Half Moon Cay, Bahamas

November 28 - November 30

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The last port of the first week is Half Moon Cay, Bahamas. Cay is pronounced KEY.

Half Moon Cay

Little San Salvador Island, also known as Half Moon Cay, is one of about 700 islands that make up the archipelago of The Bahamas. It is located roughly halfway between Eleuthera and Cat Island. It is a private island, owned by Holland America Line, which uses it as a port of call for the cruise ships it operates in the region. Prior to being owned by HAL, Little San Salvador was the private island of Norwegian Cruise Line.

Normally when they tender they use the orange lifeboats you can see in this picture tucked up against the boat, but since Holland owns this island they use a much larger boat to tender with at the island.

Tender Boats

We tendered to the island to see what they had on it. Because it is cruise owned they had a barbecue lunch that was included for no extra charge.

Half Moon Cay

They had a chapel on the island that some use to get married at. I've heard of drive-in chapels, but this one appears to be a walk-thru chapel!

Chapel

There were seats for a church service.

Inside the Chapel

After eating lunch we went to the beach. Most of the lounge chairs were taken but we did find a couple just for us! The water in the bay was beautiful.

Blue Turquoise Water

We didn't go swimming but I did have to go put my feet in just to feel the Bahamian water! It was not cold, but not as warm as the water in the Caribbean.

Bahama Water

After this stop we went back to Fort Lauderdale to drop off some and pick up some. Our first stop on the second week was back here at Half Moon Cay. We decided to stay on the ship. The ship was almost empty so we had the run! The pools even the family pool was all ours! The buffets were almost empty. It was a good day!

Because this post has included several sea days as well as two days at Half Moon Cay and Fort Lauderdale I am going to show you several of the Towel Animals our Room Stewards made for us...

Here is a Dog..

Towel Dog

And a Whale...

Towel Whale

This is a Swan..

Towel Swan

And of course two Hanging Monkeys!

Hanging Monkeys

The monkeys were left up for the rest of the cruise! LOL!!

In one of the lounges they had the B.B. King's Blues Club. There was a very great band called  the B.B. King's All-Stars band that played every night. 

B.B King's Blues Club

The first night of each week of the cruise they headlined in the main theater and then played in the smaller lounge the rest of the week.

B.B. King's All-Stars band 

We listened to them probably four times during the cruise. Well worth it!

Well that's it for today.. Next stop is Grand Cayman.

God Bless,

Brian and Patty