2.20.09, Nassau, Bahamas

Grand Buffet last night was busy and might have been more enjoyable if we weren’t already stuffed to the gills from six days of eating. We brought our plates back to our cabin and could not even finish them. We got up this morning and began the horrible task of packing after another fantastic breakfast with John and Julie from Williamsburg, and Lynn and Bob Mack from North Carolina. I don’t know how we accumulated so much in one week, other than inches around our waists, but we managed to stuff most of it back into the bags…including using the vacuum hose to suck the air out of our space saver bags. Grandpa has lost the most weight of all, but perhaps that is because he has decided to measure it in metric. After the great packing morning of ’09, as DJ put it, we were back off for more food. We finally arrived in Nassau and had to wait to disembark and were lucky we didn’t get trampled by the impatient crowd. The Nassau port is at security level one so we needed passports and picture I.D.’s. We kept Grandpa out of the sun and DJ, too. In fact, Grandpa bought a hat at the Straw Market. We missed our People to People guide but visited the Tourism Office. Then DJ, Brittany, and Peg went on a horse-drawn carriage tour of Nassau. The horse was named Bahama Mama and our driver was Freddy. He even took our picture at the end of our tour. We saw Key lime trees and avocado trees. Before we knew it, it was time to head back to the ship for dinner. Tonight’s attire was informal. We had a wonderful lamb dinner, and boy did Brittany clean her plate…and started on Grandma’s…but she did ask politely. It would have been a quiet meal, except for DJ’s screaming when he got a mouthful of what he thought was innocent enough, but turned out to be a pile of wasabi for his sushi California roll. (He thought the roll was nasty, too.) You should have see his face and eyes when the wasabi hit. He made the mistake of drinking water, rather than milk. He learned something new about quenching fire in his mouth. Milk works better than water! The big surprise tonight was when the waiters sang Happy Birthday to DJ and brought out a fantastic Italian whipped cream cake to make his special day. It was a pleasant day. We followed up with the final packing and it was bags out by 930pm. We were even early! That’s all for tonight. We’ll write tomorrow from the airport and post pictures.