The Norwegian Sky makes two trips a week from Miami to the Bahamas. Its definitely one of Norwegian's "Party" ships
Over dinner one evening while onboard the Norwegian Star
from Copenhagen to Miami I heard a man tell a tale about his around-the-world
cruise. He began the journey in Miami,
traversed the Panama Canal and then crossed the South Pacific to
Australia. From the land of dingoes and
koala bears he traveled north to Thailand, then further west to India, before
making landfall in Durban, South Africa.
Later they stopped in places like Ascension Island and Dakar, Senegal,
before crossing the Atlantic and returning to Miami. His world-circling cruise took up 180 days,
almost exactly one-half of a year, and he had enough stories to tell from the
journey to last him the rest of his days.
I was fascinated by his tales of the ports he visited,
the islands he explored, and the people he met.
However what intrigued me even more was his story about a fellow
traveler who sailed around the world with him. This man boarded the cruise ship
in Miami, sailed for 180 days and did not leave the ship until it returned to
Miami a half-a-year later. The fellow
traveler on the Star was as flummoxed by the port-avoiding traveler as I
was. When I asked him why the
port-avoider never left the ship he said, “He wanted to see if he could do it.”
Although we were scheduled to depart Miami in
mid-December on a five-day cruise to Jamaica and Grand Cayman, I was tempted by the extremely cheap fare Norwegian was offering the weekend before on their
three-night cruise to the Bahamas aboard the Sky. It was one of those fares that are simply too
cheap to pass up and despite my partner being unable to travel with me because
of other commitments, I booked the cruise and traveled without her. One cruise magazine had declared that this
3-night weekend cruise to the Bahamas was “the best weekend getaway cruise” and
another said the cruise was “the best party cruise sailing from Miami.” Our earlier experience on the Sky suggested
that both statements were correct.
Earlier that year we had taken this same cruise ship
on the same itinerary, to the same islands and to the same ports. Thus there was nothing new to see on this
journey but it was taking me back to the Bahamas. For more than 30 years I have felt that the
Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands are more my home than any place I have
lived since moving from Wisconsin long ago. A journey back there, if only for a
weekend, would be a sweet reunion with where I belong.
As the Sky sailed into Nassau harbour on Saturday morning
I was finishing breakfast in the Great Outdoor Café on Deck 11. All around me weekend cruisers were talking
about the shore excursions they had planned during our 10 hour stay on New
Providence Island. A couple from Tampa
and their two small children were going to take part in the Blue Lagoon Dolphin
Encounter where they could swim with bottle-nosed dolphins in a semi-enclosed
area not far from the cruise terminal. A
seriously red-necked couple from Jacksonville was drooling over their upcoming day
trip to the super gaudy Atlantis development that has destroyed much of the
beauty and character of Paradise Island.
Seated nearby was an octogenarian couple from New York that was planning
to take part in the Charm of Nassau bus tour. Having lived in Nassau earlier in
my life I never found anything that was particularly charming about the place
but remained silent and decided to let them discover that reality on their own.
The Hilton British Colonial Hotel on Junkanoo Beach in Nassau used to be painted pink when it was the Shreraton British Colonial Hotel. Luckily now someone at Hilton knows a little about what color to paint the outside of a hotel
Others around me were similarly excited about their
coming adventures and when the cruise director announced that the ship had been
cleared by local immigration authorities and people could leave the ship, the
bulk of the occupants on Deck 11 moved like a drove of lemmings toward the
stairs and elevators and they began their departure. I slowly finished my breakfast and watched
the occupancy level of the ship decline exponentially in a matter of
minutes. Looking around me I overheard
others conversing about their plans for the day. They had no interest in stepping off the ship
and were instead going to remain on board.
A man with a classic Eastern Shore of Maryland accent (You can tell
Eastern Shore people by how they pronounce the word “sure”. While others say “sure” if you are from the
Eastern Shore you pronounce it like “shore” and this man was “shore”) stated
emphatically that the cost of food and everything else in Nassau was
disproportionately excessive so he was going to stay onboard where he could eat
lunch for free.
His logic struck a chord with me and I remembered the
story of the round-the-world traveler who stayed onboard his ship for 180
days. My only interest in departing the
ship was to visit Bahamas Immigration to get a visa stamped in my nearly virgin
and newest passport. From there I wanted
to hike past the gaudy Hilton British Colonial Hotel to Junkanoo Beach to drink
a Kalik beer at the Tiki Bikini Bar on my favorite Bahamian beach. If I walked quickly and drank even more
quickly I could obtain the visa and have a beer and be back onboard by 10:00
a.m. That would give me a full 8 hours
to watch and listen to others to find out why some people travel hundreds of
miles by ship and never leave its confines.
The Tiki Bikini Bar was the only one on the beach that
was open at this early hour on Saturday morning. A sign posted prominently on the side of the
bar offered three beers and three shots for $10. When I was in college three beers and three
shots for $10 would have been an easy decision to make. Forty five years afterward I view things a
little differently.
The Tiki Bikini Bar on Junkanoo Beach was open for business early on Saturday. The Kalik was cold, the coconuts were abundant, and Jill from Wichita was stumbling away from the bar after four coconut milks and rum drinks that Byron made for her
Byron, an expert coconut slicer and bartender summed up
families nicely as he sliced open a coconut for a woman named Jill from
Wichita. Byron’s grandfather was
puttering around inside and out of the bar making himself look active and
trying to get in everyone’s way. “That’s
my drunken grandfather,” Byron said. “A
family isn’t a family unless it has a drunk or a drug addict or both in it.”
A mildly drunken Brit from Kent near London was sitting
at the end of a beach bar drinking a pina colada when he tried to shock me
saying "You know what the most common name is for a baby boy born in
England today?" I didn't.
He said "It’s Mohammed" He then added "It used to be Oliver but
now it’s fucking Mohammed!"
Snickering I said "Well if I had a choice between Mohammed and Oliver I'd
pick Mohammed any day."
Annoyed that I didn't take his lets-hate-all-Arabs bait he bellowed "Well
MY NAME is Oliver!"
I finished my beer and said "And that proves my point." Saying farewell to Byron and Jill the
soon-to-be coconut milk and rum addict, I returned to the ship. It was 10:00 a.m.
I met Mark, a pretentious New Yorker who sat at the other
end of the Outrigger Bar on Deck 11 forward where he nursed a bottle of Samuel
Adams as I ordered a 32 ounce oil can of Foster’s Lager, the supposedly
Australian beer made famous to Americans (and despised by Australians) in the
movie “Crocodile Dundee.”
“How did you know they have Fosters,” Mark demanded.
“I have sailed on Norwegian several times before and know
that they carry Foster’s. The oil cans
are the best bargain for beer on this ship.”
At $8.00 for a can of beer a Foster’s was the best value
by volume especially when a 12 ounce bottle of Sam Adams or Stella Artois was
$7.06 with the automatic gratuity added.
“Well I wouldn’t know about bargains,” Mark smirked, “I
bought the ‘Ultimate Beverage Package” and I drink as much beer as I want for
one price each and every day!”
Mark’s “bargain” cost $55.00 each day for each person in his
stateroom. Assuming his wife or
girlfriend was along he was shelling out $110 per day for the three day cruise,
or $330.00 to drink as much beer as he wanted.
At $7.00 a bottle for the Sam Adams he was drinking, Mark would have to
consume eight bottles of beer each day just to break even. There was no bargain involved until after he
had swallowed eight beers every day and by the time he reached that plateau of
beer volume he likely wouldn’t realize if he was enjoying a bargain or not.
Sheila who lacked the smugness and the New York accent
snapped at Mark and told him to not be so rude to me. To me Mark was
just a typical New Yorker whose middle name is “Rude.”
I asked Sheila about their cruise because she seemed more
approachable and less under the influence than Mark.
“We cruise all the time on Norwegian,” she began. “Usually we sail to Bermuda for seven days
but this time we decided to come to Miami and try a weekend in the Bahamas.”
Curious about her activities I asked Sheila what she and
Mark planned to do in the Bahamas all weekend long. Rather matter-of-factly she said, “We plan to
drink.”
“You’re not getting off the ship at all this weekend?”
“Not until we get back to Miami.”
Wanting to know more I pressed her further. “The Bahamas have a really cool history,” I
said. “Plus there are all these beaches
to explore.” As we talked we were
looking over Nassau harbour toward Junkanoo Beach from which I had just
returned. Turning our heads the other
way we could see Paradise Island and the monstrous Atlantis development that
has defiled so much of that once-beautiful island.
“If I wanted to be surrounded by niggers and spics we
would have just stayed in New York City this weekend,” Sheila barked. “We go on cruises to get drunk. We could give a fuck about history or
anything else.”
The ship was about one-half full at lunch time. Many people were plopped down by the various
pools and hot tubs with plates heaped full of food and several drinks ready for
quick consumption. The juxtaposition of
the sun-seekers on board the ship with the spectacularly scenic beaches was
difficult for me to comprehend. Not more
than a mile away people were luxuriating on crippling beautiful Junkanoo
Beach. However these people were beyond
content with staying put by the pool and ignoring the beauty all around
them.
Beautiful Junkanoo Beach was just a stone's throw from the cruise ship yet more people seemed content to look at it from the pool deck on the Norwegian Sky than to walk a few hundred meters to it and explore it on their own
Marsha, from the great cheesehead state of Wisconsin, slurred her
words as she tried to explain why she remained onboard.
“It’s so fucking cold where I live (Green Bay) that I don’t
need to walk and I don’t need a beach.
All I need is to get away from the fucking cold and that is what I’m
doing.”
In Paul Theroux’ excellent tome Happy Isles of Oceania
he describes an encounter with two American tourist couples somewhere in the
South Pacific. He listened to their
conversations and realized that these people had been in many places but they
did not have a clue about where they had been.
Theroux called them the “Been There’s and the Done That’s” because, in
his mind, that was all these couples were getting out of travel. He summarized this encounter by saying “A
tourist doesn’t know where he’s been. A
traveler doesn’t know where he’s going.”
I was a tourist when I first came to the Bahamas because
I took no time to get to know where I was.
I found more joy in sending postcards back to someone with a cute little
note about where I was, than I did in digging into where I was and learning
about why I should not leave. It did not
matter at first that the Bahamas had a robust history filled with tales of
pirates, and gun runners, and booze runners, and more recently, with cocaine
runners. To me, all the Bahamas were, was
a warm place away from an ex-wife that came complete with pretty beaches, and
pretty post cards and lots of drinks to keep me numbed from most of what was
around me.
Marsha was that same sort of a tourist. She could care less about what was nearby as
she soaked half-drunk in a hot tub. In
Marsha’s view it could just as well have been the hot tub at the Hilton Garden
Inn on Lombardi Avenue back home in Green Bay.
The beer tasted the same here and her buzz was the same as back home. To Marsha all that mattered was that it wasn’t
cold outside as she became drunker. I view travel, even a cruise, through the
eyes of a traveler and overlook the fact that most other people on a ship or in
a plane view things through their eyes.
Norwegian Cruise Line had an active afternoon planned for
its guests who chose to stay onboard. At
12:30 there was a shuffleboard tournament on the sports deck. At 1:15 there was a card making class in
Captain Cook’s lounge. Afternoon trivia
was available in the same lounge at 2:00 and at 3:00 there was a seminar on
relieving back pain in the aerobic studio.
At 3:30 that same studio had a class on bicycling and at 4:00 there was
a dance class for single women pool side.
And also at 4:00 there was a “win, lose, or draw” card contest at
Captain Cook’s.
These and other activities were available to keep people
active and engaged and I walked up and down the steps and traversed the length
of each deck for four hours to learn if anyone took part in what Norwegian
offered. Most of what was offered was
being offered to empty rooms although four people probably in their 80s sat in
Dazzles lounge watching the movie “Guardians of the Galaxy.” The movie had the best turn out of all that
was offered.
The rest of the people who stayed on board were in the
pools and soaking in the hot tubs beer and liquor drinks in hand and a plate
piled high with carbohydrates waiting for them in their beach chairs.
Taylor, Tracy, and their son Travis from Fort Lauderdale
were wallowing in one of the hot tubs on Deck 11 when I arrived. They had been on a morning tour of Nassau and
had apparently seen all they wanted to see.
Now Taylor and Tracy were going to get drunk and Travis was the
designated watcher.
I asked Tracy if they made it to the west end of the
island with its exclusive homes and thick growth of trees. They hadn’t.
I asked if they saw the fuel docks on the south shore of
the island or the Kalik brewery nearby.
They hadn’t.
Did they stop by to look at Lake Cunningham? “Where’s that,” Tracy asked.
Did their tour guide point out the U.S. Embassy as they
drove down Bay Street? He hadn’t.
What about Potter’s Cay that sits beneath the bridge to
Paradise Island? “Where’s that,” Taylor
asked.
The T family had taken part in the “Grand Tour of Nassau”
but it appeared the only thing grand was the price.
“We saw the hotels on Cable Beach,” Taylor proudly
added. We could see those same hotels
and the beach in front of them from where we sat in the Deck 11 hot tubs. There
was no need to pay a tour guide to take them there.
Tracy said “The best part of the tour was the Straw
Market.” She pointed at the three
identical t shirts they had draped over their pool chair they had purchased in
what is most likely Nassau’s largest and most famous tourist trap. Each was white with the words “I (image of a
heart) The Bahamas.” Apparently that was
all they learned about the Bahamas from their grand tour.
The T family didn’t have a clue.
