Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Atlantis in Nassau, Protect Ya Tings

We went into Nassau yesterday, with the idea that we would get a few things, and we wanted to see the Atlantis Resort while we were here. It was harder to get to downtown Nassau than we thought, because the boat is anchored on the West end of the island, and it turns out that New Providence Island is pretty big. We dingied in to shore, and just missed the bus to town. Who knows when another one would come, so we started to walk. Do not do this. Blindly walking off into the unknown looking for a bus stop or a gas station is how people die. We walked and walked. It was getting hot. Then, like a mirage... a bus was coming. It was a church bus, and they were nice and stopped to pick us up. At this point you know your are getting on the bus, right? But those church buses are always on the news... 'Eight People Dead in Church Bus Accident', 'Church Bus Collides with Dump Truck, No Survivors', 'Church Bus Rollover Kills All'. So we climbed in. Fifteen minutes later, the driver spots a city bus, and honks at him, and then cuts him off and slams on the brakes! Nice. No wonder church bus accidents are so prevalent.

The city bus took us downtown, but most of the place was closed up, either for good, or because the day before was Easter, and that is a great reason to be closed. WTF? We walked for a while, and then we decided to go see Atlantis and the aquarium they have. We got a quick taxi ride to the resort and went to the ticket counter to buy tickets. The nice lady asked which hotel we were staying at, we told her we were on a boat. Her eyes squinted just a bit, as if we had suddenly gotten very small. and were in fact, very hard to see. Then her lips pursed a bit, and the corners of her mouth dropped a tad bit. This is weird I thought, just tell us how much the tickets are. Her face suddenly snapped back to normal and she said "The tickets are 42 dollars each, however, you cannot come in. You must be staying at the resort or an affiliated hotel nearby to have access, period." What? We couldn't believe it. I mumbled something very helpful, I think it had something about corporations and how great their decisions are, and how we would be hurrying back sometime in the very near future. She then suggested that we go book a room, and then we could buy the tickets. Again, I was very diplomatic and my kind words included something about my death occurring before we did anything of the sort. We turned and were leaving, not sure to where actually, when a very nice young lady ran up to us and said "Follow Me". She took us inside, and said she would give us a tour of the whole place, including a guided tour of the aquarium, for free. It seems that as of April 1, the resort has this new policy that refuses to sell people tickets unless they are staying there, in which case you wouldn't need a ticket. ??? Now here is a corporate brainstorm for you. We would have dropped a hundred bucks to see the place, but now we have a paid employee taking us on a 90 minute guided tour for free! Gotta wonder about this one. It was great, our guide was really cool, she told us everything about the resort, she took us on a real guided tour of the aquarium, explaining how all the different displays all followed the lost city of Atlantis. We would not have had the same experience had we toured this on our own, it was perfect. We were like the Rich and Famous, as other groups tried to listen in on our tour!

After our tour, we gave our guide a nice tip, and we were free to roam around on our own. We loved it there, if you stay there, you have access for free to the waterpark they have, as well as the aquarium. We might come back after all, all we have to do is show up and ask how much it costs, and we will probably get a complimentary room. It's us after all.
It was getting late, so we decided to head back to the boat, but we needed to stop a few places on the way, so we talked a cabbie down to something reasonable for the ride back, and then skillfully told him we needed to stop a few times on the way back. He agreed, and off we went. He was a master at using his horn as a comminication device. Honk, your too slow. Honk, you are too fast. Honk, hello and a wave to someone on the sidewalk. Honk, you are too close. Too anything get's a honk, you figure it out, you know what you have done anyway. We passed some very important public billboards along the way, too.
Even this prompted a honk, not sure which side of the issue he was on though. We got back to the boat and got Guincha to the beach for a run.
That's when we saw this, the Easter Peep Monster! We got the hell outta there, the place is haunted by drunken Peeps! We noticed another Manta catamaran in the anchorage, and went by to say hello. We later returned with our friends from Echo Echo, and had snacks and drinks. Clark and Michelle were wonderful hosts, their boat was immaculate, and we had a great time. Thank a lot Clark and Michelle on Double Wide!