Barbados - Loved It (Holiday Resorts in Barbados in general)

Member Name: Wappum2

Product:	Holiday Resorts in Barbados in general
Date:	23/02/09 (122 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Stunning Scenary, Great beaches, Luxury Hotels

Disadvantages: Expensive, not the best road system

I selected Barbados as the destination for our honeymoon in 2007. I've always wanted to go and as your honeymoon is meant to be the holiday of a lifetime - it was the perfect opportunity to push the boat out a bit, and go.

Myself, my new husband and our 3yr old made the journey out there in June, and after the 9 hr flight, we were gutted to land to torrential rain, but we had been warned that it was the beginning of the rainy season - so we should have been prepared. Thankfully, it soon blew over, and that was the last rain shower we saw for the whole 2 weeks we were there.

We opted to go All Inclusive, as it was our 1st time on the Island, and we were aware that it has a reputation for being expensive - and so we stayed at Turtle Beach Resort, on the South Coast. It is twinned with a couple of hotels on the West Coast, which meant we could visit those hotels and eat/use the facilities there for free too - and the reviews we read regarding the hotel before we booked seemed to fit in with us as a family - with watersports for the husband, kiddy pool and kids club for our son - and a gorgeous beach for me!
The hotel is great. As soon as you arrive you are sat down, greated with a Rum punch and booked in whilst someone else bothers with getting your bags into your room. There are 3 resturants, 2 buffet, and 1 Italian A'la Carte which is only open in the evening - and which you can only use one a week, and without children. Dinner slots have to be booked for all resturants, which is best to do in the morning as soon as you've eaten breakfast to make sure you can eat at a time best suited to you. The buffet resturants are open for Breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and Tea - theres no 24 snack bar - and drinks are only available from 10am, although a good range of international brand alcohol was served.
There are 3 pools - 2 largish pools, and 1 kiddy pool - plus a jacuzzi. There's not an abundance of space around the pools, so if you venture down to late in the day, you might not be able to get a lounger, but the beach is only a few steps away - and there are more loungers available there.
There's a spa within the hotel, which I didn't use as treatments were an additional charge
The staff were all nice enough, some exeptional staff members went out of their way to make your stay enjoyable - others were just so-so, but nothing that could spoil your stay.
The Island itself is stunning - and you have to get out to see it. As it's so small - it's easy enough to see if all within a day - but as the signposting was none existance in places, we hired a driver for a day to do a tour - and just used taxi's whenever else we ventured out as they weren't to expensive.
There's not a massive amount of things to do on the Island - we took a boat tour and swan with turtle's which was great fun, went to the monkey reserve where there were hundreds of tortoises and visited the aquarium - which was ok, although a little shabby and small - our 3yr old wasn't impressed. After week 1 my husband was starting to get a bit bored, and he states that he wouldn't want to do a return trip, but I loved it, and it made a lasting impression on our 3yr old who still talks of his holiday to 'Turtle Island'

Summary: Can't wait to return to 'Turtle Island'