Chris'mas in Da Eye-Lunds

Well, not really the islands, just one island exactly, right next to a really big one. Paradise Island, actually, just a short reinforced concrete elevated span away from beautifual, quaint, chronically congested downtown Nassau, Bahamas, that is.

The airport was great, through customs and immigration in no time, with no inbound inspection at all, out to the waiting charter van, and off to the hotel, the vaunted, commercially proclaimed and illustriously imagined ATLANTIS! Not a bad drive, until we got into Nassau itself, on December 23rd. Pretty crowded would be a ridiculous understatement. Thank goodness the driver wasn't on the meter, or the fare would have been astronomical.

Of course, there was one guy there with us, some unfortunately stereotypical New Yawkah, traveling alone, for some reason incredibly antsy to get to the hotel. As he intently read his New York Times, he was full of direct and surprisingly biting criticisms of the driver and the charter company, all of which he would preface by saying, "I'm not criticizing you at all, but . . ." and then would follow his surprisingly direct and insulting criticisms. I had to wonder what line of work this guy was in, most definitely not sales. Probably entertainment/media, that kind of thing, maybe a lawyer. Somewhere along the line this schmuck had been taught or had thought up the concept that he could viciously criticize folks openly and without fear of reprisal or contempt just by saying a hollow, "I'm not making a criticism here, but..." by way of introduction.

There were his complaints about the bus, about the roads, about the minimal A/C in the van, the crowds, and most of all about the time to get to the hotel. Hey, it's vacation time there, Rudy or Vic or Jason or Gino or whateverthefuck, just relax and take it all in a bit. Breathe deep, see something you've never seen before, and chill out a bit. Or better yet, rent your own goddamn cab so you can order the driver around more directly, without the rest of us having to suffer through it. Or walk, you ass. You're in the van now, so shut up and deal with it. More questions from this schlub about dinner, a place to eat, how long he'll have to wait, what he could eat, where he'll sit, what he couldn't eat, what kind of chairs they had, what kind of crowds there were, how and where were the tables constructed--oy!

Then thankfully to the hotel, huge and clean and manicured and magnificent and absolutely dominating the entire skyline of anything within fifty miles. Can't miss this place, no way. I guess that's the point, after all. Huge spires, lots of detail, lots of sculpture, lots of fountains.

Check-in was great and simple, with a number of staff in the lobby continually asking if we needed any help, if we had any questions. Now that's an excellent way to build a customer relationshp right from the start, that kind of direct engagement. It wasn't intrusive, but exactly the kind of engagement I'd like to have when coming into a place like that, huge and imposing. I was favorably impressed from the start.

Then to the rooms in the Beach Tower, a somewhat long walk past the theater and the comedy club and two restaurants and the ballrooms and the grand ballroom and the convention center and the game room and the Beach Tower lobby and the teen club and the concierge and the lobby lounge and the buffet restaurant. Not bad, but a long way. Now, I've been to the Hilton Waikaloa Villiage on the Big Island of Hawaii, and they have a similar physical layout. The Hilton has solved this with a mini monorail train, or a choice of a much slower yet equally efficient boat ride to all of the resort's destinations. Kids love both, as do the old folks. The youngsters who are in a hurry can walk it. Nothing at all like this at Atlantis, just an unfortunately scheduled shuttle bus if you'd like to take it.

The rooms were nice, clean and ready. Except for my sister's, which was completely unprepared. She had a major coniption over that, totally unwarranted.

Then it was a quick change and downstairs for pool and sundeck adventure, and some lunch. We hit the outside grill, and ordered burgers and hot dogs and soft drinks all around, for three adults and two kids. And that's when it started, the realization that we were a captive audience in someone else's capitalist cornucopia. Lunch was $55.00. And that's U.S. money too, not Bahamian. Ouch.

Then to the pool and fun with the kids in the main tower pool and the lazy river for the rest of the day. Dinner was at a place called Seagrapes (that's where Seawine comes from!) right there off the Beach Tower lobby. Great buffet with excellent food. Excellent layout, with tons of stuff for the kids, lots of seafood, great selections of absolutely everything, and it was all high-quality chow, not the kind of amazingly disappointing low-grade meat and such that I experienced at the Sandals in St. Lucia a few years back. And the staff, to a man and woman, absolutely fantastic, friendly and helpful and courteous, just top-notch in their service and attitudes.

Bill for dinner for five adults and two kids? Over $400. Ouch again.

Couldn't help but notice that the elevators and elevator lobbies are in extreme need of maintenance, more likely total overhaul. Also saw an awful lot of slot machines out of order in the casino. I can't imagine why cashflow generators like slot machines aren't kept in constant operating condition. I'd think it might be a good thing to be a journeyman slot machine repairman in the Bahamas these days.

Up the next day and to the the lagoon beach. Nice spot with great shaded lounges, and a cabana guy right there to help out, again with the positive attitude. Into the totally calm lagoon for some snorkeling with the kids. The snorkel vests were free, but the charge for a mask and snorkel rental was $15/hour, surprisingly not too bad. I opted for the purchase, so went to pay, and for only $53 got two sets of snorkel and mask. Holy crap--ouch again. And then the kids wanted to play in the sand, so I got two sand bucket and spade sets, $52--ouch yet again. Only 9:00 a.m. now, and we're already down over $100, for about $19 worth of low-grade Chinese-made plastic.

The kids did the slides and the other pools, and explored like crazy. All of the outdoor attractions were free, and were pretty well maintained. No trash lying around, and the sidewalks and such were clean and wide. No trash in the pools, either, which was quite good. Lots of lifeguards, all over the place. Well run and clean attractions outside, consistent throughout the whole place.

We explored the place a bit that night, all through the hotel to the casino and to The Dig. The casino is a no-shit moneymaker, that much was clear, despite all of the broken slots.

The four Dale Chihuly sculptures there in the casino are absolutely magnificent, their majesty and wonder clearly lost, not even registering on the majority of the mouth-breathing idiots eager only to get at those slot machines and spend their children's future.

The Dig was very cool, a brilliant concept executed flawlessly. Great exhibit, and the creatures and presentation there were outstanding.

The kids were up for jet skiing the next day, but just looking into it immediately soured me on doing it. First of all, the operators were not with the hotel at all, but independent guys who had specific spots on the beach as their turf. Beat-up jet skis, with greasy-filthy life vests to wear, coated with thousands of tourists' layers of suntan lotion, sweat, skin, whatever, horribly worn and likely unserviceable. The operators themselves were just about in rags, just filthy torn shorts under filthy torn t-shirts, a big turn-off. Competition was fierce, and so were the prices. They started at only $60 for 30 minutes, with the 'very special' deal of $120 for an hour. I asked, "How is that a deal then, me bruddah?" And then the price would drop to just $110 for an hour. Sorry, but I won't take a jet ski to see Jesus at $110/hour. Their pitches were so canned, so corny, so full of crap that they managed to put me off their product entirely. I was with my son, and he was clearly eager to go jet skiing, so those sly, sly businessmen, so accustomed to dealing with The Gullible and Easily Influenced Rich American Tourist, offered me an extra five minutes just because I had my son with me. What kind of deal is that, why don't I get an extra 20 minutes if he's so special, if you're so touched by the love of a father for his son? Nope, they'd have none of that, so I had none of their shitty product. I would think the hotel could make an awful lot more, and do it better, by taking this on themselves. They were boofing us enough on the prices for everything else, why not on the water sports as well?

The jet ski money instead went into the arcade. Guess how much one play was on one of the arcade machines? Only $2.00 a shot, but $2.50 for the really hot games. So a $20 value card sure didn't last long in the game room.

I did like the hawkers on the beach selling "Cubian" cigars. A very clever little ruse, and I watched it work time after time on dumbass tourist morons too intoxicated by the idea of banned Cuban cigars at larcenous prices to actually hear the guy say "Cubian" instead of "Cuban." I don't smoke at all, never have as it's filthy and disgusting and nasty and grotesque and expensive and fatal n' all, but I asked, and the guy admitted pretty quickly the absolute best cigars he had were from the Dominican Republic, and he still bought them in bulk at tobacconists on the island for resale to the tourists. Great scam, and I watched more than one dumbass lay down $40 for a selection of 5 cigars probably worth about $10 at the absolute most.

The resort was packed by the same kind of vacation crowd you'd find in Vegas: expensive and ridiculous manicures, gold chains, lots of cigar-smoking (both men and their trying-way-too-hard women), greasy, slicked-back hair, trashy high heels, spendy track suits, lots of sequins everywhere, and a pervasive shallow attitude of self-righteous sophistication and taste for having picked a place that tells you how sophisticated and tasteful you are for choosing it. Lots of bad jewelry, women with a ring or two on every finger to match their half dozen necklaces and three earrings, men with ridiculous gold pinky rings and their look-at-me-I'm-a-moron bling necklaces. Lots of navel jewelry, too, often on women for whom direct attention to that area of the body is not necessarily a good thing. Lots of braided hair, done by the local women on the beach for ridiculously high prices, and almost always on dumbass white girls, and even on the unbelievably ridiculous white guys--they all looked just plain stupid, as stupid as Bo Derek did 25 years ago when she did it.

Lots of Kevin Federline wannabes out there, with their trendy $80 boutique-bought wife-beaters and designer beat-up straw cowboy hats or $200 fedoras, along with their high-end track suit pants and $200 Nikes. All coming across as Kid Rock posers, so much like the idiot poser posse on those cell phone commercials. Lots of little teeny female popstar wannabes too, with their bad hair and even worse makeup, in awful bathing suits. And all of their parents, who were trying to be and act and think and exist just like their ridiculous kids. Pathetic, really. Modern America, no shit.

Strangely enough, didn't see one single thong bathing suit the entire time. Saw a couple of pretty small bikinis, but nothing that could be called a thong. Saw a couple of stereotypically hilarious guys in banana-hammock Speedos, but both were, in fact, genuine Europeans, for whom this is absolutely natural, an integral if highly ingracious part of the culture.

And lots and lots and lots of boob jobs. Tiny little 5'2" women weighing all of 98 pounds, with breasts the size of canteloupes. Absolutely ridiculous, skinny little things with massive breasts, barely constrained by their bathing suits. Lying down for their compulsive suntan, with those grotesque bulbous lumps sticking up in the air like the artificial peaks they are. I wondered who the fake tits were for, for the women--and surprisingly, there were tons of girls, and I mean 13, 14, 15 year-old girls with them--and their self-esteem, or had they done it for their men (boys)? Hard to tell. I couldn't really fathom how either of them could take any kind of self-esteem solace in the fact that they had laid out thousands of their or their parents' hard-earned dollars to have artificial constructs surgically implanted into their bodies in order to become or to appear to become something they are not. It has always been, and more and more is fake, lame, hollow, shallow, and desperate. The attractive teenager with the very flat yet very nicely shaped natural breasts was infinitely more attractive, and caught a lot more of my pseudo-lecherous 40-something attention than did the 20-something bimbo all of five yards away in her white bikini and grotesquely massive boobs. Sheesh.

Saw only a few truly stunning women, surprisingly few that actually turned my head. The best was a 40-something mom in a wonderfully faded brown-pink bikini, an old and clearly favorite bikini, which further endeared me to her. Nice bod, nice tan, and the fit of her bikini bottom across her rear was as perfect as you could get. I just stood at the bottom of the water slide stairs to watch her go up, and then made sure I was at the bottom to watch her emerge. Fantastic.

Not too many bad tattoos, not like the stunning selection of atrocious tattoos we witnessed at Sandals. Nothing like the Georgia football player with the rifle-scope reticle pattern tattooed right in the middle of his throat. Sure, it may be cool now, but what are you going to say to that senior executive when it's promotion time in another ten years? Saw a few bad tattoos, like cursive names and family portraits, but not nearly as many as I thought we'd see.

TV selection there was pretty lame, with hardly any cable channels available. I'd think they'd have the superstations on, and at least 3-5 movie channels. Nope. And a few foreign channels, for the Frenchy Canadians, the Spanish speakers, etc. The media is dominated by Miami, sadly.

On the last night went to a very nice restaurant called the Seafire. Absolutely flawless meal, with outstanding food served by a fantastic staff. Perfect way to finish the trip. Spendy, sure, as is everything at Atlantis, but this one was worth it, as everyone in the family had a wonderful time.

The promenade outside the restaurant was up against The Marina at Atlantis, where we were privileged to encounter some of the most naked, shameless, obscene displays of unadulterated conspicuous consumption I've encountered in my entire life. I'm talking the luxury yachts. Within our modest view was what my dad and I estimated to be about $150 million in seagoing architecture. These aren't just yachts, like a 35' sailboat, but are 140' ocean-going ships, with radar domes the size of a car, a helicopter landing pad on top, and more square footage of living space than most of the resort's guests' homes. There was a sailing catamaran with a mast of probably 90'. And there were dozens of these things, all over the place, parked cheek-by-jowl, rammed up next to each other in these hotel slips.

My question was simple: if I'm so rich to own or even charter one of these for, say, $10,000/day, then what in the holy hell am I doing parking it outside a resort hotel? Everything I need, and then some, is on this ship, so why do I need any land at all? Why aren't they in a secluded lagoon somewhere, off a deserted island, under the moonlight, actually out in the ocean for which they were built? Well, my observation makes sense for me, but I'm just not thinking like the snobs and assholes who own and charter these things. It's not about getting away, but about spending money and making sure people see you spending it. Over and over, the quarterdecks were open, the blinds up, the doors and windows and hatches wide open so everyone walking by could see right inside to the main salons, to see the people in their lounges in front of the dual 72" plasma screens, the sound turned up so loud that we could hear it on the dock. It wasn't about privacy, it was about making conspicuous their conspicuous consumption. It was about us being able to see and hear them being rich, about us being compelled to voyeurism, being forced to see and watch them, to question our own miserable existences and wish that we were them. The shallow bastards. They may have money, but I saw no exhibition of class.

The only thing I could figure was that they were parked at the hotel to go to the casino. So how much does someone who can afford a ship like that play with and/or lose in a night at the casino? I don't really know, but I'll be they're not playing the quarter slots. I figured that what they were playing with in a night or two would probably pay the tuition for a smart young kid at a state university for four years. But then again, that's just me. I can't imagine having that kind of wealth, and why those who do have such a total incomprehension of what it's like to live normally.

And then time to go. To the rundown and grossly in need or repair departure lounge at the Nassau airport. Coming in is easy and speedy, but not so getting out. The security setup is a joke, one stupid line after another. Then winding around corners and up steps, to the overcrowded, filthy, smelly departure lounge. You'd think with the money the island is pulling in, they'd be able to build and maintain a decent place, but apparently not.

And on the jet and off the island, a 3-hour ride back to cold, cold civilization and the job waiting the next day. But thanks, Grandma and Grandpa for a fantastic holiday diversion to a neat place, somewhere I've never been before. Can't say I'll be back anytime soon, but at least I can say I've been there now.