Our rad-tastic trip

The Bahamas are spiffy. The tour guide at Fort Fincastle is rad. I've given some of you my impression of him. Want proof I wasn't exaggerating? Click HERE.

Pics are on my Facebook. They tell the story pretty well.

What's that? I'm supposed to tell you about it? Oh, ok.

We took off from Salt Lake at 7:00 Sunday morning. That flight was fine - nothing out of the ordinary. Then we caught a flight in Atlanta...after a three-hour wait. Fun. That flight was delayed a little bit. Because there was a rubber seal missing from a wheel-well. Yup. We couldn't fly because of lack of a bit of rubber. All was well though.

We landed in Miami and called for a shuttle to the hotel. Then proceeded to board the wrong one. We tried to check in at the WRONG Hilton and had to get a shuttle to the right one. We finally got checked in about 9:30. We got overpriced room service and went to sleep.

We caught a shuttle the next day at noon to the seaport. Check-in and boarding were actually quite a bit easier than I first expected. Cool beans! We were on the boat by 12:45. Our rooms wouldn't be ready until 2, so we walked around and familiarized ourselves with the ship. Correction: I familiarized myself with the ship. By the end of the week, Catherine still had trouble remembering which end was the front unless we were on the top. :) LOVE YA HONEY!!!

That night we didn't do much. We went to a "Welcome Aboard" show and learned a little more about what the cruise entailed. Then we went hot-tubbing for a little while.

On Tuesday we docked at Freeport. Catherine and I had wanted to go to the national park. Unfortunately, it was raining and we decided it wouldn't be much fun that way. So we shopped around the straw market and got some souvenirs. We still had fun. Catherine loved that the lady selling pearl necklaces called her 'beautiful'. And she sure is! We came back to the boat and had a little nap. We went to dinner and when we got back to our room there was a towel bunny with mint eyes waiting for us on our bed! We named him Harvey. We also saw a show where some ninny-folk danced around and sang broadway songs. Catherine loved it. My reaction was more of the "Uhh..." variety. On our way back to the room we decided to race. Catherine took the stairs and I took the elevator. I had to stop on an extra floor so she won by a lot. I was still hungry, so we got room service and fell asleep.

Wednesday was really cool. We docked in Nassau and walked around the shopping district for a bit. We got some tasty rum cakes from the Tortuga Rum shop. And some nail polish for my sister at Del Sol. Everything in that store changes color in the sun. and I'm mot talking red to pink. I mean drastic, vibrant change. her nail polish goes from a minty green to a deep burgundy. Neat-o. Later we took a tour of the city (where the above-linked tour guide came into play) and went to the Ardastra Zoo. they had free-range flamingos just walking around. They later performed a show displaying their marching skills. That was WAY cool. And funny. We went to dinner that night at a nice Italian place onboard and dressed up really nice. Then we went to a comedy/magic show and watched the Newlywed/Not so Newlywed show. We tried to get picked for that one, but didn't win the raffle. :( It was still lots of fun though. We got room service again.

Thursday was kinda sad. Because of thunderstorms, we couldn't land at Great Stirrup Cay, the cruise line's private island. I had been looking forward to this most of all because I really wanted to go snorkeling and play hide and seek with the fishes... Catherine also got a horrible kink in her neck, so she decided to get a massage. Well, I couldn't feel left out, so I got one too. It was amazazing. Deep-tissue style. Ohh..... We bought a few more souvenirs and gifts at the shop on board and went to dinner. There, I tried escargot for the first time. It was fantastic. After dinner I was still peckish, so I went to the buffet and got four desserts. Mmm. Also, over the course of the cruise, I started getting little welt-like sores down my side. By Thursday, they were all over. And big. And painful. I decided I have Swine-Pox.

Friday we came home. That was an adventure... We had the choice to fly through Atlanta again or through Chicago which would get us home two hours earlier. We opted for Chicago. Ugh. Our flight from Miami was delayed to the point where we would have missed our flight in Chicago. So we caught a last minute flight through Dallas. First, that flight was delayed twenty minutes. Then, once we had boarded, we were informed that someone had forgotten to refuel the plane... Then there were two flights on the runway in front of us. We ended up taking off just over an hour after we were supposed to. Oh well. We had a long wait in Dallas for our next flight, anyway.

On the flight from Dallas to Salt Lake, Catherine and I were seated in the emergency exit row. Ok, cool. We got extra foot room. Oh, wait...the old lady in front of us decided that having a heart attack or stroke or something mid-flight would be a good idea. (note: I harbor NO ill will toward her for what happened and sincerely hope she is ok, despite what subsequently happened and how I describe it. thank you.) Luckily, there were 2 doctors and a nurse on the flight. They had her lie down in our lovely footspace and the flight attendants had us move to the back, BACK of the plane and we sat on the fold out jump seats. Rattley. Noisy. Dim. Fun! They had to have us move back to actual seats for the landing. The only seats we could use were the ones the old lady and her son were in. So we had to gingerly step over her...while in our final descent...amid sweet turbulence...avoiding kicing her head...or multiple IV tubes. YAY! once we landed we had to wait until the paramedics came on to take her off before we could leave.

Now, to add stress to the whole flight scenario, In Miamiwe had already checked our luggage to go through Chicago. So we were expecting to have to go to the baggage office in Salt Lake and file a claim to get it. But all was well! When we went to do that, THERE WAS OUR BAG! Alone in the office. So we showed our claim check and practically skipped out of there. Hey my rum cakes were in there. I didn't want to lose those!

Now we're home. It's lovely. The vacation was lovely. Would I do it again? YES. Will I soon? Nope. Too poor. But we have fond memories and love telling the stories. I made sure to leave some stuff out so I CAN tell stories without boring you with what you've already read here! :)

That is all.