Our Enchanted Cruise, Part 4

We enjoyed two ports of call on our cruise, and if the strong winds had persisted we would have missed out on one of those. Fortunately things worked out and I credit our captain for making that happen. One of my students from DA took a similar cruise on another cruise line and things didn’t work out so well for her family so I feel we were fortunate here.

NASSAU
Our first port of call turned out to be Nassau. It was supposed to be second. As I mentioned in the first part of this series, the winds and a medical emergency changed that. We wound up docking in Nassau about 3:00 pm Tuesday and didn’t leave until almost midnight the next day.

Vicki got the chance to visit Nassau in 2013 when she went on a Carnival cruise with several friends from church. She said the snorkeling there was terrific so we were all looking forward to booking a snorkeling trip while there. The winds made the water too choppy for this to happen so we started the day with a taxi tour of the city instead.

Our tour took us to Fort Fincastle, Fort Montagu, around the wharf where all the fishing boats dock, through the residential and business areas of the city, and over to Paradise Island where we got a chance to look around the Atlantis resort.

Upon returning to the dock we decided to do some shopping along Bay Street and headed toward the straw market. That’s where we ran into my student from DA (I had noticed that her ship was docked along side ours when I came out on deck that morning). Our shopping excursion included a late lunch at Señor Frogs and ice cream at a little shop nearby. By this time the boys were itching to play ping pong back on the ship so we left Vicki and Jenna to do a little more shopping. They weren’t too long behind us in returning to the ship.

COCO CAY
We dropped anchor off Coco Cay Thursday morning and spent the day there with a final boarding call of 4:30.

Coco Cay is a small island about 55 miles north of Nassau that is leased by Royal Caribbean as their own private island. Its actual name is Little Stirrup Cay. Our visit here was, for me, the best part of the trip.

If you’ve not done something like this before, a private island like this is essentially an extension of the ship. Your fare covers a lot of things, food for example. Of course, there are extras you can purchase as well. We decided to rent a cabana which included snorkeling equipment and floating mats. The cabana was a nice touch given that I really didn’t want to be reapplying sunscreen every hour (okay, I’m exaggerating a little here, but not much).

Another thing that was nice was that the place didn’t seem crowded even with all of the people coming off the ship. Of course, Royal Caribbean has much larger ships than the Enchantment so I’m sure this would be a different story if we had been sailing on the Oasis or the Allure which can carry almost 6,300 passengers (compare to the 2,400 passengers the Enchantment can carry).

Ben and I started the day by snorkeling. The winds had calmed quite a bit by Thursday, but the water was still choppy and a little cloudy when looking down through the mask. Ben took to this pretty easily, but it was choppy enough for me that I swallowed a lot of seawater. I was also having to stop about every 30-60 seconds to tread water and really blow out my snorkel tube.

Vicki went out with Ben next and they had a great time, even explored a ship wreck and plane wreck. When they were done Vicki grabbed a float and spent a long time out in the water.

Ben made a third trip out with Nate. Nate found the flippers too uncomfortable and wouldn’t wear them. Ben wound up having to drag Nate along the whole time so this didn’t end well.

Jenna never snorkeled. She played in the water for a while and then retired to the cabana to read and nap. I caught up with her after snorkeling and walking the beach and we ate lunch. The cabana being our center of operations we drifted in and out as we pleased. The island was too small to get lost on so it proved to be a most relaxing day. By 2:30 we were all there either reading or sleeping. Shortly before time to leave Vicki and I took a stroll around the island and poked through the little straw market there. Then it was time to head back to the ship. I could have stayed another day.

FUTURE PLANS
On the way home we were talking about future vacation plans. Ben wants to do another Disney cruise for his senior trip. Vicki wants to go to Alaska. I simply said, “I’m ready to see the mountains again, but whatever we do between now and our 30th anniversary is fine with me. I do want all of us, whoever is part of the family by then, to take a nice cruise for our 30th anniversary.”

At this Jenna and Ben figured up how old they’ll be by then. When Nate didn’t give his projected age Vicki asked, “Nate, how old will you be in nine years?”

From the back of the van we heard, “I’m still on vacation and I don’t wanna do math!”

I don’t know where we’ll go next or when we’ll go there, but whatever it turns out to be it’s going to be good because I’ll be with the people I love. Until then there’s a lot of living to do here at home and that’s a lot of fun too.

Joe