Saturday Oct 8
We both started out very zonked due to not sleeping at all well. We had some fruit and yoghurt in our room for breakfast then an early lunch before heading to YYZ for our flight to Nassau. It was uneventful except the flight left an hour late, so we only arrived at the Hilton in Nassau after 9pm. We were tired and hungry as no food (BOB only but turbulence meant that all service was suspended). Clearing the Bahamas had been hit hard by the hurricane - trees down everywhere.
Even though it was 9pm our room was not ready (due to the hurricane) so they comped up dinner in the main restaurant - buffet only served on plastic plates with plastic cutlery - not sure if this is normal or due to the hurricane. We finished off with a couple of Mai Tai’s in the bar then got our room and crashed out.
Sunday Oct 9
We got up around 7am for an in-room coffee to wake up then had a continental breakfast (complimentary as the Club Lounge was closed “ ue to the hurricane). We checked on various activities with the concierge but again due to the hurricane phone lines were down and various tours were not operating. Also many restaurants were closed. We walked around town - there were 3 mega cruise ship docked - and I thought it wasn’t the cruising season.
We took a taxi to a famous restaurant / bar on the water front called The Poop Deck for lunch - service was mediocre but the fish sambo we shared was pretty good.
Dinner was a minor disaster - we could not find an open restaurant (due to the hurricane clean up) - but desperate times call for desperate measures so we had a burger and sandwich at The Hard Rock Cafe !!!
When we returned to our room there was another “disaster” - an e-mail from our travel agent advising that our cruise departure would be delayed 2 days (from Oct 12 to 14) with no compensation what so ever !!! The itinerary was shortened and diluted considerably.
Monday Oct 10
Oh dear - neither of us could seem to get into a normal sleeping pattern - after another restless night we took it easy today - given the ongoing hurricane clean up and a public holiday there were still many businesses closed …. a real rest day.
After checking out a few more restaurants by doing walk bys to see if they were ready to re-open (land lines were still down) we had a very mediocre lunch at the pool bar.
Still very whacked we had an afternoon snooze - finally felt a bit refreshed. We had five’es at the club Lounge (now fully re-opened) - then we tried to have dinner at Senior Frogs but in spite of first hand advice to the contrary it was closed. In yet another act of desperation we had dinner at Shark-eez - the name says it all (think bikie bar) - we shared a hamburger, a beer and a glass of questionable chardonnay, all for $33.
Tuesday Oct 11
At last thanks to a sleeping pill I had a great sleep - Dieter was even up before me. After breakfast we hired a car and drove around the island. Our plan was to stop at a couple of national parks but these were closed due to hurricane damage. We then tried to have lunch at the Poop Deck’s Cable Beach location but in spite of their =web site claiming they were open, they were not. So we headed in the opposite direction to the Green Parrot, a local waterfront hangout near the bridge to Paradise Island. Well it was a real hangout - I think we’re just past these sort of places - it was waterfront with great views but the atmosphere was pretty much “bikie haven”. We did a bit more driving around (Paradise Island - nothing to see) then headed back to the hotel. The wierd thing about our hire car is that even though they dirve on the left in the Bahamas the steering was on the left instead of the right - observation showed that the steering is sort of 50/50 left hand/right hand.
After a rest and showers we hit the Hilton Club Lounge where we met a few Aussies who were also Curiseco’s customers for the Silver Explorer cruise. We had a mutual gripe session on Cruiseco’s poor customer servie - maybe we can form a class action group. We walked to Cafe Matisse for dinner and had a pretty good meal but certainly not Haut-Cuisine which is how it is billed.
Wednesday Oct 12
Well this should have been our cruise departure day but alas - we needed to hang out in Nassau for 2 more days. We did a bit of retail therapy in the morning followed by lunch at Senior Frog’s - a waterfront boatie hangout serving Mexican “cuisine” and humongous cocktails in tall plastic souvenir glasses (I had a bottle of water). We spent the afternoon at the pool relaxing followed by happy hour in the Club Lounge where we met a few more Silver Explorer guests cooling their heels ….. dinner should have been the pizzeria at Greycliff Hotel but in spite of being told at midday they would be open they were closed so it was back to the Hard Rock Cafe - I’ve had more burgers in the past few than in the past 5 years.
Thursday Oct 13
We got up very early as we had half-day snorkelling trip booked which departed at 8:15am - an e-mail had come in overnight advising that our ship would arrive in Nassau today and we could board from 18:45 with departure at midnight - well that was pretty good news.
The snorkelling trip was a “Fogg Dam” - to be avoided at all costs - our mini-bus driver on the return trip from the jetty was off-the-wall crazy !!!
We only returned to the hotel at 2:30pm so it was a bit of a rush to shower, wash out snorkelling gear and pack in time for happy hour at the Club Lounge. The lounge was full of other Silver Explorer (henceforth referred to as SE) guests. At the appointed time we all made a dash for the ship.