Fully recovered after the passage of Hurricane Joaquin last October, the Club Med Columbus Isle Resort on San Salvador Island sports a host of renovations, including a new pool and pool deck, an extended beach bar with a new restaurant and a new watersports area with fresh equipment, among other improvements. Filled with the recreational amenities Club Med is famous for—including tennis, diving and kitesurfing—the resort’s Spa by L’OCCITANE offers a retreat-within-a-retreat, with treatments promoting well-being along with steam showers and a Zen lounge. Slated for a 2018 opening in Nassau, The Pointe will feature a hotel and residences and include a range of activities and experiences, from shopping and dining to bowling and boating. A state-of-the-art movie theater and performing arts center also are planned. Atlantis, Paradise Island recently unveiled 77˚ West, a new restaurant at The Cove Atlantis serving South American-style cuisine with specialties such as cotija cheese-stuffed empanadas, mango-infused jalapeno slaw and roasted Chilean sea bass. Delta Air Lines recently expanded service to the Bahamas, adding an Atlanta-to-North Eleuthera flight and increasing service from Atlanta to George Town in the Exumas. Once the most hotly anticipated project in the country, the debut of Nassau’s Baha Mar, a multi-resort and multibillion-dollar complex, has stalled as a buyer is sought for the bankrupt Cable Beach development.
“Baha Mar is still in receivership. ... They’re trying to find the best person to sell it to,” says George Brice, vice president of the Nassau Paradise Island Promotion Board. “Nothing has been finalized yet.”
On the plus side, the on-site Baha Mar Convention Center was recently completed with help from the Bahamas government and hosted the 2,000-person Inter-American Development Bank annual meeting in early April.
