Relaxing holiday before the COVID19 shut down
May 13, 2020 Sally R Redhill
We booked 2 weeks at this resort at the beginning of March with Virgin before all the chaos with COVID19. Flight was great lovely crew. We had private transfer to our resort which took 1 hour 15 minutes. We arrived at the hotel but have to agree with many other reviews, there was queue and the reception staff were not friendly or welcoming, they…
Read more
We booked 2 weeks at this resort at the beginning of March with Virgin before all the chaos with COVID19. Flight was great lovely crew. We had private transfer to our resort which took 1 hour 15 minutes. We arrived at the hotel but have to agree with many other reviews, there was queue and the reception staff were not friendly or welcoming, they were in fact rude. We waited in the queue and a nice bar man took our order for drinks, when we got to check in we had drinks in our hand whilst trying to complete registration, not ideal especially after a long flight and transfer.
We were pleased with our room 505 which was nice and quiet, right by the beach near Piers Restaurant.
We went to the buffet on our first evening but wasn’t impressed, not much selection and what was left was not hot.
We joined the queue to book the a la carte restaurants which you can only do once a week. The queue can be long best to go early. We found the Italian very easy to book and actually we really liked it there, was consistent good food and service. Bamboo was a bit hit and miss, Piers restaurant was very good, we didn’t try the French restaurant at an extra cost. We went back to the buffet on one other occasion and it wasn’t that great and still not hot.
We were celebrating our wedding anniversary and received a bottle of fizz in our room and on our special day, and they decorated our table in the evening which was a nice touch. 💕
The beach is lovely, white sand shallow but murky and not many fish, and it is short there is no where to go, so if you like to take a long walk along the beach to walk your breakfast off you can’t. We did go to the so called supermarket, turn right from outside the hotel only 10 minutes but walking along a very busy road, across the bridge and it is in fact a cash & carry. On the walk back to the hotel we saw some cows walking along the path!
Lunch time we preferred Plums, tucked away up the hill, they serve you at your table, the menu was what we liked, lighter options, shame its located at the children’s pool. We loved the staff there and always had great service, just some days there weren’t enough staff to guests.
Every Wednesday is BBQ night where all the restaurants close and all staff work very hard at the BBQ. The atmosphere and entertainment was great, but the food wasn’t that nice. Personally I think it would be great to have at least one of the restaurants open so you had a choice. I’m not a lover of having to queue for my food, and there wasn’t enough tables and chairs, so they did allow you to use the tables in Bamboo, some staff were serving drinks to some guests in there but not to everyone.
We had great fun on the Hobie cats, they give you a lesson and the guys are really good fun.
Ice cream guy on the beach each day 😃
Bamboo restaurant for breakfast has a wonderful sea view & you can watch the hummingbirds wiz in out of the flowers 💕
Coffee shop great as it’s open till late each evening, but the sandwiches are stale .... every day, fridge showed temp 24 degrees.
We liked the beach each day so we would get our drinks from the The Sandpit bar, what I did find frustrating was the wait if the all people in front of you ordered cocktails, when all I wanted was 2 glasses of wine. 😕
Evening entertainment could have been better.
Red Door late night bar was definitely a nice surprise 🥂
We only did one excursion which we booked with our virgin rep, we went on Catamaran Sail to see Pitons, botanical gardens & volcanoes. Great day out.
We also shared a taxis with another couple to Rodney Bay where there are 2 shopping malls, it was nice to get out and see the marina, you don’t need more than a couple of hours there. And we caught the bus back to the hotel which was fun.
Lovely holiday but don’t think we would go back, we like to see different places, and although the beach was fabulous the food was a bit hit and miss, my expectations were high due to the price we had paid.
Staff that stood out for us was Claudia, smiley Catherine, Ashley, a guy who picked us up on the golf buggy sorry can’t remember his name think began with R he was so much fun, , didn’t see any manager presence while we were there.
Read less
