tendered passengers in using the lifeboats. Certain passengers had priority, such as those with certain excursions, or those who were colour coded as more frequent Princess cruisers.
Although we were not priority passengers, we didn't have too long to wait, and around 10:00 we are ashore.
We began our tour by heading to the south half of the resort, across a little bridge that took us over the docking area. In no time at all we had left our fellow Princess cruisers behind and were alone on The Bahamian beach, with our cruise ship sitting out there looking just as alone.
We walked for a couple of kilometres or so, and even went inland slightly along a trail that took us to a lagoon.
We saw hermit crabs, and coral, and at some point, finally, we decided we for sure must have gone further than we probably should have. So we turned back and made our way back to the resort.
.jpg)
As I said, on the way back it became obvious that we had actually gone past a bit of a fence that delineated where Princess Cays' boundary was, but it had not been obvious earlier, and I'm glad, because if it had been, or if there had been a sign saying "Stay within this boundary," we would never have gone on, and I was very happy we had.
Next I wanted to buy a postcard and mail it, so I asked a very friendly lady who was working a bit of a information booth, which apparently is run by The Bahamas government's tourism agency, or something like that. This lady had one of the biggest smiles I have ever seen, and she was listening to a radio preacher on a little battery powered radio. I asked her if there was somewhere I could buy a postcard and mail it. She told me just outside of the Princess Cays compound there were some shops where I could buy postcards, but that there was nowhere to mail it. "However, if you give it to me, I'll mail it for you on Tuesday, because I'm going into town." So that was a very generous offer, and I took full advantage of it.
This time we left the compound the official way, through the main gate, where a man made sure we had our passports. There was a cluster of souvenir shops on the other side, one of which was selling postcards 4 for a $1.
The friendly lady also told us how we could get our passports stamped, because the man at the gate didn't do so. There was an office somewhat around the corner, where a Bahamian customs official worked. We knocked on his door, and he let us in, and it was surprisingly dark and cool compared to the outside. He was also very friendly, although not as friendly as the big-smile lady, as it would be almost impossible to be as friendly as she was.
Anyway, now that our "chores" had been completed, we visited the lunch buffet that Princess offers--staff from the ship tender ashore and run the buffet, so it's all included, just like on the ship. We expected hamburgers and hot dogs, but it ended up being quite the impressive spread, with ribs and corn on the cob and lots of salads and fruit.
After lunch we relaxed on the beach for a while, and I did some swimming in the ocean (which is really the Atlantic even though people talk about The Bahamas being in the Caribbean). The water was pleasant, but much, much colder than it was later on in our trip, in the "real" Caribbean.
Around 14:00 or so we decided we may as well go back to the ship and take advantage of things being a bit quieter on board, so we said good-bye to Eleuthera and caught a tender back.
Once back on the ship we went to the gym, which is at the front of the ship. As we ran on the treadmills we could see the island stretched out in front of us, and watch the lifeboats ferrying people back and forth. It was quite unique and lovely.
The cruise lasted one more day, which was spent at sea. I certainly love visiting new places, but the days at sea are wonderful in their own right.
We even had the excitement of the crew spotting a little boat floating aimlessly. The ship stopped and sent a boat to go check it out. In the end I guess it was just a boat another ship had abandoned, and so our crew called the coast guard and that was that, but it was pretty neat to watch it all unfold.
So the first of our two cruises ended the next morning, December 30, back in Fort Lauderdale.
