Our last day in the Bahamas started out fairly uneventful. Our flight wasn’t scheduled to leave until 4pm, so we pretty much had an extra day to play around. Problem was, we had to check out by 11am. Luckily, the hotel let us put our luggage in their storage room and allowed us to hang around until it was time for our flight. And that’s exactly what we did…
The one thing that we hadn’t done on our trip was buy souvenirs for our family/friends. The gift shop at the resort was ridiculously expensive, and they really didn’t have anything worth buying. So, the plan was to find a cabbie to take us to Port Lucaya Marketplace so we can buy some trinkets, and then have him drop us off at the airport. We made arrangements with this one taxi driver who charged us $35. Fine. We were set to meet back with the cabbie at 1:30.
After saying farewell to all the people we met and taking more pictures, we made it back to the hotel lobby at 1:30. We asked the bellman to retrieve our bags, and then went to the front desk to fill out a hotel guest satisfaction questionnaire. Our cabbie seemed slightly irritated and tried to rush us, saying we were not gonna make it to the airport in time if we did not leave…RIGHT THEN! Mind you, it’s about 1:34 by this time. Not feeling the sense of urgency (and the fact that we were still waiting on our luggage), we finished our questionnaires and placed them in the designated box. The cabbie then tried to make us go get our OWN luggage out of the storage because the bellman was taking too long (he was actually trying to help multiple guests). We refused. I guess he was done with us by then…the time was 1:40…
Just as we refused, the bellman came around with our luggage, and we asked the cabbie where his van was parked. He pointed to a white van, and we headed towards it. What we didn’t realize was that it belonged to another cabbie. We were like, “so, you’re not gonna take us now?” Dude just palmed us off on the new cabbie saying, “he’ll take you.” Confused, we explained our prior arrangement to the new guy and asked if he could help us. He agreed, but his price was $38, plus he would only wait at the marketplace for 20 minutes…PLUS he wanted to charge $5 dollars for having to wait. I was out at that point. Heavenly tried to get a better understanding of what the cabbie wanted, and then he copped major attitude with her. Dude bugged his eyes out at her as if to say, “BYTCH, I SAID 38 DOLLARS! IS YOU DEAF?!” Our tempers and emotions were really on edge, and I think that was the breaking point. Being that we didn’t want to end up on lockdown in a Bahamian jail on assault charges, all hugged up on some big chick named Dominique, we declined that cabbie’s “services” and kept it moving.
We confronted the first cabbie to find out why he ditched us and played us dirty. Of course, he didn’t have a valid answer. He just kept trying to brush us off saying that the other cabbie would take us where we wanted to go. He defended the OTHER dude’s prices, but that was irrelevant to us…we wanted to know why HE reneged on OUR deal. Heavenly wanted him to verbally admit that he went back on his word…but he avoided that. He couldn’t even look us in the eye. What’s killer is that he didn’t even have another fare for at least 30 minutes. I could see if he was missing out on money by having to wait for us, but no, he was just being a jackass.
So, I guess you’re wondering how we got to the airport…I’m glad you asked. A guy named Brandon, one of the hotel employees, volunteered to take us to the marketplace, then to the airport…for FREE. He didn’t get off work until 2:30, so we would be pressed for time, but we were out of options at that point. But, we were able to go to the market place to shop, and we made it to the airport just in time. We gave Brandon the money that we would have given the taxi driver and then dipped out. I almost hate to admit it (almost), but I was so glad to be leaving that island. That really was too much drama for one trip. I will not knowingly and/or willingly patronize that hotel chain, or fool with Airtran ever again.*
Fin.
*UPDATE: Unfortunately, a convention that I am attending later this year will be held at this particular hotel chain. And guess how I am getting there? Yup! Airtran LOL!
So, here’s a few highlights and things I learned while in the Bahamas:
- Free food and alcohol (even though I don’t drink) ’til 2am…
- Bahamians are super friendly…well, the men were
…and I REFUSE to believe my having ginormous boobs had anything to do with the hospitality… UPDATE: As of late 2007, said ginormous boobs have been reduced to just “large” boobs…just in case you were wondering 
- Every man we met offered us either sex, weed, or a combination of the two…INCLUDING the hotel staff…
[sidepocket] Ok…so this really wasn’t a “highlight” due to the fact that I don’t smoke, nor did I desire getting my groove back Stella style by swaping bodily fluids with some unknown islander…BUT it was funny nonetheless [/sidepocket] - A 17 year old boy tried to holla at me and proceeded to ask me for my number…apparently he had no problem with calling me because his mom has Vonage (free long distance/international calling for the slow folks)…
- To be called “chunky” in the Bahamas is a compliment…Bahamian men love extra thick women…
- To have a guy “put something on your chest” means to have sexual intercourse with him…
- Someone that is considered to be “biggity” is stuck-up and/or bossy…
- Them beach hustlers be on the grind selling seashells, sarongs, beaded necklaces…or weed…and the male vendors also offered up sex (see third bullet)
Put somethin’ on ya chest!
