Atlantic Adventurer Cruise: Day 48, Half Moon Cay, Bahamas

Thursday, December 7, 2017

Day 48, Half Moon Cay, Bahamas

Today we are at Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas, our last port before returning to Fort Lauderdale tomorrow.  Half Moon Cay is an island owned by Holland America and is for their exclusive use.  There are beach activities and you can rent cabanas or even villas for the day as well as several food options.  If this were at the beginning of the cruise I might have enjoyed seeing the island, but after 48 days, I didn't even want to go ashore.

We got up this morning and when we looked out the window it looked pretty inviting, a tropical island with nice beaches and sunny skies.  The sunny skies didn’t last though as clouds kept blowing through, sometimes bringing rain showers.  We had breakfast and waited there while our room was cleaned.

My cold seems to have plateaued as I am not really feeling any better today so I decided that I didn’t want to expend any energy going ashore so we are not visiting Half Moon Cay today.  It is a tender port (the only one of the cruise) and that’s always a hassle, so Val agreed that we would stay on the ship today.

The Zuiderdam, another Holland America ship, was also in Half Moon Cay today.

Half Moon Cay is a tender port, so a combination of ship's tenders (foreground) and tenders that stay on the island (background) are used.

The beach did look inviting, but on day 48 of the cruise, I had run out of energy.

This is where the main facilities are and you the tender docks.  You can see a tender docked right in the center of the picture.

After deciding we were not going ashore, there was nothing to do, but start the packing process.  The worst part of packing is integrating all of the things you have purchased on the trip and find room for it.  Luckily, we had planned in advance so there was extra space and by lunchtime we had done most of the packing.  We still have some last-minute things to pack this evening, but we’re pretty much done.

Packing does take some planning though as you have to put your bags you don’t want to carry off the ship yourself outside by 1:00 AM.  They will be in the terminal when we get off the ship and we still have to take them through customs, but we have too much to carry off ourselves.  That means anything we will need in the morning has to go in a bag that we carry off ourselves.

We had our last lunch in the Lido and then a walk around the ship where everything is very quiet.  We returned to the room until it was time for Val to go to trivia which was at 3:00 today.  After Val left, I updated the blog and checked my e-mail.

When Val returned from trivia we really didn’t have much of anything to do so we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and reading.  We did have another medical evacuation this afternoon, though.  We were scheduled to leave Half Moon Cay at 4:00 and just as we were getting underway the captain announced we would be diverting to another island in the Bahamas that had an airport where they could evacuate an ill patient so they could be medivaced to a hospital in Florida; not a good way to end the cruise.

After the unscheduled stop, it was time to get ready for dinner and our last night of trivia and the casino.  As I have said before, I’m not a big fan of trivia, but I have enjoyed meeting and getting to know Roy and Gabriella, and Charles and Judy; it was sad to have to say goodbye to them tonight.  Next it was our last dinner of the cruise and we said our goodbyes to our dinning stewards, Aries and Rico.  Rico is actually getting off the ship with us and flying home to Bali in Indonesia from Fort Lauderdale.  He has been on the ship for seven months working every day with no days off, I don’t know how they do it.  He already has his next contract so after three months off, he will be back on board another ship for another seven months at sea.  It’s a very tough job, but they always have a smile and are always very helpful, we really liked Rico and Aires and also Toto, our steward for the first half of the cruise before he left to go home.

Aries and Rico behind Val and I.

We spent our last night in the casino as we spent our first night, unsuccessfully and quickly.  We returned to our room and did our last-minute packing and then I moved all of the bags we wouldn’t carry off the ships ourselves out in the hallway for later pickup.  We then went straight to bed as we have to be up early tomorrow morning when we arrive in Fort Lauderdale at 7:00.