Grand Isle Resort & Spa

This is 2nd time staying at this resort. Overall our stay was good. The villas are nice but need some updating for the prices they are charging. Furniture is chipped, need new pots and pans in the kitchen and water pressure in shower could be improved. We enjoyed the spa but wish they had some amenities to offer to enhance the experience. The food was very good at 23 North. Love the beautiful swimmable beach that felt like a private beach. Concierge was very helpful with scheduling tours, groceries and spa appts.

The 2 bedroom villa we stayed in was a dream. 3 porches all with water views, a large kitchen and the comfiest beds. The resort was beautiful.and the infinity pool was a bonus.. the resort is situated in Emerald Bay Beach which is stunning! The service was excellent and the staff extremely helpful and friendly! We would definitely stay again!

I gave four stars but I would give 4.5 if that was possible. Very nice resort. The beach is beautiful and the color of the water is out of this world. The pool area is very nice as well. The villas are nice, big and comfortable, although it was disappointing to book an “ocean view” villa and have a line of houses in front, with just one inch of blue in between them. So if you want a view, be aware that you have to book an “ocean front” villa, not an “ocean view”. Service should improve: people at the pool restaurant are mostly rude — although I should acknowledge that this is our general experience in the Bahamas. Overall we had a really nice family vacation.

Just a horrible experience. We stayed in 2018 and couldn't wait to get back. This time was TOTALLY different. We had to change rooms when we got there because nothing worked. If it were up to us, we would have changed again but they said nothing was available which I find hard to believe because the place didn't look crowded. They offered us a 3 bedroom but it would be over $2,000 more. If you get there before check in time, you can go off and do what you want but your bags are left out in the open at the reception desk. They are not even put in a room. 1st room - TV and washer didn't work. The washer was most important because my husband didn't bring a lot of clothes because we were able to use the washer when we stayed previously. It was dark and dingy. Nothing like the pictures they have on their website. Don't be deceived by them. Our "ocean view" was of a construction site. (I also really wished they had like 2 complimentary bottles of water when you got into the room. After a long day, you just want to get to the room and sit for a minute and have a water.) 2nd room - Screen door was broken in second room. The came to "fix" it twice and they said it worked but it was actually broken and I would have to use to both hands to pull it open. Once we DID get it open, we just kept it open. Phone and tv didn't work in the second room as well. The phone not working was horrible because I had to use my cell phone to call the front desk. That's a international call so who knows what our phone bill will be when we get it. Leaks in the bathroom. The tub, which we never used, started leaking the second to last day. We couldn't even find where it was leaking from. The shower leaked unless we faced the shower head to the wall. Our room was once again supposed to be "ocean view" but we had the same construction site view. When I went to the front desk, I told them that our view was a construction site and they said all the single bedroom rooms were on that side of the resort and had that view.) One day we came in and I wanted to take a shower but there was no water. Not the sink, shower or tub. Then all of a sudden, the water came spurting out and it was brown. We went to the front desk and they said they had to emergency shut down the water. Now that it was turned on, we had to wait for the air to come out of the pipes and let the water run until it stopped coming out brown. The dryer worked but not well. We would often have to put clothes in at least twice to be fully dry. The floors needed a good wash. Thankfully, I brought slippers and my husband just used a pair of his shoes. They would run out of sternos at the Palaypa and it would be impossible to eat because of the flies so we would end up bringing the food to our room. The beach was often dirty with bottle caps and other junk. We ended up staying up at the pool. No one ever came to ask for drinks until some million dollar yachts pulled into the marina. Then when the pool area filled, the workers came out catering to them and asking for their drink orders and food orders. We were there for a week and we were ignored. The excursions were so ridiculously price. $500 cash only for bone fishing for a few hours. Other excursions were $900 cash only so we skipped all of them. A late check out was considered after 11AM (which is the actually check out time) and it was $100 extra for every hour you stayed after that. We DID enjoy the golf cart. ($30 a day) We used it every day and always went on a little joy ride after dinner. 23 North restaurant was delicious but extremely expensive. As with most places, there were friendly people and not so friendly people. Freeman down at the pool was our absolute favorite. Coco Plum beach was wonderful. The key it is to go at low tide so you can find sand dollars and star fish. Overall, we were so incredibly disappointed. When we went in 2018, we had an amazing time but after this stay, we will not be staying there again. We will just rent a house.

I was waiting to write this review because I was super hopeful the GM would respond to the email I sent to him during our stay… but we’ve been home 2 weeks and still no reply so here we go… 100% buy trip insurance if traveling to Exuma. A series of flight issues and delays made it so we wouldn’t land before sunset and the airport doesn’t have lights so we could not land. I should’ve booked trip insurance (my bad) but the resort was not able to accommodate shifting our dates of stay—we had to pay for the night we did not stay. We did end up adding 2 additional nights but there was no ability to shift the stay. Again, I’ll take responsibility for this one but just a word to the wise - trip insurance! Ok now that we’ve arrived- the resort! The resort itself is nice. The units are spacious and clean. The staff is kind and the beach is beautiful. We truly fell in love with the island- we will return to Exuma but likely not to the resort. Biggest complaints: 1- one of the reasons we picked this resort is because of the advertised beach club- we just knew our kids would love it! Unfortunately when we arrived we were told by two separate staff members that it was “adults only”. I tripled checked the website as did our travel agent and it is not listed as adults only anywhere…this was a huge let down and a miss for us. Emailed the GM during our stay to ask about this but no reply. 2- communication. When we checked in we were given a welcome note with the email address to the GM. We were also encouraged to use What’s App to communicate with staff- I tried a few times to ask questions via What’s App (I.e. can we rent a golf cart Friday?”) But we never heard back. We also outreached the GM via email as encouraged in the welcome letter with a few concerns (see below) but never heard back. Our room phones were not functional. 3- it’s a small resort and there is no tv system to log in/log out guests from smart tv apps or websites. With that being said, highly suggest some type of quality control as when we turned on the tv for morning cartoons our young children were greeted with a pornographic website. Yikes! 4- the air conditioner broke the second day of our stay. They “fixed it” but then two hours later it was broken again and leaking on the floor. By 6 pm I called the desk (from my cell phone because they don’t answer what’s app and the room phone didn’t work). I told them if we need to pack up and move rooms then we need to do it soon as we have a 2 year old baby who goes to bed at 7:30… long story short, we did get moved but not till 9:30 - hauling our suitcases and groceries across a parking lot with a sleeping 2 yo in tow. We travel lot as a family with our young kids. We understand things happen and no one is perfect. A lot of this would have been no big deal if communication occurred and there was better customer service. Top tips- buy trip insurance, rent a jeep, get groceries delivered and spend at least a day on the water !