Freeport Hotel Guide: Sheraton Grand Bahama Is, Our Lucaya Rst

Though operating under its own name, this Siamese twin to Westin at Our Lucaya shares Starwood management and the line between the two properties is blurred. The Sheraton is the more family-oriented of the two resorts, offering cheaper rates, a children's camp, a huge activity pool with a waterslide and more informal dining.

Dining options consist of 15 specialty restaurants resort-wide, including a marketplace pavilion with international cuisine for breakfast and dinner buffets, an American grill—the misnamed China Grill—for lighter meals, Churchill’s, a chophouse with a formal dress code (no shorts) and open-air kitchen, and China Beach, a hip Asian restaurant featuring haute Pacific Rim cuisine. Barracuda's, a 1950s-style diner, serves only breakfast, buffet or a la carte. There is also a poolside bar and grille with swim-up stools, and a cigar bar.

The long curving pool looks like a river, sweeping close to the main building, then curving all the way to the beach, its edges bordered with chaise lounges full of oiled bodies. Added to the mix are a casino, a full-service spa, two 18-hole golf courses, a giant convention center, and shopping at Port Lucaya Marketplace, a collection of portside bars, shops and restaurants across the street from the resort. A sports bar offers dancing until the wee hours.

Meeting facilities here are the largest in the Bahamas, capable of hosting groups of 2,100 in the largest ballroom.

Accommodations here are smaller than those at Westin, though many of the rooms come with furnished balconies. The less expensive rooms face the Port Lucaya Marina, while the deluxe ones look out over the pool to the ocean. All come with king or double beds, armoires containing minibars and TVs, desks with dual-line phones and data ports, and average combination baths. The top two floors are club-level rooms with concierge service, the usual Continental breakfast and hors d'oeuvres served in the lounge. (Club-level guests do pay for cocktails.) Families take advantage of the two-room suites, where bay windows and balconies face either the ocean or the Port Lucaya Marketplace. These suites are configured with living areas, bedrooms and kitchenettes with refrigerators and microwave ovens.

This is a tourist metroplex, offering an economy of scale no other Grand Bahamian hotels can match. This results in some of the highest standards to be found in a commercial hotel. Staff wins the triple crown when it comes to service: competent, friendly and task-oriented.