The Bahamas

The next day we jumped aboard our ship; the beautiful Imperial Majesty. Words cannot describe this cruise. The people checking in... oh my god. If by some miracle they were under the age of 300... they were overweight, retarded or just plain hideous. I was borderline suicidal. It got better. After getting our gear into our cabin (admittedly it was kinda comfortable and in a nice spot on the ship) we headed out to the welcome session on deck. This was one of the most harrowing experiences of my life. My thoughts leaped from searching the ship for rafters to hang myself from to sizing up points from which to throw myself to maximise the injury and minimise the chances of survival.

The music, the 'horse racing', the passengers, the staff...

We wandered around the ship a bit, took a shower, had a nap, lay by the pool. (I probably should have taken a picture of it; I have seen bathtubs bigger than this thing) 7pm rolled around and we headed down to the restaurant for our dinner. Tables were assigned and we took our seats. As we walked in the host said something a little strange "I have a very special table for you, I hope you can handle six" I had no idea what he was talking about... at the time. Starving... Vic and I tucked into some bread rolls. After a few minutes a couple of young Canadian girls sat down next to us. Then another couple of girls took a seat on the other side. A little older, maybe late twenties, from Michigan. Last to sit down were another two Canadian girls from Montreal. Tara and Candy. We got along pretty well and dinner was served. The food was pretty decent to my surprise, it could have been that I was just that hungry but I think it was a combination of that and it being half way edible. Pan fried sea bass. Yum. We all ate, talked about our common time share experiences and life in general.

Vic and I went back to our room to mix up a few drinks with the vodka we'd smuggled aboard and wait for the 'entertainment' to start. To save myself excessive redundancy just rest assured that all references to music and/or entertainment is a really crappy band with lots of cheesy sounding electric keyboard/organ music. I later found out the dancers are contracted workers from the Ukraine/Russia who live on board the ship full time and work 7 days a week. Viktoria; one of the dancers seemed to like her work. Despite being massively exploited, she did get the chance to go to the Bahamas every other day; but she loves her dancing so much that she, at least on this trip, chose to stay on board to rehearse! Is that dedication or dillusion!?

Once we had enjoyed the show we headed upstairs (with a couple of fresh drinks) to the Kareoke bar. Vic could hardly contain himself- this man likes his bad 80's music and wanted to share his passion with as many people as possible. I got up and sang a few tunes in between chatting with our host; Viktoria.

Tara and Candy came in while I was mid song and everyone seemed pretty impressed with, if nothing else, our ability to liven things up a bit. Vic had a few too many drinks and passed out on the bar and eventually disappeared. The girls, myself and a few other younger guys headed down to the disco cabin which, despite being basically empty, was good fun. I think I went to bed about 4 in the morning so I wasn't all that fresh when we landed at Nassau, The Bahamas.

The next day we were a little slow getting up. Between Vic's excess alcohol consumption and my lack of sleep... but we made it onto the island eventually. When we got out we realised just how crappy our ship was; the one next to ours was about 3 times the size and we could see a climbing wall on the top deck. A freaking climbing wall!

We took a sea taxi to paradise Island and raced around looking for some cheap food. It took us about 45 minutes but we got some Quiznos evenutally. From there we wandered around the hotel for a while. It's called Atlantis and it's pretty impressive - especially the giant manta ray swimming around the lower level.

We headed down to the beach from there - the water was incredible. I have never seen water like that, this brilliant teal colour washing up against beautiful sand - much like the sand in Australia funnily enough. We lay there for a few hours and I spread my burns to new and exciting locations.

After a decent period of reddening we headed back to the ship. On the way I finally found some shoes I liked - my others are beyond a joke. I was pleasantly surprised to find no tax on top of the price. Something I haven't seen since I left Australia.

Last night was much the same as the first; dinner (Mariana and her friend didn't show... no one knows what happened to them?) kareoke and then the nightclub. I sang one song that was so amazingly hilarious. I couldn't believe they had it there; it's a song from South Park about "Chocolate Salty Balls" - Considering most of the crowd were 40-60 it was quite controversial but they laughed it up good and proper. I saw Viktoria looking blankly out to see up on deck and went and chatted with her for a while. Her English is pretty undeveloped but we got the point across. Dancing in the disco again and another 5am bedtime. And what dancing session would be complete without James' trademark 'pick up'?

As we were getting off the ship they were trying to sell us pictures they had taken as we were getting aboard for $13- pffft. How about we just grab it and take a cheeky picture of it with my camera? Too easy.

And that's about it. I am sitting at Fort Lauderdale Airport right now pleasantly surprised to find free wireless internet. Something free in America?? What's going on? The whole trip has been characterised by people trying to get money from me in every way they can, its like its been one big scam - my lesson learned? NEVER get a package Holiday ever. Ever. Particularly if it is too cheap, turns out it isn't that cheap after all. I should get into Montreal about 7pm tonight for the big reunion. It's been about 7or 8 months since I've seen the boys and I am really excited.