Trying to decide on a hotel with a kitchen in Barbados for a week in February. We are looking at four choices - the Bouganvilla Beach Resort, White Sands, Beach View and the Sugar Cane Club. We'd like a clean, quiet place within walking distance to a nice beach and restaurants. (I do realize the Sugar Cane Club isn't walking distance to a beach, but the reviews sound so good it might be worth the trade off.) Any first hand experience, advice appreciated!

Bougainvillea gets consistently good reviews, and is in a quiet spot on a very good beach.

Thanks for the response, xkenx. Have you been to Bougainvillea?

I haven't stayed there but know the area. The reviews are from www.tripadvisor.com and others.

The Bougainvillea is very nice for condo-style hotel accommodations -- we stayed there in a clean, modern one bedroom with king bed, a full kitchen, large bathroom, and a sleep sofa in the living room -- the staff was very pleasant and their beach was good (some strong surf some days). Good lunches at outdoor restaurant near the pool. They have a bar at the pool (the pool itself is small). A convenient little grocery store is just a two minute walk down the road. Short taxi ride to many restaurants, but not walking distance. We highly recommend Bougainvillea.

Thanks you both! I checked out tripadvisor & am sold. We booked the Bougainvillea, can't wait. It snowed here yesterday & I am dreaming of the beach!

We'd rather not rent a car. Can I ask few more questions? Are the taxis are readily available? Do you have any favorite restaurants you'd recommend? Did you take any island tours or travel to other parts of the island - and if so, how did you get there? Any tips would be appreciated.

Taxis are readily available, but, if you have good service from a particular driver, I would recommend sticking with that fellow for all your evening trips for dinners and other trips too -- if you check out Lois Swanson's website on Barbados (www.barbadostips.com; she has been to Barbados dozens of times and is a real expert), you'll see her recommendation for Emerson Clark, cell tel 246-230-1986 -- he is a sweet, polite, wonderful gentleman, very dependable, with an immaculately clean cab, who has won all sorts of awards for outstanding service -- he was really great. We loved seeing Harrison's Cave, and the craggy, rugged Scotland-type seashore of the Bathsheba area on the East Coast. There are lots of other attractions listed on Lois's website as well. Your driver can do personal tours, or you can use a tour service that does group tours in a bus. Bridgetown is crowded and not worth going to visit, as there is not much interesting shopping ooor soghtseeing there. As for restaurants, I understand that a number of higher-end places may have had problems with the slow economy -- Lois's website will tell you their current status. If you use taxis, stick to South Coast restaurants to avoid longer, more expensive cab rides to the West Coast, unless you want to splurge for a superb place like the Cliff or the Tides. On the South Coast, good places include Cafe Luna, Wispers (pricey but very good), Champers, Pisces, and (lower-priced but good) Harlequin. There was an incredible place on South Coast named Southsea that may closed during the slow season, hopefully they have reopened. Lois can often get you a good table with a water view if you contact her thru the website, give that a try. She is a great resource. We have been to Barbados twice now -- our recent visit in 2008 was more enjoyable than a visit about 6 or 6 years ago, as the roads and the generall infrastructure have improved a great deal. Please feel free to ask any other questions.

Thank you, alanb, for all the good information. I'll check out the website & restaurants you mentioned and greatly appreciate the driver recommendation! A personal tour with a trustworthy driver is just what we need. Bridgetown we can miss. The cave sounds great! Did you find any beaches worth traveling for? We tend towards hiking & historical sight seeing on most vacations, but will probably spend a day or two just hanging out, reading & swimming.

I am curious about the slow economy; in researching a number of sites for a couple of weeks before booking, I found some resorts sold out on some websites. This gave me the impression Caribbean tourism was going pretty strong. But I guess it's affecting most people in one way or another, and maybe the high end places more than the moderate.

We mostly stuck to the beach at Bougainvillea. I recall that Accra Beach is quite large (we had stayed at a hotel there a number of years ago) but a bit more crowded and bustling with wate sports, vendors, etc. (not a bother if you simply say "no, thanks" politely)-- if you go there, you should be able to rent lounge chairs, get lunch, drinks, etc. unless you bring your own supplies. The Bougainvillea obviously has plenty of beach loungers for its own guests to use. The popular resort hotels are still busy, at least during high season -- apparently the slow economy hits hardest in off-peak times of the year. For restaurants, you should look at a Barbados dining website called www.diningwithus.net, that has some information, menus and reviews. Also, look at the information on Fodors and Frommers, either online or by buying guide books. If you have access to Zagats online, they have many ratings and reviews of Barbados restaurants (the only Caribbean island with full Zagats reviews so far). Another restaurant I remember we enjoyed on the South Coast was Aqua, but it may have closed over the summer. For other sightseeing possibilities, there are some flower gardens, historic "great houses", old churches, museums, sugar cane fields, and a rum factory tour, although we didn't visit any of those places, and also a synagogue built in Bridgetown hundreds of years ago that we visited. Not sure about hiking opportunities.

alanb, thank you again for the great dining link! Thank you also for sharing your first hand experiences. We'll probably spend most of our beach time right at the Bougainvillea, but I'd like to check out one or two others, just for the experience. Looking forward to the trip!

Lois's website recommends a new restauant called Mullins (I haven't been there. When you look at restaurant menu prices, remember that they may be expressed in Barbados dollars (I think the exchange rate is about 2 B $ == 1 US $). Everyone accepts US money but you may get your change in Bajan currency. Bougainvillea will change some currency for you at the front desk. Be sure to change it back before you go home, at the hotel, a bank branch (in St. Lawrence Gap area, nearby), or at a currency exchange booth at the airport in Barbados, as is harder to do back in the US. US credit cards are widely accepted. Some restaurants add a 10% service charge to the bill automatically, so you should check and take that into account when figuring out how much (if any)additional tip money too put on the dinner check. Hotels usually add 10% service chrage (mandatory staff tip) plus 10% tax to their rates. We left a few extra dollars for the chambermaids at the hotel, who generally provided very good service. I think Bougainvillea had US-style electric outlets in the bathrooms for chargers, shavers and hairdryers, but you may want to check that, because British-style plugs are shaped differently and use a different voltage. Have a great trip!

Thanks AlanB for recommending my website. I keep it pretty up-to-date, so it should be helpful.

Southsea has permanently closed -- the owner died in June.

If people want calmer waters, definitely head to the West Coast -- our favorite beach is Mullins. We stayed at Bougainvillea in October briefly, but the seas were too rough to go in and eventually they put red flags up. You almost never will have that occur on the west coast.

Champers is fabulous and we like that really well now that Southsea is no longer in business. Also Wispers is a better restaurant. We enjoy Tapas and their "tapas" blackboard menu was great. On the west coast, The Tides is still our favorite, but we discovered Mullins Restaurant this time (run by the people who own Royal Westmoreland). During the day it's a casual beach restaurant, but they transform it at night and it was very elegant - delicious food too.

Lois

You should also check out www.barbados.org for more information on your interest such as hiking. While the beaches are great, there are lots of other things to do in Barbados that are worth taking a break from sunning on the beach .


One of the things that's also nice to do is visit/tour around the east coast of Barbados you can have a picnic in Bathsheba (we use to do this as a family when I was younger), visit Chalky Mt to see local potters and the areas is also great for hiking-including Hackleton Cliff which has the one of the best view of the east coast.

Here's some info on hike Barbados: http://www.barbados.org/hike.htm