Carnival Cruise 2010 Day 6

Day 6 – Today we were in Freeport, Bahamas. We docked at 7 a.m. We were literally in a shipping port. It wasn’t the most attractive port by far. We could see all the crates being lifted onto a barge right outside our window. Because we were in this industrial port, we had to take a taxi to wherever we wanted to go. It was about a 20 minute drive into Port Lucaya. The taxi driver dropped us off right by the shopping area and across from the Radisson and Lucaya Reef village resorts. There is a public beach where the two hotels reside, so we walked down to check out the beach. It was a very nice beach and there were opportunities to participate in some water sports or just relax in a lounge chair (which was an additional cost, of course). There also is a casino in between the Radisson and Lucaya Reef Village and it’s currently the only casino on the island. It was a small casino, but very clean. The other casinos on the island haven’t re-opened since the hurricane 5 years ago. The marketplace was just okay. Again, it was like in Nassau, where all the vendors were selling the EXACT same thing. We only spent 2 hours in this area and grabbed our taxi back to the ship. It’s good to note that when traveling by taxi, it’s significantly cheaper to take a taxi with a group as opposed to taking one by yourself. It cost us $5 one way with a group, vs. $27 one way by ourselves. We did run into a couple that was on the city tour in Freeport (through Carnival), and they were really disappointed with this tour too. The driver kept taking them to different areas where people could get out and “shop”. They had a full hour in this one shopping area and in my opinion; an hour was still too much time there. It’s really a racket the negotiations between these “tours” and the cruise line. It’s too much money to just be driven around to shop. When I had asked them what they learned, they couldn’t really tell me much about the island itself. The island is still trying to recover from the hurricane that hit 5 years ago, so there are a lot of hotels closed and a lot of retail stores closed as well.
When we arrived back to the port, there were a few more shops to go through. In my opinion, these were better than the ones down in Lucaya and you didn’t have to pay for a taxi to drive you there. You could see and purchase the exact same things here as you would downtown. The jewelry was actually better here and you could watch the vendors actually making their own jewelry on the spot, which was a change to see. We were back on the ship in time for lunch and watched the ship pull out of the port. At dinner, it was another formal night. Most people now on ships, don’t get that dressed up. It used to be where men would wear tuxedos and women would wear formal gowns. You would look very out of place in that attire now. Most women wore dresses and men wore a jacket and tie. After dinner there was another show by the Pride Dancers and singers. It was a very good production. We then stayed awake to see the midnight adult comedy show and then when we got back to the cabin, there was a lobster-animal-towel on the bed.