SLS Baha Mar: Las Vegas on a beach.

SLS is an acronym for “style, luxury, and service,” and the SLS Baha Mar, the $4.2 billion Bahamian resort encompassing a whopping 3,000 square feet on Cable Beach, is proving to be well worth the wait with its world-class amenities. Swanky hotels? Check. (The Grand Hyatt Baha Mar and SLS Baha Mar are open, and the Rosewood Baha Mar is to open in April.) Casino? Check. (Baha Mar is home to the Caribbean’s largest one.) Golf course? Check. Beachy pleasures? Check.

Here you’re instantly overwhelmed by that first “s” the moment you enter the lobby. Décor throughout is heavy on the drama, with high ceilings, cinematic lighting, quirkily mismatched furniture and vibrant oversized art.

Amenities specific to the SLS include five restaurants and lounges; two pools; and Nassau’s only rooftop bar (debuting this spring). But beyond the confines of the resort and within the larger Baha Mar grounds, guests also enjoy unlimited access to Bond nightclub and a pair of restaurants, all owned by SLS’ parent company. That’s in addition to all the shops and restaurants affiliated with the two neighboring resorts and the facilities owned by Baha Mar itself, which include the Bahamas’ largest casino; a palatial spa; a Jack Nicklaus-designed 18-hole golf course; shopping arcades; a kids’ club and an art gallery.

If you’re not familiar with the Baha Mar resort project, the largest in the Caribbean, it first broke ground on Cable Beach in Nassau back at the beginning of 2011.

As it grew over the years and its infrastructure transformed the Cable Beach area of Nassau, it became a large question mark: what was this project all about? How would it draw visitors when Atlantis was just a few miles away?

The answer is simple. Baha Mar is meant to be the Caribbean’s Las Vegas, the Caribbean’s Macau — a high-level luxury resort complex anchored by a 100,000-square-foot casino (nearly twice the size of Atlantis), the kind of property the Caribbean has never seen, with a world-class offering that just isn’t in the Caribbean.

Most importantly, the project isn’t meant to take away visitors from Atlantis, a decidedly more family-friendly, Disney-like place. Baha Mar is a Las Vegas with sandals, Las Vegas on a beach. And that’s pretty hard to beat.