Nassau. I've not had the time to blog much, so I have to do this by memory.

Here's what I remember. Sleeping in. Aaaaaahhh! Ok, that was nice. Go for breakfast and move down to Wavebands room to register and meet up with our tour group. It's a late start time of 9:30 am. Late because the ship has allowed people off the ship since 8 am. We're ready to go, but some in the group have trouble listening and following instructions. One family has sat down and not checked in, holding everyone else up. It takes several calls and a step by step shout out to the room by the staff before the family clues in and realizes that they have to say that they are present and get their wristbands for the tour. Finally start to move and go down to the tour buses to the Atlantis Resort for the Discover Atlantis Tour. Basically, it's a tour of their aquarium. The driver takes us on a minor tour of Nassau first, pointing out several landmarks. They drive on the left side of the road and most cars have their steering wheels on the right side. It feels weird, and I'm glad I'm not driving. The streets are narrow, and the drivers seem aggressive, but that could just seem that way with so little room between cars passing each other. And tour buses slowing and stopping in weird spots means that cars try to wiggle past with inches to spare. I thought a few times we were going to rub metal with another car.

We get to the resort and it's impressive. Big buildings like Vegas. Atlantis is on Paradise Island, a long skinny island in the city. The resort currently owns 85% of the island, and is the second biggest employer in the Bahamas, behind the government. They have over 10,000 employees.

It's another good looking weather day for the Bahamas here in Nassau. A little too good. It's HOT! And HUMID. I don't know how people work here. I see police and security and shop workers in long pants. The sweat is just rolling off of me. It's brutal. Any shade is good shade, but there isn't much around.

We get off the slightly air conditioned bus and form a line for the tour. They give us radio receivers and headphones to hear our tour guide with. Some people have trouble with them. "I can't hear him. Do I have to turn it on?" Facepalm! Ok, maybe I'm a little impatient here, but they have us standing out in direct sunshine and it is baking my brain. Two tours that arrived behind us, pass us and move along due to some radio issues, and people who, maybe I should hold my tongue here, well, people who Bill Engvall would be handing a sign right about now, and most of the day.

We finally enter the main resort via the casino sports book area. A nice crisp air conditional chill in the air. Aaahh. That's better. Stacey's cold=( . It's ok. We're not in there long. It's in and out a few times as we start moving across the resort to the aquarium area.

I'm going to make a 2+ hour story short here. I wouldn't do the tour again. The people with us on the tour really slowed it down. When the guide would describe the fish behind the acrylic glass panels and say "Look at this here", invariably some large American couple would stand right in front and block everyone else's view. By the time we got to see, the guide had moved along and was nearly out of radio reception range, meaning you're not hearing what's ahead anyway. If you want to go there and check the aquarium out, I wouldn't stop you. Just don't pay for the tour. You can do it yourself cheaper, faster and probably get almost as much out of it. Rant over. Moving on.

We'd wanted more time to look around Atlantis and maybe pick up a souvenir, but the tour had taken so long, and our stay in Nassau so short, (had to be back aboard by 2:15pm) that we just went back to the bus and went back to port. We had wanted to shop a bit near the port, and if we didn't leave then, we wouldn't have had time to do it. We quickly go down one side and up the other, darting in and out of places that Stacey wanted to go to. At least they had good A/C. Did I mention it was hot out? Saw my first blue diamond today. Very nice color. The sales lady tried to sell us some stuff, and when we said no, offered to get a better price from the manager. Or, what would we like to offer? Stacey liked the stuff, but didn't want to pay that much, so we moved on. Got a few trinkets here or there and headed back to the ship for food and shade from the sun.

We met up with Amy later that day. She also had slept in before going out shopping near the port. Too hot for her too. Though she did manage to bargain her way to a silver ring, paying less than half of what the guy had originally said the price was. Guessing everything is marked up there, preying on the people who don't barter. Warning, don't pay the sticker price on jewelry in the Bahamas and Caribbean. She went to the straw market, but didn't care for the heat or the sales pressure there. She found the sales people to be very aggressive there. We skipped that area, mostly due to time constraints.

After eating, I wanted to watch us leave port, but the ship was late leaving, so Stacey and I watched the gangway onto the ship instead. There and officer or two were waiting. Looks like someone was late for the departure time. We saw some people running towards the ship. One family of 5 came on. Another hand signal from the officer. At least 4 more people missing. Hard to tell from the people coming towards the pier, because we have a Royal Caribbean ship right beside us sharing a pier on one side, and a Carnival ship on the opposite side, with people moving towards both ships. Finally, several minutes later, a family with stroller comes running. The wife looks very tired and done. Running in that heat. Ugh. They board and the officer gives a thumbs up to the bridge area, and within 10 minutes, the ropes are cast off and the ship is pushing itself away from the pier. Nice to have a breeze from the movement of the ship again.

It's the last night of the cruise, so that means time to pack up and get ready for tomorrow. Stacey gets a head start, and then we leave early to get in line for the Disney Dreams show in the main theatre. Stacey wants to sit near the front this time, so we get there and get second row center. That way we get all of the special effects as well. Show was amazing again. Amy was very impressed. Broadway quality, she said. After that, just a little packing time before dinner, and then back up for more packing. It's getting harder to get everything in the suitcases. And they are getting very heavy. Stacey says it'll all work out, but I'm a worrier. How are we going to get all this on the plane, underweight? I hear that the humidity of the air adds 10 pounds to the luggage too. We could be in trouble here. We will see. I'm up much too late packing and getting ready before getting to bed. Gonna be a short night and a long day tomorrow.

WYWH,

Kim =) and Stacey :)