“I need a vacation!” is what both James and I said multiples times throughout 2020. The coronavirus, the ‘rona, had derailed several of our trips this year: Indianapolis in May (for Indy 500), Europe in July (South of France *swooning*) , our backup vacation to Hawaii in September (*more swooning*), and probably also our upcoming trip to Europe in November (Switzerland *swooning with snow*). We had almost given up on going anywhere for the year, when James found that there were a few places in the Caribbean that we were allowed to travel to as Americans, when no one else wanted to take us in.
As James wrote in his previous post, we had narrowed it down to Bermuda, Aruba, and Jamaica for their ease of access, low case count, and COVID testing procedures. We both were a little skeptical to travel, and we recognized that our privileges enabled us to do so when so many are struggling so there was some guilt as well.
We ultimately picked Bermuda for their super low and almost non-existent case count and their impressive looking testing and contact tracing program. We also thought about the people of Bermuda: were we going to be putting them at risk? The answer is always yes, but we were comfortable knowing they were really taking this seriously, their case count was almost non-existent, and they were welcoming tourists back into their country, so we were happy to give them our business. Also knowing we would be tested even before getting on the plane gave us peace of mind, and then having to be tested twice more while we were there (upon arrival and a few days into our trip) really sealed the deal for us.
In this trip
1: CLT-ATL-BDA Delta 717 First Class and Delta A319 Economy. International vacationing in the time of COVID.
2: Grotto Bay Beach Resort Review. Hamilton Parish, Bermuda
3 :Bermuda Vacation Activities: International vacationing in the time of COVID.
3.1: Day 1: Arrival & Quarantine
3.2: Day 2: Resort Day
3.3: Day 3: Exploring St. George’s
3.4: Day 4: Hamilton & Royal Navy Docks
3.5: Day 5: Horseshoe Bay & COVID testing in Hamilton
3.6: Day 6: Boating out to Castle Island & Nonsuch Island
3.7: Day 7: Last morning & flight back home
4 :Bermuda Public Transport. How it works and how to use it
5 : BDA-ATL-CLT Delta A319 and 717 Economy Review. Pre-clearance arrival into the US during COVID.
Day 1: Arrival & Quarantine
James already documented our initial travel process getting here, so I’ll skip to the less boring stuff! We arrived around 3:30pm on Sunday and after deplaning we waited in line to get our paperwork approved, go through immigration, and then get tested. We waited about 30-40 minutes for all of the above. Getting our brains tickled was a lot of fun (sarcasm), and after doing that we grabbed a taxi and headed to the hotel (James will also cover the details of transportation on the island in another post).
We got to the hotel, a very adorable tropical-style resort, checked in, and received some Goslings black rum and ginger beer to make ourselves some Dark & Stormy’s (one of Bermuda’s signature cocktails). This was a really nice touch, since we were about to spend 12-24 hours in quarantine, and what the heck else were we going to do except to drink. We also had grabbed a 750mL bottle of Goslings rum at the duty-free store in the airport, so we were pretty set.
Our room was in another building, so we walked up a little hill and up to the 3rd floor of our building to get to the room.
When we walked in, right ahead we could see out the sliding glass doors at the balcony and the incredible view!
The water is breathtakingly turquoise in Bermuda, and we had almost a 180 degree view of it!
Once we dropped our bags, we went straight out onto the balcony, which had a small table and 2 chairs.
We immediately made up some Dark & Stormy’s while we contemplated adding the all-inclusive option for a few days. The minimum was 3 days, and we were only on the island for 7, so we had to decide if it was worth the money for us. I think the rum helped, because we decided YOLO and called down to the front desk to add the package. This also included dinner for that night, which we were prepared to order to our room anyway. Also, it included free drinks and we knew we were going to do a “resort day” the next day as soon as our test results came back (hopefully negative), so we figured “what the heck!”
After a while we started to get hungry, so we called for room service. Dinner was 3 courses that you could choose one of a few items for appetizer, entrée, and dessert. I got the caprese salad and grilled wahoo (a very tasty and popular local white fish) with cranberry quinoa, and James got potato & leek soup, and steak with mashed potatoes I believe (boring! Hehe just kidding). We also ordered more Dark & Stormy’s, because YOLO. After eating we were so full, so we put our desserts in the fridge. I’m a terrible millennial I guess because I didn’t take any pictures of our food! Shame on me!
We sat on the balcony to watch the sunset and until it got dark, and then we headed inside to get ready for bed.
Right before we turned off the TV, I checked my phone and saw my negative test result! We were shocked because it only took about 5 hours from the time we got tested to getting our results! James got his too, so we emailed the front desk with the results and went to bed prepared to exit quarantine in the morning!
Day 2: Resort Day
We had a pretty nice sleep, and got up close to the end of breakfast, so we got dressed quickly and headed down to the restaurant. It was very crowded, and almost every table was filled inside and outside on the patio. We sat down at our table inside, and gave our drink orders. Then we were able to get up to get our food from the buffet. Masks were required up at the buffet, but we could remove them at our table to eat. It was so weird to sit inside a restaurant, we hadn’t done so in about 6 months! Also to remove our masks around other people felt weird, but I felt safe since we were spaced out enough and everyone at the hotel had to have been tested negative in order to move about, so we were really not worried.
The breakfast buffet had a lot of options, but unfortunately no “made-to-order” stations like an omelet station. They had all of the standard American breakfast items and also some British full breakfast items as well as charcuterie options. They had hot breakfast and continental breakfast options, and a variety of pastries. Again, I didn’t take any pictures of our food. It was a decent breakfast, but if it were not included in the all-inclusive I don’t think it would have been worth the over $20 per person they were charging. After eating, we went back to the room to change and get ready for our resort day!
We headed down to the on-site beach, walking through the pool area and the outside restaurant/bar which was open for lunch and drinks starting at 11am (which it was not quite yet time when we got down there).
We found some lounge chairs with a little table between and an umbrella and started relaxing!
Here’s a nice panoramic view from our perspective relaxing on the beach!
A little after 11am, we said YOLO again and James went up to get us our first drinks of the day.
I asked for a “fruity type” drink, which I found out later was the resort’s version of a Rum Swizzle (another traditional Bermudan cocktail), and James got a Caribbean beer called Carib, from Trinidad and Tobago.
I looked up the hotel’s drink menu to see if what I was drinking was in fact a Rum Swizzle and this is what the description was. Definitely a true statement.
We had a nice day: we lounged, we went in the water, we swam out to the blow-up playground meant for children, we drank our all-inclusive drinks, we ate our all-inclusive lunch (I had wahoo fish tacos and James had fish & chips), and enjoyed the beautiful scenery.
The only unfortunate part was that the beach ended up getting super crowded. We were very lucky to have gotten down there so early because around noon it started really filling up. It seemed like there were American tourists, British tourists, and even some local Bermudans who were having what I assume was a nice stay-cation. I wondered if this particular weekend was also a holiday weekend in Britain and Bermuda, because it was very crowded for a Monday (Labor Day in the US).
After relaxing and playing in the sun all day, we headed back to the room to shower and get ready for dinner. We went back down to the restaurant where we had breakfast and were seated in the same dining room for dinner. There weren’t too many people dining. We both ordered: I got a salad and the grilled mahi mahi with a rice pilaf, and James got chicken tikka with rice. We ended up eating our dessert that night, and at the end of the meal we were extremely stuffed. Again, I was a terrible Millennial and did not take pictures of our food. I think I was trying to spend as little time on my phone as possible this trip, and food photography just wasn’t on my radar this time!
Day 3: Exploring St. George’s
We woke up and went down to breakfast again. This time we were able to sit outside and enjoy the beautiful morning breeze. I took a photo of my food this time, with a beautiful backdrop! Maybe I was just waiting for something like this to accompany my food.
After breakfast, we decided to ask the front desk how to get around on the bus. They said because of our all-inclusive package we had access to monthly bus passes to use during our time. We got those and then headed back to the room to clean up and get ready for the day.
On the way back we decided to check out the caves that were on-site at the resort – yes I said caves! There are two sections to the caves, one is a spa (we didn’t check that out, you had to have an appointment) and the other is a swimming hole. The caves were pretty cool, figuratively and literally! Also I felt the water and it was pretty chilly, which could be a nice change when the weather gets hot, but did not seem too appealing to me.
After getting ready, we went to the bus stop which was conveniently right outside the parking lot of the resort. Again, James will detail the transportation portion. We got on the bus and headed into town.
We got off close to the main square of St. George’s and walked down a few blocks into the square.
The town was essentially deserted! There were only a few people walking around, and most of the retail stores looked to be closed. Then again, it was still early, only about 11am or so.
We walked around the (very small) square, down to the cruise ship terminal (very, very small).
Not a cruise ship, but there was a pretty cool looking “pirate ship” docked.
Wondering if this cannon was ever used…
After that, we decided to head up a hill toward the Unfinished Church which was a 5 minute walk, passing by a totally finished church.
We walked up and poked around a bit, and were able to peek inside after a small donation.
Inside the church was pretty neat. I loved all of the wood, especially the beams.
The Unfinished Church was a pretty cool site and also had a pretty cool view since it was perched on top of a hill overlooking St. George’s.
Apparently they used to allow people to go inside the church, but cancelled that even pre-COVID, so we could only peek through the gates.
There was a plaque on the outside telling the story of the church, which was nice because I was very curious as to how this very large structure went unfinished.
After, we debated walking another 15 minutes over to Fort Catherine, but decided against that because it was pretty hot and humid out. There were no buses to get us there unfortunately. We decided to walk back into St. George’s and grab a drink at one of the bar/restaurants, Wahoo’s Bistro and Patio.
We wanted to sit outside, and got pretty close to it but since they were trying to space out tables there were already too many people sitting outside. We were just getting drinks so they said if the area got too crowded then they would have to ask us to sit back by the bar.
But for now, we at least had a small view of the water and a nice breeze passing through from outside. They took our information down for contact tracing, so they had our name, phone number, and hotel information along with our table number and waiter’s name in case the information was needed for contact tracing. I thought that was very impressive.
I ordered a frozen Pina Colada which was very, very needed since it was so hot outside, and James ordered a cold beer. We didn’t order lunch because we were still on the all-inclusive package. One of the downsides of the package for sure was the feeling like you need to get back to the resort to eat to get your money’s worth. The food did look very good at this restaurant though. After our drinks, we decided to head back to the resort.
We changed into our bathing suits and went back down to the beach. We ended up ordering lunch here (got the fish tacos again because they were so good). We decided to split one order and get a second order that we would keep in our mini-fridge for the next day, because we were planning on renting a boat the next day, which we could do right at the resort. After lunch, we went over to the boat and adventure rental shack to schedule our boat. Unfortunately they did not have any availability the next day, so we scheduled one for Thursday morning.
We got cleaned up and went down to the restaurant for dinner, again. This time we were in a different room which I think was normally their more casual dining option but for ‘rona-times it used the same menu as the other room. I liked this room’s aesthetic better anyway!
Another 3-course meal that, this time I did photograph (at least 2/3 of it)! My meal was similar to previous nights: a salad (this time a blue cheese, walnut, and apple salad), grilled fish (this time flounder), and the same quinoa as the first night (very good but would have liked some variety from the previous nights). James got steak or chicken, I’m not entirely sure.
This was our last dinner in the all-inclusive and honestly we were both a little happy to see it go. The food was pretty good, don’t get me wrong, but there was not a whole lot of variety from day to day (3 nights of grilled white fish and similar sides gets a little boring). Also we had a large quantity of food for the 3 days as well as a lot of alcohol, so our bodies were saying “STOP, OKAY! PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GAHD!”
Day 4: Hamilton & Royal Navy Docks
So this morning was our last breakfast on the all-inclusive package. We sat outside again and ate our large breakfast for the last time.
After, we headed to the bus stop outside the resort and took the bus into the city of Hamilton. Normally it said it would take 30-40 minutes, but because there weren’t too many people trying to ride the bus, we got there in about 20 minutes.
We had planned to take the ferry over from Hamilton to the Royal Navy Docks, but first we walked around Hamilton a bit. We thought the city hall building was really beautiful.
We walked over to the main street of Hamilton, called Front St, right next to the water.
It was a very cute street, with a lot of nice looking shops and restaurants. There were a good amount of people walking around, mostly masked which was nice, but we were outside so we were not too concerned with the non-maskers.
When it got closer to our scheduled ferry, we grabbed a soda at a nearby café and waited until it was time to board. We were able to use our monthly bus pass for this, as it covered ferry transit as well. We had to use hand sanitizer when we entered into the ticket office, and then again before we boarded the ferry.
As we waited to board the ferry we saw this very fitting tug-boat. Very on-brand for the times we’re in.
We headed up to the top of the ferry which was open to the air, but we sat under the roof to be in the shade. There were not too many people on board. One guy who took off his mask was asked to put it back on by ferry staff, which was great to see this being enforced.
The views on the ferry were pretty amazing! Also, the breeze was nice.
There were a lot of beautiful homes perched on small hilltops. I could only imagine how much those homes cost.
We pulled into the ferry dock at the Royal Navy Docks.
Once we disembarked, we noticed immediately that this area was also pretty deserted.
It was easy to imagine that it would normally be packed with tourists from all of the cruises, but since all cruises were cancelled there was really no one there.
This area was pretty cool, it was an old fort that was turned into almost a strip mall meets outlet mall.
We walked around a little and saw some of the sites including the Victualing Yard, which was empty except for some cannons.
There was also a very dilapidated old warehouse of some kind which we peeked into.
We then headed to what we thought was the island’s only brewpub, The Frog and Onion Pub and Restaurant, which served beers from the Dockyard Brewing Company (apparently there’s another brewery, Bermuda Craft Brewing, but they don’t have a tasting room!) First, we went into a little shop that sold local art and bought some art for our house (we’ve become those people).
Then we went into the brewery and sat down to get some beers and some lunch. They did the same contact tracing as the other restaurant we went to in St. Georges’, so it was nice to see that the businesses across the island are being very consistent.
The beers at the brewery were refreshing but not as flavorful as we would have liked. We are spoiled though, since we believe the US has some of the most flavorful beers in the world (whether you are a fan of that or not), and could also be a little biased. We got half-pints to try out a few of their options. We also split a grilled wahoo fish sandwich (how I was not sick of fish at this point, I cannot honestly tell you).
After the brewery, we walked around a bit more and did some more souvenir shopping.
We’re not usually big into typical souvenir shopping, but I bought a cute Bermuda t-shirt, a Bermuda magnet (I actually do collect these on our travels) and a shot glass that said “I survived the Bermuda triangle” which I thought was funny.
We walked along this spot which was an actual working shipyard. James was excited to see people working on the ships.
We also stumbled on this cool sailboat called the Spirit of Bermuda.
We found a sign saying it was a teaching vessel. Pretty neat!
Then we caught the ferry back to Hamilton.
We didn’t stay long in Hamilton because we were tired and there were still a lot of people out and about. I think we were still a bit wary of large crowds, even though we felt much safer than at home. Before we went back to the resort, we stopped into a café to grab some pastries for breakfast the next morning and sandwiches for lunch for the next day to eat on the boat.
We were pretty tired, and still very full from lunch, so we decided to just hang out on the balcony for the rest of the evening and drink some rum. We ended up splitting some of the leftover fish tacos from the other day for a small dinner, and then headed to bed shortly after.
Day 5: Horseshoe Bay & COVID testing in Hamilton
We woke up and got ready for our boat outing. We went down to the boat rental shack for our rental at 9am, but the owner of the shop told us that it was going to be super windy out and that he recommended we shift our rental to the next morning, Friday, instead. He said he wanted us to get the best out of our rental, and we agreed. While we were on the island, there was a hurricane approaching toward the weekend which he said was contributing to the windy weather which was very unusual.
So we rescheduled and instead decided to take the bus over to Horseshoe Bay beach to spend our morning and early afternoon before we had to be in Hamilton between 2-3pm for our Day 4 COVID test.
We got on the bus and took it into Hamilton, where we had to change to a different bus line. The whole trip out to the beach took close to an hour, and we also had to walk a little bit to get down to the beach from the road. I made an oopsie and we ended up getting off the bus a stop too far, so we had to cut through the parking lot of a nearby resort, and normally we would have been able to do this with ease but since the resort was actually closed due to COVID, we had to jump a fence to get into the public parking area for the beach (I guess technically we didn’t really break any laws since we were going into public property, right? Hopefully!) Then we walked down a pathway near a beach shack restaurant and onto the beach.
There were only a few people scattered across the beach, which was much smaller than I imagined it to be. It is a nice crescent shaped beach with very soft sand.
I didn’t immediately notice it’s pink hue, which I also thought would be more pronounced (I blame photographers amping up the contrast on photos of this beach, shame on you! It’s beautiful without doing this!).
I could imagine how packed this beach could be during peak tourist season, and we were glad we were experiencing this beach without the crowds.
Unfortunately it was quite windy (we were warned after all) and we were constantly covered in sand, so I don’t think we got the normal experience of this beach (minus the crowds), but it was a nice day to relax and enjoy the sounds of the waves (which I assumed was also abnormal for this beach).
The lighting kept changing throughout the day so I kept taking photos of the same spots on the beach. I guess you could say that’s “kinda boring”?
We went in the water a few times, but only up to our knees because there was a pretty intense rip current. I went under water a few times to rid myself of sand, but didn’t really “swim” because of the rip current. Even so, the beach was really beautiful and it was a very nice day.
James got to dig a hole. We had a little mermaid sand sculpture contest (James’ is above, mine is below. Who do you think won?!)
I made a few sand turtles. We drank some leftover Carib beers that we stocked up on from our all-inclusive days, and ate our sandwiches.
We spent about 3 hours here before we had to leave for Hamilton to get our COVID tests.
On our way off the beach we saw a sand sculpture that blew ours out of the water!
We rinsed off at the beach showers (they had outdoor and indoor showers), and then got back up to the road to catch the bus.
Our COVID test was in the Hamilton post office building. We didn’t have to wait long, only about 5 minutes or so. We got our brains tickled again, and that was it. After your initial test at the airport, once you get your negative result you don’t have to quarantine anymore, even after your subsequent tests on day 4, day 8, and day 12 of your trip. Day 4 was our last test because we left on Day 7.
After our test, we tried to scope out this church that we had seen on the bus, but it wasn’t open to the public at the time. It was still nice to look at from the outside though.
Next, we walked over to a grocery store to pick up sandwiches for our boat day attempt #2. We didn’t find anything appealing there, so we went to a different café instead. James got a bacon wrap (was supposed to be chicken and bacon but the girl making his wrap put about 10 pieces of bacon on it!) and I got a panini sandwich. We also got some pastries for the morning. Then we got back on the bus and headed back to the hotel.
We got back to the hotel, relaxed a bit, and then got cleaned up and ready for dinner. We decided to walk over to The Swizzle Inn, which was a short 5 minute walk from the hotel.
They are famous for their Rum Swizzle, so of course I had to get a half-pitcher (much cheaper per oz than just a glass), which I drank all by myself since James preferred to drink beer. He got a local Bermuda beer (from the Bermuda Craft Brewery) that was not from the brewery we went to the other day (Dockyard Brewing), which made us realize that it was not the only brewery on the island! James said it was very good and much better than the Dockyard Brewing’s beers.
We also ordered our dinner: we split a traditional Bermuda chowder, crispy fried wahoo nuggets, and they had a “Curry Night” that evening so we split a shrimp curry dish. The food was incredibly delicious! The Bermuda chowder came with a side of pepper sherry and black rum to top off the soup. The chowder was good on its own, but the pepper sherry really kicked it up a notch with spice and flavor. The black rum seemed a little too overpowering for the flavor of the soup, but I gave my Rum Swizzle a little floater with it 🙂
The wahoo nuggets were humongous! We were expecting small chunks of fish, but these were like 1.5″ squares, and the breading was so flavorful and crispy. It also came with a side of tartar sauce, which had chunks of pickle in it which was a pleasant surprise. The shrimp curry was also really, really good! All in all, the food here was excellent, and I’m not just saying that because I had a half-pitcher of Rum Swizzle, which was also delicious!
Also that night the restaurant was pretty crowded because they were having a trivia night. Luckily we got to sit outside on their balcony, which was really nice, and got to enjoy the nighttime breeze.
Day 6: Boating out to Castle Island & Nonsuch Island
We finally got to do our boating day! It was still a little windy but much better than the day before, so we were glad we took the recommendation to wait a day!
We got situated on the boat, got safety instructions and directions on where to take the boat, and we were off!
The ride out from the hotel was a little rough, mainly because of the wind and going against the current. I tend to get a little seasick especially on small watercraft, so it was a little nerve-wracking for me but I did okay and only got slightly nauseated.
We went underneath a bridge near the airport and then followed the coastline over to the small islands including Castle Island and Nonsuch Island.
There were a few spots where the open water coming through the smaller islands and rock formations caused some rolling waves which was not so fun for my stomach, but once we got past that and behind Nonsuch Island it was very calm.
There is a cool shipwreck behind Nonsuch Island, which is a nature preserve so we were not allowed to go onto the island. We were allowed to anchor near the shipwreck and snorkel around. We couldn’t see too much, the water was a little cloudy.
After swimming around a bit, we decided to take the boat over to near Castle Island where there was a small beach we were allowed to anchor near.
It is a very shallow spot, but we were able to anchor close enough to shore to swim over to the small beach.
This little spot was so beautiful! The sand was soft and pink (even pinker than the Horseshoe Bay beach in my opinion), and sitting in the sand drinking a beer and relaxing was probably my favorite moment of our entire trip.
I also did some swimming and snorkeling, although again the water was a little cloudy so I couldn’t see much. After a little bit of time there, we started to get hungry so we decided to head back to the shipwreck spot to anchor and eat lunch.
After we ate our sandwiches we decided to go snorkeling a bit again to see if we could get any closer to the shipwreck and see any fish. There was a large rock formation underneath the shipwreck with some coral and sea plants that I could see, and a few small fish.
Since we only were able to rent the boat for 4 hours, we soon had to start heading back toward the hotel, which was a good 20 minute ride.
We got a nice view of the airport ahead of us as we turned back toward the hotel.
We also got a great look at the resort from out on the water! James and I both agree that this was our favorite day and activity we did on this trip! We would both highly recommend doing a boat day like this.
After boating we decided to, again, sit on the beach at the hotel until dinner time.
This beach was just so convenient and we really didn’t get tired of it.
Toward dinner time, we got cleaned up and decided to take a 15 minute walk down to a local Jamaican takeout restaurant.
It was a little off the beaten path (literally) but a nice walk there and back.
We ate out on the balcony back in our room. The food was amazing! I got coconut fish with rice and peas (Jamaican rice and beans), and James got a curry chicken dish with rice and peas.
We finished the night off with some more Dark & Stormy’s and another beautiful sunset.
Day 7: Last morning & flight back home
On our last morning, we woke up and ate some leftover dessert for breakfast, because who doesn’t love cake in the morning!?
We had a few hours to kill before we needed to head to the airport, so we packed up most of our things and then spent our last few hours on the beach.
I made sure to take some “artsy fartsy” photos for the blog. Enjoy.
It was definitely a “bitter” goodbye, with no real “sweet” to it, because we knew we were going back to the states where we would have to get back to the reality of not doing anything or going anywhere due to COVID. It was really nice to be able to go out and do what we wanted and not have to worry about catching the virus, because it is virtually non-existent in Bermuda (not that we didn’t still take all necessary precautions!).
After getting cleaned up and checked out of our room, we dropped off our bags at the concierge to pick up later. For a quick lunch, we decided to walk down to the Swizzle Inn again since we enjoyed it so much.
I got a frozen Rum Swizzle this time, and we got the fish chowder and wahoo nuggets again because they were so dang good.
We also wanted to try out a traditional Bermuda fried fish sandwich, which we ordered but ended up getting the grilled fish sandwich on accident. We didn’t realize until we started eating it, so we just went with the “love the one you’re with” mentality. It was a very good sandwich though.
When it was time to go, we headed back to the hotel to grab our bags and call a cab. Then we headed on over to the airport, which is only about a 5 minute drive. Our cab driver this time was super friendly and was asking us about our trip. We told him we really enjoyed our time here and that it was so very beautiful and a very relaxing vacation. He had asked if this was our first trip to Bermuda, which we told him that yes, it was. He was so surprised and maybe a little hurt since we lived so close and had never been! I also told him that my parents came to Bermuda on their honeymoon 35 years ago and had been wanting to come back ever since but haven’t, and I think I may have given him a mini heart attack! I told him we promised we would be back soon for sure!
In another post, I will also detail our trip home which will be a lot more boring than this post. Stay tuned!