05 Jul

Day 1 – Off to Nassau

It was time!  Finally!  As I mentioned, our cruise was sailing out of Nassau.  The CDC was still barring cruises from the United States, so Royal Caribbean it decided it was time to sail out of another country.  Which I was fully behind!

We also had to be fully vaccinated to sail, which would make for a great (pretty much normal) onboard experience.

We also had to apply for travel authorization to the Bahamas, much like the process we went through to Turks and Caicos in January.  But this time we could upload vaccine proof instead of a negative Covid test!  Which takes so much pressure off!

Hopefully more countries will make this the norm for those of us who are comfortable being vaccinated.

So we flew to Nassau!

We flew out of Denver, so we had a super early morning.  I picked up Debbie around 4 am on the North side of town and we drove to the parking garage.

The shuttle picked ups up, and we were off to Nassau, by way of Dallas.  We grabbed some burgers during our layover, and ended up being delayed about an hour.   But we made it!

I happened to open my window shade over Miami, and what did I see?

A whole bunch of cruise ships! Including – the Disney Wonder!

I was irrationally excited.

Once we got over the ocean, I saw soooo many cruise ships hanging out. It was cool and yet horribly sad!

Le sigh.

When we landed, we went through customs and showed all of our paperwork authorizing us travel to the Bahamas, before grabbing our luggage. We caught a taxi to the Baha Mar, our home for the night!

The Baha Mar was beautiful!

Special line for vaccinated guests!

There was a gorgeous aquarium behind the check-in desk!

Here’s our cute little room:

So cute!

Hello, beautiful bathtub!

We were on the same level as the path down to the beach. We could see a sliver of ocean!

Such a cute mirror!

At some point, we got emails from Royal notifying us that we would need to be tested for Covid before boarding. We were NOT expecting that, and in fact were a little frustrated, seeing as how we had already traveled to Nassau. If one of us tested positive, we were stuck in a foreign country! Testing at home would have been so much better.

But Royal was doing what they felt they needed to do, and I was just grateful to be cruising, so we rolled with it.

Debbie was so so worried she was going to fail, and keep me from cruising. She kept begging me to go without her if she failed. I told her (repeatedly), there was no way under heaven I was ditching her in a foreign country for a week if she failed. She was so sad I wouldn’t agree to it! Ha!

We were hungry, so after a few minutes in the room, we went out in search of food. That’s the door to one of the walkways to the beach:

Even the elevators were pretty!

Casino!

We decided to eat at Stix downstairs. I ordered a few plates, and got all set up to take a picture of them. I took some warm up pictures while we waited.

AND THEN TOTALLY FORGOT!! I just dug in, and ignored my giant camera sitting next to me.

I seriously woke up at 2 am that night, mad at myself for forgetting to take that picture. Dang it, Joan!

After eating, I ran my camera back upstairs and we went exploring.

We heard some animal sounds behind this fence, and I assumed ducks, until we saw – flamingos! How fun!

The grounds were just beautiful. I couldn’t wait to see it in daylight.

We sat on the beach for a little while until the bugs got to us, and then we went inside in search of ice cream. Found it! Gelato actually!

They also had amazing looking pizza!

Here’s mine:

Then we went back to the room, repacked a little, and fell sound asleep! I slept great except for that angry 2 am wakeup!

Exploring Baha Mar and finally boarding a real live cruise ship coming up tomorrow!

Cruising At Last! – June 11-19, 2021
Day 1 – Off to Nassau
Day 2- Embarkation (Sound the Hallelujah Chorus) 
Day 3 – It Really Was the Perfect Day at CocoCay 
Day 4 – CocoCay on Repeat
Day 5 – Sea Day 
Day 6 – Cozumel 
Day 7 – Sea Day 
Day 8 – Grand Bahamas