Bahamas in april

[BarrelOfOtters]

Anyone got any tips. They’re for a conference and wondering how long to extend stay for…where’s nice to go. We like snorkelling, small hotels, food, history and walking….

Not been specifically but to other islands and we always take our own snorkeling kit - at the very least mask snorkel, fins ideally. You can get a nice mask for not too much and even if you do trips you don't have to use the hire stuff. It's also great just being able to snorkel off the beach. It is one of our main holiday activities.

Lucky you. I've heard the beaches are amazing.

Whereabouts in the Bahamas? It’s a country covering hundreds of islands in an area of ocean twice the size of the U.K. there are some beautiful bits and there are some truly grotty bits. Most of the tourist areas are coincident with the grotty bits unfortunately. If you are going to be in Nassau or Freeport, which is where travellers usually first set foot into the Bahamas, my advice would be to get off those islands asap. My very considerable experiences of Nassau in particular is that it is a collection of all inclusive hotels wedged around a bay between the sea and the main road, and a cruise ship port. Whenever the cruise ships arrive they disgorge thousands of mainly American cruise passengers who are all in search of the paradise they imagine when they think of the Bahamas and who are disappointed when they don’t find it within a 2 mile radius of the port. What they find instead is a lot of jewellery and rum shops all vying for their business and a load of expensive tacky restaurants and bars where 20 year old americans who are underage at home are trying to fit their year’s worth of tequila inside them in one evening.

If you can’t get off one of the busy islands, you can make the best of things by going on a boat trip (the powerboat adventure trips take you to a desert island, or you can take a catamaran to Rose Island which is beautiful and also famous for shark attacks.) Stuart Coves diving school is good fun for a snorkelling tour with a couple of twists - many of their snorkelling sites have been used for Hollywood movies including Pirates of the Caribbean, Jaws, James Bond, etc, and they also take you to their sunken ship the Ray of Hope where you can snorkel with sharks and where any film in recent years that has featured sharks is filmed. There is a bit of a shark vibe about the whole place. The water park at Atlantis is great fun, and the resort itself is jaw dropping in its execution - it is built around the theme of it being the lost city of Atlantis, and there are pools in the gardens with rays, reef fish and yes - sharks! You can walk right up to the waters edge of the shark pools, and in the water park there are slides of clear Perspex that go through a pool of sharks too. If you stay in Nassau, the nicest beach in the area is the unpromisingly named Cabbage Beach.

Getting out of Nassau - Andros Island has lots of eco resorts, and Eleuthera is where Governors Harbour (famous for the pink beaches) is. Those are where I would start.

Thanks that's helpful. We will have a weekend of conference in Nassau but then we can go anywhere so all tips welcomed.