bagold
Jan 5, 03, 5:43 pm
Every year we take a family holiday over Christmas and this year I choose the Ocean Club in Paradise Island in the Bahamas. I made the reservations back in May and at that time they were pretty full. They only had the newer Crescent rooms and suites available which was actually what we wanted. The hotel had a total of 108 rooms/suites of which I counted 50 were newly built 2 years ago. This year, my parents, grandparents, sister and I went so for the 6 of us we got 2 rooms plus 1 suite. We stayed for 10 days / 9 nights.
It was an epic trying to get everyone into Nassau at the same time. Took some planning to get everyone into MIA to connect to Nassau. Grandparents flew from RDU. Mom fly from LHR (after flying HKG-LHR). Dad flew from NYC. Sister flew from BOS. I flew from DFW. In the end everything worked out and we made it to Nassau together in one piece!
Upon arrival in to Nassau airport I rented a car from Avis. I asked them whether their cars were new and they said yes. I also checked with Budget which had the same rate but since I normally rent from Avis I decided to stick with them. Also, my dad was able to drive the car without any additional insurance with Avis. Well, it turns out that the Avis car was 3 years old and it was a Taurus! Not exactly a new car with over 30,000 miles on it. I later saw newer model Taurus cars with Budget stickers on it. Next time I know!
One car wasn’t enough for all our luggage so 3 of us took a taxi to the hotel. The hotel did offer to send a stretch limousine for us but that cost $150. Didn’t think it was worth it and we wanted to have a rental car at our disposal anyway so we didn’t need a stretch. The taxi for 3 people plus all the luggage was only $35.
Upon exiting the airport I immediately took the wrong turn and didn’t find out until 20 minutes later when I ended up on the opposite of the island. I had a map but couldn’t find any directions or street names. We drove into a hotel who gave us directions back to the other side of the island to go across the bridge to Paradise Island.
An hour later we finally arrived at the hotel. My mom and grandparents had arrived earlier in the taxi and had already been given a key to their rooms. All I had to do was give them my credit card and sign a few forms and we were off. Incidentally, all rooms were already prepaid back in October and there was no refund for any cancellation after that.
The room keys had my name printed on them and the dates we were staying there. I didn’t tell the hotel the names of each family member so everyone’s key had my name on it. The Ocean Club is the sister hotel to the larger Atlantis hotel down the street. We could use our key for all charges at the Atlantis hotel as well.
I was very happy to find out that our 3 rooms were next to each other. The Crescent rooms are in two story buildings. Our rooms were on the upper level side by side. My parents had the suite and we had the regular room. None of their rooms had double beds (all were Kings). So we ordered an extra futon for my room and my sister decided to sleep on it. She loved it and I had the King bed all to myself. The suite and our room were not connected but we could close an outer door and leave our room doors open.
Now for the room. Each room had Frette white bedsheets and duvets. Frette bath robe. And of course Frette towels. I love their bedsheets which I think are 500+ count sheets. Nothing special about the towels or robes. The bed was extremely comfortable, better than any other bed I’ve tried (including the W, Westin Heavenly, and seems better than the Ritz and Four Seasons). I forgot to ask what type of mattresses they use. The bathroom was equipped with the usual amenities. Nothing out of the ordinary. I cannot remember who made the their shampoo and conditioner. I think it was Gilcrest & S. from England? The bathroom had a deep bathtub and a separate shower. Also, a separate room for the toilet. All rooms had double sinks. In our room, the sinks were on opposite sides of the bathroom. Outside, on the balcony we overlooked an area where there were some trees and hammocks tied to them. Then beyond that was the Ocean. We could clearly hear the ocean from the balcony but once the doors were closed, it was extremely quiet. All the rooms were extremely well sound insulated from each other. The hotel did a very good job of making sure the balcony floor was cleaned every day and they had a fresh towel laid out on the deck chair. That was a nice touch. Each room had a 27” TV and a DVD player. The hotel had a selection of over 100 DVDs that we could ask the Butler to bring at any time at no extra charge.
The suite had a few more things. The living room and bedroom had their own Bose IV system. The only problem was that in making the suite high tech, they used one touch screen remote control to control everything. That meant that we couldn’t have 2 people watching two different TVs because we only had 1 remote. Turned out that this wasn’t a problem anyway. The touch screen remote controlled the living room TV, bedroom TV, and bathroom TV that was situated at the end of the bathtub. It also had a variety of music to choose from. I think the hotel has their own music system that continuous played over 15 different types of music.
The suite also had a laptop with a high-speed connection and a printer. This was not advertised in any of the hotel materials. I even called the hotel before arriving and they said that I had to use my own laptop to dial long distance. While we were there, I asked about the charges for using the high-speed internet connection. For the suite it was free. For regular rooms they charged per minute long distance rates. I never tried it in our room so I don’t know how much it really was. I don’t know if the older rooms (Hartford rooms) in the hotel have the same high-speed connection. We shared the internet connection in the suite. Wish I knew and had brought a wireless hub! It is so bad when we are so used to a wireless connection at home that I would even think of bringing it with us on vacation! The connection speed was great. I was able to download things at 500KB/sec! It was the fastest I have ever seen a download.
The suite bathroom was large. The bathtub had a Jacuzzi jets. My sister enjoyed using my parent’s bathtub watching TV while relaxing there. The shower room had a steam room option.
Each evening, someone would bring some chocolate coated strawberries with champagne to each room. The champagne wasn’t that great so I skipped that. The turn down service would always be done when we are gone for dinner. Each room received Godvia chocolates. Normally, 2 chocolates per person. By the third night, I had enough of the Godiva chocolates and started saving them for people back home.
They had two restaurants. The first was the Dune, which was open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Someone told me that the chef who started this restaurant at the Ocean Club first and then opened other ones around the world called Vongs. I tried the Vong in NY once and liked it. The food was good. A little fusion of Asian and Western food. For breakfast, I always had the egg white omelet that was great! On average, breakfast was $20/person. For dinner, we had the option of the Dune or the Terrace. The Terrace is situated in the middle courtyard of the older rooms. During the day, there are bare tables and chairs in the courtyard. In the evening, they transform that into a beautiful setting for dinner. There is a water fountain that is lit up at night. All the trees have lights wrapped around them. The tables now had tablecloths and candles on them. It is amazing what a wonderful transformation they can make. Both restaurants served wonderful food and we ended up eating at the hotel 4 out of the 9 nights we were there. On average, dinner cost $75/person without wine. We brought our own wine which was a good thing. One bottle I bought through an online merchant for $200 was selling for $1100 at the Ocean Club. Of course I knew the wine sold at the hotel was going to be a lot more expensive than buying your own so we brought 6 bottles on our trip. The suite had a wine decanter in it so we were able to decant our wine a few hours before dinner and just bring the decanter with us. There is a live band that plays at the Dune and the Terrace. I am not sure how much noise you can hear if you were staying in one of the Hartford rooms there. On the one hand, it would be nice to hear the live music, but on the other hand it could be quite noisy with so many people eating outside your door.
Beyond the Terrace and the Hartford hotel rooms was the Spa. It was an Elemis Spa. The spa was built 2 years ago with 8 spa villas for the treatments. My dad had a 80-minute one with 2 masseurs. He said it was great. It did cost over $300 (after service charge) so I hope it was good.
After the Spa you come to the swimming pool area. This is one area that I think is a let down. The pool area is small. Most days all the deck chairs around the pool are taken. And with all the kids playing in the pool, it is difficult to swim laps. The pool area also has a bar and an area for eating sandwiches. Next to the pool was the health club that was also a little small. There are men and women changing rooms with lockers and shower facilities. Next to the workout area are the tennis courts. They have 9 courts of which 4 are lit for evening play. They are all clay courts. I would play every evening before dinner and my dad would get up early to play before breakfast. We both played with the coach who used to be #1 in the Commonwealth of the Caribbean’s in the 70’s. It was a great workout but I never came close to beating him even though he was now in his 50’s.
According to the coach, they are planning on relocating some of the tennis courts to build a kids swimming pool. At that time, they may put in 2 hard courts instead.
Beyond the pool area, was the Versailles gardens. It was modeled after the Versailles gardens in France. They seem to advertise the gardens everywhere. It is quite nice and is open to the public. When you walk back from the gardens to the pool area, they ask you for your room key to ensure no strangers walk into the hotel.
The beach is a public one. The area in front of the Ocean Club has their own deck chairs. I liked the chairs because each one had a mechanism to move a hood over the chairs to cover you from the sun if you wanted (kind of like a baby pram). There are also flags on the chair that you can raise that would signal for an attendant to come by. When you walked down the few stairs to the beach, there would be an attendant that asked how many of us there are and bring the fresh towels and lay out the chairs for us. There are also 3 Ocean Club lifeguards on duty. The water was a little cold but once you were in there it wasn’t too bad. The sand was nice and fine without any rocks or shells. Overall, I would rate the beach and water very high.
One of the highlights was that one morning at breakfast, I had Cindy Crawford sitting in the table behind me, and Jennifer Garner (star of Alias TV show) and her husband actor Scott Foley sitting in front of us. My dad wanted to take a picture of me with Cindy in the background but my mom didn’t allow us to be so obvious! We also saw Magic Johnson walking in the hotel grounds. I saw Cindy a few times during our stay there. I think she had one of the Crescent rooms as well as I would walk past her outside our room.
One afternoon, we charted a fishing boat to go deep-sea fishing. In the 4 hours we were out there, we managed to catch 2 fish. One was big enough for all of us to eat. It was 30-40 pounds and unfortunately, I cannot remember the spelling of the name of the fish. The boat captain fillet it for us and we took the meat back to the hotel. The hotel prepared the fish for us and it was served in our suite in four different ways. One was sashimi and it was great! We finished it so quickly that we called down for them to prepare two more dishes of sashimi.
Now, onto planning where we should go next year. Due to the age of my grandparents, we won’t be able to make it to Europe or Asia.
It was an epic trying to get everyone into Nassau at the same time. Took some planning to get everyone into MIA to connect to Nassau. Grandparents flew from RDU. Mom fly from LHR (after flying HKG-LHR). Dad flew from NYC. Sister flew from BOS. I flew from DFW. In the end everything worked out and we made it to Nassau together in one piece!
Upon arrival in to Nassau airport I rented a car from Avis. I asked them whether their cars were new and they said yes. I also checked with Budget which had the same rate but since I normally rent from Avis I decided to stick with them. Also, my dad was able to drive the car without any additional insurance with Avis. Well, it turns out that the Avis car was 3 years old and it was a Taurus! Not exactly a new car with over 30,000 miles on it. I later saw newer model Taurus cars with Budget stickers on it. Next time I know!
One car wasn’t enough for all our luggage so 3 of us took a taxi to the hotel. The hotel did offer to send a stretch limousine for us but that cost $150. Didn’t think it was worth it and we wanted to have a rental car at our disposal anyway so we didn’t need a stretch. The taxi for 3 people plus all the luggage was only $35.
Upon exiting the airport I immediately took the wrong turn and didn’t find out until 20 minutes later when I ended up on the opposite of the island. I had a map but couldn’t find any directions or street names. We drove into a hotel who gave us directions back to the other side of the island to go across the bridge to Paradise Island.
An hour later we finally arrived at the hotel. My mom and grandparents had arrived earlier in the taxi and had already been given a key to their rooms. All I had to do was give them my credit card and sign a few forms and we were off. Incidentally, all rooms were already prepaid back in October and there was no refund for any cancellation after that.
The room keys had my name printed on them and the dates we were staying there. I didn’t tell the hotel the names of each family member so everyone’s key had my name on it. The Ocean Club is the sister hotel to the larger Atlantis hotel down the street. We could use our key for all charges at the Atlantis hotel as well.
I was very happy to find out that our 3 rooms were next to each other. The Crescent rooms are in two story buildings. Our rooms were on the upper level side by side. My parents had the suite and we had the regular room. None of their rooms had double beds (all were Kings). So we ordered an extra futon for my room and my sister decided to sleep on it. She loved it and I had the King bed all to myself. The suite and our room were not connected but we could close an outer door and leave our room doors open.
Now for the room. Each room had Frette white bedsheets and duvets. Frette bath robe. And of course Frette towels. I love their bedsheets which I think are 500+ count sheets. Nothing special about the towels or robes. The bed was extremely comfortable, better than any other bed I’ve tried (including the W, Westin Heavenly, and seems better than the Ritz and Four Seasons). I forgot to ask what type of mattresses they use. The bathroom was equipped with the usual amenities. Nothing out of the ordinary. I cannot remember who made the their shampoo and conditioner. I think it was Gilcrest & S. from England? The bathroom had a deep bathtub and a separate shower. Also, a separate room for the toilet. All rooms had double sinks. In our room, the sinks were on opposite sides of the bathroom. Outside, on the balcony we overlooked an area where there were some trees and hammocks tied to them. Then beyond that was the Ocean. We could clearly hear the ocean from the balcony but once the doors were closed, it was extremely quiet. All the rooms were extremely well sound insulated from each other. The hotel did a very good job of making sure the balcony floor was cleaned every day and they had a fresh towel laid out on the deck chair. That was a nice touch. Each room had a 27” TV and a DVD player. The hotel had a selection of over 100 DVDs that we could ask the Butler to bring at any time at no extra charge.
The suite had a few more things. The living room and bedroom had their own Bose IV system. The only problem was that in making the suite high tech, they used one touch screen remote control to control everything. That meant that we couldn’t have 2 people watching two different TVs because we only had 1 remote. Turned out that this wasn’t a problem anyway. The touch screen remote controlled the living room TV, bedroom TV, and bathroom TV that was situated at the end of the bathtub. It also had a variety of music to choose from. I think the hotel has their own music system that continuous played over 15 different types of music.
The suite also had a laptop with a high-speed connection and a printer. This was not advertised in any of the hotel materials. I even called the hotel before arriving and they said that I had to use my own laptop to dial long distance. While we were there, I asked about the charges for using the high-speed internet connection. For the suite it was free. For regular rooms they charged per minute long distance rates. I never tried it in our room so I don’t know how much it really was. I don’t know if the older rooms (Hartford rooms) in the hotel have the same high-speed connection. We shared the internet connection in the suite. Wish I knew and had brought a wireless hub! It is so bad when we are so used to a wireless connection at home that I would even think of bringing it with us on vacation! The connection speed was great. I was able to download things at 500KB/sec! It was the fastest I have ever seen a download.
The suite bathroom was large. The bathtub had a Jacuzzi jets. My sister enjoyed using my parent’s bathtub watching TV while relaxing there. The shower room had a steam room option.
Each evening, someone would bring some chocolate coated strawberries with champagne to each room. The champagne wasn’t that great so I skipped that. The turn down service would always be done when we are gone for dinner. Each room received Godvia chocolates. Normally, 2 chocolates per person. By the third night, I had enough of the Godiva chocolates and started saving them for people back home.
They had two restaurants. The first was the Dune, which was open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Someone told me that the chef who started this restaurant at the Ocean Club first and then opened other ones around the world called Vongs. I tried the Vong in NY once and liked it. The food was good. A little fusion of Asian and Western food. For breakfast, I always had the egg white omelet that was great! On average, breakfast was $20/person. For dinner, we had the option of the Dune or the Terrace. The Terrace is situated in the middle courtyard of the older rooms. During the day, there are bare tables and chairs in the courtyard. In the evening, they transform that into a beautiful setting for dinner. There is a water fountain that is lit up at night. All the trees have lights wrapped around them. The tables now had tablecloths and candles on them. It is amazing what a wonderful transformation they can make. Both restaurants served wonderful food and we ended up eating at the hotel 4 out of the 9 nights we were there. On average, dinner cost $75/person without wine. We brought our own wine which was a good thing. One bottle I bought through an online merchant for $200 was selling for $1100 at the Ocean Club. Of course I knew the wine sold at the hotel was going to be a lot more expensive than buying your own so we brought 6 bottles on our trip. The suite had a wine decanter in it so we were able to decant our wine a few hours before dinner and just bring the decanter with us. There is a live band that plays at the Dune and the Terrace. I am not sure how much noise you can hear if you were staying in one of the Hartford rooms there. On the one hand, it would be nice to hear the live music, but on the other hand it could be quite noisy with so many people eating outside your door.
Beyond the Terrace and the Hartford hotel rooms was the Spa. It was an Elemis Spa. The spa was built 2 years ago with 8 spa villas for the treatments. My dad had a 80-minute one with 2 masseurs. He said it was great. It did cost over $300 (after service charge) so I hope it was good.
After the Spa you come to the swimming pool area. This is one area that I think is a let down. The pool area is small. Most days all the deck chairs around the pool are taken. And with all the kids playing in the pool, it is difficult to swim laps. The pool area also has a bar and an area for eating sandwiches. Next to the pool was the health club that was also a little small. There are men and women changing rooms with lockers and shower facilities. Next to the workout area are the tennis courts. They have 9 courts of which 4 are lit for evening play. They are all clay courts. I would play every evening before dinner and my dad would get up early to play before breakfast. We both played with the coach who used to be #1 in the Commonwealth of the Caribbean’s in the 70’s. It was a great workout but I never came close to beating him even though he was now in his 50’s.
According to the coach, they are planning on relocating some of the tennis courts to build a kids swimming pool. At that time, they may put in 2 hard courts instead.
Beyond the pool area, was the Versailles gardens. It was modeled after the Versailles gardens in France. They seem to advertise the gardens everywhere. It is quite nice and is open to the public. When you walk back from the gardens to the pool area, they ask you for your room key to ensure no strangers walk into the hotel.
The beach is a public one. The area in front of the Ocean Club has their own deck chairs. I liked the chairs because each one had a mechanism to move a hood over the chairs to cover you from the sun if you wanted (kind of like a baby pram). There are also flags on the chair that you can raise that would signal for an attendant to come by. When you walked down the few stairs to the beach, there would be an attendant that asked how many of us there are and bring the fresh towels and lay out the chairs for us. There are also 3 Ocean Club lifeguards on duty. The water was a little cold but once you were in there it wasn’t too bad. The sand was nice and fine without any rocks or shells. Overall, I would rate the beach and water very high.
One of the highlights was that one morning at breakfast, I had Cindy Crawford sitting in the table behind me, and Jennifer Garner (star of Alias TV show) and her husband actor Scott Foley sitting in front of us. My dad wanted to take a picture of me with Cindy in the background but my mom didn’t allow us to be so obvious! We also saw Magic Johnson walking in the hotel grounds. I saw Cindy a few times during our stay there. I think she had one of the Crescent rooms as well as I would walk past her outside our room.
One afternoon, we charted a fishing boat to go deep-sea fishing. In the 4 hours we were out there, we managed to catch 2 fish. One was big enough for all of us to eat. It was 30-40 pounds and unfortunately, I cannot remember the spelling of the name of the fish. The boat captain fillet it for us and we took the meat back to the hotel. The hotel prepared the fish for us and it was served in our suite in four different ways. One was sashimi and it was great! We finished it so quickly that we called down for them to prepare two more dishes of sashimi.
Now, onto planning where we should go next year. Due to the age of my grandparents, we won’t be able to make it to Europe or Asia.