Wednesday, May 9, 2012
It was another beautiful bright blue morning! We considered ourselves lucky with the good weather this week. It was supposed to be a rainy week at home.
In the hotel literature, we had read about the Princess’s sister hotel on the other side of the harbor. We could take their ferry to visit the South Hampton Hotel to visit the beach or play golf or have lunch. So at the scheduled time, out we went to the private dock to catch the little ferry.
We sat on the top deck and it was a very enjoyable leisurely half-hour ride across the Hamilton Harbor. We sat, with just a few other guests, and watched the shoreline gently pass us by.
Most of the houses were pastel colors with gleaming white stucco rain-catching roofs. We soon passed the huge South Hampton Princess Hotel on a hill. It looked very out of place! After a while, the boat pulled into a small harbor near the Bermuda lighthouse.
The ferry pulled into their private dock and we were welcomed to the South Hampton Hotel and invited to have lunch at the dock or relax there later and watch the sunset before retuning back to the Princess. Nice…..
We walked up to the road and saw a blue trolley-type bus waiting for the ferry passengers. We rode the “blue trolley” up the hill with a few other people and were let out under the canopy of the South Hampton. There were many attendants scurrying around helping people in and out of cars and vans. It reminded me of the activity on the streets of NYC hotels.
We walked into the grand lobby and were amazed. It was multileveled with a huge wooden staircase dominating the center of the space. The reception area and concierge were on one side. Signs to the pools, restaurant, and elevators were to the rear. A large casual restaurant was located to the left near the large meeting rooms.
There were several shops located down the wide stairs on the lower level and more shops on the upper level. We walked down to have a look. They sold everything someone would need to swim or play golf or to buy souvenirs of Bermuda. Not being a shopper, I couldn’t imagine staying at this hotel to shop.
We decided to see the beach. So we went back outside and caught the next blue trolley down the other side of the hill to the beach. On the ride down, we passed the sizable golf course. We were the only people on the trolley and the friendly driver told us about some of the economic and political issues on the island. He said that generally tourism had decreased in the last year or two because of the world economy. Also, the large number of cruise ships coming to the island was detrimental to the hotels, restaurants and shops. The Bermudians were feeling the pinch of the recession.
We wished him well at the bottom of the hill and walked out to the small private beach which was owned by the Fairmont Company. It was quite lovely. The beach had fine white sand along a horseshoe-shapped small inner cove with barrier rocks protecting it from the ocean. There was a dive boat bobbing on the turquoise water giving people diving lessons. A little while later, the boat drove out to slightly deeper water.
We walked around to the Cabana restaurant overlooking the beach and decided it would be a nice place to have lunch. Our lunches were surprising good and we relaxed and enjoyed the scenery. The trolley-bus driver recommended the public beach on the other side of the parking lot, so after lunch we walked over to see it. That beach was bigger, noisier, and more crowded with more people and activity.
We walked back to the Fairmont parking lot and caught the next bus to the South Hampton Hotel. Then we got another trolley-bus back down the hill to the main road where the ferry had docked.
Our intention was to take the ferry back to our hotel, but according to the schedule, we would have had to wait almost 2 hours for the next ferry. We saw a public bus across the street and we ran to catch it. Since rental cars are prohibited for tourists, the Bermuda buses are a great way for non-residents to see the island! I should mention that the exterior of the public buses are pink! They are clean, reliable, and well maintained. An added bonus is that the drivers are very experienced in driving on the narrow winding roads of Bermuda.
We sat down and rode along in the air-conditioned bus admiring the scenery. After a short while, the bus turned into a middle-school parking lot and stopped near a curb lined with students in maroon uniforms. Polite and quiet students quickly filled the bus to standing-room only capacity. The kids spanned a wide range of ages, from about 8 year olds through 12 year olds. The bus returned back to the main road, and continued along, making stops to discharge and pick up more passengers. We were surprised to see the students give up their seats to adults who boarded the bus. As new people came aboard, a child stood up and pointed to his/her seat to relinquish it to the adult. Amazing! During the ride, the kids spoke quietly to their friends or looked out of the windows. We also noticed that many of the students had Blackberrys.
After a while, the bus seemed to be laboring up a hill and the driver pulled off the road. She then announced that we had to change buses. The standing students quietly pulled their Blackberrys out of their pockets to call home and quietly began to file out of the bus. We sat there giving the students standing in the aisles a chance to leave the bus. But a woman who had been sitting across the aisle from us, stood up and held up the line of kids. She acknowledged us and told us to go out first. When I protested and said that the children could go first, she said, “Oh no. You are our guests! They can wait.”
Wow! We were speechless! We thanked her and we quickly got off the bus and followed the line leading to the waiting bus. What a lesson for the youngsters. Everyone on that bus had a high expectation of kindness, consideration and respect for each other and, of course, ultimately for themselves. I wished American kids could experience that bus ride!
The rest of the bus ride was uneventful. We admired the beautiful scenery outside the bus windows. The students on the bus calmly called their parents on their Blackberrys to inform them of the change of buses. After a while we recognized the harbor and we knew we had all arrived in Hamilton. We left the bus and walked back to our hotel along the harbor. It had been a full and interesting day.