When my Mum was 40, she said she wanted to go to the Maldives for her 50th birthday. With Covid, (and my Covid-battered bank balance), I couldn’t quite make that happen. Originally, we had booked to go to the Dominican Republic but a few weeks before our holiday it got put onto the red list and my Mum’s dream birthday holiday was cancelled. We scrambled trying to think of other destinations and finding flights and hotels within our budget. Eventually, we found a holiday in The Bahamas which meant my Mum could have her 50th birthday dinner on the beautiful island of New Providence…

I had told the hotel before we arrived that it was my Mum’s birthday. They made her a cake and sang her Happy Birthday during dinner with the other guests joining in, (all American’s so they were really singing with chest). We were exhausted from travelling but woke up the next morning with this view from our room…

We spent our days lying on the white sands of Cable Beach, reading in the hammock, drinking frozen Miami Vices, (strawberry daiquiri’s and piña coladas mixed together – life changing), wiggling to the music playing and being polite to the other, very talkative, American guests.

One day during our week away we did an island tour with Tyrone. We started off in Paradise Island which is connected to New Providence by a big ol’ bridge. We took a look around the aquarium in the Atlantis Hotel, (an absolute behemoth of a resort), and generally moseyed around looking at where the money reside. We drove around the island with Tyrone giving us history and info. about New Providence and the Bahamas in general. There are actually 700 islands in the Bahamas (!) but only 16 of them are inhabited. 70% of the entire population of the Bahamas lives in Nassau, (the capital), because of the high levels of tourism. We had a stop in a chocolate factory, a tea shop where they had a million teas to cure every ailment, a cheeky rum tasting and we finally got to my favourite stop… The rum cake factory. We got to taste the variety of flavoured rum cakes which can actually be bought online. We bought a stack to bring home and I would fully fly back for the rum cake alone.

On another day, we did a little island excursion to Pearl Island. I have never seen water so clear or so aquamarine blue as the water I saw on the way out to Pearl Island. We spent the day swimming, sun bathing, bouncing on the water trampoline, paddle boarding and all round relaxing in the Bahamian sun.

We stayed at the Breezes Resort as all inclusive guests. It has everything you need, (ie, pool, right on the beach, clean rooms, big bathroom, etc), but there is definitely better on the island as this was on the cheaper end. On the polar opposite side of the scale, there’s the Baha Mar which is actually next door where you can book to eat in their myriad of restaurants and use their casino, (which is the largest in the Caribbean). I’ve never seen a hotel like it: they have luxury high end shopping stores within the hotel which was crazy to me. On Paradise Island there is the Atlantis Hotel which is similar to Baha Mar in that sense too. The Bahamas is never going to be cheap but I reckon there is probably a mid-way point hotel/resort that has a better offering than Breezes but won’t require you to remortgage your house to stay there like the Baha Mar or Atlantis.

It was an all round beautiful trip. I hadn’t been on holiday, (aside from Nevis), with my Mum since I was about 8 years old so this was a real treat. I had taking her away as a goal of mine for years and I put it on my mood board for 2021. I’m not gonna lie, I am so proud of myself for being able to do it. Fingers crossed we get to visit the Dominican Republic for her 51st and go to the Maldives before they sink!