Nassau Bahamas

The Wyndam Nassau Resort & Crystal Palace Casino

Nassau Bahamas

In February of 2005 we went for a quick trip to Nassau Bahamas. My husband and I traveled with our two kids at the time, ages 3 and 15 months. We stayed at the Wyndam Nassau Resort & Crystal Palace Casino. It was a decent resort, although it was not the best resort we had ever stayed at. The Wyndam is not the worst hotel in Nassau, but it is not the fanciest or nicest hotel either. It was decent. We had a transfer from the airport to the hotel. The transfer was pretty timely and the bus did make drop offs at other hotels besides ours. We were in the middle of the strip of hotels, so the transfer time was not bad. This was our first trip to the Bahamas and we did like it. We hope to go back again sometime. When we were there in February, the weather was a bit chilly, which was kind of disappointing. The temperatures were in the mid 60's when we were there. Back home we had cold & snow, so we were looking forward to some warmth and sun. Since it was so chilly, we were not able to do a lot of swimming. The Wyndam is situated on Cable Beach. It has 5 towers of rooms. The rooms were nice but basic and kept decently clean. The Wyndam is the only hotel that has a casino on the Cable Beach area. The only other casino I saw was at the Atlantis resort. The beach in front of the resort was decent. The sand had a lot of dried seaweed on it and the water contained a good amount of floating seaweed. I don't know if it is always like this, or if it was just due to the time of year, tide, or weather. The water is a brilliant blue and it is great to just gaze at. On the beach there is also complimentary non-motorized water sports. The Wyndam has a nice pool. It is a single large pool that has a rock structure built around it that contains a water slide. I didn't get to try the water slide, because it was cold, but my husband and daughter did it once. The Wyndam also advertises that there is a lagoon for swimming and snorkeling. It is nothing to get excited about. It is just a walled off area of beach. The water didn't look like you would want to go in it. There are not any fish in it for snorkeling either. Our kids played in the sand around the lagoon and that was about it. There is also a hot tub jacuzzi behind the pool. While hanging around the beach my daughter go her hair braided for the first time. There were local women on the beach offering to braid people's hair. She had her whole head braided. They did a nice job. It cost $40, which I now know is a really good price compared to other places we have been to. We now know that we probably could have haggled the price a little bit, but I still felt we got a reasonable price. The Wyndam also offers some other amenities that we didn't use. There is a fitness center, a spa, a kids club program, and golf nearby. There are several restaurants, bars, and lounges in the hotel. We ate ate at the Seaside Buffet for breakfast once. It was ok. They serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We also tried The Deli which is supposedly a New York style deli with sandwiches and a sports bar. It was by the casino. It was horrible. There was also an Asian restaurant, a steak house, a small shop that sold ice cream and speciality sweets, and several bars and lounges. There is a Sbarro pizza next door that is convenient also. Across the street from the Wyndam there was a local market set up with people selling t-shirts, sweatshirts, souvenirs, and baskets. We didn't discover this until the morning we were leaving. I bought some cute shirts for the kids and my daughter got a cute basket purse with Hello Kitty on it that the woman weaved her name on also. While we were in Nassau we did a few activities during our short trip. We toured the huge Atlantis And Paradise Island mega resort. We toured The Dig and all the giant aquarium areas. It was nice. We also looked around as much of the resort as we were allowed to. Visitors pay to go on the dig and aquarium tours and you are allowed to tour the inside of the hotel and of course spend your money at the restaurants and shops. If you are just visiting, you cannot walk around the outside areas by the pools or on the beach areas. They are strict about stopping you if you are not a registered guest. The place is pretty impressive and massive. While in Nassau, we also went to the Ardastra Zoo. It wasn't that great. It was a very basic and minimal zoo. There was still noticeable signs of the past hurricane in the zoo. The zoo is not visible from the main road, so you must ask the zoo to call a taxi for you. We lucked out and got a ride fairly quick, although I could see this could be a potential pain. We walked through the downtown Nassau once and went into some of the stores. We took the bus to get there. There is a bus stop outside the Wyndam. The bus was crowded and the people got a little pushy. One note, make sure you go to the bathroom before going downtown. The stores do not let you use any of their bathrooms. That was kind of inconvenient with little kids. We walked down to the port where the cruise ships come in. We used the bathrooms there. If you are going shopping downtown, try to go when all the people aren't coming off the cruise ships. Then it won't be so crowded. We also made a mistake to going to a dinner show that was right next door to the Wyndam. It was horrible. Once we walked in we knew we shouldn't stay. We made the mistake of staying and it was empty, gross food, and bad local entertainment. My 3 year old daughter ended up getting food poisoning from the chicken nuggets she ate there. She threw up in the bed and a taxi. My husband carried her through the Atlantis tour that day and she was miserable. Her sickness only lasted 24 hours, but to this day she still remembers and talks about eating the "bad chickens" on vacation.

The Wyndam Nassau Resort & Crystal Palace Casino is a decent hotel although not the best. There are better hotels in Nassau, although you will pay more. We liked the Bahamas, but when we go back someday we will try another place. Overall, a good time! www.wyndam.com/hotels/NASBS/main.wnt