Bahamas Cruise Day 4: Birthday Lunch

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This one is a little late coming but thanks to Chris and Barbara for sending out the pictures, so now at least there is something to post. Since it was Jennifer's birthday and C/B live close to the airport in Hollywood.

Since we are heading up to a still cold Ohio I wanted to do something on the waterfront so we, Barbara and I, ended up on Nikki Marina at the Westin Diplomat. The whole thing was a surprise for Jennifer but she kind of figured it out when Chris spilled the beans in the morning, which was expected since I hadn't made it clear that it was a surprise for Jennifer. Plus, there is such a thing as doing too many surprises. The whole point of a surprise is for the surprise itself to be a surprise, otherwise the person becomes accustomed to expecting the unexpected or to brainstorming what nefarious plots you may have devised and sometimes beyond the silly little thing you actually planned.

Westin Diplomat and Nikki Marina

After spending some time at Aventura Mall and having Jennifer buy a bunch of Puma stuff with my Christmas gift money, we wound our way back through a bunch of other Fort Lauderdale areas that I had never been to in my four years of living in Miami, and ended up on Hollywood Beach. Your typical built-up type of place but the hotel is absolutely amazing. I had heard about this place but even Chris and Barbara said they were impressed with how nice it is (you guys live 5 minutes away, thanks for making me feel better about not knowing about it myself).

We had lunch at Nikki Marina which faces the intracoastal, which in hindsight was a mistake, we should have gone to the grubby place with the beach view next to the pool. The Nikki Resorts are all super trendy, the kind of place where you see all the douchebags hanging out on "Wild On E!" There were no douchebags when we went, just us. The place looks really cool and has creative food options but I would not say it was worth the stiff prices, but it was still nice and we had good company.

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Photos

Chris and Manny
Cool.

Jennifer and Barbara
Cooler.

Comments

[kaye]

bahamas 3 day cruise
Hi, I was reading your blog and it is very helpful. I'm going to the Bahamas next week for a 3 day cruise from Miami..Ports of call will be nassau and stirrup. My question is, when you went there, do you suggest/advise to take the paid tours or you can just pretty much tour the place on your own? Thank you.

[The Steiners]

Tours on your Cruise
Got your message on travelblog. my advice is that you do your own tours, dont be afraid to get out there, Nassau is pretty safe. Just take the ferry over to Paradise Island and ask people where to go visit. I also recommend going to the Nassau Hilton for some quiet beach time as we did, its worth the fee. Paradise Island is pretty crazy. You dont need a tour on Stirrup, just walk a WAYS, the island is not that big but people are lazy. I basically walked around the whole island.