1 week bad, 2 weeks better! (Barbados)

Member Name: scrozzer

Product:	Barbados
Date:	01/04/02 (174 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Warm, Lovely beaches

Disadvantages: Need more time

Well, a week in Barbados used to be only afforded by the rich and famous, not your average Joe Bloggs on the street, but lo and behold we went, my wife and my two young children.

We went with Virgin Atlantic and stayed at the Silver Sands resort on the south coast, which was nicely situated, very quiet and peaceful.

The south coast of the island is perfect if you want to go windsurfing or parasailing, plenty of wind and surf here. That said, the beach is lovely to paddle about in, and is often nice enough to swim in, not too rough. Next to our room was the Mistral windsurfing club, but there wasn't too much disturbance from these guys, and it was nice to see these guys showing us how they do their stuff (and their girlfriends were nice to look at as well!).

Our room was on the first floor which we didn't mind, and when you walked onto the balcony, you realised that the room was only 25ft away from the beach. Perfect!

We did have some problems during the holiday though, some could have been avoided others couldn't. Our two boys became unwell during the flight over and although he was alright after landing, I think this affected him for the rest of the holiday as he came ill with a cold, then a few days later his brother became ill. This limited us to a few places that we could visit, but that didn't matter too much.

One of the other problems was that on the flight, water had gotten into one of our suitcases and waterlogged our clothes. The boys clothes were fine, but getting Virgin to take responsibility was impossible, so we had to do without many of our clothes for the week.

One trip you have to do is the Tiami catamarran cruise off the west coast from Bridgetown. Very nice, drinking rum punch (watch these guys it's strong stuff!), relaxing and very very enjoyable. Wasn't able to swim with the turtles as I wanted to do because of the laundry problem, but nonetheless it was great.
Water was crystal clear, the weather was perfect.

We also did a tour of the island, going up to Speightstown, down the north east coast, and eventually ending up at a plantation house for dinner.

Visit the Mount Gay rum distillery and buy some of the rum there, it's cheap and you'll find exactly you want to find in the way of rum.

Bridgetown has a lot of jewellers there, who tended to be a bit pushy at times, but simply walk away if you're not happy with a possible purchase.

The people in Barbados were very friendly and I felt very relaxed with the children around them. I've been to other destinations in Europe not feeling too comfortable before, so this was a nice change.

Taxis are the best way around the island and are relatively cheap, but the cheapest way is by bus, but this service doesn't run so much in the evening.

When I was over there, there were major roadworks outside Bridgetown taking you on a mystery tour of the area, but hopefully by the end of 2002 this will be completed. They are currently replacing the sanitation works, having had to restart it after a previous contractor was fired due to negligence.

Taxi drivers are a bit insane, and my tip is not to hire a car unless you know the island well, and you know how to cope with the driving over there.

Food was great over there that we bought from the supermarket, because we weren't able to eat in the restaurant much because of our clothes shortage.

Prices wise, things are a bit more expensive, but not the exhorbitant prices you read about.

All in all, a nice holiday, lovely weather more or less guaranteed, friendly people, fantastic scenery and beaches (best on the island is Miami Beach, but all western island beaches are fab). I wished we had two weeks over there instead.

Will go back and visit again and have more fun on a two week holiday next time.

One final th
ing, try to get hold of some bajan pepper sauce. This is seriously strong, and set my tongue on edge for days..

Summary: