Monday, October 13, 2025
Columbus Day
Nassau. Bahamas
Having gone to sleep early (like maybe around 9 or 10 the latest) and slept 'till 8, I felt entirely rejuvenated. Well, as much as I feel rejuvenated nowadays. I love these cruise ship beds and sleeping on the sea.
Enjoyed a tasty breakfast of some baked cheesy tots and sweet jalapeno sausages or something as well as a bacon and lettuce boiled egg popper (it was good), and some hash browns and corned beef hash. The cheddar biscuit brick and fried egg and ham thing were disgusting and out of the whole cruise, they were the only things I didn't really like. Of course the absolutely awesome chocolate croissant and to-die-for guava pastry made up for it entirely.
Oh look, I looked down from my perch above and saw this little tug and all I could think is "Me Ship, The Olive" somehow sailed away from her berth at IOA and made it down here. Popeye's gonna be pissed.
And speaking of Bilge Barges -- check out this ancient passenger ship. Our captain stated that we were the only cruise ship in port today, but surely this thing was a "cruise" ship at one time, maybe long, LONG ago?
Let me check...here's what Wikipedia says:
In 1973 the ship was commissioned as the car ferry Gustav Vasa running between Malmö (Sweden) and Travemünde (Germany), a route she ran for 10 years. In April 1983 she was sold to the Faroese ferry company Smyril Line and renamed Norröna. Sailing from Tórshavn, the Faroese capital, to Lerwick (Shetland Islands), Bergen (Norway), Hanstholm (Denmark) and Seyðisfjörður (Iceland) each summer, she was often chartered in the winter to cover other operators’ overhaul schedules.
On 8 April 1990 the vessel suffered a small deliberate fire in the passenger accommodation resulting in several casualties. The ferry was on charter to B&I Ferries (now Irish Ferries) running between Pembroke Dock & Rosslare. Casualties were evacuated by RAF Rescue Helicopters to Withybush General Hospital in Haverfordwest.
When Smyril Line delivered a new Norröna in 2003, the old vessel became Norröna I and was put up for sale. Gute Bücher für Alle purchased the vessel in March 2004.
Oooh, "several casualties" from a "deliberate fire." It must be a ghost ship! I say Haunted Halloween Cruise!
With that in mind though, here was my outfit for part of the day (I changed twice on this day):
No, yet again, I did not go ashore at Nassau. I'm not a booze hound anymore and I see no other reason for visiting...sorry.
Here's us coming into port and a glimpse of whatever they're building over near Atlantis. I think I read it'll be a Royal Caribbean resort or something.
I played a little trivia and met some fellow passengers. One group of three in the morning sesh were retired-age like me and kinda on the kooky side, we teamed up and were pretty evenly matched. Chit chat stayed jovial but not very in-depth. Later during the 3pm trivia, I sat near a transwoman, Michelle, and we really hit it off what with LGBTQ folk still being a rare find on regular cruise ships in my experience. We teamed up as well and did pretty decently but often got distracted with the games what with our banter. She's a mid 30's-ish Aussie travelling with her American truckdriver hubby Ryan who was busy watching hockey in the sports bar on the deck above us. We played through general knowledge trivia which had an energetic crowd which morphed into a dance-off and even a karaoke at one point -- and then the music trivia started! We sat and enjoyed a good two, two and a half hours together but when Ryan came down after his game he was less chatty and I got the vibe that he wanted me to evaporate and frankly, you know me, I don't like to actually get too buddy-buddy with anyone on these things anyway so I bid them farewell, saying that'd we'd bump into one another again during the cruise, but, of course, we never did.
Had my second alcoholic drink of the cruise after dinner, a single bottle of Heineken. Then, on deck enjoying the sunset later, switched it up to Diet Coke.
Theater show was a stand-up comedian and I just don't have high expectations for stand-up comedy on cruise ships -- I've tried in the past and only been disappointed -- so of course I skipped it. Went to Le Cabaret Rouge and watched the very 1970s-esque variety show featuring singers, a violinist, acrobats, and pantomime comic routines -- very MSC! But like the show in the theater the night before, not bad at all!
