Another night of calm seas resulted in another restful night of sleep. This was also the first night the kids were using the bunk beds. They were much less cranky with each other in the morning.
Today was the day we would be at Great Stirrup Cay, which is Norwegian’s private island in the Bahamas. Our plan for the day was to go to the island for a few hours and get some quality beach time. Since the ship could not dock on the island the shop provided tenders to get between the shop and the shore.
Tender Sign Up
The previous day the daily schedule flyer had mentioned we could sign up for one of the earlier tenders by reserving a spot. Otherwise we’d have to wait until around noon and board first come first serve.
The flyer had suggested we could sign up for a shuttle using our TV instead of having to wait in one of the lines in the customer service area. You can also sign up for shows and get other information about the ship from within the same interactive interface on the TV.
Ultimately, signing up for the tender via the TV didn’t work due to technical issues, though it suggested we try one of the touch screens located throughout the ship. I stepped out to find one of the touchscreens and that worked as expected. The screens were great and quite useful for things like making show reservations. Unfortunately it’s not obvious until you see someone else making reservations what you can actually do with those screens. This feature wasn’t communicated very well. Many people waiting in the many long lines could probably do what they needed to do with one of the screens if they knew.
We were scheduled to land in port at 10:00am and our shuttle was hopefully going to be called around 11:00 by my estimate. The crew wouldn’t offer any estimate other than to proceed when the shuttle number is called but some fine print said shuttles go every 30 minutes.
If you didn’t sign up for a tender number then you would have to wait in a first come/first serve line and the expectation was that you wouldn’t get on the island until after noon.
Beach Day
We let the kids go to Splash Academy for a few hours in the morning and planned to pull them out nearer to when we thought our number would be called. We got them around 10:30. In the room we got our sunscreen on and everything packed just as our tender number was called.
We proceeded towards the designated meeting place as it became clear people were all over the place cutting in lines, jumping ropes and all that goodness. We asked one of the crew at a point where some people were being let through and they told us we needed to go up a floor to enter. Another crew member standing next to them then proceeded to let us through. It was another appreciated random act of kindness.
We proceeded with the line to a lower part of the ship where our key cards were scanned to track that we got off the ship. There was a gangway to the tender which was a boat that could hold a hundred or so people on two levels. The seats were metal and not terribly comfortable, but it was only a 10 minute ride to shore. You could notice the waves quite a bit, unlike in the ship where you couldn’t feel any movement.
The tender dropped us off right next to the little shopping area which we skipped. We walked along the shore to find a less busy beach area. There are paths leading to several small sandy beach areas separated by rocky outcropping that were roped off for safety. There were plenty of complementary beach chairs.
The beach areas themselves were small and while mostly sandy, there were rocks mixed in that you had to be careful not to step on. There was an abundance of seaweed clumped near where the beach meets the sea. We found that the areas further away from the landing area were less crowded. Most of the amenities were located near the landing area including the bar and the buffet area which is probably why more people were there.
We headed to the the buffet to be there when it opened. We had seen on videos that it gets busy very quickly. The food was okay and the selection was a similar subset of what we would have found on the ship. It was mostly grilled food, fresh fruit and pizza. There was no fried food available. There were a few options that we had not seen on the ship such as the Caribbean chicken which was pretty good. Complementary drinks were limited to ice water and dessert items were pretty limited as well.
After lunch the boys tossed the Frisbee we brought with us and attracted a couple friends they had met from Splash Academy. They threw it back and forth for awhile having a good time. The beach itself wasn’t really all that interesting. If you’ve never been to a beach, you’d probably think this was a nice beach. If you’ve been to nice beaches, this one simply didn’t rate. The sand was rocky in places. There were huge clumps of seaweed everywhere. The water was a bit on the rough side so it wasn’t recommended for the kids to get too deep into the water, either.
At least the weather was finally warmer. It was in the mid 70’s and the warmest day so far. There are worse places to be on Christmas Eve that on a beach in the Caribbean!
Back to the Ship
By mid-afternoon we headed back to the landing area where there were shuttles leaving for the ship every few minutes. We boarded one and was on the ship about 15 minutes later. I headed back to the room, but the kids were off to the ship’s waterslides. With so many people on the island they had the slides nearly to themselves and wore themselves out for several hours.
By dinner time we had reservations at La Cucina which is the specialty Italian restaurant. We arrived when it opened and got seated right away. We confirmed the kids could order off the kids menu and could also share whatever we ordered. There was a LOT of food included with the dining plan. We could order something from all four sections of the menu, plus dessert. One of the courses was a 12 inch pizza which was a meal in itself! The foodie in Tomatico came out in full force. He ended up trying some of everything. Most of the food was above average and there was certainly a lot of it. The pizza did have too much cheese, though we barely had room to eat any of it between the four of us anyways.
After Midnight
We finished dinner just in time to line up for the show we had reserved when we first boarded the ship called After Midnight. It was a jazz show with a live band, singers and dancers, including several tap dancing numbers. We had seen a preview of it during the show the first night and were excited to see it.
We arrived 30 minutes before showtime when the doors opened and were one of the first ones in the theater and got center seats in the 4th row. We were perfectly situated to see all the action, and there was a LOT of action to see. The show was fantastic all around and much better than we had expected.
The kids loved it. The show ran for about 90 minutes and kept their attention the entire time. We would highly recommend seeing it.
After After Midnight
After the show Tomatico wanted to play basketball again so he went with my wife. Even though we ate a lot at dinner I wanted to check out the special Christmas Eve dinner being held in the buffet. I tried the carved turkey and ham. The turkey was especially good and not at all dry. We headed back down to the room to wind down and went to bed when Tomatico arrived.
Next day it was Christmas in Nassau and we were looking forward to a day in the water park!
Tomatico Travels 
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