June 27-28, 2024
Nassau is located on Providence Island, the Bahamas, an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean. Most folks think about the Bahamas with a wistful sigh, because it is a place of legends. Providence Island has quite the history with famous pirates and the governors who tried to repel and even extinguish them. There are roughly 700 islands stretching across 500 miles of ocean.
During our first cruise in 2019 on the Norwegian Bliss, we were enthralled with the beauty of the water in Nassau, but did not enjoy walking through the town. Not only were signs posted protesting cruise ship tourism, but some of the locals were not so friendly at the time, it seemed to us. We felt uncomfortable because of the aggressive shop employees, hawking their goods and insisting we visit their shops, even following behind families, taunting them for not going inside. When we entered the straw market, it was so crowded, the stall were so tightly grouped, and the owners so aggressive, we got out of there as fast as we could, and headed back to the ship.
A $300 million upgraded port shopping and dining area completed in 2013 greets you before you walk into the town of Nassau.
We decided that we needed to give Nassau another try, taking an excursion this time. Everyone talks about how Covid 19 changed everything. Nassau is no exception. We felt an entirely different attitude — one that was welcoming and grateful to have tourists. There seemed to be a realization that as pesky as cruise ships may be, their livelihood is dependent on tourism. Experiencing a year without any visitors must have taken a big toll.
We took a 2.5 hour excursion, which was a great bargain at $51 each — Discover Nassau. After walking through a new area of shops and restaurants around the port, we boarded a short bus, to reach the highest point of the island.
If you are imagining a mountain, or even a big hill, you would be disappointed. The Island of Providence is very flat, so visiting the highest point, Historical Bennet’s Hill (112 feet) is even lower as visiting the highest point in Florida 345 feet). Regardless, Bennet’s Hill has panoramic views overlooking cruise ships in the harbor. Our bus stopped at a fort, with small market stalls on one side, and gave us 10 minutes. Cliff and I remained on the bus.
Then the driver stopped at the Queen Victoria Staircase, built as a quick evacuation for when the island was attacked. He gave us 10 minutes to go down the staircase and drove to the bottom to meet the passengers. Cliff and I stayed on the bus. I should have prefaced this by saying that it was quite hot, of course.
We saved our energy for the next stop, where we had about 30 minutes. We drove across Sidney Poitier bridge through heavy traffic to Paradise Island, and stopped at the Atlantis Resort Casino. The resort looks fantastic. We wouldn’t mind seeing more of it some day. However, just seeing the casino was extraordinary. It was graced with Chihuly glass chandeliers and sculptures, the only things were were allowed to photograph in the casino.
In the entrance to the casino is the Crystal Gate sculpture, which was the most challenging of the Atlantis glass sculptures for Chihuly to make. He had to redo it five times. It is 18 feet high, and made out of 3,100 hand-blown crystals.
The Temple of the Sun has more than 2,300 yellow, orange and red radiating beams forming a fiery globe on top of a Mayan Temple.
One chandelier that we missed, because it is in the High Rollers section, was Seaform, made up of over 900 saline forms of jellyfish, anemones, squid, and seaweed in silver and gold. It took Chihuly only three weeks to create it.
Each of the Chihuly sculptures in the casino is valued at over one million dollars.
John Watling's Distillery
Our final part of the tour was a drive past the Government House and Parliament Building, stopping at John Watling’s Distillery, where folks could enjoy a sampling a Pina Colada around a patio area. (I don’t like Pina Coladas, so I just walked around the garden.) It was a lovely old hotel on pristine grounds, overlooking the harbor.
Finally, we boarded the bus and passed by the Fish Fry area and stopped at Junkanoo Beach for a photo op. It was a very narrow beach. The driver gave us only 5 minutes, so we again stayed on the bus and admired the lighthouse in the distance. Then we headed back to port.
We loved this excursion, because we learned so much about the history of the island from our guide. The most beautiful part about driving around the island was the blooming Royal Poinciana trees everywhere. Our guide had a small disagreement with us about whether they were red or orange blossoms. It actually varied among the trees, but most were red. He said that the color orange predicted a bad hurricane season, so he really wanted us to say that the trees were red. How ironic that Hurricane Beryl barreled through the Caribbean close behind us, seemingly chasing us back to Miami.
However, we had one more stop to make, MSC’s Ocean Cay Marine Reserve in the Bahamas.
Ocean Cay Marine Reserve
Cliff and I did not get off at Ocean Cay, but admired it from the ship, and then enjoyed the casino. It looked quite lovely, but most of the ship’s passengers disembarked there, where there are gorgeous beaches, free buffets, and bars. It was quite crowded and EXTREMELY, dastardly hot, with no shade.
We enjoyed the rest of the trip back to Miami, grateful that we were able to escape any effects of Hurricane Beryl as it built to a Category 5.
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