Ah the last full day of our Honeymoon. After today, we’ll wake up back at the port in Cape Canaveral and then it’s another day of driving and flying to get back home. It’s been a great honeymoon! Today we get to go out to the “private” Royal Caribbean island of Coco Cay. This is part of a trend of cruise lines buying up small islands so that they can control every aspect of the tourist experience (as well as all of the cash flow that results from it). This tiny little island in the Bahamas is set up for all sorts of fun beach and ocean experiences and we’ve signed up for a bunch of them. Today we’ll take a nature walk around the island, go kayaking out into the ocean, and finish up with a thrilling para-sailing experience out over the ocean.
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- The waters around Coco Cay are way too shallow for the cruise ship to enter and dock. In fact, this area was a popular “trap” area for pirates. They would chase merchant ships into the Cay until they ran aground in the shallow waters and then it was easy pickings from there. For us to get to Coco Cay, we boarded a shallow taxi boat for the quick 15 minute ride to the island.
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- The first order of business on the island was our nature walk. It was kind of a silly touristy thing, but we did learn some cool information about the various medicinal uses of plants commonly found in the Bahamas. This bridge was at the start of our walk and is referred to as the Iguana bridge, because you can see tons of iguanas in the nearby trees. I tried to take pictures of these iguanas, but they all came out blurry (darned Fuji point and shoot…).
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- After Kim’s encounter with Fire Ants in Costa Rica, she wasn’t thrilled to learn they are common here too. Our guide actually pointed out a giant ant mound where millions of them live. It is firmly wedged in between two tree trunks and has weathered multiple hurricanes on the island unscathed. Yay ants…
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- Our short nature walk ended on the beach around the side of the island. We thanked our guide and relaxed here until it was time for our kayak ride. We didn’t take the camera out on the boat, so there are no pictures of that unfortunately…
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- Here’s Kim hunting for shells in the shallow water. After our kayak adventure, our guide pointed out a shark swimming in the shallow waters. It was probably only a couple feet long which is why the life guards didn’t alert on it. When I informed a group of girls in the water that a shark was swimming towards them, their reaction was suitably humorous.
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- Yes, after a week in the tropics, we are both still shiny and white. No worries though. By the end of the day today, that problem would be painfully solved…
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- After our kayak adventure, we had a couple hours to kill before para-sailing. We spent that time eating lunch (which was great except for the watered-down mac & cheese) and laying about being generally lethargic. It was the latter activity that scored me the lovely beet-like complexion I’m sporting in this picture.
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- So we met with our para-sailing crew (a driver and a hitcher) and got into our boat with 5 other couples. One of the couples had a nice Canon Rebel T3i with a long lens just like the one I left back on the cruise ship (I’m not so comfortable with the idea of it being around water and unsecured). I offered to take their pictures while they were up in the air. In return, I gave them the memory card out of our point-and-shoot so they could take pictures of us with their quality camera. That’s how we got these cool pictures of us para-sailing way up in the sky.
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- You think this is cool… You should see the view from up here!
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- Kim’s never been para-sailing before. She had a blast.
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- After a couple of minutes of staring at the blue, blue ocean below we were reeled back in for a soft touchdown on the back of the boat. Easy as pie. Fun too!
After our day on Coco Cay we caught a ride back to the ship to unwind, realize we were both thoroughly sunburned, and get ready for dinner. Dinner included all of the customary cruise “goodbyes” as the staff thanked us for joining them. Overall I had a pretty good time, but we were both somewhat annoyed by how commercialized everything was. We couldn’t turn around without having some “great deal” for booze, jewelry, gambling, and vacation packages shoved in our face. It almost felt like we were on one of those “free vacation” condo sales pitches. A lot of the older guests seemed to love that stuff and parted from their money with reckless abandon. The younger college kids were far too drunk to notice or care. That kind of left us and a few other sensible couples wondering what the hell was wrong with everyone else. I guess in the end, we’re just not the commercial cruise types. I would go on a cruise again, but not with Royal Caribbean. Perhaps a higher end cruise line won’t be so desperate to claw their profit margins out of our pockets after luring us on board with cheap fares.
The next day, we got off the ship without too much hassle and made our way to the car rental place. The guy there gave me a hard sell on an upgrade. “We’ve got a great Mustang Convertible out there if you’re interested!” I said no thanks. Any car with four wheels that drives will do. He gave me the Mustang anyway. Apparently they needed it back in Orlando. It was nice, but it’s not like the straight shot down the highway back to Orlando provided many opportunities for a thrilling ride. I did peel out of every toll booth though…
All in all, it was a great honeymoon. My favorite part was the stay at Disney and the thrill rides at Hollywood Studios. Kim’s favorite part was the dolphin encounter at Atlantis. I really dug the water park there too. There were lots of great memories and this trip was a fine way to start off our marriage. Here’s to many years together and many more adventures abroad. Cheers!