Bahamas - holiday ideas and musts

[UniFoxOs]

Hi,

For my 70th birthday SWMBO is taking me to the Bahamas for a couple of weeks, mid Jan. We will have about a week of free time and, as it is probably the only time I will get there, I was wondering what are the unmissable activities to do while there.

I am particularly interested in anything gastronomic, scenic and adventure/experience and also perhaps fishing.

Thanks
UFO

[TowerDog]

Are you staying in Nassau then?
Bahamas consists of 700 islands so there is a wide variety of activities and destinations.
Nassau is rather nasty place with lots of crime. Leave your Rolex at home.
Weather is good, the sea is great and so is the rum.
Go to the beach and drink would be my recommendation.
Been to the Bahamas 27 times on my own sailboat, crossing over from Florida.
See if you can charter a boat and visit the Exuma Islands, clearest and and most pristine waters in the world.
Bon Voyage.

[UniFoxOs]

OK, thanks for the reply. We are staying in Nassau first and last few days, we have about a week in the middle and as yet are completely undecided as to where to go and what to do.

[TowerDog]

Charter a boat and cruise around the area, or take a local flight to Staniel Cay, then rent a cottage overlooking the water. Nearby is the Thunderball Ball Grotto from an early James Bond movie. Good swimming and snorkeling in the grotto.
Last time I rented a cottage there, it came with a 17 foot boat.
Use the boat to visit a beach with swimming pigs. (Enter that in Google and see the pictures)
The pigs are nasty, smelly and noisy, but the tourists feeds the pigs and try to pet them. (Don't, they bite:sad:)

[Mr Mac]

UniFoxOs
You must try sport fishing while there ( I am biased) as it is one of the better areas of the world due to Gulf Stream proximity. However its not as cheap there as other areas of the planet. Have a great time.


Regards
Mr Mac

[vctenderness]

Haven't been for many years but my memories are hot, flat and expensive!

My abiding memory of Nassau from the seventies is a Ferrari that had left the road and hit a tree but had been left to rot. Each time I visited I walked across from the hotel and it was still there. :{ Even as a wreck today it would fetch big money.

Sorry for thread drift but that's my strongest memory of the place.

[Akrotiri bad boy]

Long time back now but I enjoyed the place. Nassau wasn't that bad, I was there for the Goombay parade and enjoyed the eponymous smash!

I would suggest if that flying boat outfit is still operating you take a flight with them out to Bimini.:ok:

[UniFoxOs]

Thanks for the input, guys. Looking at a map it appeared to me that the nearest airport capable of taking a widebody would probably be Miami. If airline captains flying from UK needed to use Miami as an alternate what would be the ESTA position for pax?

[cjhants]

Stayed near Nassau a couple of years ago. Beaches were great for chilling out, swimming etc.
Nassau is a typical cruise port town. Plenty of perfume outlets, Columbian Emeralds etc, pretty much the same as any cruise port town. Very busy midday, pretty dead at night by comparison. Senor Frogs was crammed and lively lunchtime, we went in evening and we were virtually the only ones there.

[TowerDog]

. Thanks for the input, guys. Looking at a map it appeared to me that the nearest airport capable of taking a widebody would probably be Miami. If airline captains flying from UK needed to use Miami as an alternate what would be the ESTA position for pax?

Fort Lauderdale, and a few other places in South East Florida can also take wide-bodies if need be.

Flying to Miami with the weather down due to thunderstorms we use Nassau, Orlando, Tampa and a few other places as alternates.
Not sure what the question is? ESTA position for pax..?

[UniFoxOs]

We don't have valid ESTAs for USA. Would the plane be allowed to land with us on board, would we have to stay on plane until it departed, would we be able to go into a transit area?

I suspect this situation has been foreseen and catered for, but I'd be interested to know what the position is, especially as the weather is somewhat unsettled at the moment, and airfields as little as 50 miles apart here (UK) can be experiencing wildly different conditions.

Some years ago I spent 3 days trapped at SFO, but on that occasion we were leaving the states so we had valid docs and could go back into town to a hotel and return to the airport to try for a flight the next day. We had a good time with some other pax also stuck with standby tickets but the memory lingers.

[kar42]

ESTA Query [Archive] - PPRuNe Forums (http://www.pprune.org/archive/index.php/t-539917.html)

[cavortingcheetah]

For all its faults, Graycliffe Hotel and cigar factory in Nassau. Other than that, get off the main islands and go to the outlying ones. Green Turtle Club on Green Turtle Cay is rather pleasant. Go diving there with Brendal at his dive school or just wet rent his boat for an afternoon or early morning fishing jaunt.
Watch out for no seeums or the biting midge. They are very nasty bitting bugs and invisible, they hunt in large packs. Suggest you take some serious repellents for your bodies and perhaps some anti histamine.
You should perhaps take your own salt water fly fishing equipment unless you're going to rent a professional boat fisherman. Unless you fish yourself from the shores, which is free and easy enough, it can be an expensive operation. Green Turtle could probably give you a steer.
Be slightly warned though, on Grand Bahama and New Providence Island (where Nassau is situated) nasty crime, as distinct from friendly mugging, is now a critical problem.
Have fun!

[UniFoxOs]

Thanks KAR, I searched but didn't find that thread. I note the one actual incident in the thread:-

If for some reason your flight to Canada is diverted to a US airport and you don't have an ESTA, upon reaching the nice person at Immigration and you are from a visa-waiver country, they will give you one of the green I-94W forms (the ones you used to fill before ESTA) to fill out and then process your entrance to the USA. At least, that is what happened to me in 2012.

and I will go merrily on my holiday in the expectation that this still applies.

[PAXboy]

the one certainty is that the situation will have happened before and there will be a process for it.