Home Again, Jiggety-Jig.
A week in the Bahamas was nice, but I had enjoyed Curacao, Belize, and Cozumel much, much more. Nothing horrendously wrong in Nassau, but nothing overwhelmingly nice about it either. Erci wanted to declare a few extra pounds of body fat at customs because we ate pretty well most of the time we were there.
Food reviews: Moso (asian fusion restaurant in the Wyndham Nassau) is fantastic. Food and service were both excellent and prices on food were in line with what we’d expect from a similar place in Washington or Chicago ($68 for dinner for two, before drinks are added in, but after tip and taxes). Drinks at Moso are very expensive, but the drinks are good. Sole Mare (northern Italian restaurant in the Wyndham Nassau) is also very good. Bring your appetite to Sole Mare and a thirst for wine. Lamb, steak, fish; it’s all done very well and with excellent service. They have a very good wine list. Dinner for two before drinks is about $110 (a tad high, considering). Poop Deck (Bahamian seafood restaurant in Nassau and at Sandy Point) is also very, very good. Pricey like Sole Mare, but the fish is devine; service perhaps a little better. All three of those places are expensive, classy places with very good food. All three could use a ban on smoking in the restaurant (our meal at Sole Mare was almost ruined by a chain-smoking whiney bitch at the table behind me; lucky for us she was put off by something and left early). More affordably we were stunned and amazed by fabulous and affordable Greek and Bahamian food at both Athens Cafe (best garlic and herb chicken on the planet, right in Nassau) and Skans (best peas and rice in Nassau with excellent grilled fish as well). We felt very much at home in Johnny Canoe’s next to the Nassau Beach Club (Cable Beach), which is a lot like a Bahamian Chilli’s in price and general selection (replace fajitas and ribs with seafood, yum).
Hotel review: Wyndham Nassau is aging quickly, and not very gracefully. It needs a serious overhaul. Having said that, it is cheap and has all the essentials. We had one horrible encounter with the rudest hotel clerk we’ve experienced in our lives that soured the first part of our week (Desiree) and that is a shame, because most of the staff in the hotel (and everywhere on New Providence Island) were friendly, polite, and hard-working. Once we realized we just had bad luck getting the only bitch in town at check-in, we relaxed and enjoyed it more. People liked to joke in a forward manner that caught us off guard a little, but it became fun to banter with them once we got used to it. Starbucks (in the Casino) turned out to be the best place to get a quick light breakfast, and Johnny Canoe’s was the place for a full sit-down breakfast. Drinks at the pool bar were very pricey, so we bought our own rum, fruit punch, and juice and fended for ourselves most of the time. Pool remained 65-70F the whole time we were there; spent more time in the 109F Hot Tub, though the water slide was fun and I did swim up to the swim-up bar in the cold pool and order a hot chocolate (bantering with the bar tender).
All the cable beach hotels are on the North shore of the island and down-wind and down-current from Nassau city itself. Frankly, I don’t recommend spending much time in the water there, though the beaches were nice enough. The dive operator we chose, Stuart Cove’s was pretty good and operated off the South-West corner of the island going mostly South and West, that water was gorgeous (77-81F with 65-90′ visibility, light waves, very little current, no surge). We dove two days only with Stuart Cove’s off a nice boat called the White Bungi; one day was nearly empty (6 divers and the divemaster, Terri, who was excellent) and one day packed with 10 divers, one divemaster, and one professional diving photographer. I blew it on the Wall Flying dive at Playground and had to skip that one, but South-West Reef is a gorgeous shallow reef and sea-life dive. Steel Forrest is a three wreck dive and Jame Bond’s Wrecks is the dive to bring your underwater camera on, gorgeous encrusting corals on the “wreck” of the fake crashed bomber the movie crew created for Thunderball (now just a frame that corals and fish and shrimps have made their home). Lots of Lionfish, Nudibranchs, Moray Eels, Shrimp, Conch, Gorgonians, Softies; one shark, a few French Angels. Stuart Coves’s is a good diving outfit with lots of very well trained dive-masters and expert boat skippers; very safe, and very clean. They need better organization; a white-board with a list of the weeks upcoming dive locations so a diver can pick their preference in depths, wrecks, fish, sharks – they were missing that and it hurt a little. To be fair, we only used two of the five days we planned to dive because of our own nose and ear problems, but it would have been nice to know more. The long ride to and from the hotel every morning (provided by Stuart Cove’s, thankfully) added to the amount of planning needed. Serious divers should probably figure out what lodging is right next to the dive center and stay there instead of at the resort hotels.
We tried to get to the Discover Atlantis tour at Atlantis resort on Hog Island (yeah, they are trying to change the name to “Paradise Island” – but I resist, and prefer the 18th century name), but it (like many other businesses) operates on “island time” (posted hours are not honored, and 10-5 means just-before-lunch to whenever-the-staff-decides-to-break-in-the-afternoon). In our case they closed by 3:30pm – sigh… it was probably not a good value anyway. We saw the manta-ray and the eagle-ray and shark in the big tank you can see from the hotel lobby for free. Hog Island is grossly Disney-fied. Everything is manicured and immaculate and steril, and about five times as expensive as it should be. It’s kind of sad.
We did get to the ultra-tacky Pirates of Nassau tourist attraction, and we did not expect much so it was fun. The straw market has a few local crafts, but far more cheap imports from places far, far away. Walking around downtown Nassau is hot, noisy as hell, and packed with hustlers and cruise ship tourists. Worth it for groceries, essential shopping, and a few restaurants only.
All in all, we had a much needed and very relaxing vacation at a destination that was interesting, fun, and warm. Mostly it was fun hanging in out with our friends Mike and Joan. I’ve been much more impressed with other warm destinations though: Curacao, Cozumel, and Belize all come to mind as better values and better with money as no object (yes, both).
Post a Comment