A week (or more) in Nassau, The Bahamas

When my wife and I got married, in April of 2009, we took a honeymoon to The Bahamas.  We enjoyed the experience at an all-inclusive resort (Breezes Bahamas).  We have been wanting to go back, but between visiting my in-laws out of state and trips to Las Vegas, we haven't had much of an opportunity.  This year, I got my vegas trip in when I was between jobs.  Technically, I had been hired at my new job, but I was waiting to start.  I figured vacation time would be at a premium, so I made a quick last-minute trip to Las Vegas.  Once I started the new job, I figured out roughly when I'd have enough vacation time, and in June, I booked a trip for us to go back to The Bahamas.

We left Saturday morning, 9/26.  We had a long day ahead of us, with changes in Chicago and Miami.  Leaving at 6:30am central time, we arrived in Nassau at approximately 5:30pm eastern time.  We got a cab from the airport, and made our way to check-in.  We encountered our first problem of the trip there.  They didn't have a reservation for us.  I had booked the trip through a third-party site, and printed out the email with confirmation to take with me just in case of any issues.  We finally got it sorted out, and went to our room.  We had a room with 2 double beds.  Not exactly what we wanted.  Upon asking, I was told that there were no rooms left for that night with a single King bed, but I could check back the following morning.  We got settled in to our room and went down to the dining room for dinner.  We ate in the casual dining area, which was a buffet.  They have breakfast, lunch, and dinner buffets, as well as 3 sit-down style restaurants.  They also have a grille outside by the pool which serves burgers, hot dogs, fries, fish, and salad.  After eating, we checked out the place to see where everything was.  We went out to look at the ocean, check out the pools and hot tub(all closed at 7pm) and then checked out the game room(pool tables, table tennis, and some board games).  We had a few drinks at the bar(did I mention this was an all-inclusive?) and decided to call it a night.  We planned on a beach day the next day.

Sunday we woke up around 7.  Apparently I just can't sleep in anymore.  We went down to get breakfast, and then headed to the beach around 9am.  We played around in the ocean a bit, and talked to some other people down there.  Apparently, a lady had been stung by a jellyfish around 7am.  Glad it wasn't my wife or I!  We did have a school of fish swim through, and they stayed in the area for a few hours.  They were little, and a silvery color.  I was able to get a few pictures of them with my waterproof camera.  I later learned from the locals they're called Jacks, or Jackfish.  They swam all around us, even as close to shore as only a couple of feet deep.  They weren't scared if you stood still, but if you made any motion at all they were gone in a flash!  It was a cool experience.  They aren't the best pics, and the fish aren't easy to see, but here are some pics of them that I took.

We had lunch at the pool grille, and then my wife laid out by the pools while I went back to the ocean.  She's not a big fan of the ocean itself, just likes laying out and enjoying the sun and the drinks.  Someone found a conch shell in the ocean, and another person captured a starfish.  I was on the hunt for seashells at the request of my mom, and found some smaller ones, but nothing very big.  We noticed some stray cats, and found out that there were 6 in total!  Apparently the mother had disappeared when they were 4 weeks old, and the manager of the resort took care of them from that point on.  They were given food and water.  They ran around the beach and the pool area.  There were a few tourists who were feeding the cats as well.  We had lunch at one of the sit down restaurants, called the Garden of Eden.  It was romantic, as couples sit in a loveseat to eat dinner.  It consisted of 5 courses, although there were only 2 options for each and for a couple there was nothing that looked extremely appealing to me.  We finished up, realized that one of our courses (soups) had been skipped, but it didn't matter.  They were the least appealing items to me, and we were both full enough that we weren't too concerned.  We went to bed, looking forward to the adventures of the next day!