02 May 2024

Bahamas

We offer a wide choice of cheap flights to Bahamas together with Bahamas hotels, tours and self-drive itineraries.

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The Bond hotel to die for

Strictly Come Dancing's Tess Daly goes undercover to check out the dream Bahamas location of Casino Royale. She finds not a 007 but a perfect ten.

Bahamas - The spa room at the Ocean Club

1 The Ocean Club reception 2 The spa room at the Ocean Club 3 The spectacular beach

WE DISCOVERED THE BAHAMAS by accident. We often go to Miami, which is one of my favourite places - so this time we thought about going a little further afield. Miami is just 75 minutes flying time from Nassau in the Bahamas and the airfare is pretty cheap.

I’d heard lots about the Bahamas through a best friend who lived in Miami; whenever she had a chance of a holiday she always went to the Bahamas.

I stayed with my husband Vernon Kay at the One & Only Ocean Club - but it hadn’t been my first choice; I had wanted to stay at the Pink Sands on Harbour Island as I’d heard glowing reports about it but it was full. They helpfully recommended the One & Only.

From our first sight of it we were absolutely blown away - it is incredibly beautiful and quite a little corner of Heaven. Once the private estate of Fifties playboy Huntington Hartford II, it had just had a £55million refurbishment.

As well as being a handsome building, what struck me most was the ocean-front setting - it is on the most stunning stretch of beach.

Buying a dream

I adore the sea and I like to stay in a hotel that has great facilities. I also need to be somewhere where I will get pampered a little bit (my hotel has to have a spa). Good food is also important.

I get on the internet and do the whole TripAdvisor thing; I check out all the reviews and I get really nervous if there are any bad ones, particularly if the food has been criticised because the quality of the food means a lot to me.

When you go away, you’re looking to be spoilt. You up the ante a bit when you’re on holiday, don’t you?

They filmed scenes from Casino Royale at the hotel and the movie showed how marvellous it is. Bond has a beachfront villa overlooking the ocean, just like the one we had. With this sort of holiday, you’re buying a dream.

The hotel’s restaurant, Dune, is amazing - so beautiful and I thought that the food was fabulous. People come from all over the Bahamas to dine here. The hotel’s spa was low-key in approach but state-of-the-art in beauty treatments.

You can have a massage in one of the al fresco treatment rooms on a platform overlooking the ocean, with white muslin curtains billowing gently in the breeze. The ultimate luxury.

The butlers are on call at the Ocean Club 24 hours a day. Press the button and they’re at your service.

If you leave your clothes on the floor, when you come back they are hung up as if by magic and every afternoon you’re brought complimentary champagne with strawberries and chocolate - as good as it gets for me.

Our bathroom at the Ocean Club was sumptuous - all marble and decadently decorated with impressive power showers. And the rooms are in a wonderful colonial style, with louvred windows, rattan rugs and huge beds that have Victorian headboards.

Gardens that rival versailles

There are giant TVs in the bathroom and bedroom and you can watch American TV, which I love - it may be trashy but it’s quite a treat. You’re in the tropics with all the US sitcoms and Larry King; bliss.

The gardens and lawns are so beautiful they have been compared with those at Versailles. The real treat, however, is lazing about on the sunbeds on the beach where, if you feel so inclined, you need not budge all day.

If you want a drink or a sandwich, all you have to do is run up a flag on your sunbed and a waiter comes to get you whatever you want (they do great tuna melt sandwiches with fries).

And if you fancy a change of scene, you can hire a jet ski from the hotel and pop off to visit the little islands nearby - there are some amazing places just a 20-minute ride away.

You can end up on an island that looks as if no one else has ever walked on it, with sand untouched by human feet.

We would head out with a pic-nic on the back of the jet ski wrapped in a plastic bag and end up on a totally sublime and tranquil island. You can always find a little cove somewhere which you can have entirely to yourself.

One day we went to Dolphin Encounters on nearby Blue Lagoon Island and I had a photograph taken of me kissing a dolphin.

Actually I found it quite daunting to be surrounded by mammals as big as me but they were lovely and I really started to enjoy it.

You soon get over the fear of being in the water with them; once you’ve been in the sea for a few minutes, you just sense this most extraordinary feeling because they’re so friendly.

Travelling is nothing new to me; I started when I became a model at 17 and then kept on the move for 12 years. Paris, Tokyo, Barcelona, Madrid, New York - I’ve lived in all of them.

As a model you’re somewhere different every day of the week. Often I would go to cities such as Copenhagen or Stockholm just for the day. I really love seeing the world and now that I have a settled life it’s something I miss.

I’ve always enjoyed taking a long-haul flight. It’s quite a luxury to have that time to watch a film, read a book or have a little glass of red wine. But these days, travelling with a toddler like ours, you’re lucky if you can even open a book.

People used to say make the most of it while she’s tiny and she can’t move from her seat. Just wait till she can move around - and it’s true what they say.

Travel is the greatest gift

People give you the filthiest of looks when you arrive on board the plane with a young child. They refuse to make eye contact with you right through the journey.

A couple of years ago, however, I would have felt the same. Having children alters your view of the world.

But it hasn’t affected my appetite for glamorous holiday destinations. I would really like to go back to the Indian Ocean; I’ve been to Mauritius and now I’d like to see the Maldives.

The problem is I don’t get too much time to travel these days. Being freelance means it’s difficult to plan holidays. You book and pay for a holiday and then suddenly you’re offered a six-week series - well, you can’t turn down a sixweek series just because you’ve booked a two-week holiday.

Planning holidays is tough - especially getting the same time off as your husband, who’s in the same business. Another problem, and one of my nightmares, are paparazzi photographers. I really don’t want to be ‘papped’ when I’m reclining on a beach somewhere in my bikini.

A holiday is all about relaxing, not having your photograph taken. That’s why I tend to avoid certain places where the ‘paps’ are more likely to be.

As a kid, every single year we went to the Isle of Wight for our summer holiday - I only missed one year right until the age of 26. Even when I was modelling I always made the effort to get home and enjoy the good old traditional family holiday on the island.

We always stayed in the same self-catering place. I have great happy memories as it was the highlight of our year as a family. Even when it rained, we would shelter under a deckchair with our plastic macs on. A great holiday is all about who you are with.

Perhaps it’s the memory of those wet times on the Isle of Wight that makes me want to go in search of sunshine on our holiday. Just talking about holidays makes me want to get on a plane and go somewhere. Travel is the greatest gift, it really is.

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