For Christmas this year, Caroline and I decided to go to the Bahamas. Pics can be seen HERE. I had accured so many Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) points that I could get 5 nights in an upgraded ocean front room on Grand Bamaha Island. The Sheraton at Port Lucaya, just outside of Freeport, Grand Bahama, was where we stayed and paid with my SPG points. This place is great! Short ride to paradise and absolutely clear (and shallow) water. Christopher Columbus discovered this island, and called it “el gran baja mar” which means “the great shallow sea.” That became Grand Bahama. This shoe shaped island is nice, the sand is soft yet firm when wet (you don’t sink like traditional sandy beaches), and the water is clear and shallow that if you jetski out far, you still see the bottom.

This place takes American dollars, has no tax, and everything is duty free. This means that booze is cheaper that soda (as soda is imported). Drinking from the tap here is ok, although has a metallic taste, as the drinking water is desalinated from the ocean through distillation (the metal you taste is from the distiller). But when there’s signs all over the place for shots for $1 who cares? I never had so many pina coladas and other tropical drinks in my life. It’s sooo cheap!

One of the awesome highlights was Unexso Dolphin Experience. We opted to swim with Atlantic bottle-nosed dolphins in Unexso’s private lagoon. I highly recommend this experience! (those who go to Hawaii to do this at the Hyatt are getting ripped off as they’re high priced and they’re actually Atlantic, not Pacific, bottle-nosed dolphins that were imported!).

As for food it’s varied, but our favorite was the fresh conch salad. You can see the pics in my gallery that I posted earlier.

There’s not much to do on the island itself. Shop, eat, relax, drink, swim, jetski, snorkel, and parasail. It’s a great vacation to do nothing and relax. I highly recommend! Trip was cheap as I paid only for food, activities, and airfare. Although if you stay there and pay for the hotel, the rates weren’t too bad either. 4-5 days is probably enough to enjoy this place well.