Back from the Islands

Okay, I didn't tell you all where I was going before I went or even that I was headed out of town--much less that I was headed out of the country. I'm back from the Bahamas--Grand Bahama Island to be exact. I promise pictures later but I'm too tired to download well over 300 pictures at the moment. I won't be posting 300 photos here, but I will post a few of them.

My parents had "won" one of those trips where you register at the grocery store and everyone wins them. They get you because you have to pay upgrades on everything so that it is a half-way decent trip for you. When you upgrade, you end up paying all but about $10 of the room charge for the hotel to which you upgrade. Still you aren't in a really good one, but you are in a comfortable and clean one. You also have a lot of hidden and somewhat undisclosed costs associated with the trip that they conveniently don't tell you about upfront. By the time you get through, you wish you'd booked with your travel agent at AAA.

We sailed on the Discovery Sun to and from the island and stayed in a hotel on the island. Anything you've heard about great food on the cruise doesn't apply to this ship. It was "nothing to write home about." (I know that I ended the sentence with a preposition, but that's the idiomatic phrase, and I'm sticking to it.)

Anyway, my niece and I went in place of my parents. We weren't given an upgrade choice of one of the hotels in Port Lucaya. If I ever go back to Grand Bahama and actually stay on the island, I'll stay at one of the all-inclusive resorts in Port Lucaya like the Westin. While our hotel was nice, it was near the International Bazaar which is becoming like a ghost town. There were probably more hotel employees than guests the first day or two we were there. However, we saw a couple we'd met on the cruise ship while in Port Lucaya one day and discovered that we were glad we had upgraded. They had all sorts of problems with their "free" accommodations such as wires hanging out of the wall. In fact, they asked to be moved to another room which was apparently slightly better but still had problems. The people at our hotel were very nice and the rooms were clean. (I actually have more complaints about the hotel rooms in Fort Lauderdale the night before and after the trip.)

It was nice to get away for a few days. I decided that I needed a computer break too so I left the computer at home. I really didn't miss it.

Did I get a sunburn? Only a partial one. I just forgot to reapply sunscreen often enough. I was wearing 85 SPF from Neutrogena. My feet and neckline are the worst. I have two other tiny places on one leg, but those are mostly beginning to change to a tan and don't hurt at all.

I took 3 books with me and had finished all of them about 4 hours before we returned to Port Everglades (about 5 hours before we disembarked). I purchased another book in the airport at Fort Lauderdale to read in flight. I finished it at my niece's house last night before coming home.