Our first port of our first cruise back in 2021 was Nassau. We chose not to get off the ship. We have done some fun things in Nassau, but it was July and apparently we only get off in Nassau in the winter these days.
So we basically started this cruise with two Sea Days.
Missed our post about Embarkation and Day 1 of our first cruise back? Check it out here: Embarkation Day on Celebrity Edge in 2021
I watched people going ashore for a little while from the balcony, but it mostly looked like people who were just going to stretch their legs and get a little walk in and come right back. The straw market was closed. Senor frogs was closed. All the other overpriced bars were closed and I think most of the stores were as well. Unless you had booked an excursion, I don’t really know why you would have gone to shore. Apparently the workers in Nassau agreed with us because they didn’t even open the shops.
Instead of heading to shore, we headed up to the buffet for our normal cruise buffet breakfast: made-to-order omelets, bacon, hash brown patties, fruit, a pastry and coffee.
It was good and familiar. It’s funny how all cruise ships seem to manage to have the same breakfast (though I did miss Carnival’s breakfast burritos).
After breakfast we made a bee-line for the pool and pretty much stayed there all day, leaving only for buffet lunch.
After lunch we switched pools and went to the solarium, which we honestly didn’t really like on this cruise.
I know this is a weird statement, but it was too relaxing and too peaceful and not sunny enough. It had opaque glass on the ceiling instead of clear glass and so you really didn’t need sunglasses in there. They were playing like calming relaxing spa music and it was just too sleepy between the music and the lack of light.
When we got back to our room we discovered our 4th of July treat on the desk (not that we got to eat it – it disappeared while we were at dinner).
Dinner was at Cyprus, the Greek restaurant.
We both got fried cheese for our appetizer and split an escargot. The cheese was really good, but also really huge. The wait staff was also slow getting started so we had eaten way too much bread by the time we got any food. For dinner, Emily had ravioli and I had fish and then I had a really weird desert called Panna Cotta Alla Romana that was described as baked cream topped with fruit. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but it was really good! Honestly, I was so full that I didn’t really want dessert but it was so good and light that I ate the whole thing!
After dinner we again roamed around the ship for a little while trying to walk off a little of the over-fullness, but after a full day in the sun and a giant 8:00 dinner it was pretty quickly time for bed!
Day 3: Day At Sea
We had a standard and tasty breakfast in the Oceanview Café and then it was off to the pool.
We stayed at the pool until we realized that if we didn’t go to lunch soon it was going to close before we made it there, so we hustled ourselves over for some lunch in the soon to be closing and very quiet buffet.
After that we went back to the pool for a while until we followed our normal ritual – Emily got ready and headed to the casino and I read on the balcony for a while. I was a few minutes short of my exercise goal for the day so I decided to head up top to the unusually long and interesting jogging track and do a few laps. I walked until I hit the exercise goal then I headed back for a shower and to get ready for dinner. The jogging track is nice though. It goes up a ramp so you feel like you get some resistance and it feels longer than the track on other ships.
Tonight was “Cruise Elegant” night onboard and so we dutifully put on slightly nicer than normal attire and headed to dinner. We went to the Tuscan main dining room and other than our appetizers, we both ordered the exact same thing: carbonara and tiramisu.
The carbonara was authentic and very al-dente, but it was all right. (We later talked to others who did not like it, but to me it was just very authentic Italian rather than the American version.) The tiramisu had way too much alcohol in it and just tasted very alcoholic.
After dinner we walked around killing time for a few minutes until it was time to go to the Silent Disco.
The way the Silent Disco works is that they give you a pair of headphones and you can change between three different stations. One of the stations had a live DJ in the room, one was oldies and one was Latin. You could see the station other people were listening to based on the color their headphones were lit up to.
It was a super cool experience because it was not silent. People were singing, people were dancing and it looked pretty cool to see everything all lit up. We stood in the balcony most of the time and sort of danced, sang and watched from up there. We stayed for probably about an hour and it was a whole lot of fun. If you didn’t like or got tired of the song on the station you were listening to you could just change your station and listen to something else. If you didn’t like any of the three sons playing at the moment, you could just take the headphones off and listen to the crowd, which was always good for some laughs.
After we got tired of standing and dancing, we went back to the room and I settled in to watch the Behind the Podium lecture on pirates and Emily headed to the casino. (The lecture was on the TV – so yes they did get the TV working though apparently it involved calling an electrician, not just the regular TV repair people. Not that we did any of that. Maria, our cabin steward, took care of that for us.)
The first day when I saw the Behind the Podium lecture on pirates on the schedule for the day, I really meant to attend. After I realized they were on repeat on the tv, I never felt like I had to cut into my pool time to attend them. I could just watch them in the evenings or whenever I had a few minutes and it was much better to watch them on my own time!
Tune in next for our first actual port of call on this cruise: St. Thomas!
What to read next:
Embarkation Day on Celebrity Edge in 2021
Cruising After COVID: What It’s Like to Cruise Celebrity in 2021
