Last week I went to the Bahamas for a girls weekend with friends Nicholete and Gina. We went to celebrate Nicholete's birthday and to enjoy some fun in the sun. It was so nice to be in the 78 degree weather. Especially since Oklahoma City had a little ice storm while I was away =)
We stayed at the Riu Paradise Island. This is mainly going to be a review of the resort.
We checked in and were given a room with two beds, which would have been great if the beds had been full size, but they weren't. They were a little bigger than a twin, but not much. Needless to say, two people could not sleep comfortably in one. The room was also teeny tiny, with no room to move around. Not an ideal set up for 3 women. After a lot of thought, we decided to see about changing rooms. We were told all rooms would be the same unless we wanted to pay to upgrade. I found this annoying because they knew the room was for three people, so I feel like they should have recommended a different room when we booked. We decided the upgrade was worth it and we moved to a substantially larger room with a king bed and a pull out. It also had a balcony with an amazing view.
Our nice big room
Our nice big bed. Gina said act natural, so that's what I did!
Gina's bed
The resort has one large pool which is actually shaded until about 10 am. There is also easy access to the beach. The beach is where we spent all of our time. It gets more sun than the pool and you can spread your chairs out so you don't feel like you are laying next to a stranger. The negatives for the beach is that there is no wait service, so if you want a drink you have to go back up to the pool. You also get harassed a little by the locals wanting to sell you bracelets, flutes, braid your hair, have you rent a jet ski, etc. Definitely could have done with out this.
The weather was beautiful, but the ocean was freezing. I only got in once which is pretty rare for me. I love the water and love to swim, but I guess I am getting to old to enjoy it in cold water =)
The food at the resort was actually pretty good. Breakfast and lunch were both buffet with lots of options. You can be healthy if you want with a large salad and fruit bar, or you can not be with pizza, burgers, and fries. For dinner, the resort has 4 specialty restaurants that you have to make reservations for and then a buffet.
We ate the buffet the first night since we didn't arrive in time for reservations. They have a themed section, which was Greek that night, and then all sorts of other choices. That night there were crab cakes and lobster on the buffet. The crab cakes were yummy.
Dressed up for dinner
Something I did not like about making reservations is that they only take them from 8am to 9am for that evening. So we had to get up each morning to go make our dinner reservations. The first specialty restaurant we tried was the Japanese one. It was pretty good. I had shrimp wanton soup, vegetable teriyaki noodles, and a ginger caramel sorbet with dark chocolate sauce. The desert was obviously my favorite. The other specialty restaurant we tried was Sir Alexander, one of the gourmet restaurants. I had the crab bisque, the fillet of sole, and creme brule. The crab bisque had caviar in it, so it was a little on the salty side. The sole was excellent as was the creme brule. There were two other specialty restaurants, but we didn't get the chance to try them. The menus looked great, so I am sure they would have been equally good.
The resort put on a show every night. We saw the native show, the magic show, and the tropical show. We never made it longer than 30 minutes. The shows were terrible. There is just no other way to say it.
This was either tropical or native. There wasn't much of a difference.
Compared to how much other resorts on Paradise Island cost and the fact that it was all inclusive, the Riu is actually a pretty good deal. I would definitely go back to the Bahamas. I would love to be able to stay at the Atlantis next time, but if I can't the Riu would be fine!
