May 2019

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We spent three days in Bermuda and certainly did not get to do everything we wanted, but we did have an amazing trip!

 

We stayed at Coco Reef which is a hotel on Elbow Beach. It is sort of condo style rather than a high rise hotel. We had a sliding glass door that walked out onto the lawn and straight down to the beach-beautiful views of the ocean right from our bed! Not the most updated hotel I've ever stayed in but great location and it was clean which is key for me.

 

DAY ONE

We did breakfast at our hotel and then spent our morning at Crystal Caves. We had heard from family that the bus was very easy to navigate and the cheapest way to get around, which it was... BUT with a few catches. During the week, we learned that buses come every 15 minutes which is bearable, however on weekends (which is when we were there) they come every 30-45 minutes and we just didn't have the time/patience to sit there and wait. Also the bus stops very frequently, so what may take you 10 minutes in a car could take much longer on the bus. So, the bus took us into the city of Hamilton, then instead of getting on another bus, we got a taxi the rest of the way there. There is an app called Hitch on the island which is very similar to Uber and that is what we used for the rest of our trip. Hitch is not as reliable and doesn't have as many drivers as Uber does, but it worked well for us. A lot of people rent mopeds, but we didn't know our way around and just didn't go that route.

 

When we finally arrived at Crystal caves, we bought tickets to see both the crystal cave and the fantasy cave (because you might as well if you're there). Both caves were cool but I would only recommend it if you're into that sort of thing or if it's raining. I personally wish we had skipped it and spent the time in the sun, but a lot of people do really enjoy it and recommend it. I am just the type of person who likes to look at something for 3 minutes and call it a day.

 

After the caves, we went right across the street to the Swizzle Inn, which we would definitely recommend! Everyone will tell you that you need to stop here and for good reason. It's basically a dive bar, but they had amazing rum swizzles (the drink of Bermuda) and we had awesome BBQ nachos.

 

Also right across the way is Baileys Ice Cream which I read a lot of great things about but unfortunately they were closed when we were there! Apparently they have really cool Bermuda specific flavors and it's homemade ice cream.

 

After that, we spent the day on Elbow Beach next to our hotel. For whatever reason, there were sand flies where we were that were bothersome, so we bought bug spray and they weren't a problem after that. Elbow Beach is beautiful and we really enjoyed our time there. Also of note, everything in Bermuda is crazy expensive because it has to be imported so I was super happy I brought my own sunscreen because one bottle of spray sunscreen was EIGHTEEN dollars!

 

That night we went into Hamilton on "Front Street" to try to find some fun night life. 

On Friday nights the Princess Hotel has something called Marina Nights with a DJ and live band. It was a really cool location but it was a little bit formal for us-no one was really dancing, it more seemed like people had just gotten out of work and were stopping by for a quick drink so we moved on.

 

We went to dinner at The Pickled Onion. Delicious Wahoo fish (local to Bermuda) and alfredo chicken pasta. They also had some live music there.

 

The place next door, The Terrace had some great music playing so we stopped in there. I would recommend checking it out because it's a really cool bar. If you're looking for kind of a casual night and somewhere with good vibes to chill out, this may be a good place.

 

Then, we stopped into the Cosmopolitan Ultra Lounge & Nightclub. It looked like it was going to be really awesome but when we got up there, there were like three people in the club. It was already 11:30 pm at that point so we were surprised. Our cab driver told us that we tried to go there too early, but I can't say if that's true or not. Regardless, it was weird and we obviously moved on!

 

We spent the rest of our night at Hog Penny right down the street. There was an acoustic guitar player playing todays hits and throwbacks. That is something we love so we stuck around until closing.

 

DAY 2

We did breakfast at our hotel again and then took a taxi to Warwick Beach. If there is ANYTHING you take away from my recommendations-its this! There is a beach walk from Warwick Beach all the way to Horseshoe Bay. Most incredible walk and views!! We spent the day beach hopping from beach to beach along this walk. In between all the rock formations there are private little beaches and they are all so gorgeous! The best two we found were Warwick Beach and Angel Beach because we were basically the only people there for miles. There is a spot on the path where you can either take a right or a left. I'm not sure where the right would have taken us, but if you think of it, go left! We had to climb up some rocks but it led us to the most amazzzzing view overlooking the beaches from high up above. Definitely a highlight of our trip. Once we finally got to Horseshoe Bay, it was beautiful (it is one of the top 10 beaches in the world!) but you may find there to be tons of tourists there like we did and after seeing all of the secluded and vacant beaches, we actually preferred those!

 

At the end of the walk (if you land at Horseshoe--you can obviously also do the beach walk in reverse and start at Horseshoe if you want) there is a beach bar called Rum Bum Beach Bar. We stopped there for a couple of rum swizzles.

 

After that, we went to dinner at Woodys. *Highly recommend* Apparently it is not a place a lot of tourists go to, so it's more of an authentic Bermudian place to eat and the locals will tell you they have "the best fish sandwich". Andrew got that and agrees with all of the hype! I got fish and chips which was also delicious. Woody's lived up to it's reputation of being a local's place and some locals asked us to sit with them. When they asked us to go for a ride on their boat and to their house party after we (seriously) threw caution to the wind (a story we will never live down with our parents) but had the time of our lives. Sometimes ya gotta live a little, yanno? But yeah, fo' sho could have been killed. 

 

DAY 3

We skipped breakfast and headed straight to the beach. We took a walk as far as we could go down Elbow Beach and it was great, would recommend it! Then we went out for an excellent brunch at a restaurant named Aqua Terra at The Reefs hotel. They apparently have brunch every Sunday and it is very well known and loved. We made a reservation there for our anniversary and it was great food and had awesome views-can't beat it.

 

After that we hit the beach for a little while longer before packing up and heading out for a sunset catamaran cruise. We went through a place called Rising Son Cruises out of Hamilton and it was a really beautiful sail with rum swizzles and prosecco included!

 

For a late dinner after the cruise, we went to Barracuda Grill and had a fantastic dinner. We would highly recommend this restaurant for a little bit of a fancier dinner. Andrew got grilled rockfish and I got the beef tenderloin. Everything we ate there was amazing, especially the pretzel rolls and ceviche they bring out to you while you wait for your food!

 

A couple things that I heard about that we didn't get to:

-Rock Island coffee for Bermudian coffee-this is in Hamilton which was inconvenient for us to get to in the morning for coffee but I heard it's great!

-Art Mel's Spicy Dicy for a fish sandwich-but like I said, Woody's was awesome!

-The Dog House-looked like a cool bar in passing but we didn't make it inside

-We didn't get to the Dockyard area which is where the cruise ships are and apparently that area is cool to check out

-There is a trail that you can bike along the railway that is supposed to has really great views

-We were told to take a ferry from Dockyard to St. George by a couple of people because the views of the island from the ferry are pretty and it's an inexpensive way to see Bermuda by water

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Andrew said from the second we got to Bermuda that he wants to retire here, so I'm sure we'll be back!