The sea of the Viva Fortuna

We left Milan on 18.07.2007 with Blu Panorama heading for Freeport, an exceptional flight with continuous and friendly on-board service, with a punctuality never seen before. Even Teorema Tour, with which we travelled, deserves a positive mark because, although it moved the outbound flight forward by a day and warned us two days in advance, it kept the return date, thus giving us one extra day of stay.

On arriving at the Viva Fortuna I must say that at first everything seems below average: rooms, food, the resort, the beach and even the sea right in front of the village; but it takes one, two days to understand that you are in the Bahamas for other reasons and that what you are looking for can be found a few hundred metres from the village on the left; you just walk along the beach itself for about twenty minutes on foot to find yourself in an earthly paradise, or at least what we might consider as such. Crystal-clear sea, very white sand even on the seabed, low tide in the first hours of the morning creating a natural lagoon worthy of a film. So, going back to the village and to your room, everything seems more proportionate, more natural, fairer. Perhaps an extra-luxury mega-hotel right there would have been out of place. A resort just like the Viva Fortuna is perfectly fine.

The cleanliness that matters a lot to almost everyone is not lacking. The rooms are cleaned every day and the linen changed likewise, except the sheets, for which we never quite understood how often they were replaced. The food is good and some dishes are truly excellent, like the fish. The choice is in any case really wide, especially at lunch. One downside of the à la carte restaurants, the evening ones, is the bookings, so I advise you to book as soon as you arrive. The Italian restaurant "La Trattoria" was still damaged by a fire and therefore closed, but it had been replaced by a "Tent" restaurant next to the pool, problematic when it rains. The food is good both here and in the Asian one, which should not be mistaken for a Chinese restaurant, since the cuisine is a mix of European and Asian.

The beach kiosk is great for snacks during the sea hours but the number of flies and bees is a bit shocking, so better a sandwich from the closed counter than a hot-dog or hamburger cooked fresh but with so many things buzzing around. The entertainment is quite lively and not annoying, lots of free games with final prizes and nice, well-staged evening shows. There is also a venue meant as a disco but much more suited to kids no older than 25, where between one cocktail and another various snacks and pizza are served.

Finally, we did not do any organised excursion, since our only desired visit to the beach from the Bilboa advert did not have such success among those who had visited it before us that they felt like recommending it, explaining that the lagoon described above had nothing to envy, quite the contrary! For the rest I would not move from the village, maybe a quick trip to Port Lucaya for some souvenirs at a stall (or a few bottles of liquor, which are very cheap) or a game at the casino, but every movement by taxi costs 24 dollars round trip, it is not worth it, better perhaps to take a bike and experience the island, largely deserted.