Carnival Pride - Day 4 - Nassau (Part 1)

Minor rant to start things off - I've heard that if a usual activity isn't held during a cruise, it's because the cruise director decided not to include it in the schedule. So now I'd like to know whose idea it was with all the unique trivia categories I've not seen other cruises feature, to have a sports themed trivia nearly every day? And no, I'm not just questioning that because it's one of the few trivia sessions we avoided like the plague. 🙂

I'd also like to take a moment and mention what a good asset Carnival has in Blake as a member of their fun squad. He had just joined the crew on the Carnival Pride in April and the rest of the squad were razzing him. Blake explained to us one afternoon when we asked if every fun squad member had to do it that he'd shown his new co-workers a meme one day of a picture of a guy doing a deep squat and then looking back seductively over his shoulder. The caption to the meme said "Drop your weapon" and Blake simply wanted to share a meme he thought was funny. The rest of the group turned it into a game telling all the cruisers that if you tell Blake to "Drop your weapon," he has to drop down and do the pose as a way of hazing the new guy. At one point after hearing someone yell it to him as they passed by, he did the pose and then joked that he'd be getting his leg workout in this sailing. Not only did he never have an attitude and always played along but I even saw him getting involved with cruisers during activities like singing duets at karaoke during his down time. Who else would deal with us passengers for several hours a day every day and then still come back in their off hours to hang out with us? I definitely made sure to specifically praise him in my post cruise survey as well.

Was this a lightning bolt sign of the rain to come or Harry Potter following us?

Back to our regularly scheduled story. With no longer a reason to rush in the morning without an excursion we took things slow. Joni took a few pictures of Atlantis that we could see from our balcony so she could show her family that she made it back here.

No blue sky Bahamas today

The skies looked a bit grey this morning so it was almost like a silver lining that we weren't having to run around in the rain. Up at the buffet the place was packed so we took our breakfast out to the picnic tables to eat. We appreciated the cover as the skies soon opened up and it rained with varying intensity the whole time we sat there.

These larger oval plates were great for carrying drink cups too

Breakfast Taco Wednesday?

What? You didn't bring me back any tacos?!

We decided to get out while the getting was good, a.k.a. a lull in the rain, and made our way off the ship. I had only bothered to bring a hoodie for cold nights on the ship in the public venues (which there weren't really any like I usually find) figuring that if it was rainy, we wouldn't get off the ship. Carnival was more than happy to sell us a poncho on the way down to the gangplank though. As it was, the intermittent rain was never a big issue because the sidewalks in front of the shops are covered. I soon switched to wearing the hoodie around my waist anyway because it was still so humid.

The islands of the who now?

I don't know if it was a Carnival employee or just a helpful shop owner but there was a woman greeting people once we passed from the covered walkway and onto the first main streets of the city. We heard her pointing out to everyone that went by that to get to downtown, you should cut through this alleyway which of course had plenty of handicraft and trinket souvenir shopping to check out before you ever reached the other end. 

The "Push" note is in reference to how to open the door but it just made the sign above it even funnier.

In case anyone was planning to head to the beach in their Nassau stop, here's the price for taxis and ferries:

Guess who thought twice and still decided not to bother bringing that shopping map of Nassau we got during the super boring gemstone seminar? Zzzzzz.. huh oh sorry, thinking about that put me back to sleep. I figured it can't be that hard to find the Tanzanite International store that we could trade in our cards to get free earrings, right? After all, it's a Caribbean port so there's a jewelry store within spitting distance at every corner. We eventually did find it but simply out of dumb luck and the fact that we'd walked pretty much everywhere else first. As expected, the free earrings you get are so tiny they might as well give you a free magnifying glass to go with it. There were some ladies in there that must have had themselves a mission to restock their jewelry boxes with everything from this shop. They had the whole map, discount VIP cards, and the whole coupon book you could buy during the talk. The employee chatting them up even went in the back and brought them out bottles of cold beer and wine coolers to wine and dine them.

Joni did a little wheel and deal of her own as we moved through the various shops a few blocks from the pier picking out a couple pieces from Pandora. We also checked out a place selling Alex and Ani but Joni opted against buying the exclusive Bahamas charms. We also stopped in at the expected Del Sol, Cariloha, and Tortuga shops. I got Dad a Del Sol T-shirt featuring a pirate attired skull and crossbones while Joni scoured tons of souvenir shops for her whole family. In Del Sol, we did the deal where you buy two shirts and get a free Del Sol beach bag so I did the transaction for the shirt I picked out plus Joni's shirt. The free tote bag came in handy for Joni to carry all her purchases back to the ship.

Noticed several trees wrapped in Christmas lights

One of the things I noticed about Del Sol visits in each port was that the sales people this time were the most on top of you I've ever seen. I expect the usual "here let me show you how the color change works" employee demonstration but the second we stopped to look at an item, there was an employee come to stand within inches of us asking if we liked it or could they help us find something else. If we admitted to considering purchasing an item, they wanted to put their sales tag sticker on it. At one point, Joni had draped a shirt over her shoulder while she was using both hands to look at a different shirt and the employee picked up the other end of the shirt on her shoulder to put the tag sticker on. Yes, she explained that's what she was doing as she did it but this need to stamp it as their sale seemed a little forward to me.

A little tip we learned while shopping in Del Sol is that by being here on a cruise and showing our photo ID, we didn't have to pay sales tax which according to my receipt from this day, would have been 7.5%. With their partnership with Cariloha (a couple of the Del Sol we visited had Cariloha as part of a shared store space), our Del Sol receipt printed with a 25% off any single item on your next visit to Cariloha. We didn't end up buying anything from Cariloha but in case anyone was on the fence about trying anything from there due to their higher prices, that would help make the monetary plunge a little less of a deep wallet dive. For those looking to budget, each of our Del Sol shirts were $29, a headband Joni picked out for a niece was $6, and of course the tote bag was free. The sales lady who rang up our purchases said we could get the tote bag that just said Del Sol for free but the one that said Del Sol Nassau would have been $2 more. If I really cared about having a tote bag that said Nassau, I'd grab a marker from the dollar store, write Nassau on my free bag, and pocket the other $1 in profit.

Or just save that occasional Bahamian coin we received in change for this. Kids, it's an old timey contraption us old folks called a pay phone!

Joni is such a nice person that she fell for the salesman tactics of the people that stood outside trying to entice you into their shops. Just when she mastered the "say no thank you and keep walking" concept, they switched to "Let me just ask you a question" so she'd stop and have a conversation until they worked in a "come to my shop and let me show you.." We wandered a little further until we stumbled upon the famous Nassau Straw Market and the "come see my shop" became "You don't have to be afraid" Hmm, nope not even the Cowardly Lion was afraid of the Scarecrow after a short while.

Note the important word of caution at the bottom of the sign:

While I would have much rather found the Dunkin Donuts everyone talks about being close to the port (no not just for the free wi-fi, I'm just a donut -aholic), I did find a staple of the Bahamas I've heard so much about, Bahamas Goombay Punch. I bought a can at the second shop we visited thinking I'd not see it again. Umm, just like every Caribbean port has a Del Sol and Diamonds International, essentially every shop with a drink cooler had either the can or bottle of Bahamas Goombay Punch. I wish I'd bought the bottle so I could take a sip to try it and then reseal it but now I wonder if Carnival would have prohibited bringing a bottle back onboard? I carried it around not wanting to have to carry an open can for so long that eventually we just stuck it in my backpack. No issue whatsoever as my backpack went through x-ray when we returned to the ship. We stuck the can in our cabin fridge and a few nights later I finally bothered to try it. If you like Mountain Dew, then you'll like this too. I'm not that much a fan of Mountain Dew. My can of Goombay Punch rang up at $1.81. That's even cheaper than a soda at the grocery store checkout cooler costs here!

One of the last corners we turned down was like walking back into the US as Hard Rock Café was on one side and Subway and Starbucks was on the other side.

Fun new trivia fact we learned - Subway is the biggest US fast food restaurant in other parts of the world

The whole bench seat in the Starbucks front window was full of people eating Subway sandwiches and washing it down with iced coffees. We wandered in, with some good natured ribbing from Joni because she was so shocked that I'd want to go into a coffee shop and I don't like coffee. Joni ended up picking out the location specific Starbucks mugs for another friend's souvenir and I discovered that this local Starbucks offered a Banana Split Frappuccino that the ladies behind the counter said couldn't be found in the US. That counts as trying some food or drink that is unique and local right?

Joni tried some and found it super sweet. I drank most of it as we continued to walk but soon dumped it before we made it back to the ship. It tasted okay but I'm not usually a big fan of a lot of chocolate at once. My small Banana Split Frappuccino cost $5.75 plus tip. They had a sign at the counter that said they couldn't accept app transactions but I'm not sure if the tangible gift cards would have worked.

After wandering in and out of a few more stores, we decided we'd walked off enough of our first two sea days worth of food and headed back down that alley following the sign to the cruise port.

I like how cruise ships got its own side of the sign

Took a brief moment to take a couple or 12 exterior shots both of the Carnival Pride and our new unexpected pier neighbor, the Norwegian Gem.

They had this setup in both Nassau and Freeport but no one was ever manning the drink station. Made me feel uneasy about just peeking into that closed bin and grabbing my own cup.

Wow, the Disney Cruise Line has really gone downhill. For half the price, you can now board the gangplank to nowhere!

We were officially back on board around 1PM so after dropping our purchases in our cabin, we headed to Guy's Burgers for lunch. This time I knew to ask specifically for one of the named burgers and ordered "The Ringer." The first guy handed the regular burger to his co-worker who put on lettuce, tomato, and an onion ring before drowning the whole thing in "donkey sauce." The donkey sauce, while barbecue flavored was not as spicy as I expected. We also walked through the buffet and tried some flavored bread and I found a tasty pasta salad.

With our bellies full and our legs feeling the tons of walking we did this morning, we headed down to the Piazza Café for our favorite pastime of trivia games! We left a nice imprint on those couches as we sat through Mind Games (brainteasers), Guess That Song Decades, Television Trivia, and All About Nothing Trivia. While we were down by the shore excursion desk, we stopped by to inquire about what to do with the tickets I'd been given for our cancelled Nassau excursion. As we approached the desk, we saw one of the shore excursion crew members pass by on her way into the back. We started to ask our question but she cut us off to insist that the desk wasn't open yet. It was scheduled to open within the next 5 minutes or so by then. Joni asked her to give us just a moment of time because we only had a quick question. She seemed exasperated as she replied "Everyone always has just a quick question!" Joni asked about the tickets and the crew member assured us that we'd get a full refund. Joni repeated that she was specifically asking about what to do with the tickets themselves, should we just throw them away? She nods and slips through the door before we can even finish thanking her.

We opted out of the next game which was Dare to Pair and of course followed by Sports Trivia in favor of heading up to the Serenity deck to lounge and read. We found one of the few remaining loungers side by side. The weather was nice and cool with the clouds overhead. Only downside of modern technology, the glare made it hard to read on our kindles. I had to hold my arm across my forehead as if I was trying to shield my eyes from the sun but in reality, my arm cast enough of a contrasting shadow that I could read the words from my book that fell within that shadow. After a while though it became easier to just close my eyes and relax instead.