My Spring Break in the Bahamas - Part 1 of 3

My senior year in college, my friends and I decide to go to the Bahamas for Spring Break. My one roommate books it through one of those agencies that set up entire Spring Break vacations for you. They have specific flight times, and all the transportation is provided for you once you're on the island. The only choice you have to make is which hotel to stay at. The day comes to leave, and we get up at the buttcrack of dawn. I mean, seriously people, it is early.

We get to the airport and the flights are delayed. It's too early for any of the restaurants or food stands to be open so we basically just sit for hours, totally starving. There are probably hundreds of college kids, splayed out all over the airport floor. Finally they start rounding us up. Once we're at the gate they quiet us down and announce that for reasons I don't remember, we can't take the plane we were originally supposed to, but don't worry-they found us another plane. There's just one catch-we have to give them our weight as we board the plane. Immediately everyone is talking. Some are laughing and joking around about how they will probably need us to manually start up the propellers, too (me-this is one of my favorite jokes and you definitely would've laughed if you were there), and some are actually worried--holy shit what the hell kind of plane is this? The airport announcer is none too pleased with how noisy we're being so he loudly yells, "You can laugh and joke all you want to, but if you lie and tell us you weigh less than you actually do, it'll be your fault if something happens."

Whoa. Um-WTF? Is this guy for real? Did he just tell us that if we have body image issues we could maybe die? That quiets everyone down, and one by one, students are soberly boarding and whispering their weight to the airport employees. One is writing it down on a notepad, and one is typing it into a calculator. Seriously. Obviously when it is my turn I tell them I weigh 10 pounds less than I actually do. What-I hide it well, and if we go down in flames, I will blame it on that kid with the Spring Break '98 shirt because seriously, dude, we all get it-you're going on Spring Break. But it's like 9am, we're not in the Bahamas yet, and it's snowing outside right now so let's bring it down a couple notches.

Apparently we are not fat enough to bring down a commercial airliner as the flight is uneventful. This doesn't really surprise me because Miami University has a real problem with anorexia and bulimia. At any rate, we arrive at the airport, and they have shuttles that take all of us to our respective hotels. There are kids from a whole bunch of different hotels on our bus so we stop at a lot of them to drop them off and pick others up. We stop at the Marriott, the Radisson-each one is more beautiful than the one before it. We excitedly wave goodbye to everyone who gets off the bus and say, "Have a great vacation!" Then the driver says, "Next stop - Colony Club!" That's us! We are brimming with excitement. We cannot wait to get to our room and see the pool. And the beach is only across the street! Awesome!

After about 10 minutes, our excitement begins to wane. Where are we? How come we're getting further and further away from where the other kids are staying? Oh well-it's the Bahamas. How bad can it be? Ten more minutes go by, and we pull into the driveway of a crappy motel. We figure we're here to pick some kids up so we wait a few minutes for someone to get on. Finally the bus driver yells, "Hello-Colony Club!" And then it hits us. Oh. My. God. This is our hotel. We all laugh nervously, and one really sweet girl next to us says, "I'm sure it's really nice inside." I want to hug her and say, "You are really nice. I want you to be the one to tell my parents that they found my body floating face down in the swimming pool."

We reluctantly get off the bus and take in our new surroundings. The entire place looks like an old rundown apartment complex that is beyond needing a few coats of paint for it to even look presentable. I mean it is shady with a capital 'S'. The swimming pool is green. I don't mean like beautiful-emerald-ocean-water-green I mean like radioactive-neon-something's-not-right green. Nobody is in it, but there is a DJ playing Bob Marley (and by DJ I mean guy with a boombox hooked up to surprisingly good-and probably stolen-speakers).

A woman from the front office walks out to greet us. She takes us back to check in and then shows us around. There's an outside bar by the pool and even an inside bar next to the pool. Our trip is looking up already. We like bars. Any kind. Then she takes us to our rooms. As we're walking she is saying, "If you have any valuables like jewelry or traveler's checks or extra cash, you might want to put them in the safe." That sounds reasonable to us. Then she says, "The safe is in the main office." Yes there is one safe for the entire complex, and it's in the front office, and only the people working there can open it. Mm-hmm. Just as I'm calculating the chance of me actually leaving any valuables in the safe (0%), she says, "There are no phones in the rooms. You can use the pay phone up in the main office." Sweet. That is very comforting. Also comforting is that I just saw a rat run in front of me, but I'm just going to keep that to myself so as not to make the other girls cry. Finally we get into our rooms-2 right next to each other-and there is no carpet and no dials on the TV, but they're clean, and have running water.

We decide to have a group meeting re: the hotel. Some of us want to leave because we don't feel safe here. But it costs $150 extra to switch hotels now so we decide to stick it out. We lay out at the pool, drink at the bar, meet some boys who also can't believe they are staying here...things are actually going well. Then we decide to hit the beach. The lady in the office says it's across the street, and she's kind of right. If the hotel was situated a mile and a half down the road from where it was currently, it really would be right across the street, but alas it's not, and we have to walk over a mile down a busy road to get there. After walking forever we get to the "beach". I use the quotes in this situation because this "beach" is more like a bed of branches and rocks with some sand thrown in for good measure. But we find a good spot and lay out.

We are literally the only people at this beach. Probably because it's not by any hotels--including ours. But that's okay-we like having it to ourselves. At some point in the day, a local shows up. He is just swimming around and minding his own business. We decide he is hot so we call him over. His name is Joey. He has an awesome accent and seems to be hitting on all 7 of us at the same time which is pretty impressive. He asks where we are staying and we say "The Colony Club". He makes a "Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Willis" face and says, "I thought they only rented those rooms by the hour." We ask him if he is being serious, and he says, "Yes. It's-well, I don't know how to say this. I don't want to offend you girls, but it's where hookers go. Everyone knows that." Niiiice. We are staying at a hooker motel.

to be continued...