Holiday Inn Sunspree Paradise Island Reviews

We went all-inclusive on a last-minute booking here.

It's around a 10 hour flight from Heathrow, but British Airways serve you alcohol within 10 minutes of being in the air and again with your meal around an hour later. Our tip: choose the 13% 187ml bottles of red wine, two of those are equivalent to half a bottle and you'll sleep like a baby for the flight!

On landing, the Customs were unusually quick for the Caribbean, we were through within about 15 minutes.

Transfer time to the hotel is around half an hour, you land in Nassau which is on New Providence Island and then travel across the main bridge which connects this island to Paradise Island.

The hotel was nice but nothing special. We'd heard stories of broken lifts (there are twelve floors), a dirty pool, a slippery restaurant floor and smelly rooms; the lifts actually worked perfectly, the free-form pool was great, the restaurant was fine but there is a musty smell everywhere in the hotel. Bear in mind the hotel is situated right on the harbour so there's always going to be a certain amount of dampness in the air, hence the musty smell.

Our room had two double beds, a super air-con unit (we actually had condensation on the outside of the windows!), a tea/coffee maker, a fridge and a 65 channel cable tv with access to the latest Nintendo games (great if you've got kids in tow). Just bear in mind, though, that almost all the channels are US-based and if you thought UK tv was dire, you ain't seen nothing until you watch primetime US television! It's about as entertaining as having a tooth filled.

The bathroom was fine, lots of hot water although some of the metalwork was showing signs of rust (damp atmosphere again).

We had probably two bouts of rain whilst there, otherwise temperatures were in the late 80-s, early 90-s. And this was late October!

There's no shortage of sunbeds around the pool although umbrellas are non-existant. Plus, being right on the harbour means there's a certain amount of noise from trawlers and those funny aeroplanes that can land on water......when they're revving up to take off, you'll know it :-)

Food: breakfasts are buffet-style, you help yourself to fruit, cereal, sausages, scrambled eggs, waffles, corned beef hash, toast, muffins, boiled eggs, bacon, cinammon toast, yogurt, fruit juice, made-to-order omelettes, tea and coffee.

Lunch is either buffet-style comprising of mainly pasta, salad and pizza in the Harbour View Restaurant or you use the pool bar/grill which serves cheeseburgers, chicken wings etc.

Dinners are themed at the Harbour View Restaurant - it's either Oriental, U.S, Italian, Jamaican, Mexican, Bahamian or a Neptune night (fish). If you don't like that, you can reserve a table in the Captain's Table Restaurant and be waited on (but the menu is limited there and the dress code is more formal). If you're still not happy, you can use the evening menu at the pool/bar grill (we recommend the 10oz steaks, excellent).

All in all, we'd describe this complex as a downmarket Sandals........you won't go hungry or thirsty here, the locals are friendly and it's safe to walk the streets. Service is a little slow, particularly at the pool bar but that's the way things tend to be in the Caribbean.

A few final pointers......apparently, BATELCo (the Bahamas telecom company) don't allow their network to be used by overseas telecom providers, so you might have problems getting your mobile to work there - we're on Orange and got diddly-squat and Orange confirmed when we got back that they have no coverage there. It's apparently a ruse to ensure that you *have* to use BATELCo's phone lines whilst there. We did and we ended up paying US$170 for about 60 minutes worth of calls to the UK!

Secondly, get your duty frees on a day-trip to Nassau ($3 each way from the Harbour Bridge). Don't leave it until you're due to fly home, Nassau airport has a duty free shop but it was closed when we got there! (That's just about all that *is* at the airport, it's very sparse).

Thirdly, use earplugs whilst in the hotel. This isn't a reflection on the hotel but on the residents who are mostly Americans (bear in mind you're only 180 miles from Miami). You'd be amazed how many people think nothing of slamming doors or shouting to each other at 3a.m. The high point of all that came when a large American woman fell over a deceptively flat piece of corridor floor at 2.45 one morning and her first exclamation was not ";get me a doctor"; but ";get me my attorney";.

However, a highly recommended holiday.