In 2022 we had the opportunity to get our first passport stamp from Nassau, Bahamas. This was our second trip out of the country, but the first time that we’d needed our passport. We went to Puerto Rico a few years back but it is a US Territory and you don’t have to have a passport to go there.

We spent 7 nights at the Sandals Royal Bahamian resort in Nassau, Bahamas. It is a beautiful resort for adults and couples only.

We flew Delta from Birmingham to Atlanta to Nassau. We had a relaxing flight from Birmingham to Atlanta and had what we THOUGHT was enough time to walk to our next gate, but as we got to it and were about to head up the escalator to our gate we get notified of a gate change, so….. back to the other end of the airport. This time we had to take the tram to make it back in time. Boy is that thing FAST! We made it to our gate with a little time to decompress before hoping on the next flight.

The flight into Nassau was a little turbulent. Our stewardess’ passed out the card that we needed to complete for entry into the Bahamas, BUT they never got back up to pass out pens. So we get there with no way to complete our card. There were not pens available at the airport. We ended up borrowing one from someone in line. **Note to self: Always have a pen in your carry-on!

We made it thru customs and then headed downstairs to grab our luggage and to the Sandals desk to get our transportation to the resort. We only waited a few minutes for the next shuttle bus to pick us up. Did you know that they drive on the opposite side of the road from what we do? That was different and took a little getting used to. When we got to the resort they took our luggage and had it delivered to our room by the time we got to the room. We got checked in and got a tour of the resort on the way to our room to familiarize us with the resort and to let us know what was available. The lady that took us to our room was head of the grounds team. When we got to our room she noted that we had a palm tree blocking our view of the ocean. She told us that she’d have it trimmed back tomorrow. We thought she was joking, but low and behold that tree was trimmed back and we had an awesome view.

Our first morning there we walked around the resort. There were some beautiful flowers blooming. We found out on our island tour that they have really poisonous flowers on the island. I’m pretty sure that they should try to keep those out of the resort where there are mostly unknowing tourists. We didn’t see any warning signs, We didn’t touch any of them anyway, just took pictures.

One day at lunch we watched two birds eat the leftovers from a nearby table that the waitress did not get cleared soon enough. We saw lots of curly tail lizards running all around of various sizes. We also saw some sort of crab walking around with a shell on it’s back. It is in the last picture below of some of the animals.

We were in an east bay room. We were on the side of the resort with the “happening” pool. There was a volleyball net and basketball goal in the pool. There was loud music playing most of the day and night. But once in our room it was muffled and not really that loud.

Every night there was music and entertainment in the area called The Grove which is along the water front. There were flame twirlers, acrobatics, dancing, silent disco, something going on every night. After dinner we’d find a chair and watch the show.

When Jeff wasn’t in meetings we enjoyed time lounging by the pool with drinks and eating at all the delicious restaurants. We did take the boat over to the private island one day. We sat in lounge chairs on the less crowded side of the island, which happened to be beside the barge that was there refilling stuff or something that day, but we didn’t mind. It was peaceful to just look out over the water while enjoying the shade. We grabbed lunch while at the island and it was one of my favorite meals of the week. Well I mean I had lots of favorite meals that week. LOL!!!

Here are some beach pictures from the island and the resort. We saw several cruise ships sailing by. The beach is not very wide, but they do offer chairs and cabanas along the shoreline. They also have paddle boarding and they offer an excursion that leaves from the end of the pier. They have a place where you can sign up for excursions away from the resort like the swimming with pigs, diving and I’m sure other things. We didn’t check in to them because we had already decided that we were just going to do our group event which was an island tour.

We had breakfast from both restaurants that served buffets. Kanoo, which is the Pan-Carribean restaurant and Tesoro the Italian restaurant. Both buffets are similar. We ate at Tesoro the most, mainly because it was right outside our building. One morning we had breakfast at La Plume the French restaurant.

For lunch we ate a lot at Tesoro. We did eat at Aralia House a couple of times which has only outdoor seating and we ate at Calico Cafe on the island.

For dinner we ate at Tesoro, can you see a trend here? The Queen’s Pearl Public House, Kimono’s Japanese steakhouse and Butch’s Island Chop house. There were only two restaurants we didn’t eat at and they were ones that didn’t have much on the menu that appealed to us.

We did have a crepe off one of the food trucks. I tried conch for the first time. I didn’t get anything from the conch truck, I tried some that someone else has gotten. I’d eat it again, but not sure if I could eat an entire serving of it. I guess that is the only thing out of the norm that I tried.

Our group activity was a tour of the island with a stop at the Rum Cake Factory and a market at a fort where the driver encouraged us to count the number of steps down to a landing area. Since he made such a big deal of it we thought maybe it was a ton of stairs and we opted to just take the restroom break and then wait back at the bus. We found out later that it was actually not that many steps and the trick was that a step had been removed. There was a charge to go up in the fort so we just opted to wait at the bus for the others that were doing the walking tour and those that were doing a little shopping.

Our week ended with us catching a fireworks show from the pier.

The day before we were to leave we heard about flight delays and people stuck in airports, so we were already hoping that our flight would be smooth with no issues. The day we were to fly home we got up and as we were packing up we got a notification that our flight had been cancelled. After much work by our travel agent we were able to get on a flight to Miami with an overnight stay and then a flight to Atlanta where we were delayed and had to wait on a flight crew to come in on another flight. I looked out at some point and luggage was lined up on the belt, but was stopped and just sitting there. I knew I could get home from Atlanta whether we rented a car or we had family to drive over and pick us up. The crew finally got there and it took them awhile to get everything moving and us on our way to Birmingham. We were the only ones out of our group to have flight issues. Thankfully the rest made it home with no major issues.

It was a great trip, but after the stress of trying to get home I don’t know that I have ever been so glad to see Birmingham. I just wish our flight home has been as smooth as our flight to get there.