Laura and the Cruise Ships in Nassau

Nassau is a popular stop with cruise ship, based on the number of ships that stop there. It is close to Florida, where many ships sail from, and it has nice beaches and places to visit. And besides, the Disney Cruise Line ships are even registered in the Bahamas, as are perhaps other ships. So when we stop in Nassau, our ship is rarely alone.

When the Disney Dream arrived in Nassau during our recent cruise, we were the only ship there. But I knew that would not last for long, because we could already see another ship approaching as we were finishing breakfast. By the middle of the day, there were a total of four ships docked at the port! That was the most ships that we have ever seen there at one time, and it is also the most that can dock, because they do not have room to dock any more than that. We had seen three ships docked there before, but not four. You can only see three ships in this photo, but yes, there were four there. Be patient.

It was interesting to see all of the ships together like that. They were all close to the same size, but they all had quite different designs, and they had some different features as well, such as rock climbing walls, a ropes course and zipline, water slides, and movie screens. I am sure that each one is nice, and that they all have their special features. However, Laura and I were actually personally acquainted with two of the ships.

This was a unique photo opportunity, because here Laura stands in between the two most recent ships that we have cruised on. That’s right, the ship on the left of this photo is the Carnival Liberty, which we had sailed on last year during our 2016 Cruise to Mexico. And of course the ship on the right is the Disney Dream, which has now been the ship of our three most recent Disney Cruises. How cool is that?Maybe you do not think it is quite as cool as I do, but I thought it was pretty neat. It was nice to see the Liberty again, and it did not look like much had changed since our cruise last year. Which was fine, because we really enjoyed that cruise, too.

Also in this photo, Laura is holding one of our favorite treats from such trips, Coca-Cola with real sugar. None of that corn syrup sweetener, just good old-fashioned sugar. It really does taste better that way, you know. We had stopped to get one (each, sharing is nice, but we both wanted our own) on our way back to the ship from our little adventure to Junkanoo Beach. A fun time at the beach, really good Coke, and two cool cruise ships. What more could you want out of life? Besides the ability to cruise all year long, I guess.

I like how the bottle says, “Original Taste” unlike what they sell here. Because if you did not know, what we have here in the United States is not the original taste. And some of us old-timers remember the way that it used to taste. So yes, I took a photo of the bottle, but as you can see I had already consumed some of it first. And don’t worry, the rest of it did not last long at all.

While we were at Junkanoo Beach, we had a good view of all for ships lined up in the port, so of course I grabbed my camera to get a photo of them all together. If you are curious, from left to right are the Norwegian Escape, the MSC Divinia, the Disney Dream, and the Carnival Liberty. Four ships in port, and we have cruised on two of them.

It was interesting to see how they were similar and how they were different. They all have the same basic shape: a pointy forward end and a rounded aft end. I guess some things are just too good to improve on, even if they date back for thousands and thousands of years. They also all have some sort of stack to vent smoke from the engines, which also is a must until they come up with some other way to power ships. And they all have an assortment of radar and communications devices, because each captain and his crew obviously wants to know where they are and what is around them. The differences are mostly cosmetic, with different paint schemes, different layouts for cabin locations, and different amenities on the top decks, as mentioned previously.

In a little way, it reminded me of a car lot, where you go down the line looking at the different models to see what you like about each one. Except that I could not afford the monthly note on one of these models.

By the time we got back to our stateroom, the Divinia had already left, which seemed a little early to me, but I did not know what else they had planned for the rest of the day. I was glad that we were able to see all four of the ships when we did. Because that is just cool.

Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all ocean depths - Psalm 148:7

About the photos:

This small collection of photos uses two of the three lenses that I took on this trip. The fisheye photos should be rather obvious from their appearance. I used the 14-42mm zoom lens for a couple of photos, however. For the Coke bottle photo, I wanted to focus mainly on the bottle and not on the rest of our stateroom, so I used that lens to zoom in a bit. Also, I wanted to zoom in on the four ships in port, so I used that lens for that photo as well. I could have used the fisheye lens for that photo, but the ships would have looked much farther away than they look in the photo here. It is nice to have a good collection of lenses if you can.

Photo: Each photo is a single Raw exposure, processed in Photoshop. Read more about photography tips, photo software, camera gear, and more at Steve’s Photography Tips.
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M10
Lens: Rokinon 7.5mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens and Olympus 14-42mm IIR
Date: June 9, 2017
Location: Nassau, Bahamas