Review: Our Lucaya in The Bahamas

In previous postings (see Our Destination Wedding), we discussed the specifics our destination wedding experience, but never really reviewed the venue – the Westin/Sheraton Our Lucaya resort on Grand Bahama Island.

Our destination wedding decision was driven by several factors. We knew we wanted a tropical island. We knew we wanted a place that had fantastic scuba diving. And we knew it needed to be economical for our guests. It took us months of going through various venues in The Bahamas, Mexico, Cayman Islands and Aruba. After much discussion, we settled on Our Lucaya Resort in The Bahamas. (See Making Our Ultimate Destination Wedding Decision)

Early on, we contacted the Our Lucaya Resort directly and found out they had wedding planners onsite called Seashells Weddings Our Lucaya [Note: The company appears to no longer be in business or affiliated with Our Lucaya Resort…which means our information is very dated. So take our comments as a historical perspective.] Unfortunately, we found the folks at Our Lucaya/Seashells to be terribly unresponsive. By coincidence, we found that there was an independent wedding planner through someone on The Knot message boards. We reached out to Janet at And The Two Become One, an independent wedding planner on Grand Bahama Island. Good thing we did, she was fantastic. Because of this experience, we’re big fans of hiring local wedding planners to help you in the process (see Covering The Basics – Hiring a Local Wedding Planner).

Despite this rather rocky beginning, we absolutely LOVED the Our Lucaya resort. We stayed on the Westin side because it was a little nicer. A few guests stayed at the Westin, but most of our guests stayed at the Sheraton. No matter where you stay, you’ll have the run of the property…and the quaint little Lucaya village across the street (which is more like a golf cart crossing that an “street”). There are about 5 or 6 restaurants on-property (which can be expensive) and quite a few across the street, which are more reasonable.

Recently, we found a video on YouTube from the Our Lucaya Resort. Believe it or not, we actually think this video does a pretty bad job selling the property. The resort is extremely beautiful and has many, many wonderful wedding sites, including the gazebos, the Great Lawn and the beach. The inside locations are nice, but if you’re in The Bahamas, don’t you want to get married outside?

Again, while we found the Sheshells wedding contractors at Our Lucaya to be unresponsive, it seems like things have changed at the resort.

Here’s a little more on the Our Lucaya Resort on Grand Bahama Island where we got married:

Our Honeymoon – The Atlantis

We were married on Grand Bahama Island, but decided to go to a different island for the honeymoon. Based on a recommendation from a coworker, we chose to go to The Atlantis resort on New Providence and Paradise Island.

I guess we bought into the hype – the website, the marketing materials, etc. It seemed so adult and romantic. After a week with our families, we thought it was exactly what we wanted.

What we found was a HUGE resort that was wall-to-wall children. Atlantis is Disneyland on the beach. We estimated the average age at the place was somewhere south of 14. Not what we were looking for. We ended up spending a fair amount of time down the beach at the One And Only Ocean Club (where Lionel Ritchie was staying and we bumped into him several times).

We tried to get off the Atlantis property as much as possible. We went into Nassau for a day. And another day, we went to the other side of the island for scuba diving with Stuart Cove’s. This is a big dive outfit, but they do a good job with personal service. The Hollywood Bowl dive site is fantastic and we got to have a close encounter with some live lobsters.

We also spent a fair amount of time in the casino, where Laura played the roulette wheel with our wedding date and it hit. So we made a fair amount of money in the casino. But the other facilities, namely the restaurants, were very over priced and were of disappointing quality. Lance had to send his lobster back to the kitchen at the Bahamian Club because it was overcooked and rubbery (and then we got attitude from the staff for complaining about the inferior quality). We loved the food at Fathoms, but were disappointed in the large numbers of screaming children. The restaurants in the Marina Village were better, both in terms of quality and price. Our favorite was Carmine’s – one of our favorite restaurants back in New York, so we enjoyed it here.

In addition to honeymoons, The Atlantis also does destination weddings. We saw several weddings going on while we were there. The weddings were held out in the common areas, so you’re still dealing with lots of gawkers and people walking very close by, so think carefully about this one. At one wedding, a group of young girls in bathing suits decided to join right in on the wedding. There’s nothing inherently wrong with lots of children, it’s just helpful to know that’s what you’re getting before you show up there. If you want a “family friendly” wedding, this might be your place.

We’re glad we did it once (been there, done that). Had we done more research, we probably would have gone someplace else with a more romantic and sophisticated atmosphere.

Wedding Activities: Scuba Diving

Water sports are the most popular activities for destination wedding/honeymooners. For us, that meant scuba diving. If you’ve ever tried snorkeling, you might consider trying diving. If you think this is something you want to try, consider going to a local scuba dive center before you leave since most of them offer a Discover Scuba Experience. It’s a chance to try it (usually for free) before going.

If you like diving, you have several different options. Most of the resorts in the Caribbean offer “resort courses.” They will teach you to dive in a pool and then will take you out into the ocean. However, you are not a certified diver and if you ever want to dive again, you need to go through the process all over again.

Your other option is to become a certified diver. There are several different certification agencies that are recognized around the world, including: PADI, NAUI and SSI. Once certified, you can go diving anywhere you want. Certification involves class work, pool work and “open water” diving. If you chose to get certified, you have several options:

• Do the class work and pool work at home before you leave and then do the “open water” diving work at the resort.


• Do all of it at home before you leave. We choose this option because we didn’t want to spend any of our precious wedding and honeymoon time going through classes or getting certified.

Scuba diving was one of the highlights of our Bahamas wedding and honeymoon. We did one day of diving with UNEXSO on Grand Bahama Island before the wedding. Lance did a morning of diving before the wedding. Then, we did a full day of diving with Stuart Cove’s Dive Resort in Nassau.