Day 5 - Nassau, Bahamas

This morning about 1a I heard lots of motor sounds and went to look. It was a pilot boat either dropping off or picking up someone. This took time so I shut the door because of the noise. John was sleeping great, I was still awake at 4a. 

We were up with our coffee delivery and made it to our stop about 45 minutes early. There was a slight glitch...The cruise ship stays on central time and Nassau is on Eastern time. Oh boy, we missed our tour! Tyrone from Tyrone Wilson's VIP Taxi and Tours helped us. We will definitely book the $30 tour with him next time we come. It is not really a food tour but you get tastes of things and he just helped us so much, what a nice man. He called the tour company we had and let me use his phone. There was a mix up but it was the fault of both parties. I should have checked this, but they should say the tour time is EST, not just 10:30a. As it turned out Dwight and Sandy came and picked us up and gave us the complete tour on a personal level. I suggested they could skip things but they insisted the full tour was in order. If they were annoyed, it never showed. What a fun time we had. Conch Salad (like ceviche) was the first item. It was fresh and delicious. This guy had amazing knife skills! I pulled the Conch out of the shell after he cracked it. Conch tastes like abalone to me. 

Rum Cake - soaked in rum. This was a way the slaves could partake of alcohol since it was illegal for slaves to have alcohol.

Tea tasting and bush medicine information. Dwight our guide is informative and FUN too!

Lunch with Tamarind Chicken, Fried Conch, and Fried Swai fish - also Rice and peas, and coleslaw - all of it was delicious!

Back onboard in time to rest up a bit then off to dinner with Marlys and Dennis. Delicious and great conversation. It is nice to share Brazil memories with others who have adopted as well. After dinner there was a great show with a band called the Long Run, which does an Eagle's tribute, they were really good. Back to our cabin and prepping for tomorrow's tour!

Day 4 - Cruising

We aren't scheduled to get to Nassau until 1a now so I just call it a cruise day. Another lovely day. We slept late again, we are having a difficulty with the time change but maybe we should just ignore it and stay on our home time! I forgot to order coffee to our cabin so no call to wake us up! Tomorrow will be different. 

After getting up we decided to go to lunch at Giovanni's Table. This is a "for fee" restaurant but since we got the nice credit we are going to spend some of it! We ate a delightful multi-course meal with wine. This was the highlight of our day. 

Giovanni's Table Lunch

Antipasti

 My Salad

 John's Salad

The Wine was "Good"

Creamed Cauliflower Soup

Seafood Pasta

 Branzino (white fish) with Fingerling potatoes

 Pasta with an egg on top for John

John and his desserts! 

Needless to say, we weren't too hungry at dinner but we still had a great time with Dennis and Marlys. They did the Macarena tonight, I couldn't follow along without my girls here to guide me along. After dinner we listened to Jazz at one on the venues and then headed back to our room to prepare for tomorrow's excursion in Nassau. It is so beautiful on our balcony tonight!

Day 3 - Cruising

What a beautiful day. Neither of us slept too well last night so we slept late and stayed in our cabin enjoying the lovely weather on the balcony. There are lots of things going on around the ship but we are content where we are. John read and I worked on the blog and photos that I could not publish last night. Next time we will order a larger pot of coffee! 

The noon announcement filled us in on some things from yesterday we might have missed. First it was a delay because of fog, then because of poor visibility under water for the work (we knew both of those), but there were also a few tornadoes that passed before we left port. Anyway, it was all fine as we were on board enjoying all that is offered. Some may be disappointed that we are now scheduled to arrive in Nassau at 2am. The previous time was 9pm and we would not have gotten off at that time anyway. I guess the night life is hot and there are casinos, but we aren't really interested in that. After we pass a certain point the current might increase our speed and change that arrival time. We aren't concerned. Earlier today we passed the mouth of the Mississippi River, though we could not have seen it 100 miles away at any rate.  

John ate the few things I ordered delivered to our cabin for breakfast. We headed out just before 1p to eat lunch in the dinning room. It was tasty, I had fish and John had steak and eggs.

We went back to our cabin to refresh ourselves and headed out to the Caymus Wine tasting, the main event of our day. It was well done and very nice. I was embarrassed that they drew attention to me as being a family member and afterwards people wanted to take photos with me! I am an extrovert with friends and family but not in a group like this. Anyway, it was a great event. 

We barely had time to rush back to the cabin, change into formal wear, and arrive after Dennis and Marlys were already seated. We had another delicious dinner with stimulating conversations. Afterwards was the Captain's welcome, viewed from the Promenade on Deck 5. They lowered the Captain on a floating platform, very interesting. There were the typical introductions, then we made our way back to our cabin for the evening. 

Day 2 - All Aboard!

Taking that Dramamine for the flight was a good call (they warned it was going to be turbulent). I fell asleep early and slept like a log! John has no troubles sleeping so it was a good night despite the somewhat tedious day we had. Breakfast wasn't much but John has plenty of options in the next week for breakfast. 

The shuttle was on time, leaving the hotel at 10a as promised. The guy driving told us he would go back to the hotel and see that we were issued a refund for the taxi and call us back telling us that. Big surprise - We didn't get a call. Moving on...

We arrived at the airport and checked in at the Liberty desk. We had a short wait and then called to the bus for the ride to the port. Despite the torrential rain the trip was uneventful. We boarded within minutes (being a Diamond Member helps speed things up!) and soon we were in our cabin. I think it is a very nice balcony cabin and one of the most spacious we have had. I think because there is no coffee table. I might need to ask about that. 

Our Diamond Welcome Gift 

Spacious Balcony Cabin

Caymus Wines Onboard

We walked around the ship a bit and got the sign up card for Voom. Then we went to the theater to see a presentation about the ship, sort of an orientation. There was a raffle but of course we didn't win anything. Now it was time for muster, the most boring part of a cruise. After that we were famished and got a quick piece of pizza, picked up a free piece of artwork, and headed to the Diamond Lounge for appetizers and free drinks. What a mob scene that was. We did get something to eat and a glass of wine. I know the first evening is typically congested and this was no different. 

There was even a long line for dinner "with reservations" - I know tomorrow will be better, no worries. Our friends Marlys and Dennis were right behind us heading to the dining room. It was so good to see her after all these years. We had a delicious dinner and stimulating, enjoyable dinner conversation. We are all tired so we headed back to our prospective cabins. 

Departure time was moved up to 8p because of some underwater diving work being done on our ship. They commented that visibility was poor, I am sure it was as it has been cloudy all day. We set sail in pouring rain about 8:45p. We don't mind the rain as we know the Bahamas will be lovely, even if it rains a bit there. We heard it can rain for 10-15 minutes and then be lovely, we don't mind rain. 

I could not get the Wi-Fi up again tonight to post. Posting later. 

Day 1 - Travel to Houston

The fog rolled in this morning and therefore our flight was delayed.  Even after the fog lifted there was no sight of the plane. Our flight to PHX was so late there would not be another one from there to IAH until tomorrow. That won't do. We were re-routed though LAX to IAH. We had just 20 minutes to make the connection. If any of you know LAX and SFO when flying out of FAT, it is a challenge for the most part. You fly into a remote terminal and then take a shuttle to the main terminal for your connecting flights. The stars lined up (Thank you God) and our connecting gate was very close. The fun didn't end there. Oh no - We arrived at IAH and called the hotel for the shuttle only to be told it is not running today. Really? Why would I book a hotel without a shuttle. The guy told me he would check to see if he can get another shuttle. We waited and didn't hear back so I checked at the taxi stop and it will be $25 for the taxi. The hotel is 6 miles away, not 4 miles as stated on Expedia. So we waited a little longer for word about the shuttle and then I called the hotel back. He said he was just about to call me to tell me there was no other shuttle to be found. We got a taxi to take us to the hotel. I asked if the hotel would reimburse the taxi fee, of course not. So we were placed in a taxi by the taxi staff person and headed out. Unfortunately, that was when we realized our taxi driver didn't speak English very well. My patience is thin by now. I actually felt sorry for him when he handed us his phone for help with the address. After several wrong turns and calling the hotel for more directions, we finally arrived. Needless to say, I wish I had my friend Cheryl book us the hotel she spoke of right by the airport. When you add the $25 for a taxi the hotel ceases to be a bargain. We are told there will be a shuttle in the morning. In fact, the shuttle is sitting in the parking lot. I suspect they just don't have a driver and it is not a mechanical issue, like we were told. 

Anyway, all is well. We are safe. We made it to Houston. John got us some dinner down the street at Chick-Fil-A and we will watch TV. It seems like we put in a full day already but it is only 9p and that includes the 2-hour time difference so it really is early!

Flight Information

I typically check our flights before departure anyway, but just in case I will be checking them more frequently now. I went on to print our boarding passes and EACH of our flights had changed and we received no notice from American Airlines about this. A few minutes really doesn't matter much but when your departure is 3 hours before you thought it was, it is important. Thankfully, we can drop off Tony for boarding early enough to still make our flight. In the  past, we have always received  notification of any change. Oh well, it's all good for us. 

Leaving Tomorrow

We  have  never been on the Liberty of the Seas.  It looks like it was dry docked and had a lot of updates in 2016. Click here to check it out: Refurbishment. It will be fun to take a look at  this "new to us" ship. I printed our ship boarding passes this morning and I will print our flight boarding passes shortly - one must wait until 24-hours ahead of course.