Bimini Bahamas 2021 trip for Lisa's 50th birthday celebration

George and Lisa Hernandez visit Bimini, Bahamas for Lisa's 50th birthday and talk about the places to visit, COVID rules, how to get there and more!

Silver Airways

Nates Bahamian Breads and deep dish pizza

Bimini Bay Resort and Casino

Transcript

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Lisa RichartHernandez
Hi, welcome back to RView. I'm Lisa RichartHernandez.

George
And I'm George Hernandez

Lisa RichartHernandez
and today we have a great podcast for you. And we've taken it a little bit off of our usual RV travels. And we got on a boat and traveled over to Bimini in the Bahamas and we're going to tell you all about that today.

intro
Welcome to RView with your hosts George and Lisa Hernandez each week listening as George and Lisa talk about their RV and travel adventures all around the world. GEORGE And Lisa travel in their 40 foot Class A Tiffin and motorcoach and tow their Jeep Wrangler, always looking for fun and adventure.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Hi, friends welcome back to RView. Hey, listen, it has been a couple of months since we've had a podcast but we've had lots of things going on since our last podcast in March. One of those was a week long trip down to Key West, which was fabulous with some friends of ours who just bought a new house off of devall Street down there. And we were excited to learn that everything had kind of opened back up down in Key West. The bars were back on y'all see how to wear your masks everywhere. But it was still a great feeling to get out and enjoy keywest a little bit for week. And then we have been spending a lot of time at our home base at Hill net Island motorcoach resort, which is one of the top 10 Luxury RV resorts in the country. We've talked about owning a lot there before and we own ours there. And we've just really enjoyed keeping the RV there. And we've had different friends that have come in and out to visit us while we've been down there. So we've been spending a good amount of time down at Hilton Head Island motorcoach resort. And we'll talk to you about that and we're going to actually interview later in this week. Some of our friends that have been first time are a full timers for just over a year now and see how things are going with Julian Kansa. We'll check in with them later this week. We also had Mother's Day. That was that was a great success. We we did it right before we left for our trip to Bimini we went down to Hilton Head and our great friends cooked out with us we did lobsters and steak on the grill and just having that community around. They're all the moms and we all did sort of a big potluck. It was a great time. After we left Hilton had we drove down to Fort Lauderdale stayed for a day with some friends at some friends of ours condo there in Hollywood. And then we headed down to Key Largo where we started our birthday adventure or my 50th birthday adventure, which was in Bimini in the Bahamas. And that is what we're going to focus on talking to you about today.

George
Bimini Bahamas, Lee says month long birthday celebration.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yes, I we could say that part of the reason I haven't podcaster was we just been too busy celebrating me, you know that I'm like an old lady says, you know, things take a little bit longer, I guess.

George
Oh, we had a blast. She had a blast. It was it was a fun time and we're going to tell you all about it.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, so first off, let me just kind of tell you, if you've haven't heard of Bimini. It is an island in the Bahamas. It's 50 miles off the coast of Miami. You can get there several different ways. I love Bimini because it has crystal blue waters and it's one of the top fishing locations around and they have diving and the pools are beautiful. The resort that we like to go to there it's called Resorts World and as all kinds of places to stay and beautiful swimming pools will tell you about each one of those different things. So just kind of it's off the east coast. A little note back there was actually two islands in Miami North me and South m&e, we stayed on North Bimini, but when you fly in, you fly into South Bimini. They're right next to each other and there's a little ferry that takes you it's about a 10 minute ferry across, just basically like an open little cut of water between the two islands. So all the action that we're talking about is happening on North Bimini.

George
That's where the resort is. And that's where most of the fishing boats dock is on North Bimini.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, there's some beautiful marinas there. And we can orientate about those as well. So let's start off by just talking about how to get to Bimini. We were planning this trip for my friends with to come with us. We had 13 of us in total ended up going on my birthday vacation. And George rented a house on the water that had a dock, which was amazing. The four bedrooms, so the majority of us stayed there, some people stayed in the hotel. And then some people stayed in the condos. But getting there during COVID, as proven to be slightly more complicated than it was prior to COVID when everything was wide open in the Bahamas. And so what we found was that the ferries and the flights were only going several days a week, it turned out to be Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. So if you're planning a trip to the Bahamas or you'd like to visit there, you may start searching and find Wait, I can't leave on this day and I there's no flights this day. It's not because they're sold out. It's only because they're flying a few days a week because it's a small island. There was a ferry that would take you over there actually a couple different berries. That used to be about $79. Now they're about $400. Round Trip. valaria is one of them. And it's a high speed ferry that brings you over there from I believe Fort Lauderdale or Miami and you can search that up. And I'll put that in the show notes as well. We chose to go by private boat. George's cousin George has a 38 foot

George
38 foot center console. Fishing bow fishing boat is beautiful. I love that.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, we wrote over there from Key Largo in the fishing boat, which was great because we were able to bring supplies. So let's just talk a little bit about supplies for a minute. Yes, if you're flying into Bimini plan on basically eating at restaurants, or the hotel the whole time that you're there. Even if you're staying in a condo, I've we've been there in the past. This time, we had no problem getting ice, but we have been there since probably about our fifth, fourth or fifth trip to Bimini.

George
Yeah, when it's wide open the fishing boats to take all the ice. I mean, I understand why but they just come in. And when the marinas folder, there's typically no ice left, because they take it all.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, so we're staying in a condo, there's like literally no eyes. And you know, when you fly in, you have a limited amount of weight that you can bring. Even if you fly charter. They're still limited on weight, you can bring a few more things. But the main thing you want to bring is water, I would say. Although the filtered water in the frigerator we use with no problem.

George
Yeah, and everything in the hotel is filtered. Our friends stayed in the hotel, they drank the water, drank, drinks with the ice and had no problems. And we've never had a problem. It's not like Mexico or anything. But you know, it's always nice to have bottled water.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, yeah. And you know, liquor drinks can become expensive. So we always want to bring over our own liquor. And this time we filled the since we had so many people, 10 people in the house, we brought food, snacks, and drinks and liquor. So we loaded the boat up pretty well.

George
Yeah, it's an island. So everything on there is relatively expensive. A case of their local beer collect is $65. Just to give you an idea. It's just it's an island. So everything has to be shipped in and totally got it. And like Lisa was saying, it's kind of hard to pack if you're flying in. So just be prepared to eat out. Yes, yeah. And we're going to talk to you about some different places to eat and things that you can get while you're there. And I thought what do you think? I don't think the restaurants considering it as an island and everything has to be shipped in like I just finished saying, I don't think the restaurant prices were that bad.

Lisa RichartHernandez
I mean, their typical resort style things. I mean, you're gonna pay $16 for a sandwich and fries, at big John's or at the hotel or whatever, which I think is pretty average. But if you're on a budget, this isn't like your budget, please to go.

George
Yeah, unless you can stuff your suitcase with whatever you need.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Right, right. Right. So there is a little bit a little tiny grocery store there. You can get a few provisions. Sometimes they have eggs and milk. Sometimes they don't. It just depends. But when we go we bring supplies we always bring extras for the locals. And we give them all of our leftovers at the end. You'll notice when we're about to check out that they kind of start hanging around waiting to see what goodies we're gonna have leftover.

George
Yeah, and we've made some friends there now and they're they're awesome. They help us hook everything up. Our friend Paulie helped me get Lisa's birthday dinner all arranged and the food and it was awesome. So we'd like to help them out and they've had a really hard time with COVID. Bimini just basically opened up I think on the 14th they opened up again for tourism. And I will say this, it they're really not doing themselves a service because It's almost like so difficult that it took away from our vacation, we finally figured it out. Once you get into the rhythm, it's okay. But there's so many requirements that it just kind of took a little bit away from the vacation. Didn't you have to check in every day?

Lisa RichartHernandez
Alright, so while we're on the topic, let's just talk about the whole entire COVID situation. Currently, as of May of 2021, Bimini has reopened to tourists. And if you are vaccinated, you just have to show your vaccination card. If you are not vaccinated, then you have to have a negative COVID test. There is a Bahamas Travel Visa that you go online and you register and you put all of your information and in there, upload your passport, upload your negative COVID test or upload your vaccination card. Once that's in there, if you have been vaccinated, you do not have to complete the travel survey every day. However, when you're traveling back to the United States, the United States requires if you're flying, not if you're coming by ferry or by boat, you're not required to to have a negative COVID test to return to the United States. But if you're flying on an on a airline, you will need to have a negative COVID test done. Well, you are in Bimini or even on a private charter. Right? Correct. And you're planning your plane. So that said, the hotel resort, their Resorts World charge $35. For the rep. Basically, they're just rabid, does he sit there and you they swab your nose, you wait, they put a little dropper. And I think that looks like a pregnancy test. New way it does negative then they write you a little letter and print it out. So you can upload that and bring a copy with you on the airport to travel back to the United States. The interesting thing is that they accept a vaccination card to get over there from the United States. But the United States doesn't accept a vaccination guard from the United States to get back in. Go. That's a whole nother conversation for a different day. And I'm going to try to stay out of the ridiculous backside of politics of all of that. But anyways, just be prepared. If you have not been vaccinated, then you have to answer a very simple survey every day that just says Do you have any symptoms? It takes about literally 30 seconds to fill out? Do you have any symptoms? Have you been around anybody with COVID do agreed to abide by all the rules of Bahamas and then you say yes. And you submit it and it's done. And but if you are going to stay in the Bahamas for more than five days, you have to get a negative COVID test on your fifth day. Again, regardless of whether or not you've been vaccinated. Right? Yes.

George
And that's what I was getting at. There's so many crazy rules. And you know what's funny? nobody talked anything when we left.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Well, that's because we flew on a private charter. It was just an openness,

George
but nobody checked anyway. Right. Right. So you got to do it because you don't want to be the one that does get Right.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Right. commercial airlines did have it but so we abide by that and we got our ours checked on the fifth day and they just go ahead and upload that and no problem. I did read before we left that if you've been vaccinated, they were not requiring masks. However, on the island of Bimini they were requiring masks very, very, very strictly. Yes, everywhere and all COVID guidelines, all the social distancing. All the they literally would you are taking

George
it serious. And in their defense, we did see the COVID police literal literally the COVID police while carrying or carrying a gun like a police off giant, muscular police officer dude it gets into like the COVID police car, which I think we saw one actual police officer there and the one COVID police look way scarier. That whole island has one police officer. That week they had to COVID police plus the regular. So and there the fence We spoke with a restaurant owner who was apologizing about telling us to keep putting our masks on but she finally kind of broke it down for us. And that's what I wanted to do for everybody who may be thinking of visiting there. The reason they're so strict is if the COVID police show up and they have a customer that does not have a mask on they get a $3,000 fine $3,000 to a small restaurant in the Bahamas is a death sentence. And she also said to us, you know you guys got to go home and you have a stimulus check. We don't have that. So if we lose our business, we're done. We have nothing to fall back on. So when she kind of broke it down to us like that we, we were like, okay, we're on your side, we're going to do everything we can to facilitate it for you. We don't want to mess it up.

Lisa RichartHernandez
And like we always say, like, all these poor islands are really suffering because their primary source of income is tourism. And tourism being shut down for a whole year for them, has been devastating to these people. And so we always make sure we tip really well and take care of the people that are there when we're visiting on vacation. And I know they truly appreciate it.

George
Yeah, we bought extra cases of water for our friends and some supplies that they needed. phone chargers, I mean, it just things that we take for granted. They don't have a more ran out.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, they don't. They don't have an electronics store or even a Home

George
Depot. They don't go to Radio Shack and pick out what they need. Yeah, there's

Lisa RichartHernandez
nothing literally it's what I like to buy for miles. The island is very small. Yep. It's funny, there's less people that live on Bimini Island. And there are kids and our children go to high school 1000 students, there's less people that are

George
the other high school and the double the population of Bimini.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, yes. All that being said, it wasn't. It wasn't that big of a deal. You just have to be prepared for that. And that's why we're here to prepare you and let you know what's more than you know, I've heard from someone that's actually done it, the less scary it is. A lot of people decided not to come to my birthday party, because they were afraid that they were going to get either stuck in the Bahamas or something to do with COVID or whatever. And really, none of those things happened.

George
While they were very helpful and getting us what we needed, and getting us checked out and there really wasn't bad at all.

Lisa RichartHernandez
So that's that on COVID. If you have any questions about the COVID and the Bahamas experience that we experienced in Bimini, please feel free to send us a message on our our view podcasts.com website, you can reach out to us there and we're happy to answer any questions. Ben Bimini a bunch of times. Now. Speaking of getting to Bimini, let's talk about that now. And about the different options we went by private boat, our friends flew in on silver airlines, which is a commercial airline. And then we ended up flying home on a private plane. So pros and cons coming over by private boat is great. Because you can bring your supplies. And as long as the weather is decent, it's really not that bad of a trip and the water is beautiful. It's I mean, if you're a fisherman, you can stop and fish along the way. And it's kind of a great like destination boating adventure for the weekend. At the same time, should the weather get rough and the winds come up, and you have to be back at a certain time, you're gonna have to take all of that into consideration. So for example, we left on Wednesday, the seas were flat, we had a great trip over on Thursday, they sort of fishing and started looking at the weather coming up on the weekend and realizing we're gonna have really high seas, and that instead of staying until Sunday, they were gonna have to leave Saturday morning. Well, we've already paid for our house, we're not gonna we're not going to get our money back by having to leave early. So that's something to take into consideration if you're going over by private boat and not sleeping on your boat. There's a lot of huge yachts there that they stay on the boat, and they just pay the stay at the Marina. And they can come and go as they please. Sadly, the marina was maybe only 10% occupied. Whoa, oh my god, I wouldn't I wouldn't even have never even seen it that empty before. There's always usually so many boats there. And it was a shame that there there was nobody there. It got

George
better during the week on

Lisa RichartHernandez
Saturday and Sunday seem to pick

George
up a bit during the week. It looked like it was a brand new resort that hadn't even opened yet.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, nobody they're completely empty. The other option is the ferry and we've never done the ferry. However they do offer at Resorts World, some weekend package specials, where you could come over on Friday on the ferry, so and all day Friday and Saturday, and the ferry takes you home Sunday evening. And that included like two nights at the hotel. And it was around $500 a person which isn't bad for round trip ferry and two nights in the hotel. That doesn't include any your food and drinks or anything but they are bringing it entertainment, which is also fun. We'll talk about that a little bit more. So the ferry used to be a lot less expensive. And you know, we just figured hey, worst case scenario we'll get the home on the ferry if we can't go on the smaller boat But the ferry is only running like we said Wednesday, Friday and Sunday as of right now. So keep an eye on those types of schedules too. And then flights so silver airlines flies from Fort Lauderdale to Bimini. What was it connected up with United or JetBlue?

George
Yeah, I think it's, is it JetBlue? Yeah, they

Lisa RichartHernandez
flew JetBlue from Charleston to Fort Lauderdale and then Fort Lauderdale over to Bimini. So those are some places to look up. Again, keep your eyes out for which days they fly.

George
And our friends were very happy with the flights and the flight into Bimini. It's a very small aircraft, but it was very nice flight.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, it's only 15 minutes or airplane. You can also get charter flights. We use noble airlines. As a matter of fact, one of the friends that was with us used to own it, and he's sold it but so had some connections there. So thankfully, he hooked us up with a charter flight on the way home on Tuesday. We ended up staying an extra day in Bimini and um, it was it was better than leaving two days early, I guess.

George
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Especially since I already paid for the house.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yes. So that that was really great. And we got a little bit of extra time to just really kind of wind down and chill out before we came back to the United States. So let's talk about options of different places to stay. We

George
there's also one other option to go to Bimini and that's a seaplane

Lisa RichartHernandez
Oh, oh, yeah. Those are so cool. I've always wanted to do a seaplane but I really don't have any details on that because I don't know anybody that's ever done that. I don't know if they're private or if you can you I'm assuming you can charter those also. And I suppose they fly you right into wherever you're saying.

George
Yeah, there have been many bikes sea plane, they haven't flipped on Thursdays and Fridays. And you can fly. Many sea plane. They're based out of Miami. We have Thursday, Friday and Sunday are their scheduled flights to Bimini and it's really cool to see them come in and land on the water. It's just such a weird thing.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, I'd love to try a seaplane sometime. You know, they really cater towards people from Miami. There's people from Miami. That's kind of nice to be there. Like a little getaway.

George
It still is very much. I mean, on the weekends. It's like you're hanging out in Miami.

Lisa RichartHernandez
It's very true.

George
Yeah. I mean, 50 miles by boat. So yeah, they're always there.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about we. We've stayed Well, we have never actually stayed in the hotel. Although our friends stay in the hotel. So we've seen the insides of the rooms there. And the hotel is really nice,

George
very, very nice hotel. It's a it's a Hilton property. They take very good care of it. It's I think it's very Miami ish style with a pool on the roof a pool bar downstairs. They have a bar in the casino. They always have music there. That's very upbeat and fun.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yes, normally it's there's a lot more more people there. So the rooftop pool. It's a big, big beautiful infinity pool with a bar outside and that was not open. While the bar wasn't open, but the pool was while we were there, just because there wasn't enough people there to fill it up. But they did have the nightclub open in the evening on Saturday night. And they are bringing in DJs from Miami and entertainment. So it's been it was it was fairly full in the nightclub on Saturday night. And the casino is open.

George
I have a casino.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yes. There's the casino at the at the hotel is it's like an average sized casino. You want to talk a little bit about the casino at the at the hotel George

George
yes I would love to the casino is actually a decent sized casino for an island. There are plenty of blackjack tables. There's two roulette tables. They have obviously a lot of slot machines they have a craps table so they have a little bit of everything. And being that there's limited space on the island as far as rooms and accommodations. The casino really never gets jam packed. I would say I've never had a problem getting a table at so it is an actually really really nice casino. The drinks are calm. The staff is fantastic. They take really good care of you. Perfect example I was playing on Sunday Sunday's they close early as of right now they closed the casino. It's open from 10am to 6pm. It was Sunday and it really wasn't a lot of people playing it was just myself and the Pit Boss came over and so I looked at her and I was like are you guys getting ready to close? And she said we will close when you tell us to close. So you just keep playing because she's always getting on a roll. Because money now she saw I was on a roll, I got my money back I got out of there, they closed it up. But I mean, who does that they were really cool. Very, very nice. They get to know you by name because it's a small place. Or maybe they know me, which is scary.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Well, you do, definitely highly recommend getting a player's card when you go there. You really don't have to gamble that much for them to start mailing you offers on opportunities for discounted travel to Bimini if you're if you like to gamble,

George
yes. And like Lisa said, you don't have to spend 1000s and 1000s of dollars for them to start giving you free stuff, or invitation, our friends got an invitation to Super Bowl party and everything was comp in the food. And so they they're really good about giving you back stuff to get you back over there. So as soon as you walk in the casino, if you're walking in from the lobby, go all the way to the back left corner of the casino, and you'll see a desk there. And it's where you get your player's card. And like Lisa said, make sure you get that. And then every time you sit down at a table, make sure you give it to the dealer so that they keep track of your play. That's how they give you free stuff. If they don't know you're playing, you're not gonna get anything,

Lisa RichartHernandez
right even when you use a slot machines and stuff. Do you stick your card in there? And that way? They you get credit for

George
you accumulate points. Yeah. And based on your points is what they give you. We've been offered free rooms free flights free. All kinds of stuff. Yeah, yeah.

Lisa RichartHernandez
So let's see what else can we tell you about the hotel. It's got a downstairs pool. It kind of wraps all the way around the hotel, but there's a pool bar outside, they usually have music there a lot of fun. It's really fun. We had a great day there one day. So it's a swim up bar. They had another big outdoor pool that was completely closed this time to I'm not sure if they've sold it or what's happened with that. And then they also have paradise beach, which is a restaurant, like an open air restaurant that's on the beach. And like, if you're staying in a hotel, you can get the chairs, you know, you can sit out there, they there's waiters that'll bring you drinks and cocktails and stuff at the beach. And the water is crystal blue. It's just like being in a swimming pool. It's gorgeous. Yeah, it's absolutely beautiful beaches. And then they just opened a new section of Resorts World at Bimini Bay. And it's this whole entire private part where you have to pay $40 a person to get in, which I don't know if they'll change that in the future. But it seemed kind of

George
so here's here's what I heard. I talked to one of my buddies, their local guy, and he said that come November, Virgin Atlantic have a cruise ship now. And that resort was built exclusively for the cruise ship. But since cruises got canceled, they decided to open it up to the public, hence why they're charging 40 bucks. His understanding is that come November, the cruises are going to start back up and that section will probably be closed to the public. However, he thinks that because they're getting $40 per person, they'll probably keep that going. If you're willing to pay 40 bucks they'll let you in. But it was originally created just for the Virgin Atlantic cruise ship. So that's where we stand right now.

Lisa RichartHernandez
So it's like to really beautiful resort style pools on the beachfront with several different bars. We got a cabana for my birthday. The DJ played music there in the pool. It was very Miami club scene. Pool Party, almost the Vegas v. Was was a Vegas pool.

George
I was gonna say very South Beach and very Vegas. A lot of young people. Everybody was super cool. everybody's having a great time. The DJ was fantastic. And they that they have the DJ setup right next to the pools. It's just it's a massive party and we had a blast.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, it's definitely you know, if you're looking for that party vibe, kind of a place definitely where to be. Because there's definitely plenty of places to be quiet and secluded, if that's what you're looking for. Also.

George
Yes, and that's, that's I'm glad you brought that up because Bimini is very small, but you can you can party as much as you want to party or you can find yourself on a very secluded part of the beach that we're going to talk about in a little while. But you can get whatever you want there. So yeah, just keep that in mind. It's not just like a constant. South Beach Party,

Lisa RichartHernandez
right in the hotel has several restaurants in it a sushi restaurant. And then like sort of a general kind of like American seafood No restaurant and then another smaller restaurant by the casino. And because it was such a low capacity only like one of them was open at a time. Everything wasn't wide open like it normally is when we go there.

George
Yeah, it felt like it was a soft opening. Because of COVID. Yeah, because

Lisa RichartHernandez
if we had never been there before, we'd be like, wow, this isn't there's not much going on here. But we've seen it in a tea day. So we know that it can get busier and it just depends what you like. I kind of like when there's little more people there and a lot more energy.

George
Yeah, we Chisholm. Like Rousseau said, we got there Wednesday, right by Wednesday, and it was deserted. We had the whole island to ourselves. We were joking how we felt like we were the only ones on the island. And then come Thursday night, people started rolling in and then by Friday and Saturday, it was like, awesome. upbeat music everywhere people dancing and then Sunday, they're gone.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Sunday's usually quiet. Damn Bimini. Anyways, it's sort of like they're a little bit more religious. A lot of things are closed on Sundays there. I noticed. The locals like to party on Sundays.

George
Oh, yeah, that's there. They

Lisa RichartHernandez
all Sunday fun days. So we talked about the hotel. This time we rented a house. Oh,

George
hold on. Can I say one quick thing about the casino just in case anybody's really into that. Okay. They are playing on their COVID rules. So three people at a blackjack table three people at a roulette table. Three people, three people, three people. But there one rule was if you're like for us, we had a group of 13 people. If you're all traveling together, they'll open up a five person table for six. But you have to be together. Okay, moving on.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah. Or if you're like in the same family. So we stayed in the house this time we rented a house. You can go on Airbnb, find houses for rent. We got this one from a friend. That new friend. I don't think it's on Airbnb. But it was a very nice four bedroom, four bath home. Right on the canal. So we had dockage right in front of our house. And great location, walking distance to the hotel. Yeah, pretty much everything. If you stay in Resorts World Bimini is walking distance the pool hotel and casinos. But everyone gets golf carts, you need to rent a golf cart, if you're going to stay on Bimini. If you got it just for the experience. Yes, but but everyone drives golf carts. Oh, and they drive on the wrong side of the road. The opposite side that we do in the United States.

George
Maybe we drive on the wrong, right, whatever. Think of it that way. Yeah.

Lisa RichartHernandez
As well, the opposite side of the road that you do in the United States, they drive on in in Bimini.

George
And you know what the people there, I just keep saying they are so awesome. There's so cool. We never ever in all the times that we've gone, we've driven around the island during the day during the night and never ever felt anything but good vibes and good times. People always waving to you and I,

Lisa RichartHernandez
yeah, as a matter of fact, they're building some new beautiful, like, million dollar homes on the water there. And when we were there last time, we're like, man, if we could ever build a house here, you know, we thought about, oh, we could rent it out. And it could be investment property. And thankfully, we didn't do that. Or we'll be stuck with a huge mortgage payment in place that has no visitors drink. Oh,

George
yeah, they pretty much. Well, not only that, but they pretty much shut it down for COVID. Yeah, construction. So yeah, pick that back up. Yep,

Lisa RichartHernandez
definitely, houses are an option. Remember again, about getting supplies over there and think those things through. The locals, however, are great. If you want to plan some catered meals, like our friend Polly are happy to give you his contact information. Just send us a message through our RV podcast comm website and reach out to us and we will happily pass along as information. The way a lot of people communicate on the island is the wats app, because it runs on. You don't have to pay international fees then. So WhatsApp is a great car based Wi Fi based calling system that we use while we're on on the island.

George
And it works great.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yep. Yep. The other option is they have a ton of condos and townhouses. Like a bunch of two bedroom, two bath townhouses. That's where my brother stayed. We stayed there before. very reasonably priced about $250 a night actually less than the hotel is right now. So you could have two couples and be pretty very reasonably price. If you

George
do on the island,

Lisa RichartHernandez
I really do. Hotel. Yes. Yep. I mean the house is beautiful because we had that much space but it had it not been as many of us we would have just gotten the two bedroom, two bath condo so absolutely great time. So we've talked about all the different ways to get to Bimini and we've talked about the different options of places to stay in Bimini. We've talked about the casino and about the different pools. Let's talk about the local places outside of Bimini Bay Resort that you definitely want to check out.

George
Yes, part of the experience of going to Bimini is going to Bimini get outside of the resort. Like I said, the people are fantastic. They have great little restaurants, and they're all right on the water. And the water is incredible. We went to there's one restaurant called Big John's that went just recently reopened. And they did a fantastic job with it. It. It's really beautiful. It's right on the water. The food is a lot better now than I remember the last time would you agree with me?

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yes, that big John's? Yes, for sure. They just renovated so I think they changed a lot of things

George
while they change management. They've changed a lot of things. The whole interior is different. And it was just such a good vibe. We were in there dancing and eating and drinking and our friends came over by boat, you can come by boat, dock your boat and go into big John's. It was just a really, really good atmosphere. And we would highly recommend that if you ever go to visit Bimini. Oh, yeah,

Lisa RichartHernandez
I had the broiled seafood platter to share and it had lobster shrimp, some kind of delicious, fresh local fish and boiled conch. And I mean, it was delicious. The three of us ate it was so good,

George
but I had three of the biggest steak tacos I've ever seen in my life. They were having tacos. When they brought it to the table. I was like there's no way I'm eating this. About 10 minutes later. Look at my fingers. It was so good.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yes. So the other thing that you must do when you visit the homeless is go to one of the conch shots we went to Sheila's contract. And basically they catch these talk fresh. They go diving for them. She explained to us the process of how they find them. They they're more of like a deep dive to go down and get these conch shells. And then they bring them back to the restaurant. Basically, they sort of stay in the water where they live. And then they get them fresh out of there. And they make almost like it's called conch salad. But it's like it's a vj, basically. Yeah, that's that's

George
what it is. And you can't I mean, you literally cannot get any fresher. You're you see the guy take it out of the conch handed over to the chef and they make your salad with it.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, and the salad is like onions and peppers and tomato, and lots of lime juice, garlic.

George
Making my mouth water. It's so good.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, and they chop it all up there right in front of you. There's usually long lines to get the stuff. They do a lobster and conch salad. They do just call it they do different kinds. But you sit there and watch them trumpet. They also have this hot sauces like so hot. Like a drop us only a tiny drop unless you really really, really like hot will burn your tongue but you put this tiny little hot sauce on it. It's really good. And you can go to Joe's or I think it's Stuart's contract. Sheila's Sheila Sheila or Joe, they both have great shots, but you'll see these huge piles of these gigantic shells. And you just have to check it out. Check that out. You can get to those by just going there's really only one sort of main road on him and he just go outside of the resort. It's kind of if you came in by ferry, you'll you'll pass these things on the side of the road and think to yourself, is this safe to eat here? But yes, it is.

George
Yes. Delicious. Very, very, very good.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yes. And there'll be long lines. And there's like graffiti and stuff. People have like written their names all over them and stuff and look for Ares that Sheila's Yes, yep. So the other place that we recommend eating off the beaten path, is you have to go to radio beach.

George
Okay, so that is a must do. If it's your first time to Bimini your second time, your ninth time. If you've been there a couple times, you know what we're talking about radio beach is absolutely beautiful. And the food there is. I mean,

Lisa RichartHernandez
so is that Sheila's Sherry's series, Sherry's they're all different. I forget who is who who owns what. Yeah, Sherry's little restaurant right there. We have fried conch and conch fritters and,

George
and rice and plantations and drinks. Oh my

Lisa RichartHernandez
god. If you go to radio beach, there's a guy that makes pina coladas inside of the coconut shells. So he's got his Blender out there and he blends a ma And then he pours more aroma on top and they're definitely delicious.

George
They're pricey, but they're worth.

Lisa RichartHernandez
I mean, the dollars or something. Yeah, I

George
think they're $15. But man, do you get

Lisa RichartHernandez
any of those and they're delicious. And it's definitely if you're gonna just have one drink, try that.

George
So I Sherry's I had a strawberry daiquiri. That was like, frozen strawberries slushy in the middle and the rest of it was rum around it. And when I picked it up, I took a quick sip and the slushy kind of melted into the cup and some of my alcohol spilled out. And Sherry was like, nope, give me that back. I'm putting more booze. Okay,

Lisa RichartHernandez
yes. Yeah, they definitely will help you have a good cocktail down there for sure.

George
They love to have fun.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah. And actually, the it was so fun. When we went to big John's. We told him it was my birthday. Oh, when they have a different birthday song than we sing in the United States, which I love. And I'm going to adopt that as my new only birthday song.

George
That was really nice. That was cool. Because Happy

Lisa RichartHernandez
birthday. Happy birthday.

George
Something like that.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Like that?

George
Yes. When you go to bed many times it's her birthday. they'll sing it to you know what Lisa was

Lisa RichartHernandez
a different song. You have to dance and everything everybody claps and it's really fun. And big John's does have amazing mohito Sue, they made really good.

George
Well, there's big john. And there's big game params or big game resort. It has a hotel Marina. And it does have a restaurant that used to be the only hotel on Bimini for the longest time until the Bimini Hilton resort opened up. So you can visit either one of those, they they're both on the water, you can go by boat, you can go by golf cart, you can walk over,

Lisa RichartHernandez
you could drive all the way down to the tip of the island or, and see the end of it, from one end to the other on a golf cart there. There's a little straw market where you can get all kinds of tourist crap. One thing I would definitely say good advice would be is to bring cash. The power outages can come and go extremely like there were days in the house when we were without power for four hours at a time.

George
Okay. Now, that is a new thing. And I also did a little research on that. And the reason that is happening right now is they opened up a new power plant for the resort. If you're outside of the resort, it's the old power plant, they're not having any problems. For some reason they switch the power utilities or whatever they're using at the resort and right now they're having problems. It's a new thing. They're going to fix it. So don't kind of don't panic about that. But yes, we did lose power for up to four hours, on certain days.

Lisa RichartHernandez
And that makes it difficult for the credit card machines and credit card processing and stuff like that. So a lot of them will also use the cash app, which was what was what was the one that he's out now? Yes.

George
Yeah. So don't worry though, they'll find a way to to find

Lisa RichartHernandez
a way to get your money. But the easiest thing to do really is to bring cash. The American dollar is the same as the Bahamian dollar. So you can just bring your American money, and they will take it all day long.

George
And sometimes they'll give you back change and Bahamian money, which is the same exact equivalent.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah. Oh, I almost forgot. And I was just looking through my notes and pictures and remembered about the bread, the bread, the Bohemian bread that they make. I mean, you really have to go to the Bohemian bread place.

George
You have to go to the Bahamian bread place.

Lisa RichartHernandez
How do we describe how to get to that bread place?

George
When you go to radio beach,

Lisa RichartHernandez
basically Nathan's deep dish pizza, right?

George
Yeah, Nate is the bread man. So if you know how you got there, the first person you see on the street you say Hey, where's the bread store? And they'll point you to it. Everybody knows what bread store the tourists are talking about? It is in credible. Incredible. Okay, if I'm going to give any good advice, go there. About 10 o'clock in the morning.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Oh my god bread comes out of the oven. And it is still warm.

George
You can't You can't even hold it.

Lisa RichartHernandez
It's It's so like, they have this cinnamon raisin bread. We had the coconut bread. Like, literally, that's the fat free one, right? I probably could have eaten one whole loaf myself just like stuffed my face with the most delicious warm, fresh bread. I can't even Describe it's the best thing. Really. They also mean my birthday cake.

George
Yes. And I, when Lisa wanted to go to the bread store I was like, Oh no, don't buy bread because I already got this rum cake coming. And you know, I was trying to surprise her do a little surprise, which I should know better. It was fine. Neither of the loaves survived. So we're fine. We had 15 people with us. We weren't.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Okay, yeah. So the loaf of bread is like 10 bucks, which is totally worth $10

George
Yeah, but that loaf of bread weighed like 10 pounds.

Lisa RichartHernandez
I know. It was like so much cement like yes. They have like guava. They have plain they have coconut, cinnamon, cinnamon reason, I think what are their flavors they have they have different ones all the time. They also do like meat. pies and stuff. Their cookies. birthday cakes. Yeah, and I didn't even know that did the birthday cake. But I tell you what.

George
George hooked it up.

Lisa RichartHernandez
It was one of the best chocolate cakes I've ever had. And then, of course, I asked for rum cake for my birthday. And my friends were kind of like, what's a rum cake? Why does she want a rum cake so bad? That thing was gone. We ate like three quarters of that. And like two days. It was like so Moyes and it's like a bundt cake.

George
And it was wrong cake with glazing on it. Which was so good. Oh my god. My mouth is watering right now. I wish I had one.

Lisa RichartHernandez
I know. I know. So highly recommend that definitely can't miss it. It's just

George
amazing. And again, just ask anybody on the island where Nate's bread places. Yeah, they'll point you to it if not take you there.

Lisa RichartHernandez
And one thing I have not had yet which I don't know if it was there last time was Nate's deep dish pizza, but I'm going to guess if it's anywhere near as good as his breads and desserts that it's got to be some delicious pizza. But we got our pizza, which we have to try the lobster pizza. We got ours at Edna's right eat if itas see they everyone has a name there. Yeah, everything is named by the person. So he this pizza place. It's like a like a medium. The crust is like sort of sweet.

George
It's almost like a pizza made on Hawaiian King rolls.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, it's sort of like that kind of a sweet flavor. Like if that makes sense. That's which is

George
sounds kind of weird, but it kind of works, I guess. But they're lobster pizza.

Lisa RichartHernandez
You're coming from New York guys. Yeah. You know, nothing better than New York style pizza.

George
Well, it is

Lisa RichartHernandez
to be that but it is. It's

George
very good. Very, very good. And there we so we had two lobster pizzas, two pepperoni pizzas. And if it says anything, there was nothing left of them.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Well, there was a lot of us eating and a lot of alcohol involved. So you know that makes people hungrier. True that All right, what are their local places? Have we forgotten anything?

George
radio beach, big John's?

Lisa RichartHernandez
Oh, well, let's talk about if you come by boat and getting off the boat. We went over to honeymoon islands?

George
Yes.

Lisa RichartHernandez
So honeymoon Island is about a 15 minute boat ride. It's about it's a nice ride from the main island. And if you look at pictures of Germany, or if you google search it, you'll see this picture of this Brecht ship. And it's like where everybody goes diving near there. And for unfortunately, every time we've been it's been kind of rough weather and we haven't had a chance to go snorkeling over there. But the water is crystal blue. And you can see tons of fish and stuff. So we go to honeymoon Island and sad there is which is like white sand. You know, Clearwater, everyone pulls their boats up there and kind of hangs out and parties during the daytime. Had. There are so many sharks, it's so many stingrays and they all swim around you. So forget about paying to swim with sharks and stingrays. They're right there.

George
Yeah, there. It's free for you just jump in. Yes. And it's so weird. Because when you first pull up that I mean, we've been three times so it's not like we've been there a bunch of times, but every single time there's been a lot of sharks, and a lot of thing raise. And the very first time it was really hard to get in the water. I don't even think I did the first time. And now it's like, almost no big deal. You know, they're not going to do anything. They're nurse sharks. And they're fed so well because everybody's feeding them. There's nothing I'm really worried about. Yeah,

Lisa RichartHernandez
they're like it's more just being intimidated by being in the water with these, you know, big sharks and rays that you're not aware of, but they're Really? There's so many people already in the water, you're like,

George
Okay, well, one of our friends was the natural shark siren. And anytime she spotted one, we could just hear her screaming. Oh, where's the shark? What's so funny?

Lisa RichartHernandez
I think it's more fun to bring people out there and see watch their reaction than anything because they freak out.

George
What I would love to do is just bring somebody out there and just like get them in the water before they realize what's going on. Yeah, like what happened to our friend Dana? Yes.

Lisa RichartHernandez
I thought he walked on or like Dana, yeah, there's a bunch of sharks around you. And he was like, huh, yeah. Right. And we're like, No, seriously, you know, he said he saw those are,

George
Don't joke around like that.

Lisa RichartHernandez
I've never seen anybody get back to the boat.

George
I mean, he must have walked on water getting back in that boat, that he was mad at us, because he was like, you guys saw me surrounded by sharks, and he didn't do anything about it. And we're like, what are we supposed to do about it? We told you, there's sharks around you. Yes. It's all fun. But that's a beautiful place. And where the boats drop anchor, you can jump in and it's there were some sections that were over five feet deep. And then others were four, you know, usually boats don't want to go any shallower than four three feet. And it was really cool to just jump out and bunch of people partying and music and it was nice, nice atmosphere.

Lisa RichartHernandez
That was fun. And I think you can actually like pay for excursions and things like that. There's there's just all different kinds of things you can get on the island. We haven't done it before. We're gonna do a big scuba bass on Bimini ever big boat that'll take you out.

George
They have snorkeling, obviously fishing is huge in Bimini so you can do all the fishing you want to do talking about going on the boat to honeymoon island on the way back, you can pull your boat up right up to the beach at Radio beach. So if you go there sometimes there's a lot of boats anchored up because everybody likes likes to party there.

Lisa RichartHernandez
As far as other tours things. There's Ernest Hemingway had a place there.

George
I got around.

Lisa RichartHernandez
I know he's also he was also in Key West but they said this was his seaside hideaway. This I was just reading the thing in the Bahamas. It says the place where Ernest Hemingway's favorite seaside hideaway meets the lost city of Atlantis and pristine beaches lead to waters teeming with prize Blue Marlin 50 miles from Florida's eastern coast, then they exist in a world of its own as such a great description of it. Ernest Hemingway must have just spent all his time on tropical resorts writing, writing stories like us.

George
Yeah, he was obviously a very smart man.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yes. Normally when we go there, there are just tons and tons of fishing boats, huge fishing boats,

George
huge fishing boats, huge luxury yachts. small boats. It's again, it's 50 miles from Miami. So everybody and anybody that can get over comes over. It's a great place. A lot of people that are going to other islands of the Bahamas, by boat. That's their first stop is Bimini refuel and then take off from there. So it's it's, it's just a great, great location for people with boats. Yeah,

Lisa RichartHernandez
I was just reading this about the two dozen different dive sites around the island. And when we were there, there was big diving groups that were there. But and we talked about swimming with the sharks, but I just read here that roughly two dozen dive sites around Bimini and Ireland is most famous for its exhilarating shark dives. In the winter months great hammerheads and bull sharks swim near the Gulf Stream, experienced divers can drift dive along victory reef or deep dive in the continental shelf. And there's a picture of these divers with like 20 gigantic sharks. Those are not those are the kinds of bite people I think those are our kind of

George
sharks. hammerheads are very aggressive. Yeah. But I guess I don't know. That would be a little I can I can deal with the nurse sharks.

Lisa RichartHernandez
I know. I know. I can't

George
I just it's like everything else until you do it. You don't know.

Lisa RichartHernandez
I know we need to do we need to go diving there, I think. But they they're the world's third largest Barrier Reef. 190 miles of pristine Andrus Barrier Reef.

George
So when you're crossing over, at one point, the depth was 2500 feet. Plus, then when you hit Bimini, it all sudden just drops to like 12 feet. And I was talking to a friend that we met there. And he said when he's gone before with his friends, by boat, they'll take the boat and go to other islands. But once you leave Bimini going east. The water is just shallow everywhere because it's all a big giant reef.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Hmm, that's super cool. Well, I think that should be on our bucket list for next time we go there is to get back into diving. We haven't done any diving in a long time. very long time. That's right. Well, I can't Can you think of anything else we need to fill our friends in about Bimini?

George
So we talked about how to get there. We talked about where to stay there. We talked about where to eat there. And we talked about how to get around there.

Lisa RichartHernandez
I think we've talked about all we can talk about Bimini, unless you have any other detailed questions that we are happy to fill you in on, you can reach us at RV podcast comm just scroll down and submit your questions, and subscribe to our podcast so that when we have new ones coming out, which will be this week, hopefully again, some more. We're going to interview our friends who are first time full timers in their RV, and talk about some other trips that we've got coming up planned for our RV friends. And I just think that it was good to talk about a vacation that was not in the RV. Because I think that people may be also interested in doing some international travel again,

George
yes, I think things are finally starting to open up. We hope so we've heard that the cruise industry is getting ready to fire up the ships. We're kind of excited about that. And hopefully we will have a lot of travel to talk to you guys about and thank you for listening to us. We apologize that we were

Lisa RichartHernandez
Mia for a couple months.

George
at it. We're back at it. We're gonna fill you guys in on all our fun adventures. So don't forget to buckle up and get ready.

Lisa RichartHernandez
That's right. Don't forget to subscribe and like our podcasts. And if you can't leave us a comment or review. That also helps us boost our rankings. And we would love to do that. someday maybe we'll be able to retire and just advertise for our podcasts and drive around visiting vacation places and tell you all about them.

George
But until then, until then, we're gonna keep doing our podcast. Maybe we'll do a live one at Bimini and you guys can just buy us a beer. That'll work.

Lisa RichartHernandez
That'll work, sure.

George
Alright, everybody have it saved.

intro
Thanks for listening to another episode of our RView. Don't forget to drop us a line at RViewpodcast.com. That's the letter R view podcast.com and like, subscribe and follow us so you don't miss out on our next adventure.