Continued....

Saturday we had planned on getting up, going to breakfast and then going to do the Robinson Crusoe tour but of course when we woke up it was pouring down rain and storming real bad. We ate breakfast at the Dive Bar which was great as always. Since it was raining so hard we went back to the room and just laid around and napped, and watched a couple movies. We had wanted to spend a few more hours relaxing on Taino beach also but the rain just ruined our last full day! After around 3 or so it finally stopped raining, but still cloudy but we were so tired of sitting around the room so we walked over to the Westin for a bit, and walked out on the beach. I was surprised to see several people lying out even though it had been raining and just looked crappy outside. After walking around there a bit we went over to Rum Runners where we ordered a couple Pina Coladas. WOW….yea, I’ve had a lot of Pina Coladas in my day and I will say this place has the best!!! Our first ones we had were in the coconut which was cool, but the 2nd ones we got were in the cups and I will say you’ll get more in the cup, not to mention in the cup is cheaper. But, I saw lots of people drinking them in the coconut so that’s why we got them. After dropping almost $30 on the 4 drinks we went back to the room for a few then went to eat dinner at the Prop Club. I had heard in the forums that the Prop Club had some pretty good Pizza and I will say they were right! I’ve had pizza from all kind of places, numerous in NYC, and I will say this pizza was excellent. We got the all meat pizza and all of the meat on the pizza was so good, and it had a lot of cheese and just overall great. There were several people in there eating and from what It looked like most of the people I saw who got chicken entrees and misc entrees left lots of food on there plate, but the ones who got a salad or pizza, it was all gone (so looks like salads and pizza are the way to go)! The place was a bit pricey ($24 for a large pizza…$3.50 for a drink, $5/beer)…but it was good. They did have bud light which I had inquired about that before I left but it was stupid to pay $5 for a bottle of that when you can buy Sands for $2-$3 and it tasted very similar. After dinner we stopped in the casino one last time where it was crowded of course, but unfortunately we won nothing, only lost!…From there we walked around the dock area back towards our resort and went back to our room to pack up some and get in bed.

Sunday, we got up early and went for breakfast at the Dive Bar one last time. Once again, no complaints there. We had packed up all our stuff to go lay out by the Westin and the main reason we wanted to go out there was to snorkel and get in the water some before we left. But when we got out there yea it was hot and sunny, but the water was kinda rough so we really didn’t see a point in putting all our stuff down just for like an hour so we walked on the beach for a bit then headed back over the market for a bit. Most everything seem to be closed, but then again it was Sunday morning. We went back to the pool at our resort for a few, and then headed back to the room to get showers and pack up. We checked out the resort around 11:30 and we had them hold our luggage while we walked back to Rum Runners since they didn’t open till 11. We sat down and we each had 2 more pina coladas, along with some of there chicken fingers and fries since it hadn’t been long we ate breakfast and we wanted to stay full since we had to sit in the airport for 2 hours and our flight was 2 hours, putting us at after 4pm landing in CLT. My wife and I both really liked the chicken fingers and fries, and would definitely get them again. People beside us had burgers and they looked pretty good also. After we ate we stopped by a couple shops that was open, then at 12 headed back to the resort to catch a taxi to the airport.

Here are a few basic reviews I’ll give on the Pelican Bay:

1. Great place, awesome location (don’t let it not being on the beach fool you) You are so close to the market and restaurants, the hotel is just in a very convenient location I thought. Also where you catch the Taino beach ferry is right beside the resort as well.

2. Few things I wish they had were dvd players in the rooms, better continental breakfast and free wi-fi.(they have 2 computers in a business center you can use but they were real slow and I just wish I could log onto my laptop in my room, but I refuse to pay $13/day.

3. We had nobody in rooms beside us, but the people we met from London said they thought the walls were very thin. They said they had someone beside them that they could here them talking, on the phone, TV going, etc. But luckily we didn’t experience that.

4. Our king bed was VERY comfortable!! Very nice in which this is one thing I always like giving reviews on because if the beds are not comfortable, I want stay there again, Period.

5. On a scale from 1-10, I’d give it a 8 due to mainly of the reasons above on #2..Otherwise the place was great and we would definitely book it again.

Thing I would/wouldn’t do again:

1. I would do the Paradise Cove tour again for sure, but not the dolphin experience just because of the price

2. After seeing how people drove, and just getting out and about I don’t think I’d ever rent a car here (glad I didn’t). Way to much stuff do around this area and way to many tours that will pick you up/take you back to your resort

3. About the only way I would eat at the continental breakfast at the resort would be is if I was barely hungry. Now I’m not sure if during certain peak times they offer a better selection, but from what I saw it was not good.

4. I WOULD go back to Zorbas, Dive Bar Grill, Rum Runners, and Prop Club but would NOT go back to Giovanni’s.

5. I would for sure bring my own snorkel/goggles, etc. because I used mine quite a bit. Even at Taino beach, it was nice having my own. At Paradise Cove and other tours for that matter will let you rent them, and goggles are one thing but who knows where all the snorkels have been! Flippers are definitely best kept at home.

6. There were 3 tours we wanted to do we didn’t have time for (Robinson Crusoe, Trikk Pony, and the Bahama Mama Sunset Cruise). All seemed really neat but we just didn’t have enough time with only being there 5 days which 1 day it rained.

Things that frustrated me:

1. Almost everywhere added gratuity. I don’t like this being half the places I went, even where the food was great I had to wait a long time it seemed. You would think with it not being busy they’d be fast, but once you got your food better bank on being there awhile. I don’t know why. It just seemed once we finished eating and I mean this was at 3 or 4 places, it literally took them 10-15min to bring me the check and once they brought it took forever just to come back and pick it up! I had a couple waitresses that just seemed rather rude, therefore this is why I don’t feel like someone should be forced in paying a set gratuity. Now if the set price includes gratuity (like at the Dive Bar) is one thing, but I’m talking of the ones like the Prop Club/Giovanni’s, etc, would automatically charge 15% regardless what you buy. I know at home here the only time they do that is if there’s a party of 6 or more, or something like that which then I could see.

2. I don’t like how when you pay with your debit/credit card, the copy they keep has your full credit card number on the copy but your copy has the last 4 digits only. I just am used to in the US both copies only showing the last 4, and I got to where I would just mark all numbers out on their copies and leave the last 4. The thought of that copy getting misplaced or some mad employee grabbing a few just scares me so I’m not sure why they do this. They’ve already ran the card, so It really makes no sense.

3. I understand that most of the people that run these souvenir shops make there money off tourist but the souvenirs on this island was just out of this world in pricing I thought. I’m used to going to NYC and places in the states where you can get bargains, even at the beaches but $25 for a basic t-shirt that says GBI on it?? Please…And to be honest there really wasn’t a great place to buy anything good. I mean when we travel places I normally buy my family stuff, and the only thing we even bought was the pictures they took of us on the Dolphin experience, and some Rum Cake. My wife even tried to haggle 2-3 ladies down on this wood design looking thing she liked and they just hardly would budge!! I mean we’re talking about some $10 item easy they are trying to charge for $35-$40 for and saying “our price today for last minute sell, $29!!” I found a nice little small coffee mug I liked, nothing special just said Bahamas on it and price tag on that bad boy was $16.95!!!! Yea, I spent most of my money on food and frozen drinks! ha

4. Get some “in date” drinks people!!! Man, from day one when we ordered a diet coke we knew it tasted funny. Looked on the label, and sure enough it was a few months old. From there on, we were checking out all labels and about the only drinks we had that were decent were the ones in the drink machines near our room. Everywhere else all seem to all be outta date. We are both pretty big diet drink drinkers, and I will say about your only option for anything diet is coke and some sprite. I saw a few diet Pepsi but dates on them were worse than the cokes!

Basic Pointers/Summary:

1. Bring you a bunch of snacks from home. They are kind pricey in the Oasis store, plus half the snacks we did buy and ate tasted stale. We brought a few snacks but not enough to last us our whole stay. Don’t bother with bring water, Oasis has tons of water and do like we did, bring you a couple 5ths of liquor, some of those small flavored Kool-Aid packs and when you buy the water from the Oasis store we made our own mixed drinks and froze them so when we went to the beach they lasted us the whole time out there! To give you an idea on what the prices were in Oasis, $22.95 will get you a Gillette Mach 3 Razor when at home it costs me around $10 or maybe less in some places!! Yea, so don’t forget your razors! haha

2. If you like pina coladas, you MUST go to Rum Runner but ask for it in a cup and not the coconut. #1 you get more, plus it’s cheaper. Wonderful drink!

3. If you stay at the Pelican Bay or somewhere near it, go to Taino beach instead of the one near the Westin. The beach is much nicer plus the Ferry runs every hour and it only takes 5 min to get there. Even if you’re staying at the Westin, go check it out for a day.

4. This time of year, don’t expect much to be going on, and especially don’t expect much going on during the week. Friday and Saturday night were the most crowded, more Friday than Saturday. Rum runners, the bar beside Rum Runners and Sparkys seem to be happening places these nights. Oh and the bahama mama boat, on wed-thur night I saw all types of people/tourist on those but on Friday night it seemed to be THE place for the locals. That boat looked to be packed with locals for fri night!

5. If I had it to do over again, I would’ve planned this trip somewhere between November-March. This is the more peak time, but even at that some of the locals were telling us its nothing like it used to be. Also I’d stay at least 5 nights instead of 4. Just seemed like we could’ve used at least 1-3 more days.

6. Take advantage of pretty days. If you have a tour you want to do lets say on a Friday and on Thursday its real sunny and nice, try and go ahead and do it if you have nothing else planned. Unlike us, we waited and of course it rained on the day I planned on doing the Robinson Crusoe tour.

7. Don’t let the 30-40% rain days bother you. About the only ones you need to bank on it raining from what I was told of the chances was 50% or higher. Even at that, it want rain the entire day. For example, this past Saturday they called for a 70% chance in the morning and 80% chance in afternoon on into the evening. Well it started raining early (6-7am) and it rained all the way till around 2-3ish…After that, yea it was kinda cloudy but the rain stopped and it didn’t rain again