The Great Bahamas Duck Hunt

At the end of February in 2026, we escaped for a weekend cruise to the Bahamas. This wasn’t the first time we found one of the infamous ducks on a ship, but we will always remember this trip for when the ducks finally became a constant source of entertainment.

Getting there And Back

The key to this trip was timing. We needed to be able to find a flight late enough on Thursday to not burn a vacation day, find a place to stay in Ft. Lauderdale that could get us to the boat on my lunch break, and then figure out how to get home without burning a vacation day. If we had to take vacation days, then this trip becomes far less appealing. We caught a late-night flight from St. Louis to Ft. Lauderdale, landing near midnight, but luckily our hotel shuttle was still running.

Getting home had fewer moving parts but far more downtime. Port Everglades is only a 10-minute drive to Ft. Lauderdale airport, so our choices were ride share app, cab, or vans that wouldn’t leave until they were full. We stayed aboard the ship until 9 am, jumped on one of the vans, and then proceeded to look for a lounge to work from for the day. The American Airlines Admirals Lounge doesn’t exist, but its legacy on the internet hasn’t died. The United Club is only open to people on United Airlines flights. We would have checked out the other ones, but after going through security twice, we were done. This part of our trip is going to require a little more planning next time.

The rodeway Inn

We had an all-aboard time of 3:30 pm today, which seemed early, so we headed back to the port to explore the vendor village and then enjoy the pool in the solarium. I finally found my first duck, but at this point, JP and Katura were well into double digits. We’d found that there seemed to be many distinct duck types. The first type was the traditional rubber ducks with instructions for posting pictures of their travels on Facebook. Joining them on this trip were smaller rubber ducks, plastic ducks that come in a multitude of colors and costumes, magnetic ducks, and then an assortment of other animals, gnomes, and even Jesus. Each of them seemed to have their own habitat, with the rubber ducks enjoying more natural settings like the base of the trees. The magnetic ducks preferred the heights above us, usually attaching themselves to the metal of the ceiling panels or doors. The multicolored ducks and other creatures just hung out wherever. We found them in the canons of the Schooner Bar, hanging out in the casino, hiding in slightly recessed places like cup holders or vases, and then blending into the decorations, windows, and wall mounts of the ship. We became increasingly cognizant of every possible flat surface that a duck might be hiding on, often trying to get ahead of everyone else in the group to explore the next room.

That evening we did our two trivia sessions, had dinner, and then went to the 9 pm show. We were excited that there was going to be a comedy act, it felt like it had been a while, but the product was a little rough. I guess not every show is for everyone.

Nassau

We’d been to Nassau plenty of times over the years, so we had some usuals we wanted to try, but this time we got to start with something new, Rip Ty’d Brewing Company. It was only a .9 mile walk from the port, so we got to walking to build up a thirst for that 10 am beer. We got flights and also tried their porter, the tasting room had some cool swag and an observation area to see the brewing floor. After our refreshment stop, which was crashed by a food tour for about 30 minutes, we grabbed a cab and went to Fish Fry for lunch and a swim. We’d seen a huge fire here back in November of 2025, but luckily, only six of the establishments were lost. We had lunch at Big Yard were Miranda and I shared fish fingers and JP and Katura had the whole snappers. Fish Fry still looks as lively as ever; it would have been a shame if this area had been lost.

We took the short walk to the beach and hung out there for about an hour. Since it was a Sunday, the beach was a little more crowded than it had been when we were on our weeklong trip. We found a couple of bottles in the water, some glass on the beach, and some kind of metal piece in the sand that one of the local guys tried to dig out. When it wouldn’t budge, he covered it with rocks. It wasn’t all bad, the water was beautiful, the crowd was small, and we saw a juvenile Barracuda and an Ocean Triggerfish. After the beach, we caught a cab to John Watling’s Rum Distillery for a drink before walking back to the port. We noticed that Pirate Republic Brewing had re-opened near the cruise port. It doesn’t look done by any means, but it’s back open, so we’ll certainly swing by next time. I stopped for one quick picture with Steven Spielberg’s yacht before heading back aboard.

It was also picture choosing time. One of the other perks of Diamond status on Royal Caribbean is that you get a free printed or digital picture, each. We rarely ever stop for pictures, it always seems like a hassle, you’re in everyone’s way, and we never bought them anyways. This time we took all the pictures, because why not? And here they are folks, our first free pictures! JP and Katura said they keep these in a photo album at home, I think I’ll start a digital one here.

That evening we continued our duck hunt, caught trivia and music trivia, then had dinner. We killed a little time hunting for more ducks and then went out on deck to see if we could spot the SpaceX launch. We knew we’d be pretty far off, but we did see it streak across the sky for about 5 seconds before disappearing behind the clouds again. On the way back down the stairs, we captured two more ducks before bidding JP and Katura farewell. They were heading out early for work the next morning, while we were going to adopt a slightly more leisurely schedule, knowing we’d be at the airport all day.

Our plan for Monday had been breakfast, ride to the airport, and then work from an airport lounge until our 6 pm flight. We did nearly all of that, but our lounge plan was a giant failure. FLL doesn’t have an Admiral’s Lounge, unlike what we had seen online. After walking from Terminal 1 to Terminal 3 to discover that, we walked back to Terminal 1 and learned that the only lounge there was the United Club, only for people on United flights. There was one more lounge in Terminal 2, but we weren’t going to go back through security two more times to explore that one. We found a quite-ish little corner and hunkered down for the day. I worked and jumped on calls while Miranda kept herself occupied catching up on her bible study homework. It wasn’t the peaceful work environment we were hoping for, but we’ll plan better next time.