Cruise Adventure in the Bahamas
Have you ever taken a cruise? I have. Last summer my family took our first cruise together. It was so much fun! I even wrote about it on my mom’s blog. You can read about fun Circle ‘C’ on the Carnival Fantasy. But when you take a cruise, it isn’t just all about being on a cruise ship with buffet dinners and supervised kids clubs. We also spent lots of family time at the different port stops.
My favorite activity was at Lucaya National Park, Grand Bahama Island. My mom arranged for us to take a kayak and nature walk. We took a van ride with four other people and learned about kayak safety before we got into the water. It was amazing! I chose my dad as my kayak partner and laughed at my mom and brother as they kept running into the mangroves.
Do you know what a mangrove is? It’s okay if you don’t know. I learned about them on our kayak trip. A mangrove is a tree or shrub that grows in coastal areas, like in Lucaya National Park. They’re kind of gnarly and even creepy looking, but they do protect some areas from storms and coastal erosion.
My favorite part of our day was when my dad and I got to pull the entire group across a stream on a raft and a rope pull. It was like something Tom Sawyer would do. On the other side, we took a short nature walk where we ended up at a secret beach. It was amazing! We were almost the only people there and the locals call it Gold Rock Beach because there’s a big rock out in the water that looks like gold when the sun sets. This beach is also where some scenes from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies were filmed.
The beach was also where we enjoyed a picnic lunch before setting off for an afternoon hike to learn about the plants and flowers of the Bahamas. We even climbed down into a cenote and watched a dive team disappear into the dark waters.
It was a fun and adventurous day of exploring that ended with a delicious dinner back on the Carnival Fantasy, our home for the week. Cruise travel sure is fun!