We just came back from a week in the Bahamas and getting away from the cold Jersey weather was just what we all needed. This was our first time in the Bahamas and we spent a week at the Grand Hyatt Baha Mar resort. This is our second year of pulling the kid’s out of school for a week in the summer and honestly, I’m glad we did. Elisa is in her senior year and will likely not be joining us on a many vacations and I’d rather travel when the rest of the world isn’t. To each their own on this topic but for now, it’s a move we may likely repeat again.

Baha Mar is a luxury, mega resort (there’s actually a documentary on it on Amazon Prime) and is absolutely gorgeous. Before I get into this review, if you’re flush with cash and travel to spend places all the time, this review isn’t for you. Go, spend ya coins and have fun boo. If you’re a family traveling and considering if this resort is in your budget or not, I got you.

We booked a standard room on points and covered our airfare with points as well. I did pay for upgraded economy seats for both legs of the flight which ran about $400 and you have to pay the flight taxes which were about $530. I offset some of that with credit cards that provide airline credits. Specifically, the Amex Platinum Card ($200 credit) and the Amex Hilton Aspire card ($50 credit). Ya’ll flying out of the Bahamas is NOT cheap, the taxes were almost as much as the airfare costs. I did a quick search for a flight leaving 21 Feb, direct from Nassau to Newark..the airfare is $242 and the taxes are $135. The flight getting there was just $183 all in, $149 for the fare and $34 for taxes. So yea…keep that in mind.

turned 41 in the Bahamas!

Getting into the credit card travel rewards game has been a huge benefit as we have been able to save on hotel stays and flights and reduce the costs of our overall trip a significant amount. I’m not going to get into the nitty gritty with how but I will direct you to a resource where I learned all about it which is 10x Travel. They have a free course and a Facebook page with tons of members and posts all dedicated to traveling on points. Highly recommend. Without the points, the hotel stay for a week would have been around $4k and the airfare would have been close to $3k.

Booking on points can be tricky with a family of five because you’re usually limited to booking a standard double queen room. I called Hyatt to add my youngest on the reservation and they were able to do it over the phone with no issue. We can get away with it a bit easier now since he’s 5 and we bring his travel bed with us to sleep in. You can find more tips for traveling with kids here. When we arrived, I mentioned him again and again, no issue. We received 5 bands for the room/waterpark entrance. Baha Mar has a nice sized waterpark called Baha Bay which is one of the main draws for families to visit.

We also were gifted GOH (Guest of Honor) certificates which I secured at random by messaging someone on the Flyer Talk forums. They posted that they had certs available, I dm’ed them and within the hour, the certs showed in my Hyatt account. Word of warning, don’t buy these on Ebay or anything like that, not worth the risk of having your Hyatt account flagged or shut down. I didn’t know, but the post violated the Flyer Talk rules so it was deleted but, I was able to see the member’s name before that and dm him lol.

This got us 5 drink vouchers which were good for two drinks each at the pool bars and some of the lounges. It also gave us $145 credit towards breakfast every day which brought the overall cost down a ton. This resort is not cheap y’all, and the Bahamas itself is expensive because they have to import everything into the island. So, keeping costs down where we could was important.

WEATHER

It’s January and January in the Bahamas is not really hot. Keep that in mind if you want to go somewhere that’s hotter in the winter, go further south. I’m glad I brought my jean jacket and since we left from NJ, I had sweats which came in clutch. The resort is kept pretty cool and so are the restaurants. 

GETTING TO BAHA MAR

We booked with a local company, Swift and they were excellent. Great communication and we stopped at the local grocery store for snacks on the way which was recommended by folks in the group (I join the FB group for any hotel I vacation to for all the tips). I wish we would’ve bought more. A regular bag of Lays was $9.35 inside the resort. We grabbed apples, chips ahoy, some juice boxes and sodas. We also brought snacks from home (granola bars and apple sauce) and I would bring them out to the water park with us during the day. This was a great move because a single scoop of ice cream is like $10.

POOLS

The Baha Mar FB group page said the resort pools were heated but just our luck, there was only one warm pool the week we went (Fortune) as there was an issue with the heaters. So we didn’t swim in any others because they were just too cold. It was a bummer really because we were banking on warm pools to counter the cloudy days.

LOUNGERS

This was a hot topic in the FB group. We didn’t reserve any loungers or cabanas and it would’ve been a waste of money for us. We had no issue finding open loungers, even at the crowded pool and never saved seats or anything. If you are going during a busier time and want a dedicated spot to establish a home base from, then maybe a lounger would be good for you.

WATERPARK

We hung out at Turtle Beach which is the kids area and my 5 year old had a blast going up and down the slides here. Also had the warmest water of all the attractions. The older two did the other rides and met us back here afterwards. My oldest ventured to the beach each day but it was too cold to really get in and enjoy. 

RESTAURANTS

Food was good. We ate at Costa, Cinko, Marcus, Pizza Lab, Swimming Pigs, Stix, Regatta each day for breakfast, Sugar Factory and popped into Starbucks a few times. We also ordered Wendy’s for lunch one day through the Kraven app. Our fave was Cinko.

I like Samuelsson’s restaurant in NYC better. Pizza Lab burger and fries were big enough to split. Swimming Pig kids meals are big enough for two kids to split as well. Prepare to spend a lot of $$ on food. The VAT is 15% and there is a 10% service charge on EVERYTHING. Not just groups over 6 when dining.

Cookie Monster Milkshake at the Sugar Factory

BAHA MAR ACTIVITIES

This is the biggest downside here. I feel like this resort is trying to cater to families and adults and really should’ve just picked one. There isn’t much for kids to do after dark when the waterpark and pools close. Unless you want to spend more $$ for the explorer club, or $$ for the overpriced arcade. The arcade is small and the games are your average run of the mill arcade games. We did the touch tank experience (3 of us) and that was cool. The kids started going to the basketball court at night to have something to do around day 3 or 4.

This was a downside honestly, we felt like for a resort that big (and expensive) there should have been activities for them to do. We don’t really do kid’s clubs when we travel as a family (feels like it defeats the purpose, but that’s just us). They have a huge casino which is great if you’re old enough to gamble and enjoy gambling. We did venture down a few times while the kids went to play basketball to play some slots and roulette.

BAHA MAR $$$ NOTES

We had a $1,200 hold placed on our card ($200/day) and anything we charged to the room over $200 was charged to my Amex on file. There were zero issues with erroneous charges which some others said they experienced. We even had a credit back to our room after my husband ordered from Stix and they were out of something. Our 5 year old ate free at most places we went to except the Swimming Pig. Which again, a great way to save money, especially on someone who prefers chicken tenders and fries.  

daily breakfast popsicle

FINAL THOUGHTS ON BAHA MAR

So, it was a fun week but we won’t be back. My kids said they liked Beaches Ocho Rios better as they had a ton more things to do and since it’s an AI, they could snack to their hearts content. I also liked that we could just pay for the trip upfront and not worry about any additional charges. Ice cream at 9pm? Sure why not? A crepe at midnight? Have at it. A lot of the comments in the FB group were either people saying how shocked they were that it was so expensive or others on the flip side haughtily saying things along the the lines of “don’t go if you can’t afford it.” Which yea, no shit…don’t go anywhere you can’t afford. What I think the issue is, you don’t feel like you’re really getting value out of the things that are pricey. $10 for ice cream ok, give me another scoop my guy.

Lastly, and because this is an important perspective, we noticed that there weren’t many Black folks at Baha Mar. The ones we saw at the waterpark had a day pass and were likely cruisers. We were actually shocked on the last day to see pretty much nothing but Black folks at the Regatta dinner buffet. I asked the hostess, “This is the most Black folks I’ve seen all week what’s up?” and she laughed and told us that they were mostly locals who came to dine at the resort on Friday nights. I mean, they had a whole different play list in that restaurant and we were like, “where has this been all week?!”

Overall, with the lack of activities for the kids to do at Baha Mar outside of the waterpark, costs aside, this resort is probably better for a splurgy couples vacation, or a splurgy adults group vacation. Or like I mentioned in the beginning, if you’ve got deep pockets and are willing to shell out for extras at every turn.

If you have questions, let me know below!