A Life Worth Binge Watching

S2:  This is 50  E3: The Blue Bracelet

The week after a trip to the Bahamas is always a struggle.  I mean, who wants to go back to normal life after spending a long weekend in paradise?  For three days, a group of us sat poolside, overlooking the pristine, blue-green ocean, with tropical cocktails in hand.  We quickly learned to order drinks before we needed them, as everything operates on Bahama time and nothing is really rushed.  Hey, I was just happy to be there, as this was a re-do of a family trip from last year that we missed out on because of the COVID curse. 

Typically when I go on vacation, I will sleep in late and leisurely make it down to breakfast or the pool. This trip, my family wanted to take a walk every morning, bright and early, before breakfast.  Once I rubbed the sleepies out of my eyes and grabbed a coffee, I really enjoyed the walk around the Baha Mar property.  It truly is one of the most beautiful resorts that I have ever visited.  A group of three hotels make up the resort, and they are linked together by the most plush, vibrant grounds filled with super-green vegetation, breathtaking tropical flowers and hovering palm trees.  There are multiple pools, each having its own special vibe (more on this later), as well as a water park and tons of restaurants, food trucks  and shops. One of the unique experiences this resort offers is a daily flamingo parade, where you can mingle with a flock of the beautiful pink birds.  

Since we worked up an appetite during our walk each day, we landed in a few different breakfast venues to fuel up. The Pizza Lab was by far my favorite.  I realize that you are probably wondering what kind of breakfast was served at a pizza place so let me ease your mind.  This was no ordinary pizza place, and no ordinary breakfast either!   We ordered a family-style meal that came with an array of eggs, breakfast meats, pancakes, waffles and sauteed potatoes.  Needless to say, we did not leave there hungry. It’s a good thing we took that walk!  

After breakfast, we parked ourselves at the pool for most of the day.  The first day, the weather was perfect and the rest of the time it was a little cloudy but still worthy of sunbathing.  Friday happened to  be National Cocktail Day, so we made sure to fully participate in the celebration.  As I mentioned earlier, each pool had its own vibe and we were looking for the one with the party.  Typically when you stay at this resort and want a Vegas style party pool, you upgrade to the Privilege Pool.  This is an adults only pool with reserved seats for a pricey fee.  It has a DJ playing club music and you can usually find the lavish crowd shooting champagne bubbles into the pool.  As this was my first time at this resort, I was very intrigued by this experience and we had planned to participate.  Wouldn’t you know it, some international tech company came in and rented the entire Privilege Pool for a week, as well as the entire SLS Hotel (one of the most expensive) including all the restaurants and bars.  Since I am in sales, I am usually pretty good at talking my way in places, so of  course my family volunteered me to investigate.  I am embarrassed and sad to say that my attempt was a complete fail.  Unless we had a special blue bracelet, we were banned from even looking at that pool.  To make it worse, there were only about 10 people using it which was a complete waste. When I reported back my findings, we decided that we would just make our own party pool. Who needs a lame privileged blue bracelet anyway? 

I took a picture of the special pool compound from between the bamboo shoots that enclosed it.  Take that, you techies!  They probably hacked my phone from their pool chairs.

As late afternoon turned into evening, we made our way into the casino.  By the way, this was the first week that the resort lifted the mask mandate inside the casino and restaurants, so we could actually see faces.  I wonder if that made it harder to keep a poker face?  Anyway, I  have never been super lucky with the slots, but some of my family members are really good at hitting the jackpot.  Two of them even made it to the top ten in the slot tournament.  Skilled?  Maybe. Luck?  Definitely.  My daughter was legally allowed to gamble, so she tried her hand at Roulette and of course she had beginner’s luck and walked away with a nice win!

A trip wouldn’t be complete without a little excitement, right?  We knew there was a bit of rain in the forecast, so we weren’t surprised to see the black clouds rolling in on our third night.  We also were not concerned when the winds picked up while at dinner and they closed the patio dining.  We are from Florida so we know how easily the weather can change. No big deal, right?  Well, things took a quick turn as we left dinner and headed back to our rooms.  The thunder sounded like a bowling ball blasting through pins just feet away while the flash of lightning strikes lit up the sky.  It’s a good thing we had the lightning, as the wind knocked out the power of the entire resort causing a black out of all the hotels, except the emergency lights in the halls. Somehow, the casino downstairs still had power, so the gambling didn’t skip a beat.  As we looked out over our balcony, the only way we could see into the distance was when a flash of lightning over the ocean lit up the sky for a moment.  It was eerie.  The blackout lasted about an hour, during which my cell phone died and I couldn’t sleep in silence.  At this point, my daughter and I were a bit exhausted and bored so what else would we do but start singing…99 bottles of milk on the wall.  I think we made it to about 80 when we gave up and fell asleep.  

Well there you have it, another adventure in the books.  We escaped with no injuries, just a plethora of laughs, good times and new memories.  Thanks, Bahamas, we had a blast!  Next time we’ll bring the blue bracelets.  

Melodye Lewis is a Friday columnist for Flagler News Weekly giving you something to talk about over lunch. Follow @ALifeWorthBingeWatching on Facebook.