Crawdaddy Longlegs

Last summer, I "won" a vacation to the Bahamas.

Quotes - quotes everywhere!

I consider myself a "Winner" in quotes because so did they.

The "fine" print

So ten months later, we take this vacation after paying and pre-paying for "all normal travel expenses" you see outlined above specific to the Viva Fortuna Wyndham Resort in Grand Bahama. 

Packing "expense"
She clearly wants a tip.

Shortly after we get there, we run into this other couple that recognizes us from the sole plane ride there and asked if we booked the trip or if we won it. Turns out they had "won" too, and this was just one of their "winnings", except from New Jersey. They had just made their dinner reservation and were a little miffed that they only got it for one night and not multiples. Also mysteriously, they had been able to book their stay for 2-3 nights and didn't have to extend their vacation for the week like I had to just to bring another person along. Very mysterious.

It started to feel like a murder mystery island.

Like, who invited all of us? Why are we here? What are we all doing?

There is a ship.

Also, our first day there was kind of rainy and awful because without all the vast acreage to spread out all the people who wanted to smoke, all of us "guests" were kind of crowded into a handful of areas, especially those that didn't have their rooms yet.

The rainy view

Alas, the open bar shall save us all.

Don't drink bathroom water.
Go to bar instead!

After Monday, it turned out to be a really nice, all-inclusive vacation!

The next day & rest of the week

Unfortunately, both of my Rainbow Reef snorkeling excursions were cancelled due to "weather", but I got plenty of seaside reading done which there will be future blog posts about.

I know I'm not in the South Seas, but this book was written
by Bengt Danielsson, the same guy who brought more than
70 books in his trunk on the Kon Tiki voyage.
True story.

Part of the fun of this vacation was the resort's many peculiar signs, which we had a blast re-interpreting. 

Reads: Don't fall for their scams. Fall for ours!

To their credit, they really weren't bad about pushing the vacation club or any timeshare thing. When we first arrived, they wanted to schedule us for a presentation where we'd get a lot of swag and bottles of rum for just attending, but I declined, and everything was fine.

What's interesting is that most of the signs were in five different languages, but only this one was in English.

And then there is the drama of the fire procedures.

Hmmmm what could it be? What produce dis?

Stay calm, have a seat! Enjoy :)

A depiction of that stiff, critical moment
where one considers if one should stay and fight fire
...or just leave

What they don't tell you until later in the placard
is that this is actually located in the hallway

And it's being rushed to you
by metaphysical means as you run away!!!!

Take your time.
Stay calm, relax
Maybe tiptoe away quietly.

Craw to the floor.
Craw.
Craw like your great grand crawdaddy did.

And then after the fire, meet for a pool party!

The bar had a couple of different signs posted outside with varying images.

The mysteries continue.

Let's break this down.

No yetis allowed.

Hairy naked women = okay

No footprints.

Especially not your black, smelly, carbon footprints.

And here's where it gets interesting: on the south end of the bar we have:

No hamburgers.

But then on the east side of the bar we have:

No servants bringing you hot dogs either

And then lastly

No alpha males

And no insanely ripped gym bros

I poke fun because no one is enforcing these. Hairy, shirtless, blubbery old dudes be walking in all day long.

But by golly, you better not accidentally sit in the VIP section of the buffet restaurant or else you will get kicked out! (which we did)

And then I got"spanked" by a palm tree.

We suspected that the "VIP"s actually "paid" for their full vacation without being "winners" like we were.

And they had the black armbands to prove it.

Long island gin fizz Tom Collins,

TWS