Grand Hyatt Baha Mar — Hotel in New Providence

Pay attention to the negative reviews because they'll give you a better idea of what your experience at this resort will be like. Here are some of the pros & cons our stay:

~The resort is beautiful and it doesn't take long to get there from the airport. We had an early flight and check in isn't until 4:00 pm but we were allowed to access our room soon after arrival instead of having to wait around for hours. We were told immediately that there would be a $200/night hold placed on our credit card which would be used for incidentals and any charges that were made to the room. We stayed there for 5 days so we were already $800 in the hole and we hadn't even started our stay yet.

~The room was a good size but pretty standard. Charging people $50 extra to have a fridge in the room is insane and there's also an additional $50 charge if you request a microwave. You guys generate enough money to include these items in the room free of charge and a fridge is pretty standard in most resorts. Guests are given free coffee and unlimited bottles of water but it's one of the worst kind (Dasani) and guests are obviously paying for this resource when you consider how much everything else costs at this place. Although we never got around to using it, I liked that there's a tub in the bathroom in addition to a shower. I liked that there was a rain shower head as well as a handheld one available because I don't like getting my hair wet when I shower unless I intend to wash it.

~There's an outlet so there are a lot of stores for people to choose from if you're interested in shopping and don't mind paying premium prices. There's a small arcade, a small art gallery, a casino, the beach, several pools for guests to enjoy and a number of other activities to choose from, most of which require reservations and cost extra $$$$ (huge con). Guests are also given complimentary access to their water park but it left a lot to be desired and isn't really worth the price that non-staying guests have to pay to access it.

~There are a lot of different restaurants to choose from so you'll be able to find one geared to whatever type of food you want to eat. There's an 18% gratuity charge + a 4% VAT tax that's tacked onto every purchase which is absolutely ridiculous. The VAT charge might be beyond their control but automatically expecting guests to pay 18% gratuity should be illegal, especially when the service doesn't reflect that.

~The cost to eat at this resort is heavily inflated and most of our food was subpar at best. We typically spend a good amount of money eating out when on vacation but if we're paying premium prices for food, we expect to be satisfied with the food and that wasn't the case here. With that being said, The Pizza Lab, Marcus at Baha Mar Fish + Chop House, The Sugar Factory during breakfast hours and Swimming Pig were highlights for us during our stay.

~We had dinner at the Sugar Factory one night and there was a mix up with our food which involved my boyfriend being served a dish with shrimp in it despite us communicating with our server that he has a shellfish allergy. If I hadn't been there, he might've ended up in the hospital or worse and our meal was not comped despite this incident. We were also denied access to the restaurant by the hostess due to how booked they were but we were able to make reservations to eat there shortly thereafter using the hotel's app which made no sense to us.

~They offer guests a complimentary 10 minute photo shoot which is a nice touch but we paid $120 for 6 pictures. Our photographer was funny and personable (I'm sorry I forgot your name), we enjoyed working with him and he recommended a few restaurants for us to try off of the resort.

~We were given an invoice upon checkout that told us we spent close to $700 on food. Not only that, a random $300 charge just appeared on his cc close to a month after our stay. Overall the amount of money that we spent wasn't worth what the resort offers so unless you want to be scammed or nickel and dimed at every turn, I'd suggest you...

We went to Grand Hyatt Baha Mar to celebrate a special occasion. We were upgraded to a beautiful room due to the special occasion, but there had been stains on multiple things such as comforters, bath robes, and towels. Additionally, I requested just a few small washcloths in the Hyatt app, and when an employee came with a full stack of towels, he stated, "all of this just for you two." I believed that that was quite unprofessional. Additionally, when trying to watch different channels on the TV in our room, we were amazed to find that we couldn't watch a basketball game that was playing on multiple TV's throughout the resort. When contacting the front desk, they simply stated that we can't watch it. Additionally, there is a tablet in our room that contains information about what's going on at the resort. We found that there was "Wine Wednesday" at the Jazz Bar on the tablet, however, we were stunned to find out that "Wine Wednesday" hasn't been a thing for a couple years.

Additionally, I was unfamiliar with the 15% service charge that was included in all bills; it's fine for that to be included, but I asked our server if that was the tip, to which the server replied it was not. At a different restaurant, I asked the server if it was the tip, and he stated that it was the tip, and that an additional tip would be appreciated. I also had servers stand directly over me to watch me write the tip, almost as an intimidation tactic.

Unfortunately, each thing I have stated up to this point was significantly smaller than my final complaint. We booked 3 different excursions through the resort: snorkeling, a food tasting tour, and a rum tasting tour. We were shocked to hear that our snorkeling tour, scheduled for December 19th, had been cancelled; we were only informed the night before, after going to the excursions desk, so no one even contacted us to share that information with us. We were contacted at 5 pm on December 19th, via text, informing us that our food tasting tour for December 20th was also cancelled. At the activities desk, we were then told by 3 or 4 different people that all tours had been cancelled due to the weather. Mind you, during this time we were able to ride Jet Skis with locals and go on a separate rum tour elsewhere, with beautiful weather. Because we booked the rum tour elsewhere, we also had to pay for taxi fares. Then on the day that our rum tour was supposed to be, we received multiple calls asking where we were as the rum tour was starting. We spoke with the manager at the excursions desk to be informed that every single person we had spoken to before had lied to us; our rum tour was never cancelled, we were provided with false information.

A few things I should mention about my encounters with other guests: on the first night, I asked someone to take a picture of us, and he ignored us, however, his wife took a picture of us. I asked if they wanted us to take pictures of them and she said yes, and he said "no, someone else." I'm sure some people will look at this part of the review and roll their eyes, but as a POC, that struck me the wrong way. There was also a family that came to pizza lab while we were already in line. They tried to cut us in line, and we said "we're in line," to which one of them replied that we "jumped" them. And finally, while sitting in the hot tub, there was a traditional, Bahamian performance that took place, and an individual in the pool called it strange and disrespected the culture. I think these examples are important in terms of what types of guests you may encounter at this resort.

We spent every last one of our credit card points on this trip, and I'd be lying if I stated that I wouldn't have much rather used those points elsewhere. As beautiful of a resort as it is, I will not be returning to this resort in the future, and will discourage others from doing so as well. Fortunately, we were given a $300 room credit to make up for the frustration we had experienced. If it wasn't for the $300 credit and room upgrade, I would have given this...

My husband, son and I traveled to the Grand Hyatt Baha Mar for Labor Day Weekend. I grew up going to Atlantis and love that resort however, we heard great things about the Grand Hyatt and thought we would give it a try. Here are the pros and cons.

Pros: -Spacious rooms and clean however, Our couch in the room was stained. -“free” access to Baha Bay water park. The park is well maintained, slides are super fun, and the lines were short. We loved the water park! (important note you are charged a $75 per day resort fee on top of your room rate, so it’s not really free but we thought this was well worth it) -free access to floats in the ocean, paddle boards etc -resort was very safe good location, close to the airport -beautiful property -plenty of beach chairs by the pools and beaches, did not have to fight for a spot

Cons: -the rain shower head in our room did not work our entire stay, we could only use the corded shower head -the lazy river at the water park was closed 2 of the 3 days, when it was open it was awesome! -Two of the three mornings we were there the housekeeping staff knocked on our door and woke us up very early in the morning, even though we had to do not disturb sign on (very frustrating, especially for me since I have to get up extremely early for work and was looking forward to sleeping in on vacation) -On our second day, the power went out and the generators did not kick on. Guest did not have any power in their rooms, the elevators did not work (People had to carry their bags from the 20th floor) and people got stuck in the elevators when the power went out. Not to mention just before the power went out, there was extremely loud Maintenance banging at 6:30am, It sounded like someone was on the other end of our wall with a hammer, several other guests in our hall came out to see what the banging was as well (This was our day to sleep in and it was disrupted). There were food delays that morning as well due to the lack of power so the lines to obtain breakfast were extremely long. We understand that the resort can’t control the weather, however for a resort that claims to be five stars you would think they would have contingencies in place for their generators. -Making reservations for dinner was pointless. Every time we had a reservation we were seated 30 to 45 minutes later than when we were slotted. The staff were rude. When we were seated, we had long wait times to order, then to get our food and then had to wait awhile after we completed our meal for the check. We had the worst experience at Cleo (see separate review). But long story short the manager telling us that a VIP guess was more important and they get to us when they could was 100% unacceptable. The food is extremely expensive and there’s a 15% service charge as well as the 10% VAT tax added, for 2 adults and 1 child eating off the kids menu our meals ranged from $175-$250 per meal. We would not have minded paying this at all if the food was good, and the service was good. However, this was not the case the food was extremely mediocre, and as mentioned above, the service was atrocious. The only good meal and service we had was at Katsuya, Vince was amazing and attentive!! :) -Throughout the entire stay anywhere we interacted with staff, they were rude and unfriendly, it’s such a shame because this is such a beautiful resort and has so much potential if they just trained their staff to be friendly. It felt as if almost every staff member we encountered didn’t want to be there. -All in all, I think the ambience of the resort is the only thing that would make it a four star level. The experience, the food and the service is all 2 to 3 star level. My husband kept saying it’s an Holiday Inn with make up on. It felt very Vegas like.

The resort partners with Discover Bahamas for excursions. We did the Blue Lagoon Island dolphin swim and we 10 out of 10 recommend, The Blue Lagoon Island staff (not affiliated with the hotel) were exceptional, and the private island is beautiful!! We also really enjoyed the...