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Once we had made it through boarder patrol we jumped on board, only to realise that our rooms aren't yet available, not to worry as we had already handed our bags over to porters that would later deliver our bags to our room, so we only had our carry on bags to lug with us. As we made our way around exploring the ship and how massive it is, we were told that the buffet diner on floor 11 is open =D so we made our way upstairs to the free buffet. The food selection here is great and tastes good too, so after finally finding a seat and eating a couple of plates we headed outside for some panoramic photos and then down stairs to listen to sales people speak about what to do on our cruise.
After having a quick listen we had failed to realise that half the people on the boat aren't really there for the beaches and sunshine but for shopping purposes, not just any shopping though but Jewellery shopping! Due to the fact that the Bahamas, has no tax or duty on any Jewellery it is all amazingly cheap! (can you hear the Indian sales rep?) a little miffed we thought we'd have a listen since it was rainy outside there wasn't much else to do until the ship left the dock. Luckily for us we won a Bahamas shirt that changes colour in the sun, so that made it a little bit better! Just before we left the dock our rooms became available and after checking out our room which was your typical small cabin with just enough room for a double bed and a tiny bathroom. We then decided on what extra activities we wanted to participate in while on our cruise. So after listening to another presentation on what off boat excursions they had to offer, mind you there were hundreds to choose from! We finally managed to settle on just the two, one for our first day at an all inclusive beach resort and jet skiing on our second day. After booking our excursions and having a chat with the friendly staff member who was a typical southern American and had one of those typical American names we had become to get used to (Track) we headed off to explore other parts of the ship that included the Casino, on board Jewellery shop, Duty Free store, internet cafe, basketball court, golf driving nets, art gallery, gym, day spa including hairdressers, 2 pools and spas, 3 different bars, 4 restaurants and a full theatre. Once full acquainted with the ship we headed back to our room for a full nights sleep.
The next day we woke up early and after eating our breaky (that was delivered directly to our door) we headed out for our first shore excursion. We were really excited to have a day on the beach, however as we jumped off the boat we were greeted with nothing other than rain = ( still everyone hopped on the bus to head to the Wyndham resort. After our 20min bus ride we were hoping the rain would go away and we'd still be able to get some sun bathing and swimming done in full sun shine in the afternoon. After checking out the resort we where at least wanting to chill in the pool, even though it was raining we both thought it no big deal, only to be confronted by the staff saying that we weren't allowed to go swimming in the pool as there was thunder and lightning about, we also weren't allowed to use the beach. Seeing as everything was included in our day excursion at the resort we thought as we couldn't use anything outside we may as well make the most of our purchase and have a few drinks. They had quite the selection of cocktails to choose from (4 A4 pages full) so at 10.00 am we had our first drink. We started off with a fuzzy peach, which was a nice way to ease us into the day considering we are both not really a custom to drinking that early. It was obvious to all the staff just how bored we all were (they did have free wifi, however, which was great for us) so they decided to start making up indoor games for us to play, the first being a darts competition. Leah came in 2nd and I in 3rd even though I hit the board more than anyone else all the numbers I hit were rather low =/ Once we finished up we went back to the bar for another couple of drinks, then once the rain looked like it had stopped we went out for an update on the status of the pools and swimming. Finally they let us into the pool and spa area as they thought that the storm had passed enough and it was time to bust out my Euro Togs for the first time! As it was still a little cool Leah and I started in the spa where the water was a little warmer, after getting a little bored in the spa I had a quick dip in the pool and then it was time for lunch. It was an amazing lunch buffet at the resort, plenty of choice and every we had was amazing. We were just about eat our second plate when bam we met two really nice people from Minnesota, USA. Unfortunately Leah and I can't remember their names =/ they were really awesome crazy guys that we got on well with.
After lunch we parted ways as we headed for the beach and they went on to do their own thing. The beach was nice, it had sand until you went 1m into the water and it was all just big rocks. The water was crystal clear and the sky was turning rather dark and stormy. So after about 30mins of chilin' on the beach it started to rain again =/ So Leah and I thought we'd head back to the bar for some drinks either until the rain stopped or our time was up and we had to head back. Just as we had ordered our first drink our mates that we met earlier rocked up and enjoyed a few more with us. As we had to back to our ship at 4.30pm the call went over at 4pm for us all to jump back on the bus and head back. It was really ironic that as soon as we were 5mins into our ride on the bus that the sun came out and most of the clouds disappeared, it was disappointing to see. After a short tour of the Grand Bahama's island while on the bus and we were then loaded back onto the ship.
After a quick shower we headed up to the Plantation Club (a really classy bar) where we told the others we would meet, as they just so happened to have 2 for 1 Martini's during happy hour (5 - 7pm). Leah and I arrived at 5.30pm and started to have a couple of drinks while we waited for our guests to show. While we were waiting we also happened to meet 4 other really nice people that we also can't remember their names. =/ can anyone see a trend here...Leah and I ended up smashing down 8 martini's each in the the hour and half available. So after our happy hour ended we all thought it a good idea to go and check out the comedy show in the ships theatre, after a rather disappointing show we all thought we need a swim to brighten our spirits. So we all went back to our rooms got changed and ended up in the spa for the night chatting to our new friends and having a good time.
Damn!!! What a HANGOVER!!! After waking up in the middle of the night and having a massive chunder in our toilet I woke up still feeling rather quezzy and Leah a lot worse. Poor Leah spent most of the morning hurling up her stomach bile.. not even being able to keep down water! This took up much of our morning and much to my dismay our time on the jet-ski's as well. =/ We still ended up going down the beach at Great Stirrup Cay (Norwegian Cruise Lines own private island) It's a nice island with a little bit of reef and some schools of fish that are easy to see under the clear water. It was a beautiful day until yet again rain decided to come in and ruin it. So off to the ship again we sailed as all we really wanted was a little more sunshine to get our Bahamas tan going. Once back on the ship we decided to do some on-board shopping. At the on-board jewellery Colombian Emeralds, they were having a half price sale off all of last years stock for 1 night only. So Leah and I decided to have a look and after a little pushing and shoving (on my part) we went half in some Diamond Stud earrings, as it was all duty and tax free. =D Then we headed down to the duty free shop to do a little present shopping and almost bought some of cheapest booze on the planet. Try 2L of Absolute Vodka for $25AUD!!! Only thing is at the time we didn't have much room left in our bags and we would of had to carry (make sure it didn't smash) it all through Europe and also weren't sure we didn't have too much going through different countries customs and that we would have to throw it away. That night Leah had booked herself in for pedicure at the day spa (little ironic if ask me) and came back with some nice looking toes and some beauty cream. Feeling a little refreshed we went up for some buffet dinner at the rear of the ship before hitting the hay.
Our last day in the Bahama's was on spent on the Island of Nassau, and as we woke up feeling 1000 times better than the day before we got off to a good start. Arrrrfter jumping off the ship me and me first mate headed into town and found the Pirate Museum of the Caribbean. A walk through cut out ships, checking out living quarters of shipmates, looking at displays of infamous pirates and reading all the interesting facts made the museum tip-top me hearties. We left the Pirate Museum and headed onto the main street which was full of jeweller's. The big 3 being Diamonds International, Effy and Colombian Emeralds. We checked out Effy first and bought myself a carbon fibre ring and then off to Diamonds International where Leah bought a nice little crown of light cut diamond. By that time we thought we'd had enough shopping and since we had checked out the Colombian Emerald shop on-board we didn't feel the need to do it again.
We wandered back onto the ship to stow our new purchases and then down the taxi rank so we could catch a taxi to Paradise Island so I could get our Bond, James Bond on!!! =p After a short ride across a bridge and around the Atlantic City Resort we arrived at Paradise Beach, This time we opted to just use our towels on the beach and didn't worry about the beach chair and umbrella as the sand was nice, still not squeaky white but close enough and much nicer than the sand on all the other beaches we had been on our trip. It was then time for the Euro Togs to be busted out once again, at least today it wasn't raining, but it was still extra cloudy. =/ The water was beautiful and clear there was sand all along the beach and it was the softest we'd been on so all we needed was a little more sunshine... I was still able to recreate the James Bond beach moment though (after a few attempts I pretty much nailed it)! The beach was great although there were plenty of pesky people that kept asking us if we wanna ride a jet-ski/banana boat/sell you something to.. just wish they'd quit asking cos we ain't freakin' interested!!!!! As I was saying it was still a nice day out and Leah and I were able to take a few photos and chill for while on the beach. We then caught our taxi back to the dock and had a look around the little stores, found a wacky costume that you could poke your head through and get your photo taken, then headed back on-board.
Once back on board it was time for a quick chat to the parentals and then as it was our last night and Bingo had jackpoted to $10,000 we thought we'd give it a try...unfortunately we won squat. For diner we went out to the flashy Palace Main Dining Room, which was a really nice main meal but the service lacked a little and dessert was rather questionable. After dinner we moved on to the casino and checked it out, hoping to win back some of our money we lost on the bingo we put some of spare American change through a pokie which didn't do much for us good either so without wasting any more money we called it a night.
Air Purgatory (aka Marks rant)
We woke up the next morning at 7am to packed our bags and had breakfast as we had to be off the ship by 9am. We decided it was time for us to do some washing, as we had most of our day free we thought it'd be good to get some done before heading to Europe. As we were chilling waiting for it to be done, I got a dreaded email....our flight was badly delayed by over 6 hours. Usually this wouldn't have been too much of a problem, but because our flight was to meant to depart Miami for London in time for us to get a connecting flight to Munich. Since our first flight was delayed it meant we missed the our next one to Munich which meant we lost a whole day in Munich, as the next flight to Munich wouldn't make it in until late evening. So on the phone we hopped hoping to sort it out and try to catch an earlier flight. The only option we got was to get a flight to Zurich and drive to Munich, still not getting us there until at least 6 hours after our original flight would have. They advised Leah and I to get to the airport asap so we could hopefully talk to someone in person so we could sort it all out. So quickly we grabbed all our washing (thankfully it was all mostly dry by then) and went outside to find a taxi. Just our luck there were none to be found. So we rang for a taxi, 20mins later, Leah and I still hadn't seen a taxi anywhere (we were standing on the side a major street in Miami,) things weren't looking good. The Taxi finally arrived and we made it out to the airport with a couple of hours to spare. So we rocked up at the British Airways (BA) ticket sales/check-in counter and to our dismay they were closed. We couldn't believe it! None of the BA (the airlines we were meant to be flying with) stands were open and they wouldn't be until two hours before our intended check in. So I went across to Air Berlin (AB) to see if they had any flights to London that we could get on to make our connecting flight to Munich and they said that they had, we just had to make sure that BA would honor our ticket as they would need to cancel our original flight. So I gave BA ring to see if this was possible they said no worries just let the British Airways people know what your doing at the airport and they'll honor stamp your ticket......I said uummm there not here.... they said 'oh they should be soon' and then hung up. Leah and I were really becoming annoyed now as unless someone showed up from BA to Miami airport in the next 30mins we still would be sitting around and wasting a whole day. Lucky for us, while we were waiting right in front of the BA desk some random guy came up and asked if there were any BA staff in, I said they weren't and told him our story, he had a similar one with a connecting flight to Sweden instead of Munich, he then asked me if I knew American Air (AA) had a flight to Boston that had a connecting flight to London which would get in to London just before our original flight out of Miami. Ah man, a possible solution...since AA is a sister company of BA they should be able to help us out. So on the phone again I got to hopefully sort it all out. This time I got friendly Bianca on the phone who was able to fix it all up for us, she re-instated our original booking (as we had just canned it so we could fly AB) then swapped the flights out so we would be able to fly Miami - Boston, Boston - London, London - Munich.... and arrive at our original time.
So off we trot to AA to check in to our first flight, I mean how difficult could it be? Well when you check in with TJ (super b****) it can be quite the hassle. After asking a trillion and 1 questions, being super rude and living up to normal standard of US airline customer service. She conducted her own security check of as if she was border control or something even though she was just an airline employee. Then we headed off to do our airport security check, now what a joke this is....before you can even join the line of people a security guy checks your ID and boarding pass, then you line up for 45mins because there's a massive line of people and only 1 metal/nude scan lane open. Then before you go through the metal/nude scan lane another security guard checks your Passport asks you a million questions, then you final are able to go through the metal/nude scans (this time we got through without any hassles[read Washington DC blog]) then another guy again checks your passport and boarding pass just to make sure that the last 3 guys were doing their jobs properly. Leah and I were both just sssoooo over it, we had 3 flights to catch hopefully we wouldn't have to got through all this for our other 2 flights. We finally made it on to our flight which left on time and was a smooth ride, when we were about to land I asked one of flight attendants if they could find out where our next flight would leave from in Boston. They told us it left from gate 36 and that we were docking in gate 34. Feeling relived that we didn't have to go too far and that we might have some time before our flight to charge our tech gear. So we hopped off our flight asked another person at the airport if we were at the right gate for our flight and walked 2 gates down plugged in our stuff, after about 2mins things didn't seem right, our flight was meant be boarding in 15mins and our gate was looking rather empty. So I walked up to the same person again and asked them is this where our flight leaves from? I got the same answer yes it does, I was like what? can you check it? Oh no he says that flight leaves from a different terminal, it starts boarding in 10mins!!! Ah Crap! Leah and I quickly grabbed all our stuff and bolted for the door. Quickly grabbed a shuttle bus over to the correct terminal found and found our gate just as the last call for our flight went over. Ah man what crazy stuff, Leah doesn't fly well at the best of times and we were sssoo rushed into making this flight which just so happened to be the longest and the bumpiest of the 3 flights we had to catch. Lets just say by the time we landed in London we were tired and over yet we still had one more flight to catch. At least this time the hosties gave us the correct gate we had to be at for our connecting flight. It was now 6am the next day, so even though we'd only been awake 18 hours the clock said we'd been awake for 23. Our Munich flight left on time and wasn't any hassle until it came time to pick up our bags. For the second time in a row for me, when flying through Heathrow Airport my bag had been lost. It was now 10.45am Leah and I were shattered, so we made our lost bag claim and headed out to catch a taxi to our hotel. $85AUD later we arrived at 11.30am at our hotel in Munich.
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