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Bermuda: How to Go and Where to Stay
By Mary Johnson Tweedy
When you have a travel agent make your reservations for this vacation, it is not like signing up for a conducted tour. It is merely a service. He arranges your ship, plane or sea-air combination, and makes your guest house or hotel reservation. Once in Bermuda you are not involved in a maze of pre-arranged plans.
HOW TO GO
One of Bermuda's earliest enthusiasts was Mark Twain, who liked the Colony so much that he came often, despite the uncomfortable little tubs in which he had to travel. " Bermuda is like Paradise," he once said, "but one has to go through Purgatory to get there."
Since his visits early in the century the number of Bermuda enthusiasts has multiplied astronomically, and while most of them agree with him that Bermuda is Paradise, they now also delight in the trip itself.
Traveling by ship, by air or by a combination of the two, it is a very easy trip. Regular schedules from New York to the Islands are operated by Pan American and Colonial Airlines, and the trip takes only three hours or so on Constellations and Stratocruisers. Trans-Canada Air Lines flies regular schedules from Toronto and Montreal, and BOAC makes several flights a week from London via the Azores, and eastbound from Miami via Nassau. There is a minimum of red tape involved, and for Americans it is no more complicated than a flight from New York to Chicago. The airlines operating out of New York pay fares for all passengers between big cities on the North Atlantic seaboard and New York. Direct flights between the Colony and Washington or Boston are sometimes run by one or another of the airlines. Travelers can make connections in Bermuda with air routes to Miami, Nassau, Jamaica, Trinidad and other islands of the West Indies, and with South America and Europe. In Bermuda, if an airline booking office is closed, call Kindley Field and ask for the airport office of the line you want.
By sea, the lovely Queen of Bermuda of the Furness-Bermuda Line makes weekly sailings from New York. The famed 22,575-ton luxury liner returned to service in 1949 following a $7,500,000 reconversion after her brilliant wartime service. Her schedule is designed to give passengers a brief, but real, ocean voyage. The trip from New York to Hamilton takes only forty-one hours, but it has been so arranged that two nights are spent aboard--with movies, dancing and entertainment.
The famous Lady boats of the Canadian National Steamship Company make semi-monthly trips from Montreal and Boston to the West Indies and stop at Bermuda en route. It is possible to stop ever in Bermuda between trips and pick up the next Lady boat for a West Indies cruise.
From England the Reina del Pacifico calls regularly at Bermuda en route to South America. Cunard and the HollandAmerica Line run frequent trips to Bermuda from the U. K. and, although not on regular schedules, other ships sail direct from England to Bermuda.
WHERE TO LIVE
A trip to Europe, Mexico or South America usually involves roaming from city to city and hotel to hotel, every few days, so the odd mistake in picking a hotel is of no great importance. In Bermuda a visitor lives in one guest house or hotel throughout his stay, so more selectivity is suggested. There is such a wide range of accommodations available that a visitor can be expansive and expensive, or quiet and luxurious; he can be formal or casual or downright penny-pinching. But it is up to each traveler to decide what he wants for what he wants to pay.
The big hotels have music and dancing, swimming pools, beach clubs, calypso bands and entertainment. The leading guest houses offer a quieter, more relaxed holiday at comparable prices and with comparable service. The less expensive hotels and guest houses are more casual and modest in cost, furnishings and service. Both hotels and guest houses frequently have charming little cottages, and despite the fact that the cottages may have been designed for honeymooners, they are equally popular with relative oldsters. Visitors coming for a month or a season frequently rent furnished houses, and servants are reasonably inexpensive by United States standards. But those vacationing or honeymooning on a limited budget can still enjoy Bermuda's quiet lanes, its many free beaches and inexpensive sports while renting a modest room in a private house.
Perhaps the phrase " Bermuda guest house" should be clarified. In general, a guest house is smaller, less formal, and has a quieter tempo than a hotel. A guest house usually substitutes a drawing room for a lobby, and a stay in the larger ones is comparable to a houseparty in a large, well-run house or a visit at a private club. The more modest ones range between this and a room in a private house.
All the hotels and many of the larger guest houses have cocktail bars, but in others guests must supply their own liquor. In some guest houses without bars, hosts serve cocktails before dinner several nights a week.
Breakfast is often served in your room (or can be), and all hotels and guest houses will pack box lunches for guests who are off for sight-seeing or a beach picnic.
Many who have visited Bermuda have a surprisingly possessive loyalty to the place where they have stayed, which speaks well for their hosts. In practice there is no one Parish to be avoided, and the preference of one section of the little Colony over another is often a matter of liking a particular hotel or guest house. In general, distances are so short that golf, tennis, swimming, fishing and sight-seeing are never far away.
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