Going to Nassau Bahamas in February. Would like advice.

[sd parrot head]

I am going to spend a few days in Nassau. I would welcome advice on things to see and do, places to eat, drink, and listen to tunes.

[mason]

don't drink the water



"listen to the stories i could tell"

member of the parrothead nation

[msharpe]

I am going to spend a few days in Nassau. I would welcome advice on things to see and do, places to eat, drink, and listen to tunes.

Definitely visit the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island!!

[Mango Picker]

We went to Atlantis in Nassau a few yrs ago, and got to see Don't Stop The Carnival... which is no longer playing... sorry...

Atlantis was awesome. Get the good /best meal plan... My daughter swam past Gloria Estephan on our first time in the pool. Snoop Dog and his girlfriends were all over... You can snorkle right off the beach. Get your hair braided too, for about 30-60$... but if it is hot, get in the shade Take the slide thru the sharks.

The beach is great, chaises have canopys too! Tons of towels... Lots of pools and rides. Have a Corona on the beach, and do your own tv commercial... or have a Red Stripe... Do the Dolphin Encounters and SWIM with the dolphins. You get right in the water with them... they are so gentle!!! The foot push is a total gas!!!! YEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Fins! dolphin fins.... !!!

Over in Nassau, lots of shops, linens, straw market!, t-shirts, tops, all that stuff. We went also when they had carnival, Junkanoo... which goes all nite... There is a supervised night club for younger teen agers too. The aquariums are really neat, some are the walls to the resturants. Book your dinners when you make your reservations before you leave!

Getting there can be almost the BEST part. Chalks Ocean Airways flies vnitage Grumman Mallards (with new turboprops, avionics, etc) out of Miami and Ft Lauderdale. It holds only 16. It flys low, about 1000-1500 feet up, so you see all the clear water, coral, etc!! AND you come in over sailboat masts, landing right in the harbor alongside the cruiseships... Very very smooth flight and landing!!!! They drop the wheels while in the water, and taxi out the ramp to the small exclusive customs hut only your flight of 16 will use...and you will clear very quickly!! RIGHT across the street is Atlantis, 1 minute away. The Atlantis van will pick you up and drop you right at your hotel.

I fulfilled 2 lifetime fantasies on that trip. Flying Chalks, which I had watched for years as a kid growing up in vintage Miami, and SWIMMING with the dolphins...

If you go, you won't forget it!!!! Then again, neither will your charge card... haaahaaa

[JanelovesJimmy]

Hi!

We stayed at the Marriott on Cable Beach 2 years ago. They have a casino and a good Italian place to eat. Although there's not a great beach in front of the hotel, there's a good one next door at the Radisson. The Booze Cruise passed by afternoon's and looked to be a majorly loud, fun party. They leave from Breezes at the same time every day.

Atlantis is awesome, but very expensive, and we could not eat at some of their restaurants because we had shorts on. Downtown and the market was a fun plcce to spend a little time. We took the fast ferry (2.5 hr ride) to Harbour Island and their "pink beach". So pretty............Went by the Pink Sands (?)Hotel for lunch. Buffett has stayed there and mentioned the place in some articles I've read. Have a great trip!
Jane

[sd parrot head]

Thank you for your advice. I am staying at Atlantis for two days and then moving to Cable beach to the Wyndham. I will check out the booze cruise and Harbour Island. The pink sand beach sounds cool. Has anyone heard of COMPASS POINT? I heard it is a cool boutique hotel. I was wondering if I should stay there. Thanks again. I welcome anymore info my fellow PH's have.

[hikingontuesday]

We were there for a day on a long cruise stop over. The Booze Cruise we went on was the Yellow Bird tour. It sailed just outside the new Carlos & Charlies. It was fun, way too many Rum punches... They had a nice calypso band on the boat. We went to some island... (did I mention the rum punch) and played volleyball and rode wave runners. The way back is blurry, but I managed to make it back on my ship!

I had some great Conch Chower at a place near the big marketplace... I think it was called Conch's. The local beer is called Presidente. We payed for a tour of the area, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Have fun. Take photos!

[tryin' to reason]

Also try Kalik beer, the beer of the Bahamas!
Not bad.
It has the advantage of NOT sneaking up on you like the rum punches!!!

[chalksoperations]

Thanks for the business mango picker! I work here at Chalks and it is the job of a lifetime for sure...glad you enjoyed your trip. SD - you can get a good burger at the Hurricane Hole Marina, I stop in there when I have time to kill on the island. Over the bridge in Nassau hasn't changed that much, but recently the straw market burned down. You can still buy the stuff from street vendors, just not in the central place it all once was.
Not sure if you are staying at Atlantis or not, but it's not like a regular hotel where you can wander around aimlessly. You need to be a resident to enjoy the facilities.
Are you flying over with us? If you're not, you are missing out on the best part of the experience, no doubt about that. Enjoy your trip.

[JanelovesJimmy]

If I would have had the money I would have stayed at Compass Point. It's owned by the record producer for Bob Marley, etc. He also owns the Pink Sands hotel on Harbour Island.
Compass Point is so cool. If nothing else, have dinner there around sunset, and take some pictures Each room is a brightly colored individual cottage.........Alot of the "hip" crowd hang out at the bar.
Can I go with you?

[Les R]

Make sure you have a kalik at The Green Parrot! It is a great little outdoor bar in the harbor close to Atlantis. Perfect place to sip boat drinks and watch the boats sail by. The best restaurant we found was The Poop Deck, they have two locations but the one at cable beach is nicer. The food and atmosphere there is incredible. The all day power boat tours out to the Exuma Cays are a great way to spend a day. And if you are a golfer, do yourself a favor and play the Ocean Club. It offers some breathtaking views.

Have fun!

[sd parrot head]

Thank you all for your responses and helping me figure out what I am going to do besides drink, snorkle and go to the beach. Happy holidays!

[Goodman]

Take a plane. The walk's a beach. Seriously, look for Bahama Mama, I hear a lot of people mentioning her.

[Pepe T. Pirate]

Hi SD Parrot Head!

(My first post - hope this works!) Still going to Nassau?

I worked in New Providence for a few months in 1999 and have lots of suggestions for your trip! Of course, some things will have changed (like, the Straw Market burned down), but lots I can tell you will still be there for you to experience.

The main one..........get to the Fish Fry right away. All cab and bus drivers will know what you're talking about. The Fish Fry is about 12 or 20 funky restaurants about 2 miles from downtown Nassau. It's really fun, you'll meet lots of Bahamians there......that's the point, right? There's one called Goldie's (or something like that) that was always crowded and that tourists seemed to like but I could never pass up the one that blasted James Brown, Otis and Aretha.....the seating is a big, 3-sided counter that faces the grill so you can watch the grouper sizzling and talk with the cook. Big fans spinning above you. So fine and yummy!

Transportation:
Be aware that the buses all stop running at about 7pm, so stash your money for the return trip in a different pocket..........transportation is expensive at night. (When you are wondering why everything in Nassau is closed at night, here is your answer!) Also, there are no buses on Paradise island or to it, but you can walk across the bridge between Nassau and Paradise Island and then take buses for $1. Or. take the harbor boat to downtown Nassau.......................definitely an E ticket! The harbor boat drops you off near the street (station?) where all buses leave for destinations throughout Nassau and New Providence.

Potter's Cay, the open market below the Paradise Island bridge is where you can catch a mailboat to other islands.........way cool if you have some time and no pending reservations. For some reason, I never got a real answer as to what day a boat might return!

Rent a car for a day or two and see the rest of New Providence. That would be the best way to check out Compass Point. "Someday I Will" stay there for about a month or six and write my travel book or my mystery.......or not (write, that is). We always did our laundry inland from Compass Point at Gambier Village. Nearby the laundromat, there's a cool, outdoor bar and restaurant with a great jukebox, a tiny fruitstand / soda store with one table out front, lots of flowers in the trees, women selling banana bread, a yellow one-speed bike leaning up against a stucco wall and no tourists. Was always fun to sit at that table and see what showed up.

While you have your rental car, you could check out the Clifton Plantation. This is where I worked........there was a big political land-grab fight going on between the Bahamian people and the government and a developer over this land. The people wanted Clifton Point to become a National Park and the developer and gvt. wanted to turn it into a gated community. Go figure! Anyway, if you can still get to it, there are some beautiful little pocket beaches with interesting rock formations in knee-deep water, lots of sandy-grassy rippled underwater plains where conch should be living (but they were over harvested and wiped out on New Providence probably by 1900) and some schools of fish that you may see occasionally when snorkeling. The point is protected by the reef, so it's just slightly more choppy than a swimming pool.

Also, Clifton is an important Bahamian archaeological site. Ahhhh, archaeology at the beach.......I was forever spoiled! But, I digress. Clifton Point is where the 2nd Flipper movie was filmed and also some James Bond movies. (Forewarning: there are no signs to Clifton Point, so rent the Flipper movie before you go. Then, when you're lost, you will know that your search is going to be worth it.) After filming, the "flipper house" and pier were abandoned by Disney. People fished from the pier when I was working there and snorkeling under it is great. As you enter the site, you can see some bouys used by dive boats......some look like an easy swim from the land and the ones farther out are definitely at the edge of the "wall". I always meant to snorkel over there and check it out, but never got around to it. (Driving tip: if it looks like the sand in the road in front of you is too deep, it is....pull over, get out and walk the rest of the way). This is the last piece of undeveloped coastline in New Providence (I hope it's still there for you to see) It is one of my particular harbors....... (but bring mosquito repellent, and the ants bite!).

Other things to do with your car........check out the South Ocean area, it's very laid back cool marina there, and Adelaide Village.......some interesting ruined houses there left after a hurricane. Oh, you can tour the Bacardi Rum distillery; several co-workers liked this but I preferred searching for New Providence's number one snorkeling spot.

In your car, you could look for Bluebeard's alleged fort....I followed the map and think I found it (!) .........the view and breeze up there is great and you can get lost in this outrageous neighborhood called Over the Hill district. This is one of the first communities created by freed slaves after slavery was outlawed in the early 1800's and the houses are old, old, old and rustic, rustic, rustic and many are faded or are painted bright, bright, bright purple and green and fuschia-colors. It's one of the neighborhoods that places like Compass Point strive to emulate. You will get lost trying to find the fort, but you will have fun looking and may never know if you did actually find it. But, the journey is almost always more fun and memorable than the destination, in my view!

Let's see, what else? The best, easy, non-boat snorkeling we found is around the human-built breakwater that protects the Radisson's (?) beach at Cable Beach. (Whatever the hotel is that is next to the Marriott.) Big eels, little barracudas and actually some coral and schools of big fish ....and the bus stops out front! We were working for no pay, and so we looked hard for good, free, accessible snorkeling, and this was it......bizarre, I know! Something like 3/4 of the entire Bahamian population lives in Nassau and New Providence and has been very populated and overfished and harvested for a few hundred years, so this has taken it's toll on the ocean life.......not too much in the way of pristine coral reefs or big schools of fish right off the coast of New Providence without using a boat.........believe me, I was looking!

Oh, speaking of hotel beaches............you can walk through and hang out at any of the hotel beaches in the Bahamas because the beach itself is not owned by the hotel..........but, don't swim in one of the hotel pools and then dry off with your own towel at the poolside.......go back to the beach to dry off or be prepared to be made very embarrassed by security. (Been there.) Oh, speaking of Towel Awareness........in 1999, the Atlantis and the Cable Beach Radisson (?)_(the hotel with the breakwater) had identical beach towels. So, if you were staying at the Radisson, theoretically, you could play all day in the Atlantis pools, as well.

Paradise Island..........no buses run on the island and cabs are restricted. Cabs can only take you to the hotels, but are not allowed to take you to the far end of the long, beautiful white beach. There are bike rentals on the island, though, and perhaps transportation can be arranged if you're staying at one of the Paradise Island hotels. The reason I mention this.......the map shows a spot at the tip of Paradise Island called Snorkeler's Beach or Bay. It's on the far side of the airport and golf course. We started walking there one day but it's way farther than it looks when walking in sand (that's when we found out about the taxi restriction). But I always thought that this could be one of the places that the day-trip snorkeling boats go and it's one of the places I really wanted to check out, but didn't. Oh, no, what if it's MY particular harbor and I didn't get there???????

Lastly, my suggestion is to get away from the Atlantis and the banana boat rides and jet skis and people trying to braid your hair (the Atlantis beach scene and entire looming establishment is quite annoying and obnoxious ,IMO) and spend some quality time grooving in the Bahamas. Take a snorkeling day boat trip and see some fish and coral - don't do a combo booze cruise-snorkel boat trip..... you won't be happy with the quality of the booze or the snorkeling. Go to the Fish Fry, have a Conch salad and some fritters and make some friends.

Have fun!!!!!!!! Can I come???????? (Wow, kinda long!)

Pepe T. Pirate[/list]

[mason]

wel that was nice reading. hopefully somebody will put it to good use.

"listen to the stories i could tell"

member of the parrothead nation

[finzup9]

well i can tell ya what to drink lots of booze!!!!!!!!!

[Bob Roberts]

If you wanna drink.......ALOT, this is definately the place!