This past August my wife Shelley got a surprising email. She had won a trip for two (herself and a guest) to stay on Paradise Island in the Bahamas for three nights in October. If she accepted she would be participating in an slots tournament with the possibility of winning one million dollars.

At first we weren’t sure if it was real and not a scam. A brief bit of research did reveal that it was in fact legitimate. The World Tournament of Slots was organized by MGM Grand in Las Vegas, and this was the inaugural tournament in the Bahamas. Second, though we have just returned home from an already booked and planned trip to the South Carolina and Georgia the prior week, those four days were free on our calendars. We could go.

So we were getting a free vacation to the Bahamas, staying at the Atlantis Resort at Paradise Island, receiving $1000 in cash for airfare, and we would have a 1 in 500 chance to win $1,000,000 if we accepted. So we accepted. It wasn’t really that difficult of a decision, really.

The hard part wasn’t whether to go. It was how we would manage things at home. We are used to traveling with our kids and for this trip we had a decision to make. Our youngest, Evan, is 11 and he would not be off of school. Likewise if we brought him we would have to pay for his expenses for airfare and an upgraded room with two beds. And we’d have to keep him entertained while we did various activities during the tournament which was intended for two people, and adults at that. Ultimately, it made more sense to keep him home and give mom and dad a chance to go take an adult trip.

Fortunately my parents were available to help with our son while we were away, as was our now 18-year-old son who lives a little ways away and goes to trade school. My parents are elderly and my son is busy with his job and school, but between them, we took a gamble that they could get Evan to school and to activities while we were gone. We wrote out detailed instructions for both and trusted that Evan would do his part to help them as well.

Having made our decision and all the necessary arrangements, we were set to go. Still a tad nervous, but ready to experience a few days of sandy beaches and tropical seas. With the chance to win a million dollars.

Red-Eye Flight to Nassau

On Wednesday night, we took Evan to my parent’s house and made our way to the airport for an 11:59 PM overnight flight to the Bahamas with a connection in Charlotte, North Carolina. We have gotten pretty good at packing with all the recent travel in the past few years, and we could get by with a couple carry-ons and one checked suitcase.

Red-eye flights are no problem for me. I would much rather stay up late and get on a flight then take an early morning flight. If a flight is scheduled for 6 AM I know we will need to be at the airport no later than 4 AM, and to wake up at no later than 3AM (usually closer to 2AM). We aren’t good at being able to force ourselves to sleep at say 7PM, so at best we might get about an hour or two of restless sleep before having to get up and on our way to the airport.

So Shelley and I got to the airport, checked in, and waited a couple hours in a largely empty airport terminal until it was time to depart. And off we went.

It’s about 3.5 hours from Denver to Charlotte, so with the time change we arrived around 5:30 in the morning. On a long-haul flight it’s much easier to get some sleep, but the crowded airplane (we did have extra legroom on 3 of the 4 flights) and relatively short duration before the connection meant we were pretty sleepless.

We got some coffees and some breakfast in the terminal then found the most comfortable chairs we could find by the gate, which were hard Adirondack chairs that sort of reclined to try to sleep. It didn’t work.

We saw that the flight to Nassau was filling with passengers bound for the same tournament. It was definitely an interesting assortment of people. One woman was drinking at a bar by the gate. She started chatting with us, offering more of her life story than we needed to know. Then we met some more people. People were friendly, if not a bit odd.

Once we boarded I took the middle seat this time, giving Shelley the window. She had sat next to an armrest hog on the last flight, and it was my turn to sit in the middle. It couldn’t be worse, right?

Well, it actually was. Imagine a heavily intoxicated guy with tourettes and no sense of personal space. He was drinking small bottles of liquor and shaking. He gorged on candy that I would imagine was not ideal for his jerky tendencies. He knocked a soda on the aisle floor and repeatedly bumped into me. For two hours I sat politely, wishing I could be moved. But the flight was completely packed.

When the flight landed I vowed to get us more comfortable seats on the flights back.

Fortunately, once we deplaned, the immigration line was easy and we got our luggage and waited for our Welcome Pickup to convey us to the Atlantis Resort. As I had done in Europe, I booked Welcome Pickups, assuming that the courtesy shuttles would be crowded and take a while to get us to the resort. Many of the courtesy shuttles left before us, but we had a really nice ride with a mini-tour of Nassau on our way to Atlantis.

The Royal Tower at Atlantis Resort

Once we got to the hotel we had to check in for the tournament the following day. Shelley got in line for the tournament while I took our luggage to the hotel room.

While waiting in line for the tournament registration, the staff gave us free rum punch drinks and cookies. We, of course, helped ourselves to as many as we could shamelessly accept 🙂

With registration complete, we made our way to our room and got dressed more appropriately for a tropical beach vacation.

Besides getting registered we went to find the location for the tournament the next day and to familiarize ourselves with the layout of the resort. It is massive.

Since we live in Colorado, we don’t often get a chance to enjoy beaches and we made our way out to the Aquaventure Park. It is huge and covers many, many acres.

Aquaventure Park

We initially made our way toward Cabbage Beach, but the surf was much too rough to enjoy. So we returned to the park lagoon, which is filled with seawater supplied by the surrounding ocean and sea life as well. We snorkeled and swam in the lagoon a while. I needed some practice using my snorkeling attachment for my GoPro.

In a subsequent post I’ll include my video tour of the Aquaventure Park. Needless to say though, it’s really exapansive and a lot of fun.

After a couple hours at Aquaventure we bought some food at a comparatively reasonable price at one of the waterpark food venues. We had read that conch was the choice of foods in the Bahamas. We bought both conch salad and conch fritters and enjoyed these in our room. Many of the restaurants at Atlantis and the surrounding Paradise Island are VERY expensive, so be sure to check out the prices of various restaurants beforehand.

We also saw that there was still a registration line and rum punch was still being served. And we shamelessly had some more 🙂

Evening Social Gathering

The tournament hosted an evening event on in outdoor area for guests that were celebrating events. Since Shelley and I had our twentiest anniversary this year and my birthday was only a few days before, we got to enjoy a few glasses of champagne and cupcakes.

We chatted with another couple who also had just taken another vacation and still made it out to the tournament. It was fun talking and enjoying the evening.

The following day Shelley would play for a chance at the million dollars and we’d try to book a snorkeling trip if there was time in the afternoon.