Bahama Mama

Jeff and I are fresh back from the Bahamas and we had a fantastic 4-day getaway with no kids! I posted some pictures on Facebook but of course I needed to do a write-up on our trip. It was the first time either of us had been to Nassau and the first time we had ever stayed at an all-inclusive resort. We stayed at the Sandals Royal Bahamian and overall we were rather pleased. I learned that leaving and returning to the country is quite a hassle, especially when you're only gone for 4 days but it was still worth it, especially since it was such a short flight. Although I think the flying part took a few years off my life, but I'll explain that later. The purpose of this trip was three-fold: to celebrate our ten year wedding anniversary, which occurred in May, to celebrate Jeff's completion of his MBA, which occurred last week, and to celebrate his 35th birthday, which occurs this Friday. When we booked the trip in April, we decided to go for an ocean-view room, but not ocean-front. However, when we arrived and were taken to our room, we realized they had given us ocean front. Not sure if they had overbooked the other rooms or what but we weren't about to complain. The view from our room was spectacular. In the background, you can see the offshore Island that Sandals guests can take a boat to:

The room itself was very nice (but I forgot to take a picture of it) with a four-poster bed and even a bar. There were full bottles of rum, vodka, gin, champagne, red wine, white wine. It was odd to be in a hotel room and have all the alcohol free for the taking. The funny part is, we didn't touch any of it. We preferred ordering drinks at the bars. We felt like we were back in college with all these mixed drinks. Honestly, we don't drink much beyond wine and beer these days, if that. It was fun ordering all the tropical drinks and trying to remember the names of all the other kids of drinks. The food was actually pretty decent. I wasn't sure what to expect since it was all-inclusive. There were ten restaurants to choose from on the property and we ended up eating in most of them. The first night we went to the Japanese steakhouse restaurant which was fun, but the food wasn't nearly as good as the Japanese steakhouse we frequent here at home. Here's the appetizer they served us:
The second night we ate in the Italian restaurant and Jeff had an amazingly good veal shank dish. I had the lamb chops which were so-so and our last night we dined in a place called the Crystal Room which was one of the fancier restaurants. I dined on crab legs and Jeff enjoyed the pime rib. But enough about the food, the best part of the trip were the beaches...we pretty much sat our butts on the beach for four days straight. I know, not very exciting but that's all I wanted to do. I didn't need to do all the watersports or any of that, I just wanted to sit my happy behind on a beach and I'm not ashamed to admit it! When we first got there, we had lunch and then went straight to the beach. The water was so amazingly clear and calm, which I remembered from our honeymoon in Aruba but forgot how beautiful it was:
You can see from the underwater picture just how clear it was. Looks pretty much like a swimming pool:
Here's us taking a self portrait while in the ocean. Our hotel room was one of the ones you see in the building behind us on the fourth floor.

The next day we decided to visit the offshore island which was a 5-minute boat ride away. We took the first boat out at 10am with about 40 other people. Once we got to the island, we weren't really sure of the best place to go, but they had mentioned that the backside had a beautiful beach, and they weren't kidding. A lot of the people headed for the pool, which seemed silly to us and we went straight for the beach- there was maybe one or two other couples that headed there as well, but it was a decent size and so we felt like we were the only ones out there. Here is the cabana we parked at for the next four hours:
We also had a pretty good view of the Atlantis from this Island, which was kind of neat:
And this was the view from our cabana:
And off to the left:
At one point during the day, we could see dark clouds over Atlantis and then we could see some heavy rain falling. Luckily it never rained on us that day, it stayed pretty nice. Here's the rain over Atlantis. Kinda neat to watch:

We eventually returned to the mainland, where we promptly sat our butts down again at that beach. We just couldn't get enough of it. Then we dressed for a casual dinner (special thanks to my friend Erica for letting me borrow a couple dresses for the trip!):
The next morning I got up and managed to catch the start of the sunrise. I was lucky I got up when I did because soon after I took this picture the clouds rolled in and pretty much stayed around until we left:
That day we (can you guess) went back to the beach again. It was a cloudy day but no rain. I actually was happy that it was cloudy because we didn't have to worry about the sun beating down on us. We were under an umbrella so we didn't feel the few raindrops that did manage to fall. When we went in the ocean we spied some pretty fish underwater so we stuck the camera in the water and this is what we got:
Then we were talking to another couple and the husband found a starfish. He picked it up but quickly dropped it when he realized it was still alive:
Once dropped, the starfish then quickly buried itself back into the ground:
After a day at the beach, we dressed up nice and headed to dinner:
But not before a few pre-dinner drinks:
We capped off the night with a visit to the piano bar where we proceeded to make fools of ourselves by singing along but it's okay because there were several other couples that did the same thing. It was a fun night and we met some great people. The next day was our last and we were going to take out a hobie sunfish so Jeff could show off his sailing skills but there wasn't enough wind so we opted for the big aqua trike. It was fun and a good workout too. I almost dropped the camera into the water but luckily there was a little ledge that saved it. That would have made our aqua-trike experience a little more interesting because even though the camera is waterproof, it doesn't float. The water wasn't too deep - you could see the bottom but luckily we didn't have to go fishing around for it in the salty water. After that, we just hung out at the pool and went in the hot tub:
We left the hotel at 3pm for a 5:50 flight. The airport was a hassle - between the ticket counter, security, customs and immigration I can see why they tell you to get to the airport 3 hours before your flight. The flight itself was only 39 minutes which was nice but it 39 of the longest minutes of my life. I don't do well flying, in fact I hate it. This was our fourth trip this year that involved an airplane and it was by far the hardest on me. I think it had something to do with the kids not being with us. I think I squeezed Jeff's hand so hard I stopped his blood circulation. The takeoff was a bit bumpy because we were flying through lots of clouds and it never really got much better. I should have loaded up on the free drinks before I left the hotel but even that would have worn off by the time we actually took off. I think it's going to be a very long time before I fly again because I just can't handle it! But despite my anxiety issue about flying, we had a fabulous trip and the kids had a great time at grandma and papa's house. Next time, I think we'll stay in the country and probably not even leave the state. Good thing there are lots of places to go in Florida.