The Baha Mar
mega-resort pushed back its opening for at least another four months, indicating
continuing challenges in building out what is said to be the most expensive
development in Bahamas history.
The 1,000-room Baha Mar Casino
& Hotel, the 300-room SLS Lux at Baha Mar and the 200-room Rosewood at Baha
Mar have all pushed back reservations to the public until at least Sept. 8, the
day after Labor Day, according to their websites.
And while the 707-room Grand
Hyatt at Baha Mar notes that it is “accepting reservations from June 16,” a
search on its online calendar shows availability beginning Oct. 1.
The
project’s fifth hotel and lone pre-existing property, the Melia Nassau
Beach, remains open as it completes its renovations. The 694-property is
scheduled to reopen as the Melia at Baha Mar early next year and will be the only
all-inclusive resort within the complex.
The developers of the $3.5
billion complex haven’t specified what’s behind the most recent delay, which
scuttled Baha Mar’s previous plans for a May 1 grand opening event.
“The hotel is not delayed
indefinitely. We are just still in discussions with our contractor, so we have
not announced an exact grand opening date,” said a Baha Mar spokeswoman, who declined to comment further.
Representatives with Hyatt,
Rosewood and SLS parent SBE Entertainment didn’t respond to Travel Weekly’s
requests for comment.
The most recent delay is at least the
fourth for a project that broke ground in Nassau’s Cable Beach area in February 2011. The
resort, backed by China’s state-run
Export-Import Bank and constructed by thousands of Chinese workers
employed by China State Construction Engineering Corp., had originally been scheduled to open to the public by the end
of 2014. By last summer, Baha Mar pushed the opening back to this spring.
Subsequent
to developers missing a March 27 deadline for opening some of the rooms at Baha
Mar Casino & Hotel and a portion of its public spaces, the developers
blamed construction issues, noting in a late March statement that “the contractor has not completed the work with an attention
to detail consistent with Baha Mar standards of excellence.”
Meanwhile,
some travelers have voiced their frustrations on TripAdvisor. The hotel review site on Wednesday showed 11 posts from
people who said they had booked stays at the resort. While two of the reviewers
praised the resort operator for arranging stays at nearby Atlantis Paradise
Island, the other nine blasted Baha Mar’s customer-service efforts for
not informing them that the reservations couldn’t be honored and not
compensating them for airline change fees.