Miami/4 night Bahamas cruise

Central America Caribbean » Bahamas » Nassau » Bahamas
September 8th 2007

Published: September 19th 2007

Majesty of the Seas

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Saturday 8th September, Miami

4 hours drive and we made it to Miami, we only got lost once which wasnt to bad. Arrived at the South Beach Hostel (Miami Beach). From the front it actually doesn't look to bad and the reception area looked okay also....it has a bar selling beer for 3 dollars which was a bonus for us. Now the rooms were a different story, 3 bunkbeds crammed into a space big enough for two and there was also a set of 6 lockers in the room, needless to say everyone was crawling all over each other lol. The bathrooms were awful, we'll the girls was anyway, ants running all over the floor, mould all over the shower floor -I could of cryed when i had to get my kit off and get in to one)
and there were hairs all over the sink, i nearly boked!!!
After the hour it took us to check in and 3 beers later it was late on so we just had dinner in TGI Fridays, dont know if anyone has heard of that back home but the food was decent, starters, mains and dessert for 15 dollars each (£7.50)

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arriving on the ship

and off to bed. In our room we met a couple from New Zealand who were just back from a 6 week tour of South America.....it sounded so class, we would really love to do that and then 2 girls from Australia who were really messy but nice. On the Sunday we left the car back and had a walk up Miami Beach......wow everyone looked like they just walked out of a magazine, girls with boob jobs wearing nothing but a g string and you wanted to just give them a burger, they looked like they would break in half, (the size zero defo a big thing in Miami), then off on to Ocean Drive, didint see any celebs this time but maybe when we go back......we ended up in a bar called Mango's and ordered a beer, girls and camp gay boys got up on stage and started dancing to salsa type music, it was funny to watch as the outfits were something that you used to wear to a club in early 90's (girls it looked like Paranoid had sold them stuff from there store room from years ago) they also had on the high wedge platform boots

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The Pool onboard the ship

lol what a sight and they all thought they were beautiful with their tits hanging out!!! The hostel runs a bbq on Sundays so most people where down at that. We got changed and were gonna head off to a club that night, we were sitting outside the hostel having a few beers when guy who works in the hostel turned up with another guy carrying an american football and a white shirt in his hand, they were both blocked. A few minutes later another guy runs up the street in soaking shorts and covered in sand and spots the football, from what we caught the guy and his mates were in the sea swimming and the two who had came up from the beach had nicked there stuff........the fun began lol The guy who got his stuff nicked started shouting all over you fuckin thieves and squared up to one of the guys from the hostel. He was saying " Ive got mother fucking Irish in me and im not scared to use it" well that was it for us, we couldnt stop laughing. Another guy from the hostel came out, he was a big black guy and kinda

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Leaving Miami

scared him off, before he went he said it wasnt over and went off. The big black guy phoned his mates as he knew there was gonna be a kickoff....he was shouting down the phone, Im head Niger. About 20 minutes later the guy turns up with his mates and the two guys who came up with the stolen stuff had gone, 1 was inside the hostel, and the other one left and headed to the other hostel on south beach so the two of the fellas went in to the hostel where we were staying to look for him. About 5 minutes later they all landed outside and were shouting at each other, "i got my ball and shirt from you now wheres my mates phone and keys" this went on for about 10 minutes and the head nigger and one of the fellows were pushing each other waiting on someone to throw the first punch, the black guy was calling him white trash in front of everyone and he works there lol that just goes to show the level of professionalism in the hostel. It felt like a school playground lol we were all shouting dig him and

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The Famous Miami beach

all it was hilarious. Next thing the hostel manager came out and pulled the black guy inside and the other guys left but with no avail, they never got the phone and keys but it was entertainment for us. After that escapade we decided not to go out at all as the ones who had stole the stuff were the people taking all the backpackers around the clubs so that kinda put us off especially after the white trash comment so we decided just to chill have a few drinks and wait til tomorrow!! we were off on a cruise.......

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Day 1 September 10th 2007

We left the South Beach Hostel in Miami on the 10th September and got a taxi to the Miami Docks, it cost 20 dollars so it wasn’t too bad, we cleared check-in and arrived at our room. We had an inside cabin, it was just like a hotel room and was really nice and it had a massive king size bed.
Our Ship was called the Majesty of the Seas, it was a mile round and had everything that we needed and lots more including a rock climbing wall, casino, art gallery,

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The world famous Atlantis Hotel

2 swimming pools and a hot tub, 10 bars, a pizza place that was open 24hrs, Spa, Library, Basketball court plus lots more and also dancing classes, art workshops etc all for free.
We had something to eat in the Buffet for lunch and that evening we had our dinner in the dinning room, our seating time was 6.00pm in the Starlight Room, I have to say that the food was the best that we’ve ever had, the menu was unreal with treats for us backpackers. The entertainment that night was Dario ElGaucho from Argentina (with his balls) and the Royal Caribbean Singers and Dancers, it was excellent- really funny and later that night we went to see the Love and Marriage Game-show…….OMG I have never laughed so much, they got a couple up who where on there honeymoon, another that had been married 15 years plus and another who were married 50 plus. The men then went to another room and they asked questions to the woman like- Where was the first date you went on? Where was the first time you had sex? Etc When the men came back and gave there answers, you couldn’t help but wipe

Cruise Nassau

Atlantis Beach Paradise Island Nassua, Bahamas

the tears from your eyes, some of the stuff they said was hilarious, the wives were arguing with them when they got it wrong. Funniest show I’ve ever seen, and after that we went round the ship exploring and then off to the 70’s disco…….a little drunk from to much wine!!!

Day 2 September 11 2007
We arrived into Nassau the capital of the Bahamas.
The weather was so hot, we decided that we would go to the beach, we took a water taxi (3 dollars each 1 way) over to the Hotel Atlantis- now that’s a hotel, the biggest I’ve ever seen, (im sure you’ve came across it in a holiday brochure……1 word wow) we went inside as you need to cut through it to get to the beach……45 minutes later we were still walking around lost, but at least we got to see the inside and it was totally amazing. Finally arrived at the beach, I have never seen water so crystal clear and so blue, when we got in, it was like getting into a luke warm bath, it really was first class. On our way back we stopped at a few market type shops and

Cruise Nassau

Atlantis Beach Paradise Island Nassau Bahamas

got some Cuban cigars and a few wee souvenirs and headed back to the boat to get ready for dinner and the evening shows. The meal was unreal again and then off we went to the show it was Signed, Sealed, Delivered. Again it was excellent, the singers and dancers were fantastic. Casino was next for a few games of Roulette, Colin and I both have an addiction to it from Vegas- see a table and we have to play a few dollars lol. Dancing under the stars pool party was next for us, one of the chiefs came out and done a live ice carving for us, he carved an Indian and Colin got it on video and there was also a massive buffet.

Day 3 September 12th
Located in the middle of the Caribbean’s bright blue water lies the secluded island of Coco Cay. The island had only the cruise ship people on it and it really was that tropical paradise that you see on TV. First up was snorkelling (we both love it), we had to swim way out as the water was cloudy with the swimmers, we seen some real interesting fish but we didn’t

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Colin Chilling out on Cococay Island

find any pirates gold unfortunately, it was a bit freaky- I always had the jaws tune in my head and freaked out a few times. After being in the water about an hour we soon realised that it wasn’t sharks that we needed to be freaked out about it was jellyfish, they were everywhere. Luckily we didn’t get stung!!!!
The ship had arranged for a BBQ on the island and again the quality was amazing and plentiful, we had a nice walk round the island and bought a few wee souvenirs from the locals, I got the boat back to the Ship as it was docked about a mile away from the island and ferry type boats brought you back and forth, Colin stayed on, I got roasted the day before from being in the sea to long……ouchhhhhhhhhh.
That night the entertainment was Steve Shaffer the Comedian- he was really funny. Abe the cruise director was doing a slot tournament in the casino so we headed to there after. If you wanted to play you had to be playing the slot machines, I started playing a 10cents machine, as were poor!! So anyway Abe called out the first combination he

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Thats what we call sunbathing

wanted and it was 3 red 7’s, I was playing in ones and Colin made me start playing in 5’s as you could of won on any of the play lines, it finally got to the 6th and last draw and he asked for 3x3 of orange bars……I hit it, yeeeeeeeeee haaaaaaaaaaaaaa so that got me into the tournament at midnight. We went to the Quest Game show and watched it until midnight, we did get a few things of the Midnight Chocolate buffet before I went into the casino again and wiped 5 other woman’s ass’s on the slots. Everyone had to hit the buttons and get as many winning lines as possible to get as many points in 5 minutes as they could, I got over 3000 points and I was the winner!. After winning $250 we thought we’d hold onto the money as supposed to gambling it all back so headed for the room for an early night.

Day 4 Setember 13th

7:30 am We arrived into the port of Florida Key West. We had to be off the boat early as security was checking passports and visas as we had arrived back into the

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Ice Sculptures on the Cruise ship

united states. We got off the boat around 10am after breakfast and took a walk around the shops for some and found a jewellers that had some coins they found just off the cost of key west from a ship that sank called the ‘Atocha’. We were talking to her a she told us to go and visit the museum across the street called the Mel Fisher Maritime museum. Mel Fisher dedicated his life to treasure hunting and each day his famous words were ‘ today’s the day’. After the ship sank off the coast of the key west in 1622 due to a hurricane Mel spent from 1969 to 1985 searching for the treasure and after 16 years of his life searching for it he found the Atocha Mother Load estimated at a value of $450 million dollars. Most of the things that he found were in the museum for all to see and we even got to lift the gold bar that was found from the ship. It weighed a ton! After touring the museum we made our way back onto the ship instead of going to the beach as we were told by some locals that the

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Arriving in Cococay Bahamas

hurricanes that they’ve had of late had blew almost all the sand away and it was mostly rocky, so we decided just to go to the pool onboard the ship. At around 4pm I (sorry colin on here) wanted to climb the wall that was on the ship you had all the harness gear on and you had to get some safety lessons before you tackled it so after my lessons I scaled the wall in no time, it was the easy section though. There was 4-5 sections you could do so I just done the 1st one to try it. There was far to many people there and you had to take it in turns so after going up the once and it took about an hour to get us all up I thought I’d skip the rest…. Far to good of a day to be at that carryon. Off to the room to get showered and changed and get organised for our 6pm meal 1 of 7 a day lol. The Meal was great as usual and then off to see the final show it was called boogie wonderland. Yet again another great show the singers were amazing

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Colin on Cococay island Bahamas

and some of the songs they covered were near perfect. After the show we went for a few drinks and took a walk around the ship and then Carrie headed off to play bingo with the girls (hi Brenda) and the prize was $3000 she was feeling lucky lol. I stayed and played poker with the lads $50 dollars in and the winner got $300 and $100 for 2nd. Lucky me I finished 3rd how unfortunate can you get my luck just wasn’t in and the other I was in the final with new each other which didn’t help matters I think they stroked me lol. The poker went on to about 11:30 near 12 so after that we had a couple more drinks and went to bed up at 7am.
We would just like to thank Brenda and Robert from Port Charlotte, Florida who invitied us up to their home to stay, they were both stars!!!!!

Day 5 September 14th

Up early for breakfast and then off the ship for shortly after 8am so we jumped in a taxi to make our way to south beach hostel. When we arrived at the hostel we knew we had

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Getting ready to order some gorgeous food

to stay there for 15 nights, Carrie didn’t like the sound of that idea at all as the place was infested with mosquitoes and ants. We couldn’t check in as it was way to early so we went online to see if we could get accommodation in Clearwater for 5-10 days but it worked out 2 expensive to stay. The cheapest we could find was a hotel in Orlando, Florida it worked out at $26 dollars per night per room that was for the both of us. £13 for the 2 of us is better that any hostel and the hotel had swimming pools and laundry facilities everything we needed. I went in to the hostel to let the guy know that I was cancelled the reservation (dirty work for me as usual) But when I was there 2 girls from Luthiania was asking where they could hire a car. I said to them I’m going to get a car from almo if ya wanna come. They asked me were I was going and I said to them Orlando, they were going there 2 so I offered them a lift. Happy days they wanted to go so we split the

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In the museum on key west- Carrie lifting the bar of gold recovered from the "atocha"

fuel tolls and car cost into 4, RESULT!!! So off we went to make our way to Orlando only to find out 50 miles from our destination that the police were following us with the sirens on, I thought oh sh!t what have I done now. They had clocked me doing 81 mph on a 55. I didn’t even know that we were off the freeway. After asking me where I was from he said is it mph or kph in Ireland I didn’t know what to say to try and get off the hook so I said both lol (which is true). He took my license off me and went to his car, came back and issued me with a warning!! Thank god!! We cant afford fines lol . All he said, in his cool American accent was ‘slow down son’ watch for the signs that tell you what speed to go. Another lucky escape, so off we cruised to Orlando. When we arrived we had no accommodation booked, the internet would only let you book 24 hours in advance so we were hoping we could just show up a day early and they would take us in. They

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Arriving in Key West

had rooms available but not for $26 like the internet it was $60 plus tax. After staying in the best western when we were last in Orlando it had 2 double beds so Carrie and I and the 2 Luthianians don’t even ask there names lol thought it would be cheaper if the 4 of us all bunked together for 1 night. We arrived at the best western and they issued us with a family room so we even got a room per couple for $109 all in for the night so another great result. That night it was just out for food then an early night, the next morning the Luthianians were away at the crack of dawn and we had to leave or stuff off at the hotel and back to almo to leave the car back. Another 10 days lies ahead or Orlando!!

Keep writing to us and we’ll reply whenever we can !!

Carrie and Colin x

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