Carnival Splendor Journeys Review: Day 2 – Nassaufeatured

None of us can remember the last time we were in Nassau. It’s been awhile. I think it was in 2012, but that was as a medevac, not a port of call. The last time we spent the day here was in…2010? I think? 2011, maybe? It all blends together at this point.

We’ve been to Nassau more than a handful of times, but we’d never really done much. It usually rains when we’re here. It’s rained more times than not when we’ve visited (so much so, in fact, that it was a running joke in our family for years that Stephanie wasn’t allowed to get off the ship because every time she did, it rained). But when I think back on our visits, they’re mostly the same. We went to Señor Frogs (…a lot, but most of our Nassau visits came when Stephanie and I were still in college and Señor Frogs was, like, the coolest place ever). On our first cruise, Nassau was our first port and I got my hair braided at the straw market (a terrible idea, by the way). On our later visits, we’d shop our way down Bay Street, where we’d end up at a Starbucks that charged $3 an hour for wifi that was infinitely faster than what they offered on the ship. One time, we took an excursion to the Atlantis resort to see the aquarium.

So while we’ve been to Nassau more times than I can count, we’d never explored the island beyond Bay Street. And that’s kind of sad, you know? The older I get, the more I want to see and do and understand.

Our Carnival Splendor pulled into Nassau just before 8:00 AM, the sun shining brilliantly onto our balcony and into our room. We took our time getting ready – we didn’t book an excursion, so we didn’t have any kind of rush to get off the ship, and we had the entire day to do whatever we wanted because the ship wouldn’t leave port until 5:30 PM.

As we were walking around the ship the evening before, we’d noticed that the Splendor was offering the new port day breakfast menu in the main dining room, and since we didn’t have an excursion to rush off to, we headed down to the Black Pearl dining room. The hostess told every party as they approached that only shared tables were immediately available, but when we mentioned that we would wait for a private table, the hostess checked to see how long the wait was and then immediately seated us.

The new menus are a marked difference from the old breakfast menus, certainly geared more towards Millennials with offerings like avocado toast, breakfast boards and egg white frittatas. Everything looked good, so we each ordered something different (with a breakfast board to split) so we could try a bunch of things and everything was good. Not like oh my god this is the best thing I ever tasted good, but solid offerings that were prepared well enough and had us wanting to go back to try more.

We debarked the ship after breakfast, docked in the second to furthest slot at the pier, next to the Carnival Sunshine and the Disney Wonder (the Norwegian Breakaway would dock in the remaining slot later on). The walk to Bay Street was shorter than I remembered it being. Maybe it’s because we’ve been to more places with much longer piers. More likely, it’s because walking in the sunshine on a beautiful day is so much more pleasant than walking through a tropical storm.

The cruise terminal, which usually houses a small market, is under construction, so the marketplace is immediately outside the terminal building, but before Bay Street. And as you walk through it, you will be called at and heckled by no less than three people at once: someone trying to sell you a souvenir, someone trying to sell you a tour (or a ride on a horse drawn carriage) and someone trying to braid your hair. A polite no thank you will set them off towards the person behind you, but it’s a verbal barrage that’s still probably the most intense I’ve found on any Caribbean island.

I had created a Google Map of places to see, and we set off towards the first two: Parliament Square and the Public Library. It was a busy Monday morning in Nassau and cars were zipping every which way on every street, but what was so interesting to me was once we got past the first two or three streets beyond the cruise terminal, everything was quiet and tranquil. No one yelled at us for a taxi or to get our hair braided, but just about every person we passed on the street greeted us and wished us a good morning. It’s like an entirely different world just a few blocks further away.

We started at Parliament Square, which features the bright pink buildings that house the Senate and the Supreme Court, before we moved onto the Public Library. The history behind the Public Library was even more fascinating to me – it’s this small, circular building that currently houses old books, newspapers and a few computers, but 220 years ago, it was a prison, situated on the land that would become Parliament Square. It was converted into a library in 1837, where it has served the Nassau community ever since.

After the library, we contemplated our next move under a shady palm tree: there were the 66 Steps at the Queen’s Staircase and Fort Fincastle in one direction (a direction that was a pretty steep walk directly uphill) and the Graycliff Hotel and John Watling’s Distillery in another. Mom wasn’t feeling great about the uphill walk, so we headed off in the direction of the Graycliff…and promptly got lost. Google Maps aren’t the most reliable when they’re in offline mode. But we got lost in a beautiful area that was far enough away from the ship to show us a bit of Bahamian life away from tourists and nightclubs, so in a roundabout way, we got exactly what we were looking for (…minus the rum).

Even though we had basically no idea where we were, we had a visual line of sight to the ships, so we just started walking down towards Bay Street. We stopped in John Bull, which was kind of like a Caribbean department store, because it had a Starbucks and some free WiFi that was so much faster than the terrible WiFi onboard the ship.

We took the long way back to the ship from there, heading down past the straw market and swinging up to Bay Street by Señor Frogs. The Christmas spirit was everywhere on the island, and even though we don’t celebrate, we were swept up in the spirit of the holidays.

Stephanie and I bought coconuts from a street-side vendor and the fresh coconut water was the perfect antidote to the Bahamian heat. The coconut stand was right next to the water and I don’t even have words to describe how blue and clear and so, so beautiful the water is in the Bahamas.

The shopping isn’t the best in Nassau. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty, just not much that’s unique (outside of the conch shells, but I vaguely remember some cruise director telling us that they were illegal to take back to the United States). We stopped in a couple of shops, finding the typical t-shirts and coffee mugs emblazoned with clichéd sayings. All I needed was a postcard to add to my collection, so we grabbed those from the pier-side vendors before heading back onto the ship.

As we were walking back, we noticed some fish in the waters next to us and we stopped to look out at the Atlantis for a few minutes. Nassau may not be our favorite island, but it’s certainly not for lack of natural beauty (…or manmade beauty, either – I think the Atlantis is a stunning structure).

We quickly passed through security onboard the ship and headed straight up to the Lido deck for some pizza and soft serve. Carnival’s pizza is still top notch and the prosciutto pizza topped with the peppery arugula is just about the best lunch you can get on a cruise ship (or, at least, a cruise ship that doesn’t have a Blue Iguana Cantina).

With the afternoon heat reaching max, we planned on making a stop at the room to switch into our swimsuits and head back up to the aft adults only pool, but on our way, we noticed the pool had been drained and was out of commission as the crew re-painted it. So, instead, we went back to the room and relaxed, watching Philadelphia on one of the television channels.

The afternoon light was quickly fading from our balcony as the sun dipped further to the west, so while Mom took a nap, Stephanie and I headed up to deck 11 to take in some Vitamin D. The Sunshine was right across from us, and for a minute, I imagined where I’d be if I were back on the ship we’d sailed on for the past two years for the holidays – under the waterfall on the Serenity deck, probably. Or in line for tacos at the Blue Iguana. Maybe I’d be sitting on the promenade deck, watching people rush back to their ship. We’re so used to traveling on the Sunshine over the holidays, but it had been refreshing to try something new (even if it meant no breakfast arepas).

When our skin started to tinge with the beginnings of a sunburn, we headed back to the room. I think I must have fallen asleep at some point, because when I woke up, the sky was painted in shades of pastel purple and Stephanie was out on the balcony eagerly trying to spot pier runners. To our left, the Norwegian Breakaway was holding a dance party on the pier, which served as a fantastic distraction for the fact that their lines were overcrowded and moving slowly.

We stayed out on deck until the sky was dark and quickly got ready for dinner so that we were ready to go after the ship sailed away. I don’t remember ever sailing away from Nassau after sunset, and pulling out of port at night, in between two other ships, with the lights of Paradise Island and the Atlantis on one side and the ambient city lights on the other was pretty spectacular.

Once we were out to sea, we headed downstairs to the Black Pearl dining room for dinner. Halfway there, I realized I had thrown on my pink and aqua flamingo flip flops with my red and black outfit and probably looked entirely ridiculous, but not enough to make me turn back to the room to change. Dinner was otherwise unremarkable. The Greek Salad was excellent. Everything else was standard dining room fare. Our server, Alex, however, was spectacular. He kept spinning jokes and I was 100% there for the side of laughs with my spring rolls.

Because we were a little later to dinner than we usually opt to dine, we weren’t sure if we’d make the early show of this evening’s Playlist performance of 88 Keys, a show we’d never seen before, but we made it to the theater just before the doors opened. While we waited, we enjoyed the live music in the lobby, an electric violin duo that was really fantastic. I love how much live music Carnival features in the evening. From the lobby to the casino and the promenade, live musicians are playing sets in just about every venue. So many aspects of cruising have changed since we made it our main method of vacation, but this is the one I hope stays the course.

Many of the Playlist shows have a little preshow before the main event, and this evening’s pre-show featured the piano bar singer playing some of the piano bar faves. We sung along to every song – this was our kind of pre-show fun. And the show, itself – a homage to piano bars and the tunes of Elton John, Neil Diamond, Carol King and others – was really well done. A little lower key (no pun intended) and less energetic than, say, Epic Rock or Amor Cubano, but another really great show with great sets and a solid set list.

We went up to the Lido Marketplace for some hot tea after the show and planned on going out to the later movie or wandering around the ship – we had nowhere to be the next morning after all – and in typical fashion, once we got into the room and our heads hit our pillows for just a minute before we go, we were done for the night. But, you know, that’s okay. We had another seven days of cruising ahead of us and plenty of time for late night fun.