Spring Break?

The Bahamas is well-known for being a Spring Break haven for college-kids and other under-age drinkers (the drinking age is 18 here but I don't think they pay any attention). When we came here for Mark's original contract 2 years ago we were briefly housed in the Wyndham Hotel on Cable Beach and I gotta tell ya we could smell Spring Break in those rooms - stale beer, cigarette smoke and other undesirable perfumes. We could also see and feel Spring Break on the carpets... we won't go into too much detail. We tried to eat once at a place called "Senor Frogs". It is conveniently located right next to the Hilton (where we were staying) and overlooks the harbour. We got up and left when we realized Lisa's plastic menu was stuck to the table. The Booze Cruise was apparently the pick up spot for our wealthly Bahamian estate agent (when he was a youth of course) who used to pull up in his boat and carry off hand-picked inebriated college girls. We think most of the episodes of "Girls Gone Wild" are filmed here too.

We were resigned to this reign of temporary insanity and were preparing ourselves for the onslaught.

They're not here.

Everyone is looking for them - some with relief (like us) and some in dismay (like the small hotels and cheap dive bars).

Apparently the Bahamas has priced Spring Breakers out of their market. We thought that the tourist ministry must be hustling to address this. Surely this is a disaster? But apparently they have done this on purpose! The remarks in the paper were something like "we are catering and courting a high end, luxury traveler".

Here's Mark hanging out at one of our favorite breakfast joints - News Cafe.



The News Cafe is cheap (in the scheme of things). It has lovely outside seating, lot's of newspapers (including Mark's favorite, the pink Gazetta de Sport), a personality of it's own. It is about to be closed. All this courting of luxury travelers is causing some changes around here. Atlantis basically owns all of Paradise Island and is closing down all these little independent places to build a luxury marina complex. Cable Beach is changing too. Emily lost her favorite Johnny Canoes to the Baha Mar project (which now is in serious trouble since Harrah's dropped out).

So - we are torn. Do we take two weeks of Spring Breakers in exchange for some small independent, unique stores, restaurants and bars? Or do we give in to the gentrification and watch the rise in our real estate value instead. Hmmmm - tough question.