Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Our Lucaya Trip Report

I stayed at the Reef Village on an all-inclusive basis with my husband, 3 children (aged 11, 13 and 15), sister and parents. We had a wonderfull holiday with great weather, food and hospitality. What a great resort Our Lucaya is! We arrived at 12.30pm and checked into our rooms within 20mins (although official check-in time is 3pm). We had 3 standard rooms which we were very impressed with as they were of a good size and had excellent air conditioning. The rooms stayed nice and cold so we had no need to keep the a/c on while we slept. (first time ever in the Carribean). The bahtrooms were on the small side but we had plenty of hot water and clean towels. The rooms were regularly cleaned daily and they all had fridges, safes and we were given a hairdryer from housekeeping. We requested rooms near to each other and they were next door which was great so the children could have their own room. we also booked one superior room for my sister because she enjoys sitting on a balcony, however the room that she was allocated didn't have a balcony at all! The virgin holidays rep quickly sorted this out with the front desk and she was moved to a deluxe pool/ocean view room (with a balcony). We found that the AI programme suited our needs (but wouldn't it be great if it included all the restaurants and bars on the property!). We enjoyed our meals in Barracudas, which offered a great buffet which was ideal for the children, (no waiting for the food to be cooked and plenty of varied choices). We were pleased to find that they could always find us a table for 8 (this has been a problem at other resorts) and the drinks orders were always taken immediately and came quickly. I was also impressed with On Higher Grounds which served delicious cakes and pastries. It was great to get real cans of sodas and juices! I thought that the fact that all the AI outlets provided bottled water was brilliant too. We also had good meals at Aardawak and Willy Broadleafs (what amazing choices they have there). We were told when we ordered alcoholic drinks at Willy Broadleafs we would be charged for them but we signed the bill to the room and were never charged! The resort was lovely. The pools great, especially the infinity pool at Lighthouse Point ( which was vitually deserted). Everywhere was very clean and all the staff were very friendly, always greeting us with a smile. The kids loved all the games and activities held at the Sugar Mill Pool. They won 8 T-shirts and a few pens! we all played pool bingo and it was nice to hear the Bahamian music in the background whilst we were relaxing in the sun. One day the Sugar Mill Bar was very crowded as a large party off the Disney Cruise Liner came for the day. However, they had to keep to the bottom end of the pool and couldn't use any other food and drink outlet so unless you wanted to eat at the Sugar mill Grill or use the waterslide (which had a big queue) they didn't cause any problems once you got used to them being there and they all left at 4pm. There was a excellent Carribean theme night which had an amazing limbo dancer on roller skates! We went on the Pine Stables Horse Trek which was awful. The horses were lovely but the whole thing was extremely boring. We were only allowed to walk. We walked for 1 hour through a burnt out pine forest, went in the sea for 5 mins and then walked 1 hour back along the same dreadfull track! We swam with the dolphins which was absolutely wonderfull. I would recommend this to everyone. We also got some lovely photos of them. We had a fantastic holiday and are looking forward to returning. Obviously if you don't go AI you have a lot more options of where to eat and drink, but everything seemed very expensive and we were pleased with the deal we got with Virgin Holidays.