Friday 3rd April
We arrived at Heathrow’s Terminal Two in unusually good time
for Marsh travellers and hoping that Friday would live up to its name – ie Good. But, truth be told, the party was in
a considerable state of trepidation, and that had nothing to do with the idea
that our pilot might be on a Prozac-lithium cocktail and have just split up
with his girlfriend. Don’t Virgin have a rule that Richard Branson has to be in
the cockpit at all times or something?
No, our state of nervous anxiety was all to do with our old
friend Esta. She had been a right cow last year if anyone can remember, and
still seemed as if she might be in one of her moods. The night before, she
had miserably prevented F from checking in on-line. But no, Esta was as nice as
pie this morning and, with the aid of a friendly check-in person and R’s brief
trip to the prayer room (he said he was going to the loo) our bags, all marked
“heavy”, were soon disappearing on the conveyor behind the plastic strips – in
that ritual that puts on so in mind of the last rites at a crematorium. R did
in fact go to the loo, but this was only because he had to remove all the mud
from Fiona’s suitcase that he had so thoughtfully applied earlier at the Glebe
when hurling it in to the car. He swears he didn’t use the bog brush, but we
have our doubts.
The flight passed uneventfully – no sign of Richard B though,
in or out of the cockpit - and after watching much inflight entertainment and
consuming free chocolates we arrived in New York. The entry procedure was tortuous as always,
but we did whizz down the fast lane for those with returning Estas and had the
excitement of the computerised passport checking system. You would have thought that this might but
lessen the queuing time to get to the actual passport control, but that would
be far too logical. Eventually we got
into the USA proper, tracked down our luggage which had been removed from the
belt – though there was no sign of any crippled handlers - and managed to grab
it before it was, as the announcement said, “removed as unwanted”. Then we found a cab to take us to our hotel
for the night.
It was a pleasant enough
place, no men with knives in the shower at least, but we were just there to
sleep. Before we got too tired we headed
into the city by subway (R was not here, or else we would have had to
call it the tube), destination Times Square.
Typically we had a few problems on the subway, but asking people at both
ends meant that we narrowly avoided getting on the wrong train and ending up in
Indiana. The electronic system of
letting you know which station you were at and heading to was helpful and we
had fun matching the place names to the map on the wall behind us. This may not
be the most fun you can have in New York, but it amused us.
Once in Times Square we had even more fun trying to stand in
the right place to ensure we were captured on the electronic bill board. In this we succeeded, so that an image of the
Marsh family – except, that is, the grumpy one back at home muttering “it’s the tube, not the subway” –
was projected high into the night air for everyone to see. Our meal was good:
an Italian just off Times Square. The
extremely snooty family next to us, however, who seemed to think we were
beneath them, kept looking down their noses at us for some reason. Maybe
they were jealous that we had been on the billboard.
Saturday 4th April
We were up early but only managed to grab a waffle to eat as
we raced out to catch the shuttle (or it may have been a wattle we grabbed, en
route to the shuffle – this was early morning folks). Even just getting the waffle/wattle involved
a military manoeuvre of which my father would have been proud: Jenny was in charge of food capture, Jamie on lift holding duties
and Fiona was running back and forth to the room getting the luggage which
Jamie, when he could be spared from the lift, took down to the lobby. It was all working fine until the doors
closed and Jamie disappeared to some distant floor. (Spookily, a message from the home front
about this time told us that R had been having nightmares about being trapped
in a lift.) Then the door to the room shut and would not open even with the
key card. Puffing, laden and carrying
the waffles/wattles we piled onto the shuttle/shuffle bus. This was to the
intense disapproval of the quietly-spoken driver, who may have been related to
the people we sat next to last night at dinner.
At the airport Fiona battled with the automatic check-in,
failed to produce a boarding card and so the family, to the embarrassment of
its teenage daughter, joined the snaking queue to the check-in for “people with
difficulties”. A woman behind us started
chatting, explaining how she was late for her flight. As we were too by this time, we did not do
the chivalrous thing which would have been to let her pass. No doubt though she would have been cheered by our sweet commiserations, and comforted by our kind words as
she waited around in the airport for the next flight.
Our destination was Orlando airport, which we liked. We had time to explore and there was plenty
of interesting food, comfy chairs and, most importantly of all, Wifi. Even with a couple of hours to kill, we still
managed to get late and ended up being the last people to board, having held
the flight up as we filled in the Bahamas documentation incorrectly. It all had to be re-done. In hindsight it was obvious
that we had completed the wrong section referring to our stay; at the time, however, and in the stress of the
moment, it was not so clear.
The plane to Freeport was tiny. It had one seat on one side of the aisle and
two on the other. We sat over the wings
– not on them, however, it wasn’t that small - and the noise of the propeller
was deafening. At least it was an interesting
flight that passed swiftly.
As soon as we arrived in Freeport the whole pace
changed. The bustling crowds of New York
and Orlando were a memory and we felt almost alone in the island airport. There were no queues to go through
immigration and when questioned at customs about where we were staying, we were
simply waved through when F said she needed to look it up.
Our hire car was produced with amazing efficiency and off we
drove into the island. On the wrong side of the road. Subconsiously obliterating our colonial
history, F assumed the Bahamas drove on the right – an assumption reinforced by
the fact that the hire car was left-hand drive. But no: linked closely as they
might be to Uncle Sam, nostalgia still counts for something out here and they
drive on the left. When they drive at all. There was almost nothing on the
roads: cars were outnumbered by signs saying “keep left”. This is an advantage
when there is a mad Englishwoman about, driving on the wrong side of them.
On arrival at our resort, Viva Wyndham Fortuna Beach, we
were not allowed to check in at reception but directed round to the side to a
“special check-in”. Well "directed" doesn't quite capture it. In fact we were left to flounder about, heading in one random direction and then another. Eventually we found our privileged reception, which turned out to be only a few yards from where we started. Special
to the extent that it looked like a broom cupboard, this facility was manned by two
officious women, whom one would not like to meet in a dark alley. Immediately
we were in trouble as we had not apparently brought the right papers.
Then to make matters worse, F's Post Office Travel Money card did not work. At this stage we were being regarded as dodgy
characters and given various ultimata about what had to be produced by
when. If these conditions were not met, it was pretty clear certain consequences would follow, not necessarily consistent with happy holidays. We were then tagged with a yellow plastic
band (tightly done up) for Fiona and red for the children. Labelled and lectured, we left sheepishly and went
to find our rooms.
Our mood lifted when we got inside. The rooms were lovely, leading to directly
onto the beach, with the most marvellous views.
The children had one room with a double bed each and Fiona had another
with a king sized bed. The children’s room seemed perfect, but there were a few
things troubling Fiona in hers. The
aircon seemed to have a mind of its own and did not appear to respond to any
obvious commands. It could not be
switched off. The shower was either
extremely hot or freezing cold. The in
between bit seemed to switch it off completely – though at least that gave one
a possible hint about how to deal with a truculent air-conditioning unit. And the bedside light flashed as if in a
disco with strobe lighting.
The temperature was hot and there was no bottled water in
the room, so we went off in search of some as a priority. Guest services told us that we were only
allowed one bottle for our stay.
Fiona: “But this is an all-inclusive resort,”
Guet services: "And your point is?"
Fiona: “Are you telling me that I can go to the bar
and order as much drink as I like, whenever, I like, but you will only allow us
one bottle of water in the room?”.
Guest services: “Yes Ma’am. But you can go to the bar and ask them to fill it up for you.”
F then explained that we didn’t even have one bottle of
water in the room so could we at least please have that. The lady, who seemed to have an incomplete knowledge of either the term "guest" or "services" was unconvinced. Raising
her eyes to heaven and telling me that it was this and no more, she reluctantly handed over a bottle. After
another curt exchange F managed to extract three bottles, one each.
At supper we discovered something unexpected. We were VIPs. We were ushered onto a raised
platform where there were a number of tables and told to sit anywhere we
liked. There was nowhere laid so we
asked. “Go get yourself a knife and fork
Ma’am,” we were told. We were starting to
feel very sorry for non-VIPs who, it might turn out, were eating from bowls on
the floor with their hands tied behind their backs. Eventually we tracked down the cutlery and
everything else we needed for supper, including the food. Well, you could hardly miss the food. There was so much of it. The buffet had nearly anything you could
possibly want. As is the way with all
inclusive deals, we piled our plates and staggered back, up the steps to our
table. By the end of the meal we had neither
empty plates nor any space left in our stomachs for anything esle. We stumbled back
to our rooms and collapsed into bed.
Sunday 5th April
This was our quiet, chill out day. We slowly worked out where everything was,
including a special VIP seating area on the beach. It didn’t seem any different
from the other areas apart from being more crowded. It was Easter Sunday, but there was nothing
that made you think it was any different from any other day, apart from a BBQ,
which apparently was something special.
The sea was a glorious turquoise colour and the beach, with
palms dotted along it, made for a real paradise island setting.
The food was just amazing.
The breakfast buffet was endless.
You could get anything from traditional breakfast cereals and toast to
pancakes with maple syrup and melon (a firm family favourite) to a toasted
cheese sandwich, chicken curry and even chocolate pudding. For lunch and indeed throughout the day, the
beach bar is open, serving bbq meats, pizzas, tortillas and biscuits and of
course drinks galore.
In the evening we tried one of three speciality restaurants
which are again included in the all-inclusive price. This was the gourmet one and we eat a high
class meal which was a highlight of the holiday for Jenny. Jamie though, not so
interested in food that is not pizza, pasta or hot dogs fell asleep.
