Your Bahamas, Your Way

The word “paradise” means something different to everyone. For some, it is a white sand beach beneath clear blue skies. For others, it is time spent with loved ones, laughing, chatting, and simply enjoying each other’s company. And for many, paradise can be found within, in a clear mind stripped of the worries of everyday life. At Rosewood Baha Mar, paradise is all of the above and more. The moment you arrive, when bellboys and receptionists greet you, or your dedicated butler team assists you with your bags, they are likely to welcome you to another day in paradise—no matter what it means to you.

Opened in 2018 and located on New Providence Island, home to the Bahamian capital and principal city, Nassau, Rosewood Baha Mar is part of the Baha Mar resort complex, along with a Grand Hyatt and SLS. Unfolding as an elongated U, the hotel’s distinctive shape keeps it at a remove from the surrounding shared amenities, providing a sense of privacy and exclusivity amid the whirl of adjacent dining and recreation options also available to Rosewood guests. In the amphitheatre created by the 221-key hotel’s footprint, paths intersect in a raucous garden that bends around gently descending pools surrounded by luxurious cabanas and sun loungers. At the bottom, a private beach with endless white sand and yet more sun loungers offers a resting place to enjoy uninterrupted views of the Atlantic Ocean as jet skiers and speedboats cut across the vista to historic downtown Nassau beyond.

Compact (Nassau’s population is just 315,000) and colourful, the colonial-era centre revels in a perpetual state of bonhomie, partly thanks to the nearly ceaseless disembarkation of wide-eyed cruise ship passengers into the city, and partly thanks to the disposition of Bahamians generally, who have built a culture around geniality and generosity. Key landmarks such as the Queen’s Staircase and Fort Fincastle serve as reminders of the nation’s past as a British colony and the epicentre of piracy during its golden age. But venture farther from the city centre, and more delicious pieces of Bahamian culture await. At Potter’s Cay, just across from Paradise Island, a series of conch shacks serve salads and fritters made from the emblematically Bahamian delicacy. But it is Mckenzie’s Fresh Fish & Conch (like the others, perched over the water on wooden stilts) where a meal paired with Kalik beer is best enjoyed while watching stingrays dance in the water below.

Back at Rosewood Baha Mar, the dining options offer equally enticing pleasures. In the lobby, The Library and The Manor Bar are as sophisticated as any of the lounges or lobby bars at the grande dame hotels of Europe and beyond. The former offers an opulent afternoon tea (with obscure Bahamian herbal teas among the many options), and the latter, a series of signature and classic cocktails made for pairing with light bites. Outside, the Mexican-meets-Bahamian Costa occupies a series of cabanas surrounded by a koi pond and a canopy of impenetrably lush foliage. And at Tingum on the Sand, the resort’s beachfront restaurant, diners can enjoy burgers and chicken sandwiches—as well as conch salad and tropical cocktails—with their feet in the sand and the gentle lap of the ocean as their soundtrack. But the standout dining option, Café Boulud The Bahamas, stands apart thanks to the menu of French classics designed by chef Daniel Boulud, including dishes such as his dover sole, as well as others injected with a Bahamian flare, made with local produce and seafood, that answers the question: What would I want to eat in the Caribbean?

While families take advantage of Baha Mar’s many family-friendly amenities, including a waterpark and Jack Nicklaus signature golf course, guests can luxuriate in the sublime relaxation of a visit to Sense, Rosewood Baha Mar’s on-site spa. In private rooms opening onto the garden, massages are perfectly complemented by the natural surroundings, including calming birdsong and shadows that shift lazily between the leaves. And for those who want to explore the history of the Bahamas while finding their Zen, a menu of treatments rooted in Indigenous and African traditions offers exciting alternative methods of relaxation.

But it is in the warm Bahamian night, as the sea breeze stirs up a chorus from the garden, and guests settle into bar chairs or take dawdling walks through the property, that Rosewood Baha Mar takes on its most paradisiacal air. At the restaurants, by the beach, and on the paths that draw everything together, hushed conversations flicker in and out like a candle in the wind. At this time, the laughter of children, the lap of the waves, or the pure silence of a calmed mind reveals just what makes a property paradise: it’s something that can be heard, felt, but never seen.

Photos courtesy of Rosewood Baha Mar.

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