Day 18 - Sat 12/22/18 - Nassau, Bahamas



Overnight it was a bit windy. At 11pm the ship was rocking and when we woke up, the ship was circling off the entrance to the Nassau harbor. While we were the first ship to arrive, the pilot wasn't willing to come out at the scheduled time. Once he was on board we proceeded into the harbor, rotated 180° counterclockwise and backed into our berth just after 8:30am. We were shortly followed by the Disney Wonder and then the Carnival Victory, and RCCL Enchantment of the Seas. Later in the day, the RCCL Mariner of the Seas joined the lineup.

We planned a self guided walking tour for the day starting with a walk to the Queens Staircase and Fort Fincastle. The fort is also marked by a large water tower. We approached the fort using Prison Drive and missed the staircase. However we used it to go down. We then walked through the main part of town using Bay Street and out to Fort Charlotte and Fort Stanley. It about 3 miles between Fort Fincastle and Fort Charlotte and the guide at Fort Charlotte was stunned we walked between the two forts. All of these forts were built as defensive measures, and they've never been used to defend the city.

After visiting the Fort Charlotte complex, was walked down to beach area and found a cool local restaurant (Sumtin Good) to enjoy a conch meal. We had a nice chat with the owner. It was then time to walk back to the ship shopping and sightseeing along the way. I logged 9.5 miles walking.

We were back on board the ship by 3:45pm, so we used the time before sail away to pack. At a little after 5pm the mooring lines were released and we pushed away from our berth, headed out of the harbor and into the open waters. While doing so, the Norwegian Sky and a Silver Seas Cruise ship made their way into the harbor. They must be overnighting.

We ate our last dinner in the LIDO before watching the Step One Dance company performance of Stages. We sat next to the mother of the BBKing venue saxophone player who's on his 7th contract with HAL. This was her first cruise! We finished packing and put out our roll abouts out to be off loaded in Ft. Lauderdale tomorrow morning. And so ended our 18 day inaugural voyage on the Nieuw Statendam. One more sleep and 9 hours of flights to get home before Christmas.

We're booked to leave round trip from Singapore on January 26, 2019 for a three week cruise to Sri Lanka on the Maasdam. If you want to follow along on that voyage, my blog can be found at www.timmer2019srilanka.blogspot.com.  

Thanks for following along. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

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