7/21/06

By SKAOLboy

• February 11, 2007

My first cruise, and i was awe struck. The embarkation process went pretty quick and i was nowhere near the front of the line. Once on the ship, we went directly to our stateroom to dump off our baggage. When we noticed the door did no open, we went down stairs and got our cards re-scanned, tried the door again, nothing. Now the guest relations desk it only 4 floors down (which isn't far) i told the manager what was going on, and he said he would send someone up right away. Now by the time i walked up the stairs to the room, there were already 2 maintenance personnel working on the door.....now that's service.

After our door was open we walked around the boat to find points of interest, Bolero's was by far the hotspot the entire cruise.Then we made our way up to the viking lounge to grab some food around 3pm and had a delicious lunch, which was excellent. We had a few drinks on the sun deck as the ship left port. After that we went to eat dinning in the illusions on deck three, late seating. Two of our table mates never showed up the entire cruise, so it was just me and my girlfriend and Ron and Cathy. Our Ron was a former NYC cop, who moved to Florida to find a less dangerous form of work and Cathy was a local ER Nurse. The lamb shank was great and the key-lime pie you swore your grand mother made it. After dinner, we hit up Bolero's to watch some karaoke and tried to learn some salsa dancing.

On the second day we woke up early to grab some breakfast in the viking lounge, the made to order omelets were very good. We got into the port of Nassau around 11pm it took around 40 mins to clear the ship thru customs. We got off the ship and met up with our shore excursion, Sub-Bahama Adventure. The excursion took the entire day, and it's true that island drivers are a little crazy. After we arrived, we were surprised to learn since the tour company had alot of people for the excursion, we were offered free snorkeling, which was awesome. The tour company Stuart Cove does most of Hollywood's shark footage, films like bond, jaws, charlies angels and deep blue are just a few. The guides were knowledgeable and knew where everything is around the island.....from the best fishing, to the best place to find the best coral to where to find the biggest sharks. The personal subs were fun to drive around the coral formations surrounded by colorful fish, it's truly an experience that shouldn't be missed. After our tour concluded we went to dinner, and had New York Strip Steaks, and had to leave dinner early because my girlfriend had a migraine. So that night i checked out Bolero's and the dueling piano's which as the night progressed, got more hilarious. I would also not missing the dueling piano's.

On the third day we went to coco cay, And did some snorkeling... which was also pretty darn good, we saw all sorts of wildlife from sting rays to barracuda's. after a few hours of snorkeling we decided to check out the BBQ, which was pretty good, though the ribs were pretty tuff. We did some shopping in their straw market, which was pretty nice. and we decided to check out the islands nature trails, we were surprised by the amount of wild life we saw on the trail, from iguana's to tiny hermit crabs...if your in the adventurous mood you should check this trial that also leads to more secluded parts of the beach where very few people venture to. After we went back to the boat, we checked out a cake making contest, between the head chef of the boat and two contestants from the crowd, which was pretty funny. later we checked out Bolero's to watch some karaoke before dinner. We had the Mahi Mahi, which was excellent and for desert i Had lemon ma rang. my girlfriend wanted cheese cake, which she missed the night before, and our wait staff made the difference this night. Our waiter surprised her with a big piece of strawberry cheese cake and it really made her day. The rest of the night was spent shopping for last minute items and you guessed it, we ended up back in Bolero's for more dualing piano's.

Debarkation was a little slow, but it went smoothly and timely.