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We left Boston for The Bahamas at about 3:00 after staying in Boston at my brother's friend's house. We flew on a Miami Air charter full of Spring Breakers, but the ride was rather normal (no parties on the plane or anything like that).

We arrived in Nassau, The Bahamas at about 7:00 p.m., which is not ideal because there's really nothing besides the humid, breezy air to distinguish your location.

After spending an hour and a half in the slowest immigration line EVER, we exited the airport to find a sea of hundreds of suitcases surrounded by a frantic scene of utter chaos.

The buses were missing. Even worse, delivery of the massive queue of suitcases would no doubt take hours. At this time we decided to skip the STS-arranged shuttle and hire a cab ourselves. We got screwed on the cab fare, but at least we were at the hotel (with our bags) way before everyone else.

And now the fun begins.

Upon arrival at the Nassau Beach Hotel, we received three different instructions on where to check-in, but none were correct. Finally an STS employee corraled us into an orientation, where they promptly hit us up for another $60 to pay for VIP access to clubs and happy hours.

After the orientation broke, we waited for a half-hour for the check-in people to come to the orientation room to check in everyone. They never came. Instead we were moved to a banquet room with two annoyed Bahamian hotel employees who did nothing for fifteen minutes, and then finally began calling names one by one in a totally random order with about 100 annoyed and culturally-shocked people (and their luggage) jammed into one corner of the banquet hall.

After gathering $50 from everyone to cover the cash-only security deposit, one of our names was called so we went to the table and tried to check-in. They didn't have our names, so we needed to go to the front-desk to check-in.

To make a very long story short--two hours later we were shipped off to the Casuarinas Hotel because the idiots at STS and/or the Nassau Beach Hotel overbooked the joint.

Being taken to a strange place in a foreign country is no picnic. You can't help but consider that you're being set up for some type of thievery, especially at first impression of the Casuarinas Hotel. The check-in desk was behind a glass window outside of the empty restaurant. The check-in process was decidedly 19th century. Everyone simply signed his guestbook. The room key was just that: a key--nothing more, nothing less.

We got two rooms at the Casuarinas. Our room's light barely lit the entirety of our room. We had no hot water (not that anyone would take a shower in that place). On the other hand, the phones were the same ones I have at work!

Again, to make another long story short, after considering our options, we loaded our pockets with our important travel documents and as many valuables as we could reasonably fit into our pockets, locked our rooms and headed out for a night on the town. We eventually made it to a club called, Bahama Boom, and had a good time. We got back very late, discovered that the bed linens were actually remarkably clean, and slept off what will go down as one of the more fucked-up (pardon the language!) travel days I've ever experienced!

After seeing the Casuarinas Hotel in the daylight, I have to admit that it was a neat little crappy place with a lot of character. On the other hand, I was ready to get out of that place and into the "comforts" of your standard tourist-trap hotel. After checking out, the lady working the desk helped us flag a cab and invited us back for dinner some time (yeah right!).

After we arrived at the Nassau Beach Hotel, we grabbed the dumbass manager who gave us his word that we would have a room (but refused to sign anything because "this was the real world") to let him know we were ready to move into our room, which we did finally get several hours later. All we got for our trouble was lunch, which took a few days to get because we didn't understand that the restaurant checked off on the vouchers, "Italian Restaurant," was apparently some sort of code word for the grill on the beach.

In the meantime, we just sat on the beach soaking up the sun and swimming in the warm water.

We made the relative mistake of going to our free rum punch happy hour at Conch Fritters. Half the group got so hammered on those horrible rum punches that they didn't want to go out. The other half of the group, including me, went out to Bahama Boom, which was empty and not fun at all.

On the beach at the end of the day, a local guy named Ben came up to our group and sold us on an all-you-can drink party for $15 at King & Nights, which is next door to the hotel. My brother and I met Ben three years ago at the same party that he ran, but then he called it Bourbon Street. This party was the best part of the trip in 2001.

My brother and Ryan's friend, Hill, signed up for the beer pong tournament while waiting outside of King & Nights. We were the first ones in, and seeing that ratty old place brought back memories of 2001. Unfortunately, Ben didn't do enough selling of the party because very few people showed up.

On the other hand, we all got hammered off the stiff drinks, Rob and Hill won the beer pong tournament, Ben gave Rob and I a bottle of vodka for remembering him from three years ago, and, most importantly, we got him to tell the "car-jacker" joke he told us on camera three years earlier.

What else is there to do when you're drunk at 2 a.m. in The Bahamas besides go to the hot tub?! Unfortunately, the hot tub party lasted all of two minutes, as we were promptly kicked out by security. And that ended our night.

This was a recovery day. I think I got out of bed at about 2 p.m. We didn't do much during the day, and at night we just went to the casino. At the casino we just watched some drunk/dumb guy play three hands of Blackjack with $3,500 on each hand. He was actually winning like crazy for a while. His dumbest/luckiest move was doubling down with an ace and a five. Lucky for him, the dealer busted and he made a cool $7,000 on that one hand.

This was Booze & Cruise day. It was "cold" and cloudy in the morning. In fact, I wore jeans and a jacket for the first part of the Booze & Cruise. The sun came out and the skies cleared once the boat made its final pick-up at the Holiday Inn Sunspree on Paradise Island.

After that final pick-up, we cruised out a ways to an island off the Eastern coast of Paradise Island. We anchored and began the snorkeling portion of the trip. The water was cold, as it normally gets when the weather is windy and the water unsettled. I stayed in the water for less than ten minutes. I was thoroughly unimpressed, although now I can say I went snorkeling!

After snorkeling we ate our crappy lunches of barbecue chicken wings and ribs with rice and corn as we cruised to what I believe was simply the Northern side of the same island we sidled up to for snorkeling. This stop was the secluded beach portion of the cruise even though we were one of two huge booze cruise boats to anchor on this beach. It didn't exactly look like the pictures in the brochure, but I was used to getting less than expected on this trip. The majority of us didn't even get off the boat.

The beach, however, was prelude to the booze portion of the cruise. Everyone could drink prior to departing the secluded island, but the drinks were lighter and those "snawwwkelllllin'" (as our captain pronounced "snorkeling") couldn't drink until after they got out of the water. Everyone promptly got pretty giddy after they stepped up the drinks, and we all had an absolute blast as we cruised back to Cable Beach, and then to downtown Nassau where the party spilled into Senor Frogs.

No one made it out at night after the booze & cruise.

We headed downtown to catch the ferry to Paradise Island right after we got up. For those of you who've never been to Atlantis, I would mark that on your to-do list because it is one of the coolest places I've ever visited. Of course, it wasn't as exciting this time because I visited in 2001, but it is still the coolest man-made place I've ever seen.

At night we went out to The Zoo, which is one of the clubs shown on the TV show, "Wild On! The Bahamas." Unfortunately, the place was relatively empty, and it took forever to get a beer. (I was so sick of rum at this point!) Rob and I wanted to go to Waterloo (the best club last time we were here), but no one else seemed interested. To tell you the truth, it really would've stunk if we went to Waterloo and it was as subpar as everything else on this trip. So, the memories of Waterloo won't be ruined by what is turning into a slightly disappointing trip (as far as the party/spring break atmosphere is concerned).

We needed to check out very early the next day, so we all decided to take it easy on this day. Jen, Amanda and I went to the straw market across the street to grab some souvenirs. After that, I ate and then went to the beach.

For dinner, seven (out of eight) of us ate at Cafe Johnny Canoe, which is the place I can honestly say I had the best cheeseburger I've ever had when I visited in 2001. After we scarfed down a huge plate of cheese fries, Johnny Canoe's did not disappoint. I got the hickory burger again, and although it wasn't as good as in 2001 (a recurring theme), it was still awesome.

At night we just packed and watched Chapelle Show.

Hoping to avoid similar hassles as the first night, we decided to get up very early to check out and get to the airport before everyone else. When you can get 8 people to agree to wake at 5:30 a.m., you can pretty much be certain that we all believed the extremely early wake-up call was necessary.

As expected, we were first, and check out was a breeze, and we got to the airport before 7 a.m. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 10 a.m. D'oh!!! So, we sat around at the airport waiting, but at least we didn't have to worry about checking out or leaving our luggage behind to be loaded en masse onto one of the trucks provided by STS.

Needless to say, we were the first ones to check-in to our flight. Then we waited to board the flight. Then we waited while several planes landed. Then we waited while five planes took off before us. Finally, our Miami Air charter lurched into the windy Bahamian atmosphere about an hour behind schedule.

We flew right by Atlantis as our plane left behind the tiny island of New Providence. Further North, above what I believe was the island of Abaco, the clouds were lighter and the spectacularly turqouise waters of the Carribbean stole my attention.

Miami Air/Logan Airport personnel executed the baggage claim as if our flight were the first flight ever to land in Boston, so that delayed us even further. It was then that I learned that Ryan's mother had made dinner for us. Although it was quite possibly the best meal I've ever had in my entire life (I'm not embellishing!), it severely delayed our departure from Boston. I really did appreciate the meal, however. I can't make that clear enough.

We finally left Ryan's at about 5:30 p.m. At about 6:30 p.m. I was nearly passing out on the road. I was dead tired, and, unfortunately, I was also driving. Thankfully, Rob and Amanda stayed awake to talk so I didn't really get tired for the rest of the drive. I finally pulled into the driveway at about 12:30 a.m. Unfortunately, I had to be at work only 7 hours later.

Total Awake Time: 5:30 a.m. on 3/14/04 to 3:30 a.m. on 3/15/04 for a total of 22 hours
Total Travel Time: 3 hour flight + 7 hour drive = 10 hours