But I'm ready to go again
I loved cruising!! What a blast!!
I've heard mixed reviews so I wasn't sure, but we had a blast in the Bahamas as well as on the boat. Now I'm home and we're in the middle of our first significant snowstorm of the season. We haven't even been home 36 hours yet. It is 54 degrees colder here than the day I left. This leads me to question myself. Why am I here?
This particular cruise was a Christian one. So that meant, no alcohol and no gambling which suited us just fine. By the looks of it, everybody had tons of fun. The entertainment was endless going up until almost midnight every night. I was quite surprised to see the kids up at that hour on my way to bed. I think the kids mostly stayed up to hear comedian Ken Davis who packed whichever lounge he was in. He is the funniest comedian ever. IMO he beats Seinfield and Williams together hands down. Good clean humour using everyday occurences we can all relate to. He was hysterical. I've never seen my husband laugh like that. He did all he could NOT to laugh but gave up within minutes. It was hopeless. Davis goes on alot of cruises and this particular one yearly I believe.
The midnight buffets were fabulous. I've never seen such lucious desserts all at once. It was hard to choose. I've heard that on average each passenger eats about 5,000 calories daily. I believe it. More than once I sat down at the next meal still full from the last one but went ahead and ate anyway. In between I did all I could to get myself hungry for the next. It was absurd the amount and quality of food on this ship.
Having never gone cruising before we had no idea what to expect. Even then, it exceeded any slightest expectation I could have even imagined. The staterooms were comfortable although we didn't spend much time in them. We generally went to bed at 12 pm and got up at 7-8 am depending on the events of the next day. We went to bed every night after checking the itinerary left on our bed when we came back from a fancy dinner. We spent the majority of our time on Decks 8-10 where all the action was.
The shows, in this case, were actually well known preachers who could tell the best stories and preach the best messages and the music we heard were well known Christian singing groups all across the country. On top of that we had the comedic talent of Ken Davis and Geraldine and Ricky (her dummy). While I never heard or had the pleasure of seeing this latest act before, I was very surprised at how good she was. Geraldine is a ventriliquist and Ricky her dummy got the best of any that dared to come up to converse with them. Basically they had one of the featured speakers do dummy duty. From what it seemed like, this was a dreaded job. This dummy was no dummy and could take down the best of them. The funniest of all time of anything I've ever seen in all my years was when Ken Davis took on the dummy. Ken is a genuis as his wit is the quickest I've ever seen yet this dummy got the best of him. At one point, Ken looked right at the dummy and said...
"You know what I'm thinking?
"No" said the dummy, "what are you thinking?".
"Bonfire" said Ken. And I think he meant it. And this was after he looked at the audience and said, "I can't believe this. This is a dummy. I'm talking to a dummy." I think this came about after Ricky said that while Ken once upon a time believed in his body as the temple of God he now he treated it more like ancient ruins. Oooooh that got Ken mad. He told the dummy he didn't like him not one bit. Of course while all this was going on, we were rolling in the isles. Every time it looked like Ken got the dummy, Ricky had a comeback that sent Ken reeling.
I'm planning on collecting Ken's many DVD's. I've got two and while I've heard and appreciated him on the radio for years I really enjoyed seeing him in person. His ministry is called "Lighten Up"
We also went to three islands. Freeport was our first stop and my first real look at that tropical blue water I've never seen before. It was pretty nice dipping my feet in that water which was not like anything I've even remotely encountered here. I'm thinking....how can we stay here? What's the job market like? I'm also thinking.....IT"S JANUARY!! I'm dipping my feet in salt water in January.
Nassau was our next stop. While I wasn't all that impressed with the town that offered mostly shopping, I did enjoy Blackbeard's Island. It was a 20 minute boat ride from Nassau. Not much to do there but look at the few structures they have up and the sting rays they have in a netted pool. They were huge. I guess for an extra fee you could go in and swim with these creatures. No way was I going in there. Nope, I was content looking at them from my position on the deck looking down. That was good enough. We spent most of our time here sitting in one of the many chaise lounges they supplied, reading our books with the sound of the water lapping the shore just inches from our feet. Ahhhhhhh this was the life even if it lasted but only two hours.
Our last cruise ship stop was to die for. We left Nassau on Wed night and arrived to our next destination the next morning. We went to Half Moon Cay. We were told we needed to take a small ferry over to the beach as their was no port there for this ship. We had heard it was just beach and nothing much more. So we decided to get off the cruise ship, ferry over in the smaller boat and just stay two hours. We took our time getting over there enjoying breakfast. Once we docked and got off the smaller boat, I looked around and I said to my husband. "We are not leaving this island."
I felt like I was in another world. I felt like this was what Paradise was going to be like. Many had the same reaction. White sand, turquoise water, palm trees and beautiful shrubs with many pink flowers. There was a sign we captured in picture that said "I never want to leave this place." That was my sentiments exactly. There were even hammocks placed here and there for our use.
On this small island (5 mi by 2 1/2 mi) there stood a small cute replica of a church. It was tiny with two pews in it and no doors to the entry or exit. As you exited you were greeted with an arbor covered in bright pink flowers. We wondered if many weddings were done there, but they would have to be tiny as the church was one tiny room. Think small bedroom. And how do you get here? It took us all night to get there from Nassau. It was a children's haven as well. They had a section of the beach and water that was mainly for the kids, and I enjoyed seeing these kids having so much fun. This area was well thought out. It was only like $295 extra to bring each kid for the week. What a bargain. I wish I had done this with my kids. They would have loved all this.
We ran into our brand new Pastor friend and his wife (we met on the ship the day before) while we were walking this beach and he said, "I've decided. I'm going to stay here and do a new church plant. I'm not getting back on the boat."
We laughed. Nobody lives here we said. "That's ok. I'll just preach to all the cruise ship people that come here" he said. So we decided he could do the morning service and my husband would do the night service.
Actually we were wondering how anybody got to this place outside of cruise ships. No hotels. No closed structures other than one gift shop and the rest rooms. It was basically a few open type structures like a bar and huts with tables under them for dining. We had a huge BBQ while we were there. All the spareribs and chicken and fixin's one could digest. It was unbelievable like everything else this cruise line did for us. That was a night I had trouble eating dinner. We had the BBQ at 2:00.
We literally dragged ourselves back to the ferry that would take us back to the ship. It wasn't easy. Every fiber in me wanted to run and hide somewhere on that tiny island. Actually I heard that Gilligan's Island was filmed here or part of it was. Pretty cool.
We spent the whole next day at sea all day enjoying the many talents on board and groaned at the thought that all good things must end. We made many friends on this trip with promises to stay in touch. We are planning on doing a Pastor Swap with this one Pastor we met and really had a connection to. Our churches are so different. He's a big black on fire preacher with a very diverse group of people in his church. Our church is all white with no diversity at all, unless you count our religious backgrounds as criteria. So this big black preacher man is going to come up here to the North Country and our White Preacher Boy is heading down to the South, mainly Jacksonville, FL. This should be interesting.
So I would highly recommend this particular yearly cruise. Actually I noticed this same cruise is going again with different entertainment in March. Geraldine and Ricky will be on that one as well though. It's very family oriented with no worries about gambling, alcohol or smoking. Of course if those things are ok with you then you most likely wouldn't enjoy this particular cruise, but I've met more folks who said they'd never cruise again not realizing there was this option for them and others who said they'd only go on a Christian cruise.
Whatever, it sure was alot of fun. So now as I look out at the falling snow, I have new memories of sticking my feet in the tropical waters in January and that can't be taken away. There's always next year.