The cruise – Bahamas

Put quite simply, cruises are fun. Very fun. We left Jacksonville on the M.S Celebration with high hopes and fanciful dreams of fun and adventure on the high seas.

The high seas turned out to be a little higher than we expected, and Dave instantly fell victim to sea sickness. While Dave took sea sickness tablets and slept, Corey and I soberly stumbled our way to the dining room. We met our servers, Kenneth and Raymund, as well as our Southern dining companions. Judging by their disapproving glances (we were drinking Foster’s from 750ml cans and wearing thongs and singlets), it seemed impossible to think that we would all be great friends by the end of the week.

The next week was spent drinking Foster’s and hanging out with our new found friends Jason, Andre, Ali and Shayna. We taught them as much as we could about Australian culture, and by the end of the week, they still couldn’t copy our accents.

We managed to sleep through a lot of our day at Key West, FL, but that was the ship’s fault for arriving at 7am; ridiculous. From our couple of hours on shore, it didn’t appear that we missed all that much.

Our day moored at Nassau, Bahamas was another matter entirely. The water was as clear as any I have ever seen before, and the day was packed with adventure. We hired some mopeds and proceeded to explore the island. This was when we found Cabbage Beach, or as I like to call it, ‘that awesome beach with the really nice water’. While leaving the beach, Unlucky Dave gave us a lesson in falling off a moped. So with some smiles, blood and anger, we all headed to the Atlantis resort.

Atlantis was impressive, as was its’ aquarium lobby. After some time and effort, we managed to get out of Atlantis and head towards the more touristy beach. Though more crowded, the water was just as nice as Cabbage Beach. More importantly, we hired jetskis. Jetskiing was amazingly good fun. I was a jetski ninja and enjoyed every minute of it.

Back on the cruise ship, we continued to eat and drink to excess. Most of the food was quite delicious, and there was heaps of variety. They had a $3/6 limit Hold’em table which I took advantage of to pay for a good deal of my drinks. I learned one of life’s important lessons; cruise ship passengers aren’t good at poker. Unfortunately, I also learned that limit Hold’em is pretty boring, so I didn’t really play all that much.

In summary, I can highly recommend the cruising lifestyle. It was a fun filled week and very cheap. Oh, there was also heaps of fun and adventure on the high seas.

Quick Quick Catch-Up

New Orleans, Louisiana

Hi to all our loyal fans, for if you're still checking this everyday for an update, being continually disappointed, but still checking, you are surely a loyal fan. I'm in an internet cafe in New Orleans at the moment, just off Bourbon Street. It's not an inexpensive cafe, so I'll keep this short. Hopefully I'll have the time to come back and fill in the gaps.

After we bought Bluely, our beige buick, in Portland, we took off to Philadelphia, home of the highest proportion of hot american chicks, american colonial history and the Philly Cheese Steak. In short, Philly Cheese Steaks are delicious, but better in New York.

From Philly - to Washington and the usual tourist stuff, White House, Lincoln Memorial, etc. From there to Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina to catch up with some friends of Angry Dave.

Washington to Gainesville, Florida. A big uni town and the home of my colleg football team, the Gators. I like college towns, cheap booze and a good night life.

Gainseville to Miami - which I'd describe as a city that was spewed up by Night at the Roxbury. The music, dress and club scene was exactly like the movie. It was a little too expensive for me ($12 a beer plus tip!) but lots of nicely dressed pretty people, lots of money and lots of topless chicks on the beach.

Miami to Orlando and home of some mouse. We went to Wet 'n' Wild water park, got really sunburnt and then went to Jacksonville.

Jacksonville I liked. An unassuming beach city, and nice nice people. From Jacksonville we went on what is easily the highlight of the trip - a cruise to Key West and the Bahamas. The cruise was awesome, and pretty cheap, except for alcohol. But we managed to smuggle some on board. Then we discovered that everyone else does exactly the same thing. The cruise consisted of sleeping, eating, drinking, eating, drinking, drinking, sleep. Nassau in the Bahamas is great, the nicest and clearest beaches I have seen, outside of Australia. I'm definitely going to have to go on a cruise again some other time. The other boys are in much agreement.

Back to Jacksonville after the cruise, dinner with some of the boys from the cruise - and then we were put into contact with a girl in Atlanta who is friends with another friend we made on the ship.

When we got to Atlanta, Angry Dave's wisdom tooth caused him great problems, and so he went off to hospital, while Hawkins and myself went to the Coke factory. It was surprisingly fun, and Angry Dave was then drugged up for the next few days.

From Atlanta, we went to New Orleans, and here I am now. Hopefully I'll fill in more details later, such as photos of the cruise and such, but for now, here is one of Bluely, of chariot of adventure on this great american roadtrip.