A Glimpse of Half Moon Paradise

I believe that Half Moon Cay was my first glimpse of what paradise should be like! Well, truly it would be somewhere more like the mountains, but this is an Island Paradise! Half Moon Cay is an island owned by the Carnival Cruise Line, which seemed silly at first but turned out to be a great thing! We almost booked an excursion on this day, but I'm glad that we could only afford one trip so that we got to just relax on the beach. Since there is no port, we had to tender to and from the boat (meaning that we rode on smaller boats from the big cruise ship). It did mean longer lines to get on and off, but we got up really early to be the first ones to tender. It seemed hard at first, but "wake up early to nap on the beach" really wasn't a bad model for our day!

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Once we got off the boat, we immediately walked as far away from the crowds as possible. Now, this is a choice everyone must make, but we preferred to enjoy the beaches in quiet without pop and rap music blaring from the bars. We also wanted to have a clear shot into the water where it wasn't crowded and we could just float along. We took the first couple of hours just to sit, read, and nap. I'm glad that none of us got super burned because there was no hiding from the sun. We were also very trusting of our fellow cruisers and left our stuff at our seats to take walks down the beach. The usual unspoken beach and pool rules applied to this island since it is privately owned.

One of the funniest things surrounding our area on the beach was a guy that we named Scott. Now, we had become good at people watching by the time we spent one "FUN Day at Sea" and arrived at Half Moon Cay. We first noticed Scott as he was digging a hole playfully in the sand. He was a fellow college spring- breaker, and we thought he was going to build a sand castle. Strangely, Scott kept digging for about 45 minutes. Even when his entire torso was submerged in the hole so that he could reach the bottom, he didn't stop! We kept watching him until he eventually decided to sit in his hole and bury himself in the sand. All of his friends were around him, but they didn't really talk to him while he was digging, and they pretended like it was the most normal thing in the world for him to dig so long... Once he was covered in sand, his girlfriend just brought him a beer and went on swimming with friends. Scott only stayed in his hole for about 5 minutes, but at least he really enjoyed it!

We took some snacks off the boat so that we wouldn't have to buy the expensive island food as we expected, but lunch turned out to be a perk of Carnival Cruises and Half Moon Cay! Since they own the island, they have permanent cabanas where they bring infamous buffet from the cruise to. The meal was included in our dining plan, so we didn't even have to pay for an extra meal this day! They had awesome Caribbean inspired dishes and lots of refreshing fruit for us to enjoy!

It was easy to mistake the beach as the only part of the island because that's where we were most of the things were set up. However, after lunch, we discovered that all of the excursions and a nice nature walk existed on the backside of the island around a nice lagoon! Amanda and I went on the nature walk (barefoot to our dismay) and found a lot of cool sights! At the edge of the lagoon, we found thousands of hermit crabs and even huge conch shells! We saw starfish and other fish while a kayaking excursion got to paddle around the lagoon. We kept walking around the island and found where they do the Stingray Encounter. We watched some guests play with the stingrays for a while and then went back on our sunny and peaceful walk. The ground was often very hot and our feet burned, but it was definitely worth the walk! I can't believe that we almost missed a whole half of the island! The day was perfect, though, by how we relaxed on the beach for a long time and then got explored the scenery, too.

#Bahamas #Cruise