Dreaming of a luxury vacation to the stunning Baha Mar resort but worried about breaking the bank? Zuzu & I found Baha Mar to be crazy expensive but also found plenty of practical ways to save money.
Our 4 night trip to Baha Mar would have cost most people at least $7,331. We saved over $6,000 for a total trip budget of $966, including flights! If you follow the same money saving tips that we used, you won’t have to get a second mortgage just to enjoy your Nassau vacation!
18 Baha Mar Money Saving Tips
Most of the Baha Mar reviews that we read say spending $1000-2000 per day is common. Since Zuzu & I keep our annual travel budget around $4,000, the only way we could visit Baha Mar was to keep our costs way down.
Guess what? We had a wonderful time and spent about 90% less than alot of Baha Mar guests. Follow our tips and you can enjoy paradise without spending too much at Baha Mar!
Want to know our actual budget breakdown? Keep reading. It’s at the end of these 18 tips on how to save money at Baha Mar!
Skip the expensive excursions.
While our friends had raved about their $800/person excursion to swim with the pigs on Exuma, we opted to take a Jitney (local bus) for $1.25 to downtown Nassau.
With stops for lunch & early dinner at Fish Fry and the Straw Market, we sampled some local Bahamas culture, had an awesome experience and spent less than $50!
Read about our entire 4 day trip to the Bahamas on a Budget!
Don’t break the bank on every meal.
There’s about 10 fancy restaurants at Baha Mar and these can definitely be budget busters. Our one nice dinner at Marcus (it was great!) was $250 for the 2 of us! Our best tip for saving money on food at Baha Mar? Limit how often you splurge on dinner.
Learn from our mistake: We loved the expensive Catch of the Day but it was $145! We should have saved a little money by splitting the $68 Filet or the $54 Salmon. All the portions were HUGE!
Share Meals
Not only were the portion sizes at Marcus huge, but almost every restaurant had extra large portions. And that goes double for the fancy restaurants! At Marcus and other restaurants, most couples could share a single entre. Zuzu & I shared a single entre several times and often had leftovers.
Families with Kids might have to be strategic about sharing. I know how hard it can be to say no to your kids but with huge portions, you may be able to fill up 2 or more youngsters on a single entre.
Even if you need to order individual entrees for every child, leftovers might allow you to entirely skip a dinner or lunch out. That’s exactly what we did. After our $50 excursion into Nassau, we ate our Fish Fry leftovers from our 16th floor balcony watching the hotel’s dancing waters show. The free show and the leftover food were both incredible.
Kids Under 5 Eat Free
Speaking of Baha Mar restaurants, kids under 5 eat for free is a nice surprise at these 13 restaurants and bars:
- Cafe Boulud
- Carna
- Cinko Asian Grill
- Cleo
- Costa
- Drift Bar & Grill
- Fi’lia
- Katsuya by Starck
- Marcus Fish & Chop House
- Out Island Bar
- The Palms
- Regatta Buffet
- Stix Asian
Your child does need to order from the children’s menu and the purchase of an adult entrée is required. Unfortunately, the very good Umami Burger at Baha Bay does not participate.
Stop at a grocery store!
Our driver from the Nassau Airport stopped for us to do some quick shopping at the at the local SuperValue grocery store.
A big part of how we saved money at Baha Mar with groceries was getting a few of our goto snacks & drinks! I’m pretty sure we saved hundreds by spending $55 and 10 minutes at this grocery store.
If you want to walk for groceries, there are a couple of good options near the resort.
The closest place to buy groceries near Baha Mar is Smitty’s Market. It’s a small convenience store just past another gem: the Baha Mar Straw Market (see below). Smitty’s is a 2 minute walk from the edge of the Baha Bay parking lot. You’ll find similar items as they have in the Baha Mar gift shop, just at cheaper prices.
Or it’s a 15-20 minute walk in the same direction to a full size supermarket. Quality Markets is the closest grocery store to Baha Mar. It’s a white and yellow building just under 1 mile from the Baha Bay parking lot.
If you do walk to a grocery store near Baha Mar, there are good sidewalks on both sides of the street. You’ll be walking through a nice residential and commercial area on the way to Quality Market.
Zuzu & I walked most of the way to these grocery stores during the day and always felt safe.
Save with a Grocery Delivery Service
In hindsight, an even better budget option for us would have been to use a grocery delivery service to save money on your Baha Mar trip. Instagopher.com charges a flat $9.99 delivery fee to bring groceries to wherever you’re staying.
Whether you order from a delivery service, walk to a nearby market or stop at a grocery store like we did, there’s a wide variety of foods and snack to satisfy everyone, even if you’re a large family!
Pack some snacks
If you’ve got space in your luggage, bring snacks. Easy snacks like chips, nuts, cookies and cereal can go a long way towards avoiding the expensive food at Baha Mar. If you check bags, bring Peanut Butter and Nutella (they’re classified as liquids by TSA).
While the grocery store we stopped at had a great selection, if you or others in your group can’t do without a hard to find snack, packing those snacks would be your best option.
Or take it next level and, for $50/stay, rent a microwave. You can bring popcorn & single use cups for oatmeal, pancakes or mac & cheese! Don’t forget to bring plates, utensils & ziplocks!
Get the $50 Mini Fridge
Besides keeping your leftovers, having a refrigerator opens up a world of possibilities if you get groceries in Nassau. Since a fridge is only $50 for your entire stay, just 1 lunch with deli meat & cheese and sodas can pay for the minifridge rental.
After a day in the fridge, our leftover Conch Salad from the Fish Fry was just as good as when it was fresh. We gorged at the Fish Fry and the enormous portion was good for 2 more money saving meals!
Take a travel cooler!
One of our favorite money saving tips is a travel cooler. With it, we can eat & drink our inexpensive groceries at Cable Beach & Baha Mar pools while everyone else is standing in line to pay high resort prices for food and drinks!
And our bright orange travel cooler with a big Power T on the side is a magnet for making new friends from home in Tennessee. It also seems to attract jealous fans of lesser college football teams.
Not only does it save money at Baha Mar by keeping our drinks & snacks cold, it fits in our luggage & it can double as a tote bag!
Don’t blow your budget on alcohol!
With Baha Mar drink prices at $20-30 each, it’s common for guests to spend $200-$300/day on drinks. Unfortunately, there are no options for Baha Mar drink packages. In fact, a bottle of wine will set you back $100-300! Either decide to not drink alot or buy your wine and liquor off property.
And yes, there’s a liquor store on arrival at the Nassau Airport. If you pickup a bottle there, you can also save money by ordering less expensive virgin drinks and mixing your own!
We only paid for a few drinks during our stay. And we actually got 8 free drinks thanks to our Hyatt Globalist status.
The only bottle of wine we had was a gift from our new friends Paul & Ellie. We had shared one of our Free Drink coupons with them and they wanted to repay us for sharing!
Visit the Baha Mar Straw Market
Skip the overpriced Baha Mar gift shops and walk 30 seconds off property to the local Straw Market. It’s several bright yellow buildings just through the Baha Bay Water Park parking lot.
Start at Da Daiquiri Shack for cheaper (& better) drinks than at the resort.
The other buildings around the Daiquiri Shack are a small straw market. It’s pretty much like a flea market in the US with local vendors selling all kinds of souvenirs.
Haggle with the friendly vendors to save 50% over Baha Mar prices, plus you’re supporting locals.
Don’t pay for Water!
At Baha Mar, most restaurants do not have free tap water or free bottled water. We made the mistake of having to pay $12 each for 2 large glass bottles of water at Marcus. Since bottled water is free in your room, just bring a bottle or 2 from your room. Would have saved us $24 at that dinner!
If you forget to bring your own water bottles, ask for “free ice water” or “house water.” Some of the restaurants will have this for free but you won’t get it if you just ask for water.
Buy the Baha Mar Refillable Cup!
Instead of paying for soda every time, buy the refillable cup at Baha Mar. For around $20-25, you’ll be able to get free refills on any drink that comes from the drink dispenser gun at many (but not all) bars & concession stands on the property. That’ll save you $5-10 per refill.
The cheapest place to buy the Baha Mar refillable cup is at the Drift Bar, Out Island Bar and other pool bars. Prices are often $5 more at places like Unami Burger in the water park. The resort does not sell these cups at the main restaurants or the food trucks although some guests report getting free refills at Sugar Shack and the casino bars.
PLEASE HELP ME! Do you have a picture of the Baha Mar refillable cup that I can use? I didn’t take one when we visited Baha Mar so I’d really appreciate you sharing a picture that I can post here. Contact me here if you can share a refillable cup picture with me.
Bring your Own Refillable Cup
Whether or not you get the $20 refillable cup at Baha Mar, take your own refillable cup like a Yeti or Stanley. Between the sodas we bought at a grocery store near Baha Mar, and the booze that you can buy at the Nassau Airport, an insulated cup can save you money every time you want a drink.
Don’t leave an extra tip unless…
While tipping is a personal choice, all charges at Baha Mar already have 25% added: 10% VAT and 15% SVC Service Charge (aka Tip). My suggestion is don’t leave an extra tip unless you get extraordinary service.
Free entertainment
If you’ve heard of the water park at the Atlantis Resort, the spectacular new Baha Bay water park (opened in 2022) is great for little ones and also a good time for everyone else. And it’s free to guests staying at the Grand Hyatt!
For families with small children, there are many kid friendly slides and play areas. For teens and young adults, there are a couple good water slides and the free surf simulator will be a blast. And for people like Zuzu and me, we thought the wave pool was nice and the (not so) lazy river was our favorite.
Moving on from the free water park, there’s a free Flamingo Parade every day at 9:30 am & 3:30 pm near the Grand Hyatt. Kids might enjoy this for 30 minutes multiple times. Adults should see it once.
I’d also count the Grand Hyatt’s Dancing Waters as free entertainment. If you’ve ever seen the fountains at Bellagio in Las Vegas, the fountains at Grand Hyatt Baha Mar could give them a run for their money! Easy to enjoy it from different locations and viewing perspectives.
Use Hyatt Points for Free Nights
Our biggest cost savings was using Hyatt Points to get our suite totally free for 4 nights. At $1,179 per night, that’s $4,719 that we saved and really, it was the only way that we could afford to visit Baha Mar.
If you don’t have enough points for free travel, now’s a great time to start learning how you can do it!
On the blog, we share alot of info on How We Use Hyatt Points for Free Resort Stays as well as our Complete Guide to Earning & Redeeming Hyatt Points.
For a more detailed version of how we’ve been able to get about $100k of free travel since 2021, get our 14 page PDF: Guide to Free Travel!
Get a Hyatt Guest of Honor gift from a friend
Even if you have no Hyatt Points and have no World of Hyatt elite status, find a friend who is top level Globalist and they might gift you one of their Guest of Honor awards. You’ll be treated just like a Globalist at Baha Mar which includes:
- Free Breakfast at Regatta, Palms Cafe, Cafe Madeline, saved $95/day
- Room Upgrade, these are notoriously rare
- No resort fee, saved us $70/day
- Free drinks coupons for 2 drinks per day, saved us ~$150
If you don’t know anyone who’s a Globalist, try asking any friends who travel alot for business. There’s a chance you’ll be able to find a Globalist and they could save you hundreds of dollars at Baha Mar with a Guest of Honor gift!
With these Baha Mar tips in hand, let’s address the elephant in the room: Is Baha Mar expensive?
Yes, Baha Mar is Expensive
There’s no way around it, this resort is just expensive.
While I understand the sentiment of Baha Mar fans who say things like:
- “just go and enjoy yourself and don’t worry about the cost!”
- “I didn’t go to be cheap”
- “This destination is not for the budget-conscious.”
- “We went knowing it was going to be expensive. And accepted it.”
- “…if you can afford it, you’ll have a great time!”
- “It is pricey but I don’t travel like this all the time.”
I don’t agree with ANY of those statements! Let them throw their money away!
How Expensive is Baha Mar
Most people who think that way should budget AT LEAST $200 per day, per person for food & drink at Baha Mar. In comparison, we spent only $70 per day, per person on food & drink.
And that’s really high compared to some of our fantastic vacations!
When Zuzu & I went to Baha Mar, our total annual travel budget was $4,200. If we “didn’t worry about the cost,” we would have only had this 1 vacation of 4 nights at Baha Mar. Instead, we stretched our annual travel budget to include:
- 2 nights Secrets Maroma Beach
- 5 nights Impression by Secrets Moxche
- 4 nights at Baha Mar in The Bahamas
- 7 nights Myrtle Beach
- 5 night New England Road Trip
- 7 night Utah National Parks
- 2 nights Secrets Cap Cana
- 4 nights Hyatt Zilara Cap Cana All Inclusive
- 5 nights in Point Grace Resort in Turks and Caicos
That’s 41 nights, 7 vacations, 3 National Parks and 4 foreign countries instead of just 4 nights at Baha Mar. What would you rather do?
How We Saved $6365 at Baha Mar
While we skimped a little (we still laugh about the family we overheard saying they “Could’ve bought a car with with they spent!”), we still had a luxury trip to the Bahamas on a budget that most people can’t imagine.
Our 4 night trip to Nassau would have cost most people at least $7,331, but we kept our out of pocket costs down to $966.
Here’s the breakdown of what we got and what we actually spent.
| Value | Out-of-Pocket | ||
| Hotel | $4,719 | $0 | |
| 77k Hyatt Points + SUA | |||
| Breakfast | $360 | $0 | |
| Free with Hyatt Status | |||
| Flights | $1,336 | $70 | |
| United Tix & Bags | |||
| Hyatt Food & Drinks | $499 | $379 | |
| 8 Free drinks | |||
| Baha Bay | $150 | $250 | |
| Other Food & Drink | $74 | $74 | |
| Fish Fry & Daq Shak | |||
| Shopping | $82 | $82 | |
| Xmas ornament & Gifts | |||
| Transit | $111 | $111 | |
| Cab & Car, Jitneys, Lyft | |||
| TOTAL | $7,331 | $966 |
If you do the math, we essentially got an 87% discount on a $7331 vacation. And if you you consider that we earned 12k Hyatt points on this trip, it was actually a 93% discount!
Learn How We Travel for (almost) Free!
Based on our last 21 trips, our personal Hyatt points value is 3.8 cents per point. That means we earned $457 of free travel for future adventures.
Best Baha Mar Tips
What do you think about how we saved money at Baha Mar? Let us know in the comments if any of these are helpful or if you have any more tips to share!
Check out our other blog posts about Baha Mar here:
- Grand Hyatt Baha Mar Review
- Nassau Airport Tips: Customs & Global Entry
- Trip Report: Our Bahamas Vacation Cost only $966 for Flights, Food & Fun!
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