We flew in on a Saturday, checked into our Tru hotel, and set off for a dead end, in so many ways. The maps indicated we could just walk along a path next to the train towards Sistrunk Marketplace & Brewery. Well it turns out the whole area is under construction, so the path is gone and we walked along the tracks. Then we got to our destination and learned that there wasn’t a brewery at all. Sistrunk turned out to be a pop-up bar incubator, probably a cool stop another time, but we were on the hunt for breweries. We made our way to Uncommon Path Brewing for a pizza and a flight. We actually managed to just sneak in before they closed for a private event, so it felt like our luck was turning around. Because they were getting this setup, we decided to skip the flight and just picked two beers to wash our pizza down with. The pizza was excellent and a perfect size to feed us both without worrying about leftovers.

Our second stop was Invasive Species Brewing for some beer and wall watching. Yes, some of the people were entertaining, and the beer was really good (we ordered nine tasters) but that wall was something else! I joked that it seemed like a taxidermist office must have closed next door and they raided it for their decor. We found out later from our friends in the area that people have brought these decorations in and added to the exhibit. They also change the decor out for some seasonal flare as well. Miranda was happy about the 8 different IPAs and I liked that they had a good Scottish Ale on draft called Beam Me Down.

We completed the day at Winne Dixie’s little liquor store side car. Not sure why it was a separate place, but glad we spotted it before going in the store. We grabbed our four bottles of wine that we’d use on the back half of our cruise and then walked back to the Tru.

On Sunday we got started with breakfast at the hotel, a dry run to make sure this would workout for us on Monday, and then we hit the road for our first brewery. We walked south along NW 1st Ave and we probably could have picked a better route. Once we got close to the Broward County Transit terminal, we noticed the homeless population explode around us. There were dozens of people just living around the transit stop, and a few of them were alarmingly unhinged.

We kept heading south, crossed the Tarpon river and stopped to watch something that area residents probably don’t even notice anymore, a big yacht going under a drawbridge. After standing around and looking like tourist for a couple of minutes, we made our way to the Tarpon River Brewery. It was early enough that the place wasn’t crowded, so we enjoyed our beer flight and chatted with the bartender.

Our next, and ended up being final stop, was Orchestrated Minds Brewing. There was a pretty popular secondhand store that opens for a few hours a day on the weekend next door, so we poked our heads in there once they opened too. Orchestrated Minds had a great selection of IPAs and a tap selection that changes frequently. We chatted with our bartender and learned that he and his wife would be on or cruise the next day, what were the odds? There were a couple of tv’s behind the bar and we watched the Bills game for the first half of or stay. There was a food truck outside doing square pizzas that really hit the spot.

Radiance of the Seas

On Monday I got to work from the hotel for the first half of the day and then relocated during lunch. One of the interesting things about Florida cruise port cities is the booming transportation industry around cruises. In Ft Lauderdale, $12 each way will get you from many of the hotels to the port and from the port to the airport. We’d talked to the folks on Sunday in the lobby to setup our rides. Boarding was incredibly easy, partly because we had such an early boarding time, partly because we were in a suite, but mostly because we did all the pre-work to check-in online. Once aboard, I found a nice quite place to take a call in the Crown Lounge. Every part of the ship has a solid sound track playing, lots of foot traffic, and distractions galore, but the Crown Lounge sees people show up, look around, and leave, not a bad substitute for our room.

Once our room was available, we headed in and were wowed at the size. This being our first suite, we did a little video walk through before getting all moved in. I finished out the workday there and then the cruise got started! Our plan on this trip was to have the drink package for the first half and then use the four bottles we brought aboard for the rest of the trip. Miranda was on a mission to find the perfect lemon drop and I just wanted a good glass of wine, goals we’d both sort of achieve. We hit our first afternoon trivia, ran into Andrew and his wife, and then went to dinner. We hit Motown trivia after dinner before turning in for the night. The temps would be dropping and the wind would pickup as Florida winter was apparently arriving overnight. 30 knot winds, 10-15 ft swells would accompany a cold front that caused the captain to change the itinerary up a little bit. Instead of Nassau, CocoCay and then a day at sea, we’d start with the day at sea and shift Nassau to the last day. No joke though, Royal Caribbean made a killing on our day at sea, lots of people walking around with RCL hoodies, blankets, and other warmer gear.

Our at sea day was pretty lazy, as they all are. Breakfast, trivia for about three hours, lunch, and two more trivia’s, one of which we won! We also spent the day hunting for drinks, Miranda had a couple of different bartenders make her uninspired lemon drops. One bartender made her a blueberry lemon drop, which she said was pretty good, but then they started running out of the blueberry puree, so she started making up her own drinks. I kept running across disappointing wines so a bartender made me a New York Sour, which became my drink for the rest of the cruise. After dinner we got one more trivia win before heading to bed.

We arrived at CocoCay, Royal Caribbean’s private island in the Bahamas. The Royal Caribbean app had a map of all of the options including a water park, slides, beaches, pools, bars, a zipline and multiple dining options. After breakfast we disembarked and headed for South Beach. Many of the cabanas are additional charges but South Beach is free and a little more quite than some of the other spots.

Unfortunately, the water was still a little cool and the temperatures were lower because of the cold front. The addition of a pretty steady wind and consistent cloud cover made for beach lounger day.

South Beach is positioned right next to the Snack Shack and Coconut Willie’s Bar, so we had all the provisions we needed, even if the bar service was really slow. I had read about a fan favorite meal hack on a Royal Caribbean blog that I was dying to try. The cheese sticks are very popular, add them to the chicken sandwich with a little marinara sauce and you have a chicken parmesan sandwich, and yes, it was good! Miranda found a nice little tray of funnel cake to round out the lunch experience.

Nassau

This one is going to be short and a little disappointing, and a reminder to never assume that your favorite places might still be open five years later. With it still being a little chilly, we decided to visit Pirate Republic Brewing once it opened at 11 am. This meant a nice leisurely morning, followed by breakfast, and then morning trivia. We disembarked at Nassau’s newly re-built cruise terminal with it’s space for 7 large cruise ships and spaces for 2-3 smaller ones. Since our last time here in 2020, we noticed they’d added a new security building and a market area to compete somewhat with the straw market. As we approached Pirate Republic, we were happy to see there wasn’t the usual line outside and the doors were open a few minutes early. Unfortunately, we found out why a few seconds later, renovation. The facility was closed back in August to go through a renovation with not estimated date for re-opening.

We disappointedly walked away with no backup plan. We were on the hunt for a wine opener, so we checked the straw market and a handful of shops before landing on a bottle shaped one with a magnet. We have so many wine openers at home, mostly because we keep forgetting to pack them on trips like this. We finished our shore excursion with a regrettable stop at Shenanigans Irish Bar for a beer and some WiFi. The WiFi was really slow, and we ordered two Magners, which weren’t on the menu, so we didn’t notice they were charging $13 a pop for them.

Turnaround

I was really looking forward to this day, not because we had anything planned, but because of how much we normally hate disembarkation day. We went up to breakfast and casually enjoyed our meal, surrounded by people who were having to go home. We were also curious to see what the schedule looked like, so here it goes. We have to be in the dining room at 9 am to get our new SeaPass cards and then be escorted through customs. We had to go through the line as if we were leaving and then were allowed back aboard. We’d brought our headphones with us so that we could listen to our books because we weren’t allowed back into our rooms until 1. For two hours we had the boat basically to ourselves, but there really wasn’t much we could do. The pools and hot tubs were closed for cleaning, the bars were closed, and the Windjammer was closed. The only thing that seemed usable was the water station in the Solarium, but there were no cups out and we didn’t think to bring ours with. At about 11:30 we started seeing the new blood boarding the ship, among them were our friends JP and Katura that we met on our Norway cruise over two years earlier. We talked to them for a short while, exchanged info about our plans for the next day, and then headed to our room to get situated for the rest of the day once we were allowed back in. We decided the back-to-back cruises might not be for us unless there’s something for us to go see during the day. It just sort of felt like a wasted day on Friday, but with cell reception.

Grand bahamas

Upon arriving in the Grand Bahamas, we were immediately greeted by site of a busy commercial port. This felt like a strange place for a cruise ship, but we weren’t really planning on taking in the sites today anyways. After breakfast and morning trivia, we hit the road to visit the only place we had on our itinerary, The Bahamian Brewery. We’ve seen beers from here at other stops before, mostly their popular Sands beers, so we were interested to try whatever else they had on tap. Unfortunately the brewery also operates a liquor store next door called Jimmy’s Wines and Spirits, this caused Google to confuse their hours and indicate the brewery was open on Saturday, it is not. After a 2.5 mile walk, we weren’t heading back empty handed so we bought a couple of beers and enjoyed them at the picnic tables outside of the liquor store. We liked them enough to go back for a second round before calling it and heading back to the ship. We’ll probably look to head into town the next time we visit Grand Bahamas to see a little more than just the side of the road.

That evening we did evening trivia, music trivia, and then we got dinner reservations with all eight of us.

Nassau (Again)

We had initially decided to make a foray to Fish Fry at Arawak Cay and enjoy the beach, knowing that Pirate Republic Brewing was closed for renovations. JP and Katura had invited us along on their trip for the day that sounded not all that far off from what we were going to do so we took them up on it. The day started with breakfast and then a trip down to the cruise terminal to look for a ride. We noticed there was a large fire burning in the distance somewhere, the black smoke was probably visible from every corner of the island. Once we found our $10 per person ride to the beach, we piled into the van and got going towards Cable beach, directly towards whatever was on fire. As we got closer, our hearts sank as we realized it was Fish Fry. Our fun little non-touristy beach spot with a bar and local food stands was a raging inferno. We’d find out later that six of the restaurants were damaged or burned to the ground.

Once we got to Cable Beach, the sales pitches began. The first one was a drink package for x amount and the second one being a drink with x number of refills that didn’t necessarily have to go back into the same cup. There was also beer and snacks being offered by the local vendors, there wasn’t much pushiness, but plenty of humor. The water was still a little cold, but we got used to it and enjoyed our drinks for a couple of hours before our ride returned to get us. Our next stop was John Watling's Distillery, which could have been walkable, but with such a large group, and the road now closed because of the fire, the route would have been more treacherous on foot. We spent some time here on our last stop too, so we decided not to do the tour, but that’s always worth a spin if you haven’t done a distillery tour before. We got a few drinks and hung out on the deck for a little while. There’s a small food truck-style kitchen on the patio for snacks to enjoy if you’re hungry. We set off on foot afterwards to visit the Queen’s Staircase for a few pictures, stopped for a beer and some cheese fries at the Bearded Clam, and then grabbed some rum at one of the souvenir shops on the way back to the port.

our trip

This was an interesting pair of cruises. We had some chilly weather, repeat stops, new stops, old friends, and even caught up with a crew member who was still around from our January cruise that featured a fire aboard on the last night. We learned that back to back’s end up being a waste of a day if we stay aboard. We might look into doing one again at some point in the future if we are doing it overseas at a port where there’s stuff to do. It was great to catch up with friends from a previous cruise and get to work planning the next one. We know we need to give Grand Bahamas a closer look next time, so we’re interested to see what else they have to offer!