Friday, March 24, 2006

Vacation Day #9 (Friday 3/24/06)

We awoke early on this day - excited about our "day at the beach" on Princess' private island in the Bahamas, Princess Cays.

"Princess Cays is located on the southern portion of Eleuthera Island, about 30 miles across the sea from Nassau. Two miles wide and 100 miles long, about forty acres of this land is reserved exclusively for Princess Cruise Line passengers. Princess Cays is a wonderland of white-sand beaches and mangrove trees is surrounded by beautiful turquoise waters, and blessed with a tropical, warm climate."

We showered and gathered our beach bags before heading to breakfast at the Horizon buffet at 8 AM. The whole ship seemed to be abuzz with news of the weather and, at 8:30 AM, the official announcement was made by Captain Romano that he had decided not to tender to Princess Cays. The weather was not good and was expected to worsen throughout the afternoon. He informed us that Nassau was fully booked and Freeport was too far so we would spend one last day at sea before returning to Port Everglades in Florida early Saturday morning.

The kids were very disappointed, as they hadn't spent any time during the week relaxing on the beach, but happy to learn that their beloved Kids' Camp was going to open. We brought them there at 9 AM and then went to the cabin to finish our packing. We spent 2 hours at the aft Terrace Pool - resting, talking and napping. The morning was gorgeous but definitely different than the others we'd experienced all week - skies in the distance were darker, wind was more noticeable, temperatures were cooler...

Just after we picked up the kids and headed to the Lido deck for lunch, a huge storm (rain, wind and thunder) hit us. All of the people on deck chairs started making a run for the covered areas and the deck was packed with people trying to get lunch and hiding from the storm. We gathered drinks (for us) and food (for the kids) and went to our room. At 12:20 PM, an announcement was made regarding staying indoors. Updated patters were received regarding the quickly changing planned afternoon activities. We watched a movie in the cabin before dressing for dinner.

At 6 PM, we met some friends we'd met online before the cruise for dinner in the Coral Dining Room. What lovely people! We were fortunate enough to have met so many new wonderful people during this cruise. Our service, unfortunately, wasn't so wonderful (again - Delmonico from Italy!) but the food was good and the conversation was great. Afterwards, we ran down to deck 7 to pick up our pre-ordered video (with highlighs from the cruise) and headed to the room to finish packing. Our luggage had to be outside in the hallway before midnight - ready for customs the following morning. I think we were all in bed and out-cold by 9 PM!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Aw, sorry the last day had to be like that!!! It would have been nice to have a beach day to end the trip.

me said...

It definitely was a bummer! Missing a port is always a possibility, though - you can't predict what Mother Nature is going to toss at you!