World Bahamas Nassau

Tales From The Open Roads & Salty Seas Christmas 2008 - In the Panama Canal

Half Moon Cay, Bahamas - A Day at the Beach Dec 20, 2008

We had smooth sailing overnight but Joe was wide awake as soon as they dropped the first anchor in the Bahamas; you just can’t take the sailor out of the boy. We were in no hurry as we had nothing time-sensitive planned for the day. We made our way to the Lido for breakfast. The buffet line was fairly slow because of the enhanced sanitary requirements of the ship to prevent outbreaks of a stomach virus. All food is well protected and there is no self-service to speak of; it’s hands off except for the ship’s staff.

Then we decided to go ashore but we had to go to the lounge to get tickets for the tender boat and pick up beach towels and bottles of water.

Half Moon Cay is one of about 700 islands that make up the archipelago of the Bahamas. It’s a private island, owned or leased by Holland America, and designed for use by their cruise ship passengers. The island is 2,400 acres but only a small 45 acres is developed. We suspect that’s all the space that can be commercially utilized and the cruise line magnanimously maintains the balance as a wildlife habitat. The developed area has white sandy beaches, with cabanas, beach chairs, and other beach equipment. The passengers can parasail, rent sailboats, snorkel, or even swim on horseback….yes, the horses give you a land ride first and then a swim in the clear blue waters. We opted for a lazy day on the beach. Joe spent a lot of time swimming while I parked a lawn chair in a shady spot and took a nap.

The cruise line staff hosted a BBQ lunch on the beach, with hamburgers and all the fixings. It was a beautiful day, not too hot and very pleasant with a slight breeze. After lunch, it started to get a little toasty so we decided to clean up, get the sand off of us, and board the tender boat for our return ride to the ship. Even though I’m not much of a beach bum, Joe loves the water and we had a wonderfully relaxing excursion to the beach.

The internet connectivity on this ship is miserably slow so we probably won’t post any pictures until we get home; I’m afraid we’d go broke waiting for them to upload, and the per minute charges are pretty exorbitant. Joe played around on the computer while I went to the port talk by the Travel Expert, Richard. This talk was very informative covering Aruba and Curacao, the islands, their history, and what not to miss. It was nice because it was not a shopping talk; there’s a separate port seminar for the shoppers.

We weren’t as impressed with the dinner service tonight. We were seated at a table for eight and had very nice tablemates but the service was incredibly slow. It took almost 2 ½ hours to get through dinner and, while we were telling each other we had nothing else to do, that’s just too long to sit around the dinner table. The food, however, was excellent. The evening entertainment was quite good too, a comedian named Frank King. His act was titled “The Conversational Comedy of Frank King”. While we had never heard of him, apparently he is quite famous and has opened for great stars. He not only tells jokes, he also sells them to such stars as Joan Rivers, Dennis Miller and Jay Leno.

Since we lose an hour tonight when we go to Atlantic Time, we called it a night after the evening performance of the comedy show. Tomorrow is a Sea Day so we can sleep late anyway.