An Excursion through Carnival

The morning starts off hot. Not the intense searing heat that I normally associate with summer. The heat is different as is the humidity, but it is still hot. I had slathered Tim down in sunblock and he had purchased a hat. I was soaking in the sun. I don’t burn as easily as my pale, pale spouse.

The idea had been to pick an excursion that started at 1215. By the time we went to preregister for it before our trip, all the slots where filled. Instead, we wound up with a 0915 slot. We decided to go through Carnival for the simple fact that there is a wait guaranty when you go on an excursion with the ship. The ship was only in port for 10 hours. 10 hours is not a lot of time when you run into trouble. When you book your excursion with them they will wait or they will get you back to the ship at their expense. This type of thing matters to me. I would hate to ruin my vacation over 20-30 dollars on the price of my excursion. Call it, insurance.

How to get to the Excursions was simple. I think the ship should have handed out a page that explained how to get to the excursions and how they collect you. With the daily news letter (FunTimes) they also deliver a handful of junk mail. Its like going to my own mailbox but on my cruise ship. These pages are adverts for the spa, the art auction, gambling classes and on board sales. I think it would not be hard to explain how to get to the excursion.

In Freeport:

First, you get off the ship. This means going down to deck three and going to the pier. You then walk the length of the pier, go through a gate, and find yourself in a little shopping area with some pavilions and lots of busy ships.

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View from the ship of the pavilions.

The pavilion have signs on them for the various excursions from the ships. You mill around at these signs and wait for someone to arrive and call your excursions. This person then hands you a waiver that says they won’t blame you for breaking stuff and you won’t blame them for getting hurt or dying.

There are also taxis everywhere. This is for the more adventitious and those that have private excursions. There are also people picking up the private excursions. Its a well organized chaos but still chaos.

We waited by our sign. Our excursion was to leave at 0915. At 0900 a woman appeared and called for people for our excursion. She handed everyone a waver form to sign. This is the waver that stops them from suing you for breaking their stuff and you fro suing them for hurting you. It’s a pretty interesting form and it includes a waver for gross negligence.

Our bus then arrived. It was a charter buss and we loaded up. The buss was the Bahamas Taxi Union. The driver handed us little laminated cards. Some where laminated some were just taped over. These were our bus passes to get back onto the bus and back to the cruise ships. Otherwise we would need to get a taxi. The last taxi would leave at four pm and after that we where again on our own with needing to get a taxi.

Like England, Japan and Australia, the Bahamas’ are left hand drive. There is an eclectic mix of right hand and left hand drive cars on the road. Cars seem to own the road unless other cars are approaching. The middle of the road is a perfectly fine place to be, it seems. The shoulders are also well worn of grass becuase people have to use them like crazy. We sat at the front of the bus and the bus spent more time in the middle of the road then on either side of it.

We passed Burger King, McDonalds, and KFC. McDonalds was closed down. Burger King seemed to be the popular fast food place for the port according to the driver. “Have it your way,” he chuckled. We also came across a street light fallen in the center of a rotary. The solution was to direct traffic through a parking lot which had an entrance to the rotary past the fallen street light. The problem is that to get to the parking lot we had to drive across grass and over a curb.

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We the did this feat in a very large bus. The driver did not even blink as he headed off road. The road crew flagged us by. I guess they often direct buses to go off road. Why not? I’m closed minded I guess. I like my buses on the asphalt. Passenger eyes were wide and knuckles were going pale. We made it back to the road and continued on to the port.

We got dropped off at what I think is a taxi and bus stop/stand area. Our guide turned out to be a young man of about sixteen or so. He muttered ‘snorkeling that way’ and charged off. We followed. He walked very fast. We followed faster. He never looked behind him. I sighed.

The Port area was a mixture of a mall and a port. There where a lot of shops, some dance clubs, a lot of bars, and then the catamarans that went out to take people sparkling. Several hotels bracketed the harbor. It is a beautiful picture. I’ve seen similar images on television my entire life but living it was different.

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It was early but the shop keepers where all out. One lady’s shop was a little wagon full of hour glass shapes. These turned out to be hats. Strange, crazy looking hats shaped like hour glasses.

The shopkeepers immediately started to call out to us to visit their shops. We followed our guide like good ducklings. We rounded a corner and reached the boats. At that point we where told that our boat was broken. However, if we were willing to wait another forty minutes they would load us up on another boat and we could go snorkeling. Was that okay with everyone?

“Yes!” People stared at the woman like she had two heads. We had half an hour to look around the market place. I found a few items that I liked but I did not want to buy things and drag them onto the ship.

I am not used to dealing with shop keepers like this. They are calling to you to come into their store as you look from the edge. Some are polite and their voices a bit sensual as they try to lure you in. Some call you pretty girl or handsome man. Others say ‘I have to make a sale today’ and some even do the ‘I have children to fee’ spiel. They all have the same thing but some have a few different pieces. This means, if you are looking for that diamond in the rough you have to keep looking. They say things like, “We can make a deal”. I’m an American girl and I am used to going to the store, paying whats on the sticker, and leaving. This made up pricing and deal making is beyond me and makes me uncomfortable.

Also, the prices are not cheap. Tee shirts are cheaper on the ship sometimes. Most of the people on the ships are only going to go to a few local places that they are taken by the ships. The shopkeepers know this and their prices shoot up to match. There are no deals to be found, just decisions to be made if what you see is worth what they offer or what they might deal it down to.

I found a lovely wooden gecko that is a wall hanging. The same thing was in several shops. The one that I stopped at had a lady that was not as pushy as the others. I said that we would come back later after our trip.