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Published: April 10th 2007
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Lanai Pool
This is the view of the pool area with lounge chairs actually in the pool! Untitled I have pondered the idea of putting together a travel blog for some time now and when I came across this web site, I was hooked! I hope to write about all my travel experiences (past and present) so that I can always look back and remember the great times.
So it has been almost 9 months since John and I were married at the Westin Our Lucaya on Grand Bahama. I could go on and on about our wedding experience, but thought I'd focus on it as a travel experience.
Travel To And Fro First off, getting to Grand Bahama from Boston looked a lot easier than it ended up being. We booked our airfare 3 months in advance through AirTran with a connection in Baltimore. The price was reasonable and there were no non-stop options. A month before our travel date, AirTran decided to cancel our first connection flight and we were forced to fly out a day early and connect in Atlanta. Usually this would not be a problem, but 10+ people going down to GBI for our wedding had booked this flight. Most cancelled their reservations and rebooked with American.
Our flight
Port Lucaya Marketplace
This is the marketplace across the street from the resort where we ate most nights and enjoyed the free evening entertainment! back to Boston was nightmare as AirTran had put in a new system the night before that apparently was not working at all. It created a nightmare everywhere AirTran flew and caused us to be 5 hours late arriving in Atlanta and our baggage to not be returned to us until 2 days after we arrived in Boston (and had already head for our honeymoon).
Accomodations We arrived in Grand Bahama with no real problems on Wednesday June 14th, 2006 and stayed through Tuesday, June 20th. We quickly grabbed a cab to the Westin (about a 20 min car ride) and were graciously greeted by the bell staff. We proceeded to check in and were upgraded to a Lanai suite (highly recommended) since we were getting married that weekend on property. Our room was beautiful- complete with 2 marble bathrooms, a large living room, and huge bedroom. We had a walk out patio with 2 loungers looking out over the ocean and the infinity pool. This area has the best pool (IMHO) and is so much quieter than the rest of the resort.
We had guests staying at the Sheraton sister property which was ok- nothing special but
View from Lanai Suites
The lovely tropical view from our lanai suite- the picture does no justice! cheaper. They were also able to use all the facilities at the Westin. The Westin Tower rooms were nice, fairly modern and the rooms high up had amazing balconies and views of the ocean. The Marina view is pointless and not worth the extra money. The Lighthouse rooms were also quite nice and overlooked the ocean but were at the far end of the property.
Resort Amenities Since we were paying a daily resort fee, we expected a lot of amenities. The grounds of this resort are absolutely gorgeous! The pools were amazing and suprisingly not that crowded. We never had a problem finding a lounge chair, although some people got greedy and hogged pool mats. They had music playing by the main serpentine pool during the afternoon and the pool bar offered limited (and pricey) refreshments. The one annoying (but understandable) thing was that guests had to present a towel card to receive a card and were required to wear a wristband to use the pool facilities (seems cruise passengers try to use the facilities intended for hotel guests). I definitely noticed age discrimination in enforcing the wristbands as my brother in law (22 at the time) was
Living Room in Lanai Suite
This is living room area of our suite. always "carded" while our parents were not.
The beach was very nice and clean. Getting a beach chair was a bit of an ordeal and it was pretty windy, making it uncomfortable to stay on the beach for long periods of time. We went in the water, but found that there was a lot of sea weed which grossed me out.
The nightlife was pretty non-existent. Most nights we headed over to the Port Lucaya marketplace across the street to listen to the performers. We also spent one night in the pool which, while technically closed, staff looked the other way when they saw us. My father made use of the casino. It was pretty small and open random hours, but he commented that the dealers were very friendly. I have heard through the grapevine that the casino is actually closing because of lack of business.
One thing about Our Lucaya is that is had become a wedding factory (much to my dismay as I was one of the 26 brides that weekend!). Many of the facilities were roped off in the evenings to accomodate these wedding parties.
Dining With the exception of one ridiculously priced
Wedding in Paradise
The gorgeous setting for our wedding (yes that's us)! fruit salad by the pool cafe, we did not eat at the resort. Instead, we visited the Port Lucaya marketplace for most meals. We did breakfast each morning at Zorba's. Decent breakfasts at a reasonable price but definitely not high end service. We ate twice at the Pub at Port Lucaya and had amazing jerk chicken and the best shepard's pie I have ever had! Not exactly Bahamian food, but very good! Good drinks too.
The Corner Bar was a great deal for drinks but very crowded. John and I had a decent meal at Giovanni's and enjoyed the view.
Our rehearsal dinner was a steak and lobster dinner cruise by Pat & Diane Fantasia Tours http://www.snorkelingbahamas.com/landsea/index.html#ribs They were great to work with and planning was a breeze- very responsive and not on "island time". The food was not that amazing. There is a big difference between Bahamian lobster and the Maine lobster we are used to up here in MA. Maybe I am spoiled, but the food left something to be desired.
Our wedding dinner, however, was fantastic! Under the advice of a friend, we booked Luciano's restaurant for our 20 guests. We had the outside deck overlooking the harbor and square all to ourselves. We feasted on massive portions of prime rib, grouper or fettucine alfredo. Our guests continue to rave about the food to this day! The service in preparing for the event was great- I worked directly with the owner Roland. However, the service the day of the event was adequate at best.
Service On the topic of service...most of the feedback I got from my guests confirmed my opinion on service in the Bahamas. I recognize that being from the Northeast US, I can be impatient. However, I felt that service was incredibly slow/unresponsive. Most places automatically add a gratuity to the bill so there really was no incentive to go above and beyond. I am not cheap and had I received quality service, I would have tipped additionally. While I don't want to typecast all of the Bahamians as being ambivalent or almost "entitled" to their jobs, I only had 2 experiences (with the bell hop and at the spa) where I received exceptional service I'd expect from a Westin.
Overall Thoughts about Grand Bahama This island is in tough shape. It really doesn't appear to have recovered from hurricane damage. We saw downed trees, wrecked and abandoned houses and ramshackle buildings on the ride from the airport to the resort. We heard horror stories from other travelers about the downtown Freeport "shopping" area that is really only open when cruise ships are in port. It's not that we felt unsafe, but did not feel completely comfortable wandering away from the resort.
All in all, Grand Bahama has what I would call "good bones" and a lot of potential. I learned recently that Ginn Properties has plans to build a mega development on the remote west end of the island. Hopefully, this will bring the tourism dollars this little island desperately needs and will liven it back up!
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