In the winter of almost every family of sufficient means and insufficient Polartec, the beach resort issues its siren song.
It calls from billboards and newspaper ads, flashing its turquoise water and pink sand. Cast aside your sodden mittens and snow boots, it sings. Come, sit on the beach. Sit on the beach with a tropical drink. And then the clincher: Sit on the beach with a tropical drink, while someone else watches your children.
We had flirted with the idea of a resort vacation before but never found quite the right time or place to go. Nor could we overcome our hesitation when it came to one essential question: Are we resort people?
We liked to think of ourselves as independent travelers, the kind of adventurers who are always discovering delightful little bistros down picturesque alleyways in Provence or biking alongside fields of flowers in the Spanish countryside. The truth, however, was that, with two youngish boys, our recent travels tended to revolve around the question of which interstate-adjacent hotel featured an indoor pool.
So, encased in one of the snowiest winters in the history of Boston (where we were temporarily living), we decided to take the plunge. We wanted to get somewhere warm, fast, without much work.
Our initial requirements were simple. Not too far (goodbye to the stretch of Mexican coast calling itself the Mayan Riviera). Not too chilly (eliminating Bermuda, which couldn’t guarantee shorts weather in February). Not too expensive (nixing, alas, the resort in Jamaica that promises each family its own nanny).
This led us, eventually, to a big hotel complex on Grand Bahama, a sun-drenched island about 70 miles east of West Palm Beach, Fla., where the twin punches of Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne last year had damaged but not destroyed the tourism industry.
It may have also meant the hotels that had repaired themselves quickly were eager to pull in any and all big chunks of business, a circumstance that leads us to offer, right up front, our big warning to families seeking winter warmth: Beware spring breakers. Not only do they overwhelm your tranquil resort with thumping music, large-scale beer consumption and overloud exclamations of words like “dude,” but they make it all too easy to imagine your precious little darlings occupying those pierced and tattooed bodies, enacting the same brain-damaged mating rituals a dozen or so years hence.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
Figuring out which “family-friendly” resorts actually welcomed families was a surprising complication to the selection process. At some, the term seemed to mean little more than grudging permission to bring your offspring. Others, notably of the Club Med variety, offered full day camps with everything from trapeze lessons to in-line skating.
Then, there were the issues of what ages the children’s programs served, how many spots were available, whether the cost was included in the price of the room and if you could use the services at your convenience or needed to book them in advance. There were also the online travel rating sites to negotiate, open forums that persuade you that every place on Earth is a dump, until the next message argues that, no, it is, in fact, paradise.
We felt as though we were scouting a preschool spot in Manhattan, when all we wanted was the occasional hour or two to ourselves while Conor, 6, and Declan, nearly 4, played under the supervision of people who did not possess criminal records.
But because the snow was deep and the desire strong, the job got done.
And we found ourselves on Grand Bahama Island, at the front desk of the inelegantly named The Westin and Sheraton at Our Lucaya Beach & Golf Resort, stripping layers of clothing.
We had left Boston just after breakfast, transferred planes in Baltimore and arrived in the nearby city of Freeport not long after lunch. From there, it was a short cab ride to the hotel complex.
Actually, we found ourselves at the Sheraton front desk a great deal during our first two days at Our Lucaya. When we arrived, we had to wait there because the computer system had broken down.
We had to return to the desk after we were placed in a “non-smoking” room that smelled as if someone had spent a week there refining something she planned to call “the Marlboro Diet.”
Switching to a genuine non-smoking room involved another 45-minute wait. Then, there were the periodic forays we made attempting to get a free room upgrade, which one travel Web site had advised us to try.
The next day, settled into our third and final room, the vaunted free upgrade, but with a lawnside, rather than poolside balcony, we relaxed within the confines of the resort. To our mild surprise, we did not feel confined.
The two hotels in the resort’s name are stretched along a long beach, but the resort’s amenities are open to guests at both. The Sheraton is the more family-oriented of the pair, and close to the pool with the water slide where we spent a good chunk of time watching our 6-year-old wait in line, come shooting down like a hairless sea otter, then scoot back into the line.
But there are also several more pools, restaurants galore, a fitness center and spa, a casino, a little retail alley and two nearby affiliated golf courses.
The golf isn’t cheap: The shuttle service to the courses, and the courses themselves, didn’t quite justify the $50 it cost to play nine holes. But to be surrounded by green, playing the sport of summer in February, did. And the free driving range was a nice treat for our golf-mad sons.
Our only disappointment in the resort’s amenities–and it was a big one–was the children’s program. The attractive “Camp Lucaya” building, with its play structure and crayon-bright colors, sat gleaming in the sun right behind the water slide–with a notice posted to the front door announcing that it would be closed for five weeks during “the Spring Break Season.”
We followed the signs to the relocated children’s camp and found it in a nondescript hotel suite at the distant edge of the resort, where a small group of children half-heartedly tossed balloons to the accompaniment of a throbbing boombox.
An initial inquiry at the front desk about the switch was met by a noncommittal reference to the hurricanes. This was surprising, because on the pristine grounds of Our Lucaya, you would have been hard-pressed to find signs of the damage that had forced the resort to temporarily shut down. Only walking up the beach could you find the storms’ traces: Uprooted palm trees and bashed fences still dotted the shoreline.
One of the babysitters–a fine and motivated group, it seemed–later told us that the child-care facility had been moved to avoid contact with the expected hordes of college spring-breakers, an explanation that made more sense, given the sign and the undamaged appearance of the camp facility.
A third possible explanation appeared in our suspicious minds: Spring-break arrivals hadn’t really begun, wouldn’t until the end of our week there, but a kids’ camp located right next to the most kid-popular pool would draw a lot more use, and require much more staffing, than one located in a drab room way out on the property’s boundary.
The hotel Web site did not mention the relocation, nor had the hotel worker we had called to discuss the children’s camp the day before our arrival. We left two messages for the hotel manager to ask/complain about the relocation but did not receive a return call.
Rather than let it spoil our generally sunny moods, though, any inclination to grumble gave way to adaptation. The kids did a couple of brief sessions in camp, but we couldn’t bring ourselves to exile them there any more. And the complex’s genuinely lovely beaches, we realized, were their own day camp. The boys proved capable of amusing themselves for an hour and more at a time playing cat-and-mouse with wave edges and slapping wet sand into shapes that did not convince us “Johnson” will one day be mentioned alongside “Wright” and “van der Rohe.”
As we watched them build and signaled for the waiter to bring a second pina colada, we came to realize that the blessing and the curse of the resort is convenience. Want a fresh towel? Some lunch? Another beach chair? Here it comes, with little more effort than a nod and a tip or a signature on a promise to pay–later, when you check out.
It’s easy. Everything is done for you, and if you don’t object in principle to a $3.50 cup of coffee, there is no reason to leave the grounds. Many people don’t.
At the same time, there was something about the experience that–for us, at least–soon came to feel synthetic and claustrophobic. Perhaps it was the man at the resort restaurant who warned the waitress he expected speedy service because, “Listen, we’re on New York time!” or the couple who concluded their litany of complaints about a club sandwich with this: “Thank God we live in the United States, right?”
Our sandwiches were nothing to beef about, but we couldn’t help but wonder why we had taken our children outside U.S. borders only to have their most memorable cultural experience consist of learning the dance moves to “YMCA.”
Granted, a few patches of local life sprouted at the edges of the resort. The almost impossibly picturesque Billy Joe’s Restaurant & Bar sat on the sand beyond the jet-ski rental hut, serving up fresh conch salad and less-expensive tropical drinks. Across the street was a minor gem, the Port Lucaya Marketplace, a shopping mall of sorts anchored by lively local shops, bars and restaurants, and a large stage overlooking Count Basie Square.
Although the marketplace had the air of a prefab development targeted toward the cruise ship crowd, personality couldn’t help but seep through.
One restaurant billed itself as a combination pizzeria and “Curry Pot.”
The vendors at the adjoining straw market, hawking T-shirts, shell jewelry and straw bags, delivered a lively patter whose highlight was the woman who called out, “Put on the brakes, baby.”
The Subway served a Bahamian soft drink called Goombay Punch.
Still, when the kids began to expect Dunkin’ Donuts for breakfast, we knew it was time to break free, to let Our Lucaya become Their Lucaya. We decided to rent a car — even if it did cost about $50 a day for a sub-sub-compact–and explore the island on our own.
Our first destination was the Lucayan National Park. The park, primitive by U.S. standards and more charming for it, covers about 40 acres. A short trail leads to a pair of underwater caves you can view from platforms set above the water.
The caves are part of one of the largest underwater cave systems in the world. In one, Ben’s Cave, a biologist discovered a new species of crustacean, called Speleonectes lucayensis. Evidence of pre-Columbian settlement has also been found in the area.
The real attraction, however, lay across the highway from the park, at the end of a path that crosses a mangrove estuary where tree roots snarl like unwashed hair.
We descended from a sand dune to discover a perfect sickle of sand and water. And peace. No parasails. No jet skis. No jangly music on loudspeakers.
Named for a large rock that juts out of the water about a half-mile offshore, Gold Rock Beach is the kind of near-deserted tropical beach celebrities pay thousands to occupy elsewhere in the tropics.
We took turns snorkeling and brought up a starfish for the boys to see, and we waded a hundred or so yards into the clear water. Only hunger–no hamburger stands here–finally forced us to leave.
On a side road 7 miles down the highway, not far from a graveyard of bleached white stone and fluorescent pink flowers, we found Bishop’s Place, a restaurant next to Bishop’s Bonefish Resort, a simple and immaculate seven-room motel on the beach.
A light rain prompted us to sit inside, but on a sunnier afternoon, we would have chosen the tables set on a deck next to the beach. The meal of conch fritters, peas ‘n’ rice and fresh, fried snapper served with nothing but a squeeze of lime was the best we ate all week.
Later, heady with our mobility, we decided to visit the International Bazaar in Freeport, which several guidebooks had described as a colorful jumble of restaurants and shops divided into sections designed to mimic different areas of the world, as envisioned by the Hollywood stage designer who built the place.
But, on a Saturday night, the place was virtually deserted, the cobblestone squares silent except for the echo of our footsteps. We later learned that almost half the businesses there had shut down in the months after the twin blows of Frances and Jeanne in September 2004.
Nearby, the giant Crowne Plaza Golf Resort & Casino, which had been heavily damaged in the storms, sat darkened and surrounded by chain-link fence. The eerie scene provided the most dramatic evidence of the hurricanes’ lingering effects. The resort, in fact, remains closed and, in early September, local news Web sites reported that the International Bazaar was in danger of closing down.
Before our little Kia turned into a pumpkin, we made one last foray into the outside world, to eat breakfast at Becky’s Bahamian Restaurant, where we sampled the local dish of tuna and grits. Once you got over the idea of eating tuna salad for breakfast, it was pretty tasty.
Our next encounter with fish–well, swimming mammals, anyway–was at the Underwater Explorers Society back by the Port Lucaya Marketplace. Our older son has been fascinated by dolphins since he received a stuffed dolphin during an emergency room visit as a toddler, and the chance to be among them in the water was too good to pass up.
After a choppy boat ride, we sat around the edges of a large pool and watched as our designated dolphin jumped and sliced through the water at high speed. The guide did a good job with the educational patter, but everyone knew the reason we had come: to touch the critter.
So, after an acceptable amount of time had passed, we stood in the shallow end of the pool in groups of six as the dolphin swam up to be–there’s no other word for it–petted.
“It felt like he was pushing something soft at you,” our younger son concluded.
Each encounter concluded with a kiss that was recorded in a photograph later available for purchase at the gift shop. It’s controversial, this bending of dolphins to human purposes, but undeniably cool.
During our last two days at Our Lucaya, we began to see the signs of other frisky mammals. The lounge chairs formerly occupied by families and their buckets of beach toys now served as perches for college students with belly-button rings, pre-fab tans and giant water bottles consumed with an enthusiasm suggesting they didn’t contain water.
The Count Basie Square at the marketplace had filled up with small stands selling Jagermeister shots and Corona beer. A flyer went up in the hotel lobby promising, “Lots of prizes, lots of giveaways, lots of shots. Drinks and more drinks.”
It seemed we would escape just in time. We left with mixed feelings about the resort experience. We loved the beach and couldn’t deny the appeal of the comfort a decent resort provides. At the same time, we were pretty sure we’d be willing to do more work on our next beach vacation in exchange for a more profound sense of place.
And we were definitely sure of this: When the time comes, our sons are going to spend spring break hanging around their cold, northern campuses.
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IF YOU GO
GETTING THERE
No major airline flies non-stop from Chicago to Freeport, Grand Bahama Island, but a number of carriers, including American, Continental, US Airways and AirTran, offer connecting service. Discount fares can be had for $200 or so, but expect to pay more during high season.
MONEY
U.S. dollars are accepted in the Bahamas and are treated as equivalent to one Bahamian dollar. The cash machines will give you the local currency, which you should spend before leaving.
ACCOMMODATIONS
Many Internet travel sites offer package deals to The Westin and Sheraton at Our Lucaya Beach & Golf Resort, near Freeport, but we found the best price on the hotel’s Web site (and we canceled our original reservation and rebooked when the nightly rate dropped by another $20 before we left). A room with two double beds cost us $189 per night, but with various taxes and fees, the cost climbed to $235. A patio or balcony will generally run you $40 more. www.ourlucaya.com
There are no water slides, spas or golf courses at the much more rustic Bishop’s Bonefish Resort, but the rooms at this beachside motel appear immaculate, and you can’t beat the setting. Recent packages, which included food and accommodations, cost $482 for two people for three nights and $772 for five nights. www.gbweekly.com/bishopsbonefish
DINING
The Our Lucaya Resort features 14 restaurants, from full-service fine dining to a coffee bar. The best of those we sampled was China Beach, which serves pan-Asian cuisine at prices comparable to Chicago fine dining. You can also find a full range of prices and choices–pizza, pasta, Greek food and American fast food–across the street at the Port Lucaya Marketplace. Some more interesting dining choices were further off-campus, including:
Becky’s Bahamian Restaurant, a friendly, local lunch-counter place at East Sunrise Highway and East Beach Drive. 242-352-5247.
Bishop’s Place, at the aforementioned Bishop’s Bonefish Resort: 242-353-4515.
SIGHTS/ACTIVITIES
Lucayan National Park, Grand Bahama Highway, about 25 miles from Freeport. Open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., every day. Admission is $3 for those ages 12 and older. The guidebooks say to buy tickets at the Rand Nature Centre in Freeport or at Smitty’s One-Stop in Bevens Town, but when we arrived there was a park ranger from whom we could also have bought them.
Underwater Explorers Society (UNEXSO) offers a variety of scuba-diving excursions and dolphin-encounter activities. For the cheapest dolphin option, the Dolphin Close Encounter, you’ll pay $75 for adults and half that for children 4-12. 800-992-3483. www.unexso.com
INFORMATION
The Grand Bahama Island Tourism Board operates a comprehensive Web site at www.grand-bahama.com. Check out the newsgroup area for frank, informed advice for visitors, as well as the occasional silly exchange.
The official Web site of the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism, www.bahamas.com, has a section devoted to Grand Bahama Island.
— Louise Kiernan/Steve Johnson
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lkiernan@tribune.com, sajohnson@tribune.com
