Back to Nassau

One of my favorite moments in life is this quiet drift across the calm seas, moving in to port at Nassau.  You can see it for some time, a long ways off on the horizon there.  I always run up to the deck to get Mom a hot tea, and the two of us sit outside to watch the waves.  It was peaceful, although the starboard side is a bit less sunny.  Still, it was nice and the sky was so clear and bright as we coasted in over the waves.

There's the lighthouse at Nassau, and right about then Uncle George came out to see us on our verandah.  The two are connected now so we can hang out.

We arrived in the morning of course, and already there were three ships there - and that's okay, as we don't really have much to do in Nassau lately.  We wanted to walk around a bit, and that's all.  In the meantime, Maddie was ready for some coffee, and some pastries!

She and I were at the other coffee shop up on the deck, a really nice travel-themed place that we stopped at for a morning drink or two (and a few more stamps on the coffee card).  We got some pastries too, and brought those back to the cabin for George, Thip and Mom.  

But breakfast was calling out to us soon after that, so we went back up top once more, this time to Cabana's for a big buffet breakfast with everyone else.

I had my usual salmon and bagels, plus all kinds of other items too - including Mickey Waffles!  And yes, Mom got her gluten-free Mickey Waffles too!  Delicious this morning!  And the view up there is nice at the top, a window at the top of this cruise ship showing all around, including our cruising neighbors in their ships next to us, all looking back.  I'm always glad I'm on this boat instead of that one!

After breakfast, we saw a photographer out on the boat, so we used this time to take some really fun pictures:

Apparently they were doing some drills with the team, but we had fun with that, posing with a crew member before heading back to the room to get ready for our trip ashore.

And then it was time to get off the boat and walk into Nassau somewhat.  And that we did!  It was just what we did before, really.

One stop early was Del Sol in Nassau, which was disappointing.  Every t-shirt I wanted was not available because they didn't have my size.  They had every other size, bigger and smaller.  It was weird.  In fact, we only got a few things here and the shop wasn't what it used to be.  We still had a good time, and we walked around looking at things and vendors and odd mannequins.

Ah, look at this bracelet Maddie picked up from a vendor!  She got a few items here or there, a few souvenirs to take back home with her.  The bracelets are nice!

Now this was fun, and Maddie was glad to do it.  She got herself a post card, and actually wrote a note to Nate on it.  We got the stamp right there, because just outside this little store was an old-school mailbox, the red ones that everyone loves.

Super cool!  Maddie got her post card sent off, so we'll see how long it takes to get back to Nate.  I'm thinking a little quicker than last year, given that it is closer to a larger population center now.  

In any event, now it was time to get back on the boat for us.  One tradition of ours when in Nassau is to go to the movies!  Not the theater there, but the Buena Vista theater on the Disney Fantasy!  We got there early, got our C-3P0 popcorn bucket filled up, and went to the movie theater!

The movie we saw was "Hoppers," which we were saving for this trip.  It came out earlier, but we were wanting to see it on the boat, and it was a good choice.  All three of us enjoyed the movie very much, and it was just a great time sitting onboard, watching another movie.  I really like this part of a cruise for some odd reason, just sitting and watching a movie, relaxing.  I know there are lots of excursions, but this is fine too, right?

After the movie, we went over to the D-Lounge where we did some VILLAINS TRIVIA.  We didn't do too bad getting nineteen out of twenty right, although not enough to win this time around.  I was super frustrated because I actually knew the answer for the one we missed, but for some reason wrote down the wrong answer.  Ugh!  No worries - we'd find success later on!  For now, it was time for some ice cream!

Mom and Maddie suggested heading up to the top deck to visit "Sweet on You," a Minnie Mouse themed ice cream shop that was really sweet!  The place looked great, and there's this one table there... and wow, it was open and the three of us were able to sit down and enjoy some delicious ice cream together!

From there, it was time to get in line for the next big production at the Walt Disney Theater!  This one is my personal favorite.  I think this is either the third or fourth time I've seen it, and it's a lot of fun.  We had these really great seats, and had a wonderful, wonderful time watching this one - it was the show, "Believe."  

Very good!  And also good is the sun setting over the ocean water each night.  We didn't even watch as Nassau slipped away, and that's okay - we were having a great time in the theater.  We had some time before dinner, just a little, so watched the sun set...

And after that, we went to join in with a game show that is a lot of fun, one called "The Emperor's New Game Show."  

This game divides the room in half with Team Yzma vs. Team Kronk.  We were on Team Yzma, and you can see me helping out teammates with a game called "Order Up," where we're translating kitchen restaurant shorthand slang for food items.  That was fun - we were tied at the end of that round.

Joey seems to be enjoying the fun here.  We had some trivia questions and other kinds of fun along the way.  And that's when the final game came up, the one that would decide the fate of all humanity.  Would it be Team Kronk?  Or Team Yzma?

The game involves stacking the poison, the poison for Kuzco, the poison chosen specifically to kill Kuzco,  Kuzco's poison.  That poison.  Basically, it was a relay race where some members of our team lined up to stack these up vertically in a pyramid, and then put them back quickly as you see above.  Only... the racers have to do all that wearing fingerless llama hoof gloves.

And when it came time to pick the team members, look who our clean-up hitter was!

The game was neck and neck, and Maddie was racing against this older guy, moving along with blinding speed!  But would it be enough?

Maddie didn't have any trouble whatsoever.  The race was on, and as you can see in this video below, Maddie had a great time and did fantastic!

Team Yzma came out on top, thanks to Maddie's llama skills!  Together, the last game contestants did a huge collective "Boom, Baby!"  Just like Emperor Kuzco!

That was fun.  We were heading towards the restaurant and the atrium - but first it was time to visit the greatest bathrooms in the world.  Just look for the hallway that looks like you're on the planet Tatooine...

Inside each of these individual rest rooms are mosaics of bullfighters, and these circular stalls with the rounded doors are really amazing!

Still some time to go before dinner, so we met up with Uncle George and Thip, and went to that atrium to get a whole series of portraits - a few with some fun characters.

And then it was time to head to our favorite restaurant of the cruise, the Animator's Palate!

This is that restaurant where the animation of Disney is celebrated throughout the evening, with all kinds of nods and tributes to animated pictures all over the walls.  Over time, the restaurant added on the screens an aquatic theme, as you can see on our waiter's tie.

The reason, of course, is that the sea turtle Crush comes by to visit us.  He's looking in and seeing us, all these humans inside this human aquarium.  

Duuuuuude!  His interactions with all of us were hilarious as always, and the food we got tonight was just wonderful.  It's one of my favorite places to eat.

Key lime pie, of course!

And then it was time to head out and wave goodbye!  We couldn't fit any more food inside us anyway - we were all so full!  But the food was good, and it was a really great time.  Long day though, huh?  Time to get back to our cabin. 

Love this picture, seeing that ship way off in the horizon there, the blue color of the water.  It was a beautiful night.  There was this one point earlier today when I was looking out, I thought I saw a flock of birds flying off and away from the traveling boat - but it was in fact fish.  Flying fish!  I looked it up and sure enough, these were Atlantic Flying Fish!  

And check out all this swag we got in our fish extenders!  This is literally all the stuff - so far - that we got put into those pockets hanging on our door.  We were "pixie-dusted" mightily! 

And check out tonight's towel folding!  Really cool stuff.  It's been a great time here, but tomorrow's going to be the best ever!