When you step off the cruise ship there is a lady dressed as a pirate who says “Hallooo yee scallywags! Have a Bermuda-ful day!” The girls refused to have their picture taken with her, of course. Too old at 11 and 12 to be impressed with such foolery.
I am traveling this week with Tony and Baby Girl, and my 12 year old niece. This blog post is about the island, I will write another one later about the ship.
My first impression of Bermuda was the heat. It was HOT. I wanted to retreat to the AC of my tiny stateroom, which doesn’t have room to swing a cat in. At any rate, we did not have any “excursions” planned for the first day, after embarking at 10 am. Which means I did not buy any tickets aboard the ship to do anything specific on the island.
At first we thought about going shopping. But Baby Girl had her heart set on going to a beach. We ascertained that we could grab a transfer to Horseshoe Bay Beach for $7 per person. This right here is where I want to point out the absolute absurdity of buying excursions aboard the ship. You see, I had already bought tickets to Horseshoe Bay Beach for the Tuesday. (This was Sunday). For $59 per person, maybe a bit less for the kids. I thought maybe I was missing something, which we would find out when we got there.
I wasn’t. When you arrive you are directed down a path to what is essentially a free beach. Pink sand, ocean waves and a gorgeous cove with tropical fish. For free. What you pay for? The chairs and umbrella (which is essential) for $20 each – which the excursion fee does NOT include. You also have to pay for food and drink, again not included. If you think you are going to get drunk on the beach I hope you are planning ahead on the $16 each drinks. We got one Pina colada. Which we shared. It was pretty tasty.
The girls had an awesome time in the waves. The water is crystal clear except where the pink sand is deposited on the beach, creating frothy coffee colored water that swirls around your toes. I had Tony stay out there in the water with them, because Baby Girl thinks she is invincible and dives down deep and swims to the point where I start to panic, wondering if she’s going to come back up!
Horseshoe Bay Beach is the second most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen, second only to the one we were going to visit on Monday. It was crowded, but filled with families having a great time. No drunks making scenes, no locals trying to sell you something every five minutes, no worries about sharks or jellyfish. It was ideal. And we all had a great time.
On the way back the friendly bus driver pointed out (and I didn’t meet a single native Bermudian that wasn’t friendly) the “world’s smallest drawbridge.” At only two feet across, it is intended for sail boat masts. The sail boat captain has to call the drawbridge operator ahead of time to get them to come out and open it up. It’s apparently a short cut to somewhere… I have to wonder how much it gets used.
Now, on the second day of being on the island we had an excursion (I think it was at least $139 per person) to something called “caves and waves.” We never received any details on this outing, leaving all of us to wonder what the hell we were doing each step of the way. Twenty of us met on the dock then were ferried to the other side of the island. The ferry took almost an hour. The other side of the island is called St. George’s. I’m almost positive we could have done this same entire experience for less than half the cost if we had waited to buy when we got to Bermuda. There’s always (and I have learned this now) a place or two on the dock selling excursions at reasonable prices instead of the exorbitant ones the ships charge.
At any rate, once we got to St. George’s we were loaded onto a bus to go to the crystal caves. Once there we were led down 84 steps into a wondrous cavern filled with stalactites and crystal clear blue water. A bridge had been built to walk across and it was truly one of the most magnificent things I’ve ever seen. A story was told about two boys playing cricket in the early 1900’s who lost their ball and followed it down into this cave. The caves were formed about 1.6 million years ago, during the ice age.
After we saw the caves we were herded back onto the bus going where? We didn’t know. We soon learned we were headed for Clearwater beach, a calm oasis of clear blue water. The girls really enjoyed this beach because of the lack of waves and found several cool shells, and large sea snails. Again, you had to pay for chairs and umbrellas but this time Tony stayed up at the bar at a picnic table and no one told him to leave. This beach was very quiet. With the exception of the commercial airplanes taking off close overhead. Hardly anyone except our tour bus of people were there. However, lunch was not included in this trip and we ended up paying $75 for a “beach lunch” consisting of two hot dogs, chicken tenders and a cheeseburger. The bus driver later told us that everything in Bermuda is 2-3x more expensive than in the States. Gas is $10 a gallon, milk is $9-$10 per gallon and a loaf of bread is $5-$6!
One major thing I noticed about Bermuda is how clean it is! There was no trash strewn everywhere, there were no poverty stricken people or areas that I saw. Everybody had shoes on. Everybody was very friendly and polite. It is a gorgeous country.
When we boarded the bus again we all thought we were headed back to the ferry, but we ended up being driven all the way back to the ship dock. All of us were looking at each other like “where is he taking us?!” It’s like we were just expected to know what was happening without being told. The bus trip back to the dock was an hour and 15 minutes. Plenty of time to look out the window and take in the gorgeous views.
So on Tuesday we headed back to Horseshoe Bay Beach for our “shore excursion.” Again we paid $60 for two chairs and an umbrella. This time we sat on the cove side of the island and got to see plenty of tropical fish in the water. I saw a large (maybe 12 inches) bright turquoise fish and several small silver ones with yellow and black stripes. The girls swam around rock formations and found lots of tiny coves and sandy beaches. It was ideal. Tony stayed at the chairs and people watched while I got to cut up my toes on the rocks while following the girls around!
Later that day we went shopping at the Royal Navy Dockyard- Bermuda’s shopping is not like other towns with endless places to go. The entire shopping area took us less than two hours to explore.
Also, the driving there is on the other side of the road which was terrifying. Mopeds and scooters speed around the buses and cars and you are absolutely positive there’s going to be an accident right in front of your face. The bus driver explained that the speed limit on the island was 25 kph but that nobody followed it. Buildings and telephone poles are basically in the middle of the street and so are people running!! I would have a heart attack driving there.
At any rate we loved the island and I would definitely go back. But not on Norwegian. But that’s another story.
