my husband and i went for a week and had a great time. read prior reviews before going and was a little nervous about some items people wrote about (messy rooms, expensive, nothing to do) but we were so pleasantly surprised to have encounted none of that.

Our room was on the 9th floor in breakers cay and had a beautiful ocean view with balcony. room was big and well maintained. our only negative comment was with the heavenly bed. the bed was very comfortable but for some reason, the hotel doesn't use fitted sheets on the king bed. instead, they pu a flat sheet tucked under so everytime you move around a little in bed, the mattress becomes exposed. i still can't figure out why they don't use fitted sheets......makes no sense to me.

anyway, that was the only bad experience we had. the marketplace across the street was perfect. plenty of inexpensive meal options (irish, awesome pizza, english pub, italian, greek,) every food type you could image was there and again real cheap. we had breakfast each morning of 2 eggs, toast, bacon and coffee all for $4.00. afternoon and nighttime there are fun bars with drink specials (2 for $5.00 kaliks). at night the center in the marketplace has shows open to everyone and they are highly entertaining. great fun. there is also a casino in the hotel with alot of excitment. we only ate at the hotel once or twice and it was OK food but expensive....save your money and go across the street.

during the day, the pool/beach were great. no rushing to get a lounge chair...there were more than enough to go around. the hotel was 50% filled so we never felt crowded. never any lines for anything. beach was beautiful and well maintained. one problem with the infinity pool was that the hotel decided to stack up unused lounge chairs directly in front on the infinity pool looking out to the ocean. so your view to the water from in the pool was blocked by piles of lounge chairs....didn't get why they would do that.

during the day, we also took advantage of the water sports and went diving alot. great, great dive sites. the Theo wreck was fun and you got to swim thru 2 cleaned out sections of the ship (the engine room was the best). also went on a shark feed which was the best shark feed we'd ever done (they actually put the sharks in a trance and carried it around in the water....amazing). also went on a dolphin dive which was a first for us. you dive in the open water with 2 dolphins and they come right up to you. unfortunately the camera guys gear broke so he couldn't take pictures but we had our camera and were able to get some of the dolphins.

after reading prior reviews and seeing the property, i would never ever go near the place during spring break time. but any other time i would welcome the chance to visit again. the people were so friendly with big smiles and warm welcomes. a great great trip

Save yourself a lot of money and just go to Florida. The beach was less than average, the resort was ok and the town was boring. Everything was expensive and no one was overly friendly. Sorry I picked this place to spend my honeymoon. I did have an excellent pina colada made up in a fresh coconut across the street at the marketplace. You can see what an memorable time I had if that's the best thing I can come up with.

Had a good time in Grand Bahamas and the Westin, everything was as expected or better after reading up on the island and the hotel. I would strongly recommend if you're looking for a good beach to layout on, and a mellow, easy vacation for good value. If you're looking for a party, this isnt the spot.

The Visit - we stayed Mon-Sat, in mid May 2008, the island was dead Mon-Wed, it was great, we would be the only couple at the pool or beach sometimes. Th-Sat it started picking up and restaurants got busier etc, but not too busy. Weather was great, 80 degrees F, low humidity. People were mellow and friendly. We stayed 5 nights - which was more than enough time.

The Hotel - Booked on GrandBahamasVacations and got a $200 rebate - so hotel cost out @ around $175 a night with all the fees.
Check in was a breeze and our room was in the lighthouse point, which was more secluded, had the gym in the building and right next to the endless pool. Hotel grounds were well kept, endless pool and beach were awesome. Property shares the grounds with the Sheraton, I would only consider the Sheraton if I was really tight on money, the Sheraton was much more busier with more kids and a felt like a lower end 2-3 star type hotel. Hotel service was good, not great, didnt have any issues with unfriendly staff.a

Room - we had a view of the harbor - which was a city view for the lighthouse, large room, decor and furniture was good, bed was great. I would book the lighthouse over other areas of the resort as its more secluded and there's not so much foot traffic.
Had tons of cable channels, fell asleep watching NBA playoffs. Overall quality of the room was consistent with the 4 star hotels I've stayed in with the following exceptions: condensation & water spots on the roof, rusted balcony - its a tropical climate, but Miami hotels Ive stayed in dont have these issues. But again room was great.

Food - didn't eat at the hotel, alot of the restaurants were open partial hours since it was off season, so ate almost all of our meals at port Lucaya marketplace right across the street. Other reviews metioned Zorbas, so went there and the food is awesome, had 5 meals there in total. Ate at a couple of other restaurants, the pub, le med - they were OK. Average meal for 2 was $50 USD.

Shopping - we only shopped for trinkets @ the port lucaya marketplace. Bought groceries, water and drinks @ Santinos (the names something like this - right next to zorbas) in port lucaya - prices were really cheap - $1.50 for a gallon of water, $1 for a soda. Went to the casino, it was OK.

The Island
Its not worth renting a car, there's not much going on. There are alot of closed business, locals said some hotels never reopened after the 04 hurricane. #1 industry is tourism, #2 is offshore banking. We did a couple of tours and just hung out @ the pool/beach. Its not a party destination. Port Lucaya has some tourist bars, so if you want to grab a drink and mellow out its great. Dont know about anything else going on Grand Bahamas.

Tours/Activities
Kayak - $79 less $10 coupon in the tourist handout - good and would recommend, went to national park caves, beach (bring a towel) and kayak'd thru mangroves. but if you haven't done it, its a bit of a workout.
Fish Fry - wednesday nights on torino beach, good experience, locals go there too, fried fish and drunken dancing on the beach.
Bonfire - $50 a head - Tue/Thurs/Sun - different beach each time - we did Thursday which is the same location as the fish fry, had we known we wouldnt have done the bonfire, or done a different location. Served BBQ ribs - excellent food.
Snorkeling @ Paradise Cove - $35 to snorkel or kayak with roundtrip bus. Wouldnt recommend, Not a bad experience but not worth doing. Its 30-40 minutes from Port Lucaya, so you spend a couple hours in transit. The hotel is lackluster, the beach is rocky and lousy. Snorkeling is ok.
Torino Beach Timeshares - never did one of these and this was a terrible experience. Dont do it unless you're cash strapped. 90 minutes to get a 'free' sunset cruise for 2.

I usually travel to major cities Tokyo, NY, London, and had huge concerns about being bored at a tourist location like Grand Bahamas. Had a great time but would only do 4-5 nights max. if I did it again. Reading through tripadvisor reviews was a great help in choosing grand bahamas over nassau, hope this one helps you.

We arrived on Grand Bahama island, not really knowing what to expect, but knew we would have a nice hotel, because it was afterall a Westin. After a 12 minute taxi ride from the airport (20 dollars) we arrived just before 1:00, and they did not have our room available, check in was not until 3. So we walked around the grounds, and were very impressed with the beaches, the pools, and were very excited to get in our room and get the vacation started.

We went to China Beach grill to grab lunch while we waited for our room to be ready. As you have or will read in other reviews, they add 15% gratuity automatically. For 2 chicken wraps, and 2 pina coladas, our total was 55 dollars!! I was a bit shocked, I had read that it was pricey, but wow, even this was a bit shocking to me. It was not much food, and it was not fresh. Drinks are very pricey, I'd reccomend heading across the street to port lucaya to purchase liquor if you want to save some serious money. The rest of the time we ate and drank at port lucaya, where you can definitley save money.

Upon getting into our room, we were impressed with the breathtaking "ocean view" we had. It was a great view. The room however, was just so so. The bed was very comfortable, but the room itself, the bathroom and tile, were not very clean, and the floor was not vaccuumed very well.

The biggest stink I had was that the doors were so dingey, and the bolt to lock wouldn't have held anyone back from getting into the room if they wanted to. There is a large space underneath the door so you can hear and see when people walk by your room-- and this is where it became annoying for us. They had the LOUDEST fan outside in the hallway of our room, that we had to listen to all night long. Very loud and annoying, we got use to it by the 3rd night.

Pools were nice, beach was great. Go over to lighthouse point and the beach there is rarely crowded. We had it to ourselves most of the time.

We highly recommend the Kayak tour to Gold Rock Beach. Fabulous, a beach experience you will never forget!! Where tons of sunscreen though, you are in the sun all day long. Also we did the "learn to dive" experience with Caribbean Divers. Awesome, very amazing, a must do! Lastly, we did the Bahama Mama Cruise. Food was not what you would expect for what you are paying, but it is all you can drink bahama mama's and the dancing was really a lot of fun. The most fun night we had all week long.

I've read in other reviews here, and I agree completely, really the biggest issue we had with our stay at Grand Bahama island is that there is NOTHING to do at night. It was so dead all the time. And when you try to book snorkel tours or whatever, you have to wait to see if they can get enough people, and they never end up getting enough people.

Night time we just ended up going to bed early. As long as you go into it expecting that it does not have an exciting night life, and don't expect to have a 4-5 star hotel room, you will enjoy your stay. It is a GORGEOUS island, very relaxing...

Also prepare yourself for the locals and the service, no one is very nice, I think it is just there culture.