Here are the available villas for rental in Bahamas.

Swimming with dolphins

From the Mail on Sunday

Should you interact with dolphins? From time to time I'm sent stern warnings telling me that places which offer 'dolphin encounters' are really a sort of dolphin sweatshop.
Poor benighted dolphins, you get the impression, are locked away only to be brought out from time to time to perform beastly tricks for humans.
There's a part of me that agrees with this - I'm a vegetarian, after all.
But another part wonders whether occasionally we mistakenly get too worked up about things.
I know that a lot of animals are maltreated, but a substantial number also live the life of Riley (our 19-year-old cat for one).
So on a visit to the Bahamas when a chance to swim with dolphins was offered, I was tempted. But nobody mentioned kissing.
Have you ever kissed a dolphin? Probably not.
They're bristly, blubbery and - let's not beat about the lagoon here - they suffer from very, very bad breath. It's like snogging a fishmonger's counter.
So when a dolphin rises out of the water in front of you and puckers up - what would you do? I winced.
'Hey, you need to go to kissing school,' scolded Marcie, the dolphin's minder, who was standing behind me. ... more

Caviar and chips on Paradise

From the Daily Mail

On this Saturday night in the Bahamas, the air was balmy, the champagne as cold as ice and the super-models were walking on water. No wonder they called it Paradise Island.
Sol Kerzner, the gambling magnate and creator of Sun City, South Africa's controversial hotel and casino complex, had just spent $100 million (£70 million) renovating the super deluxe Ocean Club on Paradise Island, just across the water from the Bahamian capital, Nassau.
That worked out at more than a million bucks a room, so now Sol was aiming to get a return on his investment by hosting a party-cum-fashion show for the cream of American high society. He'd brought in the New York fashion house Halston to parade clothes aimed at the sort of woman who regards a sequinned gold swimsuit as essential holiday wear.
The place was packed with high-maintenance wives, who looked on while fabulous girls of improbable height and unimaginable thinness tottered down a Perspex catwalk suspended above the swimming pool, trying not to tumble from their 4in heels. There was no more surplus flesh on the female guests than on the models - just an awful lot of surplus cash. You could smell the wealth wafting around their husbands like a pungent aftershave.
At dinner, after the show, the complimentary wine was a 1994 claret, which normally sold at £200 a bottle. That was nothing. The most expensive item on the wine list - a 1982 Chateau Petrus - was priced at £4,725 a bottle.
By breakfast on Sunday, I had given in to the decadence of it all. As Jean-Georges Vongerichten, an international chef who has created the Ocean Club's new restaurant, Dune, wandered among the guests gathered at a beachside bar, I showed him my own culinary innovation: caviar and chips.
Just dunk a hot fry into a jar of caviar (delivered to our rooms the previous evening by personal butlers), let the warmth of the potato seep into the semi-molten sturgeon's eggs and pop it into your mouth in one. 'Mmmm', agreed Monsieur Vongerichten. 'Sensational!' ... more

Julia Roberts loved my bedroom

One thing that I vowed never to do was go back to the Bahamas.
I did not like overdeveloped, over-American Nassau - and when flying above the outer islands ten years ago, they all looked flat and boring, lagoony and landscapeless, though it was interesting visiting San Salvador, where Columbus first landed.
Then I happened to talk to Chris Blackwell. He's the white Jamaican who founded Island Records, giving Bob Marley to the world. Amazing to think he created an international record company from a Caribbean island, not London or New York.
Since then he's moved into other fields, including hotels. His Island Outposts now has 12 sites in Florida and the West Indies. One of the jewels in his bijou chain, so he said, is Pink Sands. Where's that? The Bahamas. Oh no, not the dreary old Bahamas.
Ah, he said, but wait till you go, 'it's on the best beach I've ever seen'.
We arrived in the dark, so didn't see much of the beach at first, but we were most impressed by the artistry of the decor and furnishings, designed by Barbara Hulanicki. Remember her Biba days in Sixties London? She's now into Bali mode, judging by our villa.
I had to fight my way through about 150 highly ornate Indonesian cushions before I could find the bed. On the bed was a visitors' book. Most unusual. You see them at receptions, but never in individual rooms.
It was full of comments - including one from Julia Roberts and another from Tina Brown and Harry Evans, each saying what a nice time they'd had.
Pink Sands is very starry. Recent guests have included Elle McPherson, Gene Hackman, Shirley McLaine and Mel C from the Spice Girls.
While we were there, British actor Peter Bowles arrived with his wife - rather ratty after problems with his connections.
Then he got worried about the sun. He was going back to star in a play about Beau Brummel in which he's naked in a madhouse.
The director told him not to return with a Caribbean suntan. It could rather ruin the reality. ... more

Back to Bond country

Nassau has long been one of the most alluring words in the traveller's vocabulary. Ever since the Bahamas became a fashionable destination in the Thirties, the capital has revelled in its image as a millionaire's playground - the harbour teems with sleek yachts, and the white beaches are the stuff of daydreams.
The reality of Nassau has, in recent times, been very different.
The arrival of casinos in the Sixties, following a decade or so on from the governorship of the Duke of Windsor, set the seal on Nassau's reputation as a Caribbean Monte Carlo, the sort of place where James Bond took his holidays.
Indeed, two Bond films were shot there - Thunderball and Never Say Never Again.
But gambling brought organised crime to Nassau and for 20 years the Bahamas was better known for drug smuggling and money laundering. The in- crowd took their jets elsewhere.
In the last few years, however, Nassau's attractions have undergone a substantial makeover and my aim was to see whether it had once more become a classy place to have fun.
It certainly remains an expensive place to do so.
Nassau has always been a high-cost resort, principally because the absence of income tax means the government raises money through hefty levies on everything from room rates to food, much of which is pricey because it has to be imported from neighbouring Florida.
You won't find many rooms for less than £150 per night and, as I discovered, hidden extras such as a 12 per cent resort tax, compulsory tips for room cleaning and even an 'energy charge' can soon add another £200 per week to your bill.
Even if your tastes don't run to caviar, a plate of the local grouper fish and chips will still set you back about £15. ... more

Rebuilt and reborn

From what I understand the islanders have had a tough time over the past few years with the closure of practically all of the big hotels on the island simultaneously for renovations.
Now that the tourists are starting to return in significant numbers morale has been boosted but the closures left their mark.
On the positive side the renovations have meant some amazing new hotels with fantastic beach and pool areas not to mention entertainment and restaurants.
Other things not to be missed are the dolphin experience (although too commercial for my tastes) and duty free shopping with significant savings on perfumes and jewellery.
We went with our two kids (age three and one) who basically lived on the beach the entire time, with the clear shallow water and lack of currents and big waves it was ideal for even the youngest.
A thoroughly enjoyable experience which I would be glad to repeat.