Only One Baha Mar Hotel Will Open in Resort Debut

The Baha Mar resort in the Bahamas, which at the start of the year was slated to open four new hotels totaling 2,200 rooms on March 27, will have available rooms at only one of its hotels on that date.

The $3.5 billion project, said to be the most expensive development in Bahamas history, will have finished rooms only at its 1,000-room Baha Mar Casino & Hotel on March 27, confirmed Baha Mar spokeswoman Alyssa Bushey. The property’s 100,000-square-foot casino, which includes 1,500 slot machines and 150 table games, will be open, she said.

The public spaces at the 300-room SLS Lux at Baha Mar, the 200-room Rosewood at Baha Mar and 707-room Grand Hyatt at Baha Mar will be open by the end of next week, though rooms at the SLS and Rosewood won’t be available until “shortly after” March 27, said Bushey.

Baha Mar had previously announced in January that the Grand Hyatt opening would be pushed back to May 1. The hotel remains on schedule for that date, when Baha Mar will hold its official grand opening event, Bushey said.  

Many “resort core” amenities, including various entertainment and recreation areas such as Beach Sanctuary and the Jack Nicklaus-designed TPC at Baha Mar golf course, will be open on March 27, Bushey said.

A search on the Baha Mar Casino and Hotel’s website shows first rooms available to the public starting April 13, while the website for the SLS property shows availability starting April 29. The Rosewood Baha Mar is taking reservations for stays starting in June, according to its phone-reservation representative.

As recently as March 9, Baha Mar representatives said its flagship hotel as well as the SLS and Rosewood would fully open by the end of this month, though Travel Weekly last week was informed by John Buchanan, a reporter with STR’s Hotel News Now publication, that Baha Mar wouldn’t meet that deadline. Bushey declined to give specifics on the reasons behind the most recent delay.

Baha Mar, which is being backed by China’s state-run Export-Import Bank and constructed by thousands of Chinese workers employed by China State Construction Engineering Corp., broke ground in Nassau’s Cable Beach area in February 2011. The project had been scheduled to open to the public by the end of 2014 until last August, when the opening date was pushed back until this spring.

A fifth hotel at the resort, the former 694-room Sheraton Nassau Beach Hotel, was reflagged in late 2013 as the Melia Nassau Beach and will be renamed the Melia at Baha Mar once that property completes its $19 million renovation. The property, which will be Baha Mar’s only all-inclusive resort, is scheduled to be completed early next year.

Source: Travel Weekly