We didn't have the best experience in Nassau. With it being our first cruise, we opted to not take an excursion, and instead we were going to just explore the city on foot. It was a beautiful place. We could see Atlantis from the our ship, but we didn't go to it. We could have taken all kinds of excursions or tours, but didn't do any of them. We were hoping to get a lot of ideas on what we we would want to do the next time we returned...

This didn't turn out to be the best option, however. The locals there make their living on tourists, and they are very good at it. From the moment you step off the ship, your hounded to death by locals trying to get you to buy their stuff or give them money. Again, they're very good at it. They'll have your money and you'll have purchased their whatever cheap chinese-made souvenir faster than you even knew what happened. But that's to be expected. Especially at the famous Nassau Straw Market. That's definitely the case in there, and it works on the bartering system, so they'll throw out a way high price, and you'll negotiate back and forth to a lower price. So, it can be overwhelming, but as long as you're prepared for that, it's not too bad. As long as you're prepared, it can be a really neat place. Just brace yourself.

However, with that, there are also swindlers... And we got swindled, and we got swindled bad.

I was with my girlfriend Abby and my cousin Jessi. We had just left the Straw Market, people talking at us everywhere about this or that, and it was hot, and we were all sweating, and this local approached us offering to braid Jessi and Abby's hair just like a local for $5. She was gonna make them Bahama Mama's for $5. It's hot, and we're in the Bahamas, so why not, right? So they take us into their little building there and start braiding their hair. Well then their story changed and it suddenly became $5 PER BRAID. And they're the little bitty tiny braids, so Abby had like 45 of them across her head. At the end, the woman was demanding over $200 from just Abby alone. We, of course, didn't have that kind of money on us. So then they proceeded to march us all around Nassau in the pouring rain to different ATM machines demanding that we all take out more money to pay for the braids. In hind-sight it's very easy to think of things that we should have said or done differently... but then it was happening so fast that we just completely lost control of the situation. It was very intense, very demanding, very scary, and VERY out of our element. They wouldn't take no for an answer. They wouldn't let us leave. They were demanding in every way they could think of that we get them more money. I should have called the police, but then again, I don't know what the police are like there. That's their island, their country, their locals, and we're the clueless outsider tourists... So it was just a very tedious situation. Both Abby and Jessi ended up giving her $160 basically just to get her to shutup and finally leave us alone.

We could have all taken a heck of a nice excursion for that money. We could have had great massage from the ships spa for that. We could have taken a tour. We could have done a heck of a lot of things other than just literally throw away $320 to the crazy braid lady. The braids were so tight and hurt so bad that they couldn't even keep them. They didn't last an hour.

We were and are so upset about that whole situation. It was like we had been raped. We all felt so violated after it was over.

So my only advice if you go to Nassau, is say NO to EVERYBODY. Agree to nothing, but if you do, find out the final price and agree to pay that and only that at the beginning. Don't get swindled like we did.