Bahamas – Day 1. Welcome to Rosewood. Welcome to Rosewood.

Thursday morning we woke up and gathered ourselves as quickly as we could. We dropped Hallie off at school earlier than we’ve probably dropped her off all year (sure, when we have to go to work we take our sweet time). We quickly got coffee at Toddys and said bye to Jay (who is still sick after 5 weeks of the same cold; hope he’s not making any bagels), got some cash, dropped Hallie’s stuff off at my parents, drove home, realized I forgot to leave my mom cash that I owed Blanca (cleaning lady), drove back to my parent’s house to drop off the money, drove back home, called the Uber and we were on our way!

We checked in with pre check at JFK, so everything was super quick. We got a Jamba Juice, Tzvi made a work call (the first of many), and we waited to board. We had extra legroom so we got on first and got comfortable. God forbid Tzvi doesn’t have ample space above his seat for his belongings. They said it was a full flight, but they closed the aircraft door and the seat next to me was empty! Hurrah! The flight was great. I watched some more Designated survivor. On the flight we tried to do a quick scan/analysis to see who we thought would be going to our hotel. Everyone around us looked so happy to be starting their vacations. All of us like snowbirds heading south for the winter.

Once landed in Nassau we got off the plane quickly, but were met by a massive line for passport control. Lucky enough for us we had a Caribbean band playing local tunes on a steel drum while we waited. As we got on line this one man kind of rushed to get in line in front of us. We got on line behind him, and then watched as the rest of his family cut in front of us to join him. I wouldn’t say anything if it were one or two people, but IT WAS ELEVEN PEOPLE – and then when we got to the front of the line they didn’t even all go to passport agent together. It was like 4 different parties. Tzvi was, to put it lightly, perturbed. I had to hear about it for a while.

We finally made it through and headed to baggage claim. On our way we passed a Menorah sponsored by the local Chabad. Our luggage was already on the belt so we grabbed the bags and headed for the exit.

For this trip we’re staying at Baha Mar, the fairly new resort in the Bahamas (built to rival Atlantis, which is really starting to show its age). The resort is made up of three separate hotels – a Grand Hyatt, an SLS and a Rosewood. We’re staying at the Rosewood, which is the nicest of the three and also the most recent to open – the Hyatt opened about 18 months ago, but the Rosewood has only been open since the summer. We’ve been pretty excited about this trip, but in the last couple of weeks we’ve been looking at TripAdvisor and started seeing really bad reviews of the hotel appearing almost every day. Every review said the same thing: hotel is beautiful, service is terrible. That made Tzvi a little worried, but what are you going to do?

Anyway, just before the exit in the airport is a big sign that says Baha Mar and we stopped at the first desk for the Rosewood. Basically we got to check in for the hotel at the airport. (This was nice, but I don’t really get it, because when you get to the hotel you still have to wait on line to get the keys, but ok.) At the check in counter they had complimentary champagne and juice which was nice to look at, and some snacks. I guess we made it to the desk quicker than everyone else because as we stood there we watched as all of the other people from our flight that we suspected were going to our hotel arrived on line behind us. One of the couples were expecting, one had a ten month old baby at home (I was eavesdropping), and the other two couples were celebrating their fourth anniversary but no kids.

The amazing Shaniqua checked us in (she asked us to call her that). As she told us things she kept saying “Welcome to Rosewood.”

“I’ll be checking you in for your stay. Welcome to Rosewood.”

“Once you get to the hotel you just need to get your keys. Welcome to Rosewood.”

“You are booked in a beautiful resort view room. Welcome to Rosewood.”

“Happy birthday. Welcome to Rosewood.”

“Follow him and he’ll take your luggage to a taxi. Welcome to Rosewood.”

We made it very clear that we had not pre-arranged transportation through the hotel (we didn’t say it was because we knew it was $78 for the 12 minute ride) and asked for a taxi. They said they were taking us to a taxi and led us to a nice Mercedes where a chauffeur put our bags in the car and said everything would be charged to our room. We figured that either they were charging us $78 for this and we could deal with it later, or we were getting a free ride.

The ride was literally 12 minutes. As we pulled up to the large towers of Baha Mar we headed into the trees and the hidden entrance of our hotel. It didn’t feel like we were arriving at a large resort – it was more like a small boutique resort.

Obviously when we got there we were greeted by a nice line to get our keys. Same people in front of and behind us from the airport. We got our keys and were shown to our room by our “butler.” Apparently we had 3 butlers and one was named Jarvis, but we never met him. The butler showed us around the room and told us a little about the property. There was a nice rum cake and a few apples upon arrival.

Menorah in the Rosewood lobby

We unpacked, but it was cloudy and cool so we didn’t go to the pool and decided to walk around and get something to eat instead.

The view from our room

As we were leaving the room, Tzvi asked me if I had an epi pen, which I didn’t. He then went through his bag and realized that he also didn’t have an epi pen. That’s right, he had forgotten to pack an epi pen. The first step was to sit for 15 minutes with the concierge calling every pharmacy on the island to find out that none stocked the epi pen. Next we called my parents who took an epi pen from the house to the shipping store on Central Avenue and tried to ship one to us. When they got there they were told that they needed a prescription pad, so my father went home to get one, but he ended up bringing back a bill instead, so he had to make another trip, but then they wouldn’t let them ship it overnight because it was medication, which begged the question of why did they even tell them it was medication in the first place, and so instead they had to go to the FedEx store on Sunrise Highway (about fifteen minutes away) where they just placed it into a FedEx box and tried again.

In the meantime, we went for lunch at Costa, the Mexican restaurant outside near the pool. We sat outside and it was very nice. The restaurant was set over water – if you looked down you saw fish swimming around. For lunch we had our first of many plates of “local crushed avocado” (read: Guac) of the trip. We also shared an order of veggie tacos and corn croquettes. The food was spicy but delicious.

After lunch we walked around and saw the hotel. The reviews weren’t wrong – the place is stunning. The property is beautiful and every public area is well designed. They literally left no detail overlooked. When we were done walking we went back to the room so I could change for the gym. When we got back we were greeted by a birthday surprise! There was a sign over our bed that said Happy Birthday, rose petals on the bed, my named spelled with yarn, and another cake! It was really nice. It said “Happy Birthday, from your butlers” but really Tzvi arranged it so shouldn’t it have said it was from him? Either way, thank you Jarvis and crew.

It was already 6 by the time we left the room again. I went to the gym and Tzvi went for coffee. For such a nice place it was actually a pretty poor gym. It was small-ish and there were no weights under 10 pounds. Tzvi went to Library (the lobby lounge) and ordered an ice coffee for $11 (everything you order here gets a 12% VAT and 15% service charge added). He did some work and then went back to the room.

We then showered and changed for dinner, which wasn’t until 8:30pm.

On our way down we stopped in the lobby to speak to the concierge. While we were standing there I saw a couple passing by – the man in a long beard and a kippa and the woman in a long skirt. I obviously ran up to do some bageling and found out they were the Chabad Rabbi and Rebbetzin. They are originally from Brooklyn and were here to check the electric menorahs or something. They asked if I had heard of Chabad. Apparently one night they had a Chanukah Party here but we missed it, and there wasn’t a nightly lighting. They also told me there are about 500-600 Jews on the island, none religious. But they do have Shabbat. I asked them for matches, because you aren’t allowed to fly with them and no one in the hotel would give me. Somehow he found some. Thanks Chabad of the Bahamas!

Dinner was at Katsuya, a Japanese restaurant. Technically the restaurant is part of the SLS (I think there is also a Katsuya at the SLS in Miami?) but it’s located inside the casino. The casino basically bridges the three hotels together, so if you want to go to any restaurants, bars or other hotels you need to walk through the casino.

Dinner was very good. We sat outside and watched as every twenty minutes the fountain lit on fire and went up in big flames. It was pretty cool. Tzvi had to take a work call during dinner, but at least I got to watch the fire. Anyway, we started with a Miso soup, which was good but kind of small. Then we had tempura fried vegetables, which were good, and crispy brussells sprouts with a sweet balsamic sauce that were incredible. Tzvi got miso black cod and a double yellowtail roll (yellowtail inside and on top). I ordered a cooked salmon roll with avocado. They first brought it to me with salmon row in it, which I had to send back, because ew, and I told them I didn’t want that. The second one they brought was delicious though. For dessert we had some passion fruit profiterole which was pretty good.

After dinner we walked around a bit and saw the rest of the resort. We did some gambling in the casino. I think we lost $22 dollars on Roulette, but at least it was fun. We saw the lobby bar of the Grand Hyatt where there was live music, but not for us. We also saw the SLS lobby where we found another menorah (there’s one in each of the three hotels), but it was quite loud at the lobby bar there. We also found Bond, the nightclub, but that too was not for us – it was like 10:50 and they weren’t opening until 11, so we left.

It was time to turn in, so we went back to the peacefulness of our hotel, lit our Chanukah candles and went to bed.

Good first day.