Carnival Cruise to Bahamas / Turks and Caicos (June 2024) – Day 1

In addition to all of the preparations we made for the trip, the days leading up to it were a hectic exercise of packing, checking everything in the bags, repacking them, rechecking the bags again, running to the store to pick up last-minute necessities, and even a moment or two where Michelle actually contemplated calling off the trip due to nerves and an untimely cold for Farrah (or so we thought…).

Storm Warning

The week before the trip, Farrah began showing symptoms – on and off fever, congestion, and general lack of energy. This close to a vacation, Michelle and I were debating the wisdom of taking a sick child on an international cruise, so we opted to make sure that she wasn’t carrying around anything serious. The doctor checked her out and a few quickie tests came up negative, tentatively ruling out Strep or COVID-19. However, they swabbed her for a more definitive set of tests, just to be sure. Hoping that Farrah would be feeling better in a few days, we were still thumbs up for the trip.1

On a good day (i.e., with little traffic), Baltimore is about a 90-minute drive from Northern Virginia, where the toughest part of getting there is traversing nearly a third of the Capital Beltway en route to northbound I-95. The ship wasn’t scheduled to leave until 5:00 PM, so we woke up at a reasonable hour, ate, checked everything all over again, then loaded into the car and drove north to the Inner Harbor.

We arrived at the cruise ship port about an hour before they opened up, so we drove over to the nearby Inner Harbor to kill some time. Just as we parked, the phone rang – it was the clinic letting us know that despite the quickie test results, the more definitive ones came up positive for Strep. Hearts sank and debate erupted over our next steps. Do we abort and go home? Go anyway and hope the ship’s probably limited medical resources can help? Give the other passengers something worse to endure than food poisoning, sea sickness, or morally ambiguous couples with questionable agendas buying them drinks?

However, after explaining our situation (i.e., not at home), the clinic found an in-network drug store at the Inner Harbor to send a prescription for an antibiotic. We were cautioned not to go since Farrah was at risk of spreading her germs, but the clinic also said that the meds would eventually end that issue within a few days. A little more hemming and hawing, mainly about whether or not to throw away a lot of preparations and disappointing everyone, we decided to be careful with Farrah and go ahead on the trip. With medication good to go we hopped in the car and made way to the port.

The Great Cattle Call

Whereas the port parking lot was closed and (except for the parking lot staff) abandoned during our previous visit, we arrived to a long line of cars slowly snaking into the lot. There’s only so much space for cars to park or unload, so they were letting cars enter at an excruciatingly slow pace. As the waiting line sluggishly rolled forward, we patiently tried to keep ourselves occupied by watching videos on phones or find a Facebook group dedicated to our specific cruise. The highlight of our waiting was watching a truck with Florida plates and a flat tire sit in line with rest of us, determined to get on board. Oddly enough, we discovered later on the trip’s Facebook group that the parking lot staff helped the truck’s owner repair or replace the tire so he could park and get on board.

Once parked, we made way over to check in. There are some moments in my life where I’ve been surrounded by throngs of human beings, wondering why I wasn’t enjoying my sacred and blissful solitude at home. Those moments include my high school and college graduations, touring the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day floats the night before, every movie premiere I ever attended, and more than a few bars on a Saturday night. As we got in line, we were daunted by the sea of people in front of us and filling the building. All shapes, sizes, and colors of folks with tons of baggage, irritable and hungry small children, moody teens glued to their cell phones, and many with grocery bags full of snacks and sodas (which we didn’t realize we could bring on board). There were adoring couples who desperately needed some privacy, younger guests anxiously ready to burn through their drinking cash, and so many advertising their family vacations in matching t-shirts. Thinking ahead, we opted for Carnival’s priority boarding, so we were added to the line that breezed us through security, collecting our bags, and checking and stamping our passports.2

Just to be clear, if anyone was ridiculously happy among that steadily growing impatient crowd, then they weren’t immediately obvious or dancing around about it.

Welcome Aboard!

Carnival dealing with our bags was such a huge blessing, leaving us with whatever carry-on bags full of whatever we needed until our room was ready. By this time, it was nearly mid-afternoon, and we were already tired and hungry with a congested child to boot. With a few hours to kill, we followed the crowds to the upper deck and its now open cavalcade of all-you-can-eat food. Finding a table was simply a matter of waiting for a family to get up and quickly snagging it (the table, not the family). Eventually, we were notified that our room was ready and made way to the starboard aft section of Deck 5 to finally check out our stateroom.

When we were originally looking over options, our big decision was what kind of room we wanted to stay in. The initial (and cheapest) of the available rooms were the much smaller staterooms without any windows or balconies. Although I can be a bit cheap, this being our first cruise, and anticipating the emotional drain of down time combined with staring at the same four walls during that time, I looked for any rooms with a window or balcony, and luckily found several still available. We went all in for a room with a balcony (and God am I glad we did…see lessons learned), and was pleasantly surprised. While the room was small, it was larger than I imagined – comfortable enough for two adults and a kid to lounge in. And the bathroom didn’t feel like a phone booth. All things considered, spending a week in the room didn’t feel quite as claustrophobic as I feared. The room’s only real downside was that there was no privacy whatsoever and I’ve slept on much softer beds. Still, it was a comfortable enough place to stash our stuff and crash.

Wandering About

By the time we unpacked and got everything arranged how we wanted, it was closing in on 5:00 PM and the ship left port on its track nearly due south out of the Chesapeake Bay. Too early for dinner and not wanting to sit in the room, we toured the ship and got our bearings. We also took the opportunity to go hunting for any rooms displaying upside down pineapples, but sadly didn’t find any.3

As the ship made its way from Baltimore, everyone filled the outside deck areas to get a good look at what remained of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed a few months earlier when a cargo ship ran into one its support piers. Shortly after that happened, Carnival released a statement declaring that its cruises out of Baltimore were indefinitely suspended until the wreckage was cleared (which it obviously was). Still, everyone got very quiet while taking lots of pictures as we sailed by what was left of the bridge.

After thoroughly touring the ship from one end to the other, stomachs were growling and we decided on trying dinner at the Normandie Restaurant. While the food wasn’t as good as I hoped (about the same as any “fern bar” casual eatery – think Applebee’s or Chilis), service was VERY SLOW and we were ready to leave long after dessert finally arrived. We took one more lap around the outside deck to snap a few pictures, then headed back to the room, exhausted and in dire need of getting off of our feet.

True to form, the bed and I weren’t getting along, so getting comfortable was a bit of a struggle. As a matter of habit, I never sleep well for the first night or two on a new or different bed, and I can count on one hand the number of hotel beds I enjoyed. Tired of tossing and turning next to Michelle and Farrah snoozing away and listening to the ambient sounds of the ship trawling through the Chesapeake, I eventually got up around 1:00 AM. Not wanting to disturb anyone, I sat out on the balcony, doom scrolling on my phone since we were paralleling the Virginia shoreline and cell coverage was still strong. There was a thunderstorm approaching from the west that offered a pretty impressive light show, and I’d never seen a storm while on the water, so I took the moment to record a bit of it. Eventually exhaustion claimed me again and I crawled back into bed.

1 As a matter of habit, I always invest in travel insurance, so we can recover our losses in a worst-case scenario. Obviously, we still went on the cruise.
2 As someone who loves getting his passport stamped, I was really disappointed to find out that checking in and disembarking were the only times to get our passports stamped. Instead of a couple island locales added to our passport pages, there was just the generic Carnival stamp.
3 For those not more familiar with alternative lifestyles, the infamous “upside down pineapple” or “unholy pineapple” is the more-or-less international symbol for swingers and swinging. announces that you’re in the lifestyle and seeking to find like-minded new friends. Going back to the fruit’s origins as a symbol of hospitality and wealth as well as for seduction and eroticism, displaying one announces that a couple is interested in finding some new friends with benefits. Over the years, I’ve met my share of couple who I suspected of being swingers or outright told people that they were, and didn’t want to learn more about them along those lines.