May 2008 Cruise -- Day 2, Carnival Glory

Sunday
Nassau, Bahamas

We arrived in Nassau around 7:30 a.m. Passengers could go ashore at 8:30 and we left shortly before the scheduled departure of 2:30 p.m. A short stay in port.

The room is small but comfortable. The arrangement of closets isn't quite as useful as on Princess ships but the bathroom arrangement is better. There is plenty of shelf and storage space throughout and there was room under the beds for all our luggage. We brought our coffee maker and a small Brita water filter so our morning New Orleans blend coffee tasted just right. As with Princess, Carnival Glory's tap water has some strange flavors and odors. The Brita took care of that.

The balcony is fine and the usual size -- and the way the door locks means you cannot lock yourself out on the balcony, unlike on Princess.

It was a pretty day and there were lovely sights to see from the ship. We didn't get off but enjoyed the views from our balcony. Also in port were Royal Caribbean's Majesty of the Seas, Imperial Majesty Cruise Line's Regal Empress and University of Virginia's MV Explorer, used for their Semester at Sea.

We had breakfast in the buffet. There is an omelette station but the lines were long and slow. So we used the buffet line and the food was fine. The breakfast pastries were freshly baked and particularly good. We had lunch in the buffet too and as this was formal night and we don't take dress up clothes on cruises, we had dinner in the buffet as well.

Leaving Nassau we saw Atlantis and Paradise Island in the distance.

After dinner we went to see the evening's stage show, "Livin' in America," in the Amber Palace. Great costumes and sets. Excellent dancers, wonderful band, but singers so over-amplified that the distortion was hard to take and you could barely hear the band. It is strange that management would spend so much on technical equipment, rehearsals and salaries and not demand a professional sound system staffed by professionals. And I thought the sound design was bad on Princess!

A health note, there's been no mention of norovirus and its prevention on this Carnival ship. On Princess there was a notice in the welcome information package and there were bottles of hand sanitizers at the entrance to every dining room. Before you could board the ship you had to fill out a health form from the Centers for Disease Control. We brought the usual Purell, Handiwipes, and antibacterial soap. And used them all, often.

Apparently years ago all cabin stewards made towel animals when they did the evening turndown service. A few years ago Princess stopped doing this. There were lots of complaints about it in the passenger reviews on Cruise Critic. Carnival still provides towel animals several nights on each cruise. Some nights were better than others. This pig was among the best.

The cruise so far:
Port Canaveral to Nassau
279 Nautical miles, 321 land miles, 516 kilometers

Note: 1 nautical mile = 1.15 land miles = 1.85 kilometers