Jessica had read about someone’s trip to the Bahamas online and became intrigued to visit the islands.  The people she read about had stayed at the Royal Tower of Atlantis, so she also wanted to stay there as well.  Given that Atlantis has a number of hotel offerings, James decided to check out the options.  While reading the commentaries of the various hotels, James didn’t see that much of a difference between the Royal Tower and Coral Tower to justify almost $200 more per night difference that was being quoted.  After some debate, James was able to convince Jessica that Coral Tower can be just as good of a choice for our visit.

With no direct flights and to keep a minimum number of connections without getting detoured too far, the best choices were to fly out of SFO rather than SJC.  We also decided to fly overnight to Nassau to make best use of time and return in the late evening back to San Francisco.   For the outbound flight we selected a flight via Charlotte that had a reasonable layover.   For the return flight, we selected a flight through Miami with a longer layover, to ensure enough time to clear immigration, as the flight through Charlotte had a layover of only about an hour.  (Although as we discovered later, the US immigration clearance was done in Bahamas prior to our departure, such that connection time would not have mattered as much.)   With the price of First Class tickets only about $800 more round trip for both of us at the time we booked, we decided to splurge a bit.   Even though we know that given the planes used will be Boeing 737 and Airbus 320, there would not be any lie-flat seats, but hope the slightly wider seats with more recline would help make the trip more comfortable.

There were a number of excursions that Jessica wants to try based on the story she had read, particularly to Exuma Cay and the Pink Beach on Harbour Island.   The full day Exuma excursion that she read about required getting to the island early in the morning and leaving late on our own, which was not practical for us.  So we end up booking another tour that departed from Nassau and would return us back on the same day.  For the other excursion Jessica decided to wait until we get there to arrange.  In hindsight, we probably could have waited until we get there to book tours, may have had more choices.

Our flight to Charlotte and the connection went fairly smoothly.   The only thing somewhat unexpected was that no breakfast was served on either flights; only a box breakfast was offered to take with us when we deplaned on our first flight.  We elected to have a light breakfast at the airport instead.    During the short flight from Charlotte to Nassau, the flight attendant passed out US Customs forms along with the Bahamian Immigration form.  That was when we found out that we would be clearing US immigration at Nassau before we board the plane on our return back to the US.   We wouldn’t need to have worried about a short layover on our return flight that typically is an issue for an international connection at an US airport.

We touched down at Nassau, New Providence just before noon local time.  The trek through immigration and custom at the airport was quick, and we were on the shuttle bus within an hour of landing.   The ride to the hotel took about 40 minutes, which included a ride through the congested commercial center of Nassau and the huge cruise ship port by the harbor.  It is said that this port can hold up to eight of today’s mega-size cruise ships at once.   It took longer to get through that part of town than it took the rest of our ride to the hotel.  After passing the cruise ship port, we quickly reached the bridge that would take us into Paradise Island and our hotel, Atlantis’ Coral Tower.

Our driver made a comment as we were crossing the bridge, that as much as the resort will try to “keep us there with balls and chains”, we should get out of the resort to see and experience the real Bahamas.  The comment may not be unusual when it comes to island resorts.  But as we would discover, given the size of Atlantis, one could easily have been kept busy for a week and eat at a different restaurant every day without leaving the resort.   One thing we didn’t get with our package was a pre-paid meal plan.   We had wanted to try some local restaurants outside the resort, and we heard of problems of settling bills with the pre-paid meals due to the various rules and exceptions.  Plus, at $500 per person for 5 days, it didn’t seem to be a deal.

 

After getting settled into our room, which overlooks the Paradise Island harbor with a distance view of the Nassau cruise ship port from our balcony, Jessica booked a restaurant in Nassau for that evening and then wanted to walk through all the ‘sights’ within the resort itself.  The Coral Tower sits in the middle of the three main hotel towers of Atlantis.  It is adjacent to the Beach Tower, and it is located close to the main lagoons and resort water sport area.  And it is not a far walk to the Atlantis Beach that faces the Atlantic Ocean.

We first went to the Predator Lagoon and Tunnel, just a few steps from outside of our hotel’s back door.  The path to it winds through pools on one side and lagoon on the other side, including an area with numerous Manteel Rays, where a group was interacting with the rays.  We then walked down to the Predator Tunnel where there are glass enclosures with views of the bottom of the lagoon on both sides.   There were numerous kinds of fish and sharks in this lagoon, and most of the fish were large, some as big as the smaller sharks.  One part of the tunnel has a long glass tube that we can walk through from one side of the lagoon to the other side with fishes swimming around the tub on all sides.  As James was ready to take a picture of Jessica in the tube, a large sawtooth shark swam over the top of the tube.  James tried to quickly redirect his camera to the shark but was able to only pick up a shadow of the beast.

 

From the Predator’s tunnel, we walked by the adventure area, where there is all kind of water activities available on the lagoon (for additional fees), including canoes, surf board paddling, water tricycle, etc. Then we headed across the lagoon and headed back toward the hotel complex, getting to the “Royal Spot” that is just outside the Casino with a perfect vantage point of most of the resort’s outdoor complex.  After taking a few pictures, we headed into the casino and walked toward the Royal Tower.   James decided to take a look at the Sports Book and made a couple of small wagers on the following night’s NCAA tournament games.   At the Royal Tower, there is an Atlantis Ruin attraction with various artifacts about Atlantis, a nice attraction but nothing too extraordinary.

We exited the hotel and headed back outside again.  Walking by a Ben & Jerry stand, we decided to grab some ice cream.   One thing Atlantis did well was to enable guests to use their room key to charge for their purchases inside the resort.  It makes things convenient, although they charge 15% gratuity on all purchases.  In fact, at most places in the resort you can only use your room key to charge.  (And as the room key indicated, you can also use your room key to use at the casino as well, though we didn’t try.)

After finishing our ice cream, we headed toward the Mayan Temple area, where there is a water slide attraction that enable people to flow down through a tube cutting across a shark tank on one side and a more typical slide on the other side.   There was a long line of people on these slides (which was free for hotel guests).   For the shark tank, there was another attraction where people can don a small version of the tank suit and walk in the tank with the sharks.  While we were there, we did see a group through the flexi glass along one wall of the tank doing that.

We continued our walk around the resort toward the ocean.  We first hit the water at the sandbar that jutted out at the tip of the island into the Atlantic Ocean.   We walked out on to the rocks and took some photos.  We then walked along the water until we hit Atlantis Beach, a beautiful white sand beach that was crowded at that time of the afternoon.   On the beach, there were vendors renting jet skis and all kind of other vendors selling drinks to souvenirs.   After taking some pictures, we headed back to our hotel through the Predator tunnel again.  If nothing else, it was cool in the tunnel, and we were getting hot from our walk around the resort.

It was almost 5PM when we got back to the hotel.  Before returning to our room, Jessica went to the hotel’s Tour center and booked a trip to the Pink Beach for the next day.  With the trip requiring a three-hour boat ride, James decided not to go; Jessica would do this excursion by herself.   When we got back to our room, we took a shower to clean up and a rest for our dinner appointment in Nassau.

The taxi ride to Nassau was an interesting experience.  To get the most bang for each trip, taxis will try to fill a van with people.  As we were to find out later, a typical ride from the Nassau city center to our hotel is $12.  With the van, the driver would charge $4 per person for the trip.  So with 8-10 people per trip, the driver can make $32 to $40 per trip instead of the normal $12.

Our dinner reservation was at Café Matisse, a restaurant that Jessica said had among the best reviews in Nassau.   While we would categorize it as a fine dinning place, the atmosphere and attire is casual.  We chose an outside table to enjoy the early evening light.  Trying to stay local, we ordered a cracked crab appetizer, but while James chose the local Hog fish as his entrée, Jessica decided to go with a T-Bone steak, which was a recommended dish she saw in the reviews.  Both entrees turned out to be very good.  The Hog fish was grilled tender enough that a fork was all was needed, and the squash and cherry tomato were perfect accompaniments.  The steak was also prepared very well, with sides of asparagus and cherry tomato.   Even though we were both full from our entrees, we completed our meal with a raspberry cheesecake which we shared.

We left the restaurant just past eight o’clock and headed back to the hotel.  The short taxi ride to the hotel along the water, with the twilight flickering off the harbor water and boats accentuating the paradise feel, was in some way a perfect way to end our first day.   With an early morning departure for her excursion, Jessica headed to bed and fell asleep almost right away.  James stayed up and finished a basketball game on TV before dozing off.

The next day, we both got up around 6:30AM.  Jessica had to leave for her excursion just past 7AM, while James decided to head to the hotel fitness center for a workout before beginning his day.    After seeing Jessica off in the taxi, James walked through the hotel and casino to the Fitness Center, which is located on the other side of the Royal Tower.

The fitness center is in the same center as the spa facility and has a good setup, with all the machines and free weights; there was also an outdoor lap exercise pool.  After finishing his workout around 8:30AM, James decided to take a detour to check out more of the resort by walking around outside on his way back to Coral Tower.   At that hour, the outside area was still very quiet, with hardly anyone around and most of the attraction were not open.  James walked by the Power Tower area, another set of slides and activities that we didn’t get a chance to check out the previous day.   There is a swimming pool around just about every corner in this resort.    It was kind of neat to walk through the area with the place empty, feeling like you have the whole place to yourself.

After a shower, James decided to walk around the area outside the resort on Paradise Island and see if he can grab something to eat while catching up on a few things.   Just outside of the resort, across the street from Comfort Suites, there is a small shopping complex, Paradise Shopping Plaza.   James had seen people bringing Dunkin Donut coffee back to the hotel, so he decided to see if he can find it.   After finding out that DD also offered free WiFi,   James picked up some breakfast at DD, sat under a big umbrella on a courtyard on the outside patio and catch up on some writing.  The heat wasn’t much of a factor at that time of day, but the humidity can still be felt, especially when there was no breeze.  There were a number of people coming and going out of the shop.   Judging by the attire, there were as many locals as tourists.   And there were also people walking around in the courtyard offering to sell ‘Cuban cigars’ to the patrons sitting in the area.  After about an hour, James decided to walk around the shopping plaza to check out the shops.  James ended up picking up a couple of a souvenir trinkets and some post cards at one of the shops and then walked back across the street to the Marina Village, which is part of the Atlantis resort by the island’s harbor.

 

It was about 11AM and the area was still fairly quiet.  There were some activities at the Starbucks, Ben and Jerry and Quiznos, but that was about it.  While there, James saw Cafe Martinique, which is now a Jean-Georges Vongericten restaurant and decided it would be a good choice for dinner on on of the nights.  The original Cafe Martinique was located where the Atlantis hotel now sits and made an appearance in the movie Thunderball as the casino where James Bond met the villain Largo the first time.

 

 

The yachts lining the harbor next to the village were all nice ‘mini-ships’.   By the resort building, there were umbrella tables lining the harbor.   James grabbed one and decided to continue his writing while doing some people watching at the same time.   It was kind of an ideal spot to just relax and soak in the resort vibe.

After the battery start to run down after another hour, James decided to head to the Starbucks inside the hotel to see if there was an outlet available.  This Starbuck has a setup with outlets along the back wall that let people to plug in.  James ordered a drink and then charged up the Mac while continuing to work on his stories.

To avoid the lunch crowd, James went to grab a bite to eat at Murray’s Deli at the hotel around 2 o’clock.   Not wanting to eat too much but still want to be filled, James decided to get a hamburger, as he hadn’t had one for a long time.  The burger tasted good, and James decided not to eat all the accompanied fries to avoid getting too full.   Afterwards, he checked with the concierge to book a reservation at Café Martinique.   Because Jessica’s return time that night wasn’t certain and the Café is closed the following two nights, he booked a reservation for their last night on the island.

James then checked out more areas in the resort that he hasn’t the previous day, and he wanted to find a shady spot somewhere to do some reading before going to the Sportsbook area in the Casino to watch the NCAA Final Four games and wait for Jessica’s return.

Going to the other side of the Coral Tower away from the center of the resort, James found additional water activities and also a pond filled with baby stingrays and sharks.  These ponds are very shallow and those tiny creatures can be easily seen.   After reaching the ocean again, James walked back to one of the pool areas and found a chair under some shade and did some reading.  After about half an hour, he dozed off for a while, but then awoke again to continue reading until around 5:30PM, when he went back to the room to freshen up a bit and head off to the Sportsbook to watch the games.

At the Sportsbook area, people has started to camp out waiting for the first the Final Four game, Villanova vs Oklahoma.   The monitors on one side of the wall was setup to make two wall size screens to show the game, while there are additional screens to the side to show other sports as well.  Even in a resort in Bahamas, one can find a lot of people that was aligned to one team or the other (or that they just have a wager on the game).   There seemed to be more Oklahoma supporters for the first game.  It was a reasonably close contest for the first part of the game, but Villanova start to stretch out the lead by halftime.   Just as the second half began, Jessica called to say she is back, and James headed back to the hotel room.

Jessica brought back some jerk chicken platter that she had picked up on her way back from the harbor area.  It was still warm.   We ate it while Jessica showed off the inexpensive shells and corals that she picked up at the Pink Beach and James peeked at the basketball game on TV.   The chicken was a bit spicy for James, but was real tasty that James keep nibbling at it despite needing to drink a lot of water.    While playing with her new toys and describing her trip, we ate the chicken.

The Pink beach is on the west side of Harbour Island, facing the Atlantic.   The Island is only about ½ mile wide and 3 ½ miles long, a narrow strip of land.  There is one ‘town’ on the island, Dunmore Town.  Most of the restaurants and lodgings are located in the center to the western part of the island.

The island is said to be the place to go for its tranquility and it pink beach, where the water are gentle with a coral reef protecting the beach from the waves of the ocean.

The pink color comes from microscopic shell animal called Foraminifera, one of the most abundant single cell organism in the ocean.  Bahama’s Pink Beach, with its smooth sand, is said to have the world’s best pink beach.

Jessica’s adventure on the island was mostly enjoying the beach, where there were also horses available for riding.    She had met a couple of Chinese graduate students on the ferry.   They had tried to rent a car on the island to drive around more of the island, but was unsuccessful.  Outside the beach, they just shop around the local vendors near the beach that sells corals, shells and crafts.   And for lunch, they had the local favorite Jerk Chicken, corn bread and conch salad.

 

We also started thinking about where to go for dinner.   The chicken was our appetizer.   James mentioned the restaurants at the Marina village.   We went down to village around 8 o’clock, but there was still a wait of 45 minutes for Bimini Road, the restaurant that serve local favors that we wanted to try.   Since we weren’t too hungry, waiting wasn’t an issue.  It also gave Jessica a chance to walk around the village.   There was a shop for local cake maker Tortuga Rum Cake at the village.  We got a variety pack of cakes to take back home.   Jessica saw people drinking some colorful drinks and wanted to try.  Atlantis resort has a daiquiri shack in the village.  Jessica wanted to try the Rum Punch favor but that one only comes with alcohol; she settled with a virgin pina colada instead.

After about 30 minutes of walking around we went back to the restaurant to wait.  It took another about half an hour before we got seated.   Bimini Road features a number of local favorite dishes.  Jessica decided to have some conch chowder and conch salad, still savoring from what she had from lunch.  James decided to try the conch chowder along with a Cuban sandwich.    The conch chowder was good, but a bit too spicy for James, who end up drinking more than an equal amount of water; thus, was only able to finish about half of the sandwich.

Jessica went back up to the room after we finished, while James returned to the Sportsbook to watch the last part of the Syracuse/North Carolina game.   There were more people there than during the early game.  The game was a bit closer than the 1^st game, but the outcome was more or less determined with a few minutes left in the game.  Still the people there were excited until the end.   Some of the people there probably has something riding on the final score of the game.

The next day we decided to try some of the resort’s water activities in the morning and then go to Nassau in the afternoon, where Jessica made reservation at another recommended restaurant.   We first went to the water slides at the Mayan Temple.   After picking up our daily resort wristband, we first tried the dual tube slide through the shark tank.  The slide has a bit of rollercoaster feel, spiraling downward in a mostly dark environment added to the adventure.  We splashed down just before the straight tube run in the shark tank, and slowly drift though the tube with the sharks swimming outside.  Then we went over to the other side for a straight plunge slide.  That slide was quick and in a way more exhilarating, as one can feel the speed and lack of control as one slid down.  It was important to keep one’s body in right position to avoid any adverse impact when hitting the water.

After finishing with the slides, we took a dip in the pool for a few minutes.  The cool water feel good against the hot sun.   After drying off, we pick up a cold frappe at the poolside Starbucks and wait for the feeding of the sharks.   As the feeding time approached, in addition to people, we noticed that the birds were also starting to encroach into the area.  It seems like they know the feeding time well.   When the caretaker started dropping the feed into water, the birds jumps on the food almost as fast the sharks and other fish in the tank.  As soon as the feed hit the water, there were swarms reaching for the feed from in the water as well as the sky.  The two bucket full of feed took about 5 minutes to distribute to the fish.

We left from the hotel around 1PM and took the short taxi ride to the Prince George Wharf, which is where the massive cruise terminal is located.   This is the main tourist hub of the city.   Probably wouldn’t be exaggerating too much if we say that most of the shops and restaurants there catered to the tourists.   Jessica wanted to walk around first before having lunch.   She had heard a lot about the straw hats in the Bahamas and want to get a locally made one.   We first went to the Straw Market that is just off the Wharf area.

However, most of the hats being sold were either made elsewhere or not to Jessica’s taste.   We didn’t see anything until we reached Pompey Square at the end of the wharf, the site of a former Slave Market.   In the Square, there were a few vendor stands selling straw items and other souvenirs.   We found a straw vendor that looked promising, who was in the process of working on a straw box.  Jessica was able to find a hat to her liking, along with a couple of straw boxes and a vase.

We then walked around a couple of blocks in the area looking for a place for lunch.   James was ok with almost anything, but Jessica want something ‘good’.  We found a Chinese restaurant in the area, but after looking around, Jessica didn’t find it to be worthwhile.   When James went to buy a T-shirt in a store, Jessica asked the clerk for a good restaurant serving local food.  The clerk recommended Lukka Kairi, the one we had made a reservation for dinner that night.

Jessica decided that if the restaurant is good, we could eat both lunch and dinner there.   The restaurant is on the second floor of a building with a view of the harbor and the cruise terminal.    Just as we were seated on a table by the balcony, one of the cruise ship was starting to depart from the terminal.  The enormous size of the new cruise ship is awe aspiring up close.  These ships are literally city blocks floating on water.

The menu of Lukka Kairi may not be extensive, but as Jessica had read, they are innovative and surprising good.   Even though the portion of the dishes were not big, the restaurant’s dish is made and served to be shared.  This worked out very nicely for Jessica, who wants to try a lot of dishes.  Of course, in this case, we also have two opportunities to try different dishes.   The one dish Jessica wanted to try was the fried snapper, but that wasn’t available that day.  We end up selecting the kale Caesar salad, creamy grilled asparagus, conch fritters, lobster mac and cheese, hot dipped chicken, and the catch of the day.   We both also had the restaurant’s own fruit punch, which turned out to be very good.

All the dishes turn out to be great.  James really liked the conch fritters and the asparagus while Jessica was partial to the chicken.   As we didn’t really have breakfast, we were able to finish everything without problem.  The small portion size of the dish was ‘tapas like’ and gave us wanting more at the end.  We probably could have eaten more, but given we were to return for dinner was going to be in only a few hours, restraint was practical.

We walked around the city some more to work off our lunch and trying to pass the time before dinner.   We walked a couple of blocks west up the hill and wandered into some interesting places.  We passed by the Pompey Slave Museum, Pirates Museum and reached the government house buildings, which seems like the colonial style of grand building.   It might have been because it was Sunday, but all the museums and buildings were closed.   And with the cruise ship crowd mostly gone, many of the shops were starting to close.   We started looking for places to just sit and rest to wait for our dinner reservation at 6:30PM.

We found a café/bar in one of the alleyways that was still open.  We ordered the minimal:  Two beers, an ice cream and some fries to just pass the time.  Jessica used the WiFi of the café to do her stuff on her phone while James watched the baseball game on the TV.    The café closed up around 5PM, so we had to leave.  As we walked around, we see that all most all shops were now closed.   We stopped at the Pompey Square which was empty now for a little rest before heading back to Lukka Kairi.

They were able to seat us despite arriving much earlier than our reservation; the same waiter served us.   Given the short gap between our lunch and dinner, we selected only five dishes this time.  Four new ones plus the conch fritters (which James really liked):  Conch fritters, Conch salad, Grilled lobster tail, Drunken grilled flank steak and Grilled pork tenderloin.   Jessica again ordered the fruit punch while James tried the infused fruit water.   As was with lunch, all the dishes were delicious, and despite the relative small portions of the dishes, we weren’t able to finish them – just too much food within too a short period of time.

Despite the early hour when we returned, Jessica decided to just turn in for the day to get rest up for our early departure the following morning for the Exuma Cay tour.  Exuma Cay is an area about an hour of high speed boat ride from Nassau, which some described as some of the most beautiful waters in the world. We selected a tour that let us depart from Paradise Island.  The package included picking us at the hotel to the pier. The Pier turned out to locate within a short walk from our hotel, just beyond the Marian Village.

Our boat has a cover cabin behind the pilot house, which has about six or seven rows of seats that could hold 5 to 6 people each row.  There are additional seats in the front of the boat which was not covered.  We took a seat in the covered cabin section.  The ride out was fairly smooth in that section of the boat; we did not feel any rough waters even when the boat was cruising at high speed.  We were able to take a few pictures of islands until we went into open waters.

Our first stop of the day was at Allan Cay, which has indigenous iguanas on this tiny island.  The crew gave us some sticks and grapes which we would use to feed the iguanas on the island.  There were quite a number of iguanas, both large and small.  And they do seem to like the grapes that were used to lure them out and take their pictures.

After we finished feeding the iguanas, we went to a private island, Ship Channel Cay.   The island has a small landing pier and a few wooden buildings along the beach.   The island has a long stretch of white sand beach, but the water around the island had a number of mantel rays and sharks swimming along the beach and shores.

The first group activity was feeding and petting the mantel rays.   This was similar to what we had done on our trip to Tahiti.  The staff lined up the people along the beach and gave everyone some feed.   They gave instruction on how to feed the rays and then let some of the rays swim along the people line to give people a chance to feed and pet them.

But the more interesting activity was the “shark feeding”.   One of the staff had lured some sharks close to the beach and then another staff used a large fish to lure them closer to the beach.  He put the fish at the end of long rope and flung it into the water, as he pulled the rope in, the sharks would follow the bait.   And when one the shark bites onto the fish tightly, the shark was lifted out of the water.    Within a few minutes, the sharks ate all the fish on the rope.

 

Before lunch, another activity available to the group was snorkeling around the island among the sharks and rays.  The lunch buffet featured mostly dishes such as fish fry, grill pork and chicken, rice, potato salad, Johnny bread, etc.   Conch salad was not on the lunch menu, but another activity in the afternoon was the conch salad demonstration, where one of the staff member ‘cut up’ a couple of conch for a fresh salad.   The empty shells were given to a couple of the kids in the group.

Not long after the conch salad demonstration, the sky opened up.  At first it was a light rain.  Then it stopped for a while, and people went back out to the beach to play and stroll around.   But then it started raining fairly hard again, and everyone got inside the main room or under the covered deck area.  After more than half an hour, as the staff prepared to head back to Paradise Island, the rain didn’t seem to let up any.  As there is not enough seats in the cabin with covering, a few of us has to sit in the open seats in the front.  James volunteered to sit upfront.  As one of the last ones going back onto the boat, there weren’t any seats in the cabin.  It was lucky Jessica was able to grab a seat inside.  Initially, it didn’t feel too bad, but James was glad he was wearing swim trunks instead of regular shorts because despite the rain coat, he was completely drenched before the boat even left the pier.

Once the boat got going, the water hitting the face starting to feel stronger and stronger, such that James had to put his head down and could only look to the side.   Behind James, some people start to sing the theme song to Gilligan’s Island.   And then the ‘wave bump’ started as the boat sped up further, making this more and more like a rollercoaster ride.  It was good the thick raincoat helped to insulate the cold well.   It was hard to figure out whether it was rain or the ocean water that is spraying onto the deck.  The salt that James can taste from the water hitting his face suggested that there were some sea water mixed in at the very least.  The one thought that came in James’ mind was a hot shower when he got back to the hotel.

For Jessica, even being in the cabin it wasn’t all good.  Water still leaked from the canvas top and from the side.  And the rollercoaster effect was felt there as well.  About half way through the trip, the rain seemed to let up a bit, but it was still bumpy.  It wasn’t until land became visible on the horizon that the sky brighten a bit.   It was hard to believe the sky was clear as we pull up onto the dock at Paradise Island.   The first thing we did when we got back to our rooms was to take a hot shower.

After getting cleaned up, we set upon where we should go for dinner.   Both of us wanted to stay within the resort.  After looking at the choices, Jessica decided on the Virgil BBQ, located downstairs at the Coral Tower.   When we went down around 8:30PM, there was no seating, but the hostess got us a seating at 9:15PM.   To make it simple, we order the ‘Select Two’ family special, which we picked the brisket and the BBQ chicken, along with collard greens and coleslaw as our sides.   James decided also to order the hush puppies, as he hasn’t had those in a long time.    Both of the meat was done really well.  The brisket had arrived first, so we end up almost finishing all of the brisket but was able to finish only about half the chicken.  But the surprise dish to us was the collard green, which we both liked a lot.

During the meal, James kept an eye on the NCAA Final between North Caroline and Villanova game on the TV at the restaurant.  After dinner, Jessica headed back to the room while James went to the Sportsbook to watch the rest of the game.   The final minute of that game turned out to be a classic.  But what make the experience more memorable was the atmosphere in that Sportsbook, where each play down the stretch was eliciting thunderous responses from the people gathered there.   When Marcus Paige (North Carolina) hit the acrobatic jumper to tie the game, the room shook.   Just when people started to settle down and thinking of overtime, Kris Jenkins hit the 3-pointer at the buzzer to win the game for Villanova.  An equal if not louder response erupt from the crowd.  Not sure how many there were Villanova fans or had the right bets or people were just excited by the finish.  Regardless, it was interesting to see excitement of the crowd there.

For our last day, we decided to take it easy; stay on Paradise Island to finish our shopping, and then just relax before our final dinner at Café Martinique.

Around 10AM we set out to the shopping plaza that James went on the second day.   Jessica wanted to buy some more straw items and sea souvenirs, along with something big enough to carry the coral she purchased on Pink Beach.   After looking around a couple of shops, we were able to find something that seem to be big enough.  While not expensive, it did cost more than what Jessica paid for the stuff she had picked up at Pink Beach.   We then headed to the Arts & Crafts Center that was next to the shopping village.  It was more or less a vendor outlet like the Straw Market in Nassau.   However, this center has more local produced items, as well as things like Starfish, shells, etc.   Jessica picked up a few shells and other sea trinkets.  James bought a straw fan with Minons characters sew on it.

We left the Art & Craft Center around 11:30AM.   Given we were already close to the pier, James suggested the Jimmy Buffet’s Margaretville restaurant.   It wasn’t too crowded when we got there.  A few people were in the small pool on the patio.  We sat under an umbrella in the patio looking out over the harbor.    James wanted to order “Cheeseburger in Paradise” but decided to go with the Chicken Quesadilla instead.  Jessica ordered the Shrimp Trio (Blackened Shrimp, Lime Shrimp and Crispy Coconut Shrimp) along with a salad.  The dishes were pretty good, about what we expected.  But the setting of the restaurant does provide the ‘vibe’ of dining in paradise.   Throughout the meal Jessica was busy checking all the pictures she had taken on the trip.

Afterwards we head back to the hotel by walking through the Marina Village again, just taking in the harbor scene and see if there are anything else we want to buy.   We put away what we purchased back in our room and headed back down to the lagoon again.  We first walked around the ‘baby shark and rays’ area and then walked to the beach once again.  James and Jessica were each enthralled at looking at their own things at the beach area, they got separated; each tried to find the other walking around to no avail before ending up having to call each other to get reunited.   We then walked around Predator’s tunnel one last time before heading back to our room getting ready for dinner.

Café Martinique is a gourmet French restaurant, one of the formal restaurants at the hotel.  The dining room is on the second floor, where one can get to by riding the birdcage elevator.  The décor is mix of British and French colonial, with wooden shuttle shades and high ceiling fans.

Jessica selected the sautéed Foie Gras with mango along with French Onion Soup and for entrée, Steak au Poivre with brocolini.   James selected the crab cakes and Heart of Romaine Salad, with the Crunch Roasted Grouper with glazed mushrooms as the entrée.   Both the Foie Gras and crab cakes were great.  Jessica’s Steak au Poivre was almost perfect.  James’ Grouper was cooked very well in terms of tenderness, but he thought the sauce was a bit of the salty side.   Even though we were both full by the end of the meal, as this was our last night, we ordered the Grand Mariner Soufflé for dessert.  It was delicious even if we couldn’t quite finish it all.

After the meal, we took a slow stroll around the hotel and resort area before heading back to our room.  We had enjoyed our time on the island even if we didn’t get ‘outside’ to see the real Bahama as much as we should – we had hit mainly the main tourist attractions.   But this does gives us reasons to come back to the island again and hopefully see more on our next visit.