I’m not often star-struck by a hotel — and yes, first world problems, but a job like this can give you five-star fatigue — but the fabled Ocean Club had long been on my wish list. The resort on Paradise Island, reached by a causeway from Nassau, isn’t merely in the Bahamas, it is the Bahamas. This is the hotel beach from which dripping, teeny-trunked Daniel Craig emerged as Bond in Casino Royale and where Thunderball was filmed (Sean Connery loved the place so much he bought a house on Nassau).
The Ocean Club opened in 1962, giving the rich and famous — the actress Zsa Zsa Gabor and the newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst included — somewhere to go when St Tropez got chilly. Money was of so little object that the disassembled parts of 12th-century cloisters from Europe were bought and re-erected on the estate, now known as Versailles Gardens. The hotel’s star status was sealed when it was photographed by Slim Aarons, who took pictures of “attractive people doing attractive things in attractive places”.
So when they rang the old brass bell as my daughter and I stepped over the threshold — an Ocean Club tradition for arriving guests — I was a goner. It was all so perfect: the Caribbean-pink architecture, the banana plants as tall as scaffolding towers, a grand piano in the open-air lounge, the hammocks strung between palm trees, and the Adirondack chairs-in-pairs facing out to the big blue beyond. We raced to our room and unzipped our cases, throwing clothes behind us wildly until we had sought out our swimsuits. It was then, as we swam and shrieked and pinched ourselves in the oceanfront infinity pool, that Shaquille O’Neal — the four-time NBA champion and one of the greatest basketball players — popped out of the water and gave my sporty 11-year-old a high five. Goners.
But, sorry, you didn’t read this to hear my breathless, smitten love letter to the Ocean Club. The sobering fact is that the Ocean Club — formerly a One & Only resort now managed by Four Seasons — is the most expensive hotel in the Bahamas with an entry level rate of £1,664 a night. It has just celebrated its 60th birthday, so what is it that keeps guests paying such eye-watering rates?
For starters, it doesn’t sit back in its hammock and watch repeat-guest dollars roll in. Four Seasons invested millions in the Ocean Club when it assumed management, adding a stupendous seafront infinity pool that you won’t spot in Casino Royale. To coincide with the hotel’s diamond anniversary, the rooms have been overhauled by the American hotel designer Joanna Kerr (whose projects have appeared in Architectural Digest). Kerr’s addition of tropical colours and gilt bamboo-frame mirrors makes spaces feel fresh and fun.
Meanwhile, its restaurant, Dune, from the star chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, is the hottest table in the Bahamas. This is no small achievement in such a star-studded archipelago, where hotels and restaurants vie for the custom of island home-owners including Beyoncé, Oprah Winfrey, Lenny Kravitz and Johnny Depp.
But £1,664 a night is still a lot of money. So, what does that buy you? This starting rate applies to a Garden View Room that can sleep up to three adults, or two adults and two children. Every morning, complimentary pastries, coffee, tea and juices are served in the lobby (there’s plenty to eat if you wish to dodge a breakfast bill of at least £32pp, as many do).
Guests have free use of bicycles, tennis courts, water sports and the gym, access to fitness classes, and — for 007 wannabes — a shoeshine service. In your room, you’ll find a free beach bag and baseball caps (worth £66 and £39 respectively). But the greatest perk is free access to Atlantis Aquaventure Waterpark. Entry usually starts at £153pp a day (£76 for a child) and for many people Atlantis is as much the Bahamas as the Ocean Club.
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This gob-smacking resort contains more than 20 restaurants and bars, a dolphin park, casino, cinema, spa, shopping mall, the world’s largest open-air marine habitat (home to sharks, rays and turtles) and the aforementioned water park. Ocean Club guests are entitled to free chauffeur-driven transport to Atlantis whenever they wish, plus entry as many times as they like. If you’re travelling with children or have a penchant for high-speed water slides that rocket through shark tanks, this is perfect.
You could spend a week on Paradise Island and never leave, and most don’t. Ocean Club’s guests are predominantly American — Nassau is about three hours’ flight from JFK airport and only one from Miami — so they can squeeze the Bahamas into a long weekend. However, if you’ve come from the UK, it’s worth flying a little bit further: domestic flights to the outer islands (nicknamed “family islands”) are affordable, frequent and reliable.
There is a clarity to the light that makes the Bahamas look flawless as if seen through an Instagram filter. In 20 years of travel journalism I’ve never walked on sand as soft as this — on one speck in the archipelago, Harbour Island, it’s even pink. Houses are painted carnival colours of grape-juice, yolk-yellow and spearmint. Islanders get about by golf cart — or motorised dinghy — and conch shells stand in for fence posts (once you’ve carved out the innards and fried up conch fritters). Yes, the Bahamas are bling, but they are also breathtakingly beautiful.
If you don’t make it out to the family islands, please promise you’ll sign up for the People-to-People programme, as we did. A genius concept run by the Bahamas tourist board, the plan pairs islanders with visitors — perhaps they have comparable careers or hobbies or they parent similar-aged kids — and involves dinner at the host’s home (bahamas.com/plan-your-trip/people-to-people).
Over a feast of fried grouper, plantain, avocados and guava cake, my daughter and I toured the gorgeous gardens of the green-fingered businessman Henry Lightbourne and, among his many friends, met the journalist Lindsay Thompson and a 12-year-old schoolgirl, Lanelle. The meal didn’t cost us a penny, but that wasn’t the point. Once we’d said our goodbyes, we knew this would be our best memory of the Bahamas, even though we were staying in one of the world’s swankiest hotels. Well, our best memory after Shaq. Of course.
Katie Bowman was a guest of the Islands of the Bahamas tourist board and the Ocean Club, a Four Seasons Resort, which has room-only doubles from £1,664, including island taxes and resort fees (fourseasons.com). Seven nights’ B&B from £6,400pp, including flights (blacktomato.com)
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Where to stay in the Bahamas
The Other Side, Eleuthera
Eleuthera is about 23 minutes away by plane from Ocean Club (fly with the brilliantly named Pineapple Air). Life is slow and serene here, with wild landscapes. The island is the second home of the pop star Lenny Kravitz, who is said to walk everywhere here barefoot. The Other Side is equally rock-star cool: a collection of glamping spaces — designer shacks, tents and huts — on a private beach, where the wi-fi signal may be patchy, but the clean-living ethos and chance of a celebrity sighting more than make up for it.
Details B&B doubles from £400 (ontheos.com)
The Abaco Club, Abaco
Golf and the beach are the two things that lure global guests to the Abaco Club on an island that’s as close to Florida as Nassau (you can fly direct from Fort Lauderdale). The golf is so good that the professional golfer Darren Clarke has a home at the club — the estate has private homes as well as beach cabanas for visitors. Meanwhile, its private beach must be seen to be believed: a bay where turtles can be spotted from your paddle board and in which the hotel scatters inflatable water hammocks for guests before sailing out to them with drinks orders.
Details Room-only doubles from £390 (theabacoclub.com)
Pink Sands, Harbour Island
Harbour Island is the Insta version of the Bahamas where the sand is pink and you can take a boat out to swim with pigs, or simply pose in a beautiful kaftan outside any number of prettily painted homes. If it looks like the island has its own stylist, it’s because it does: India Hicks. Pink Sands is the address to namedrop with a location on the eponymous beach and accommodation in back-to-basics cottages, or posh villas with private pools. By spring, a seafront swimming pool will complete the picture-perfect postcard.
Details Room-only doubles from £670 (pinksandsresort.com)
Do you think The Ocean Club is worth its pricetag? Let us know in the comments below
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