The British Colonial Hilton and grounds from the shore Thursday - day 1 Linda and I had a 12:40PM departure with Delta Airlines from Kansas City, changed planes in Atlanta and arrived in Nassau about 8PM. After passing through immigration, picking up our luggage and clearing customs, we walked out of the terminal and were met by Patrick, a driver from Sandra Ferguson taxi. He was quite courteous and did his best to turn the ride into a tour, though that was a little difficult seeing much after dark. We were staying at the British Colonial Hilton, on the beach near the heart of Nassau. I might as well go ahead and assemble all of my comments about the hotel right now, rather than string them across the trip as they happened. The Hilton occupies a fine historic building, located conveniently for exploring the downtown. The front desk staff and concierge were very nice. But the downside outweighed those good things. The floors were always sandy and the sink leaked. Some of the light bulbs were burned out and were not replaced during our visit. After our initial check in, we never had enough towels or washcloths. The hotel restaurant was extremely slow (eggs and bacon took over 30 minutes) and quite expensive. We had to ask repeatedly for things like beverage refills. There were also additional, unexpected charges when we checked out, including $30/day for energy and $10/day for the shoddy housekeeping, on top of the tips we had left in the room daily. Neither of these charges was listed on the Delta Vacations web site where I booked the trip. After we returned home, there was yet another spurious charge, for the "free" wifi which is advertised as being in the hotel lobby. It took 7 weeks and getting Hilton corporate involved to get those charges reversed. These things weren't enough to ruin our stay, but I would not stay at the British Colonial Hilton again or recommend the British Colonial Hilton to others.
Getting back to the trip... With this being a long travel day, we had planned to just have supper at Señor Frog's, next door to the hotel, but Frog's was closed for a private party. We walked through the neighborhood looking for something interesting and settled on Conch Fritters Bar & Grill, which was directly across the street from the Hilton. Conch Fritters' menu was a bit limited, particularly the drink menu, but our server was fun and worked hard to ensure that we enjoyed our meal and had a good time. We started with the appetizer the bar & grill is named for and Linda had the ($40) Seafood Platter with cracked lobster & conch, grouper fingers and fried shrimp. I had the ($16) jerked chicken. Both meals were served with French fires and mine came with a very nice, creamy coleslaw. I ended up having coleslaw several times during this trip and all of the coleslaw which I had in Nassau was good. The best items in the meal were the grouper fingers and the battered & deep fried lobster. I probably would have been less impressed with the same dishes later in the trip - it seemed like almost every restaurant used the exact same batter when deep frying seafood. We returned to the hotel and walked down to the shore for a few photos before turning in.
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