The Club Barbados Resort & Spa

This is an older hotel, well located close to Holetown on the West coast of Barbados, north of Bridgetown. All in all, the hotel is good and the staff are very friendly and accommodating. The food in the buffet restaurant is also good but the speciality restaurant, Enids, is nothing more than a canteen in a noisy room above the main restaurant. We only went once as we didnt want to experience it again. The pool area was dirty. Today, when we left breakfast, there were wet tissues left on the floor by the pool and a sticky plaster. This evening, as we went to dinner, all of these items were still there. No staff had chosen to tidy these up. This is one example. The pool water itself wasnt inviting with some days where a layer of scum was obvious on the top of the water. The beach to the left of the hotel (looking out to sea) is very quiet so we went swimming there many times in preference to the pool. The indoor bar areas are quite old and, again, uninviting. The pool bar is great and there's a nice seating area adjacent to it which has shade in the afternoons. Our room was lovely with a large king bed, plenty of room, great maid service, clean and fresh but the tiles around the shower were stained and needed re-grouting. The aircon works fantastically and keeps the room at a lovely temperature. There is a nice veranda area (ground floor room) which overlooks the pool area (but not the pool itself as its shaded by plants). Talking of plants, the green areas at the back of the rooms arent very well kept but the area round the pool is fine. The staff are great and many got to know our preferences during our 10 night stay. Read less

Arrival and welcome was good although slow despite us being the only people checking in. First impression if room was also good, ground floor garden room with terrace. Large comfy bed, dated bathroom which desperately needed upgrading but was clean and functional, wasn't a fan of the shower curtain! Towels were old, no longer white and some were frayed a d thin. The air con was good when it worked, it broke three times during our eight day stay, leaked water all over the room floor and made an awful noise during the night. I have to say it was fixed each time but I dare say it's broken again since we left. Pool area lovely, gardens maintained daily. Getting a sun lounger was difficult as people reserved them very early prior to breakfast and sometimes didn't arrive at them until mid morning. This practise should be stopped as it's unfair. Restaurant lovely, food was always good, varied and plentiful. Staff were on the whole lovely too and we're always on hand if needed in the restaurant. We never had to queue at the bar for drinks but sometimes in the evening drinks were still served in plastic glasses which be isn't really acceptable. We did point this out at the bar and the plastic was changed to glass without any fuss. Entertainment was ok but we didn't really stay out late as we prefer to get up early due to the shorter days in Barbados. The beach which is accessible via the steps and runs right alongside Sandy Lane is beautiful and although the club Barbados does not have any sun beds on this beach anyone is able to take their towels, use the beach and swim in the sea which I did every day and it was heaven. On the whole I enjoyed my stay at this hotel and would definately return. Please do not go to club Barbados thinking it's a 4 star because it isn't. Despite this, the hotel is clean, well maintained, friendly, has good food, premium drinks, a manager who is visible everyday and who mingles with the guests a lovely beach, watersports and lots more. Thanks for a lovely stay and perhaps we'll return again next year ⛱️ Read less

Been coming 20 years -love it! Still full of the old Bajan charm and a great location. Wonderful Spa facilities with great deals! Friendly and helpful staff. Good food - excellent service and hotel represents good value for money. Spacious and well appointed rooms The Resort has a very relaxed atmosphere, with a variety of evening entertainment . No complaints ! My wife and i will return next year! Dr H Read less

Very comfortable and the food good but not local. Drinks plentiful. Lovely pools surrounded by unoccupied towel-reserved sunbeds. Don't whinge, join in. Gardens lovely. Animals interesting. Birds (tropical, some humming) everywhere. Tree frogs paid to sound tropical. Monkey family and, was it really, a mongoose. Hey,ho, it's the Caribbean and we love it. Thank you Jos Buttler for adding 83 smiles to the holiday. Read less

Wow!! What a fab holiday we had despite one or two glitches along the way. This trip had been on top of my bucket list for well over 20 years. Going to watch England play cricket in the West Indies…so this was it. After considering the organised cricket tours with travel specialists such as ‘Howzat’ and ‘Barmy Army’ we decided that their prices were way, way over what we were willing to pay so opted to do a ‘DIY’ and book everything independently. After the usual research on ‘Trip Advisor’ and other reviewers we chose the Virgin Atlantic Holidays route and picked Club Barbados Resort and Spa in Holetown, St James. The cost for our 10 day all inclusive holiday for two travelling economy classic came to £5,500 which included a £700 upgrade for a ‘Superior Oceanfront Ocean View’ room with breathtaking views and private transfers…well it was to celebrate my upcoming 70th birthday after all. On arrival there was a very large number of 40th birthday party goers checking out which meant our check in experience was a bit of a shambles with us having to wait over 20 minutes to check in and complete all the check in paperwork. Fortunately for us our room was ready which was sadly not the case for a few other new travel weary arrivals. They were directed to the bar for a drink with apologies. We left payment card details with a deposit of 693 Barbados dollars which at check out the hotel deducted the resort fees of 48BD/24US dollars per room per night (£187 for the 10 days) and any other extras such as trips out or taxis. I was most grateful to Virgin and the hotel to be given a ground floor apartment as requested as I suffer from a breathing condition. Our room was nice if not a little tired here and there. On opening the patio doors we were a little disappointed to find we had a shared patio with the next door suite. It was very small and only just had room for the two chairs and an unnecessarily large table. It was very scruffy with weeds growing from the slabs and the soil bed housing a hedge plus uncared for paint and cement work. The hedge stood 6 feet high and blocked any ‘breathtaking’ view we had been promised in the description. Not being people who complain easily we eventually decided to put in a query after living with the hedge for a day or so. By then we had also been putting up with night time noise from the Beach Bar terrace adjacent to the room plus members of the security team and other staff having quite loud conversations at 4am in the morning on the same terrace. We contacted the Virgin resort rep by the suggested ‘What’s App’ method who replied 24 hours later suggesting we email Suntours Caribbean customer services. To the absolute credit of the hotel management they called us 30 minutes after receiving a call from Suntours with an unreserved apology. They offered us a room switch to the second block of ocean front rooms for a couple of days time. We agreed. The 4am chattering stopped immediately the next morning as well. On the morning of our move we packed our suitcases and went off for breakfast only to return to find the maintenance guys had found the hedge trimmer!! We watched with genuine excitement as all the ground floor apartments on our block were given a good trim and low and behold our ‘Breathtaking’ ocean view was there at last and we were finally connected to the ocean as we had dreamed. The six foot hedge had been reduced to a mere foot or so. Needless to say we decided to stay in our ground floor room. Well, after all it was only ten short steps to walk straight into that lovely ocean. Service in the Sunset Restaurant is excellent and the waiting staff work tirelessly to make sure everything is to your satisfaction. We found booking the first dinner service at 6.30pm the best choice for us as the later ones could get very busy and sometimes the wait times got much longer particularly on the set menu nights with the waiting staff being put under more and more pressure as the evening goes on. All the food was generally of high quality with a rotation of buffet, A La Carte (Set Menu) and a Bar-B-Cue evening. We booked into Enid’s for one of the evening meals and it was ok and good for getting away from the larger Sunset Restaurant environment. You get a set menu with Bajan food theme and the same high quality service. Worth trying at least once. The Piano Bar is a curious one. We decided to have a look one evening and arrived at opening time just after 11pm. First impression was that the Piano Bar is just as it looks in the promo video and photos. It is a small room next to reception. We walked into a lovely air conditioned room and felt the really cool vibe straight away. Lyndon was tinkering away on the piano and creating a really nice atmosphere. Sadly about 20 minutes in the room was joined by a large group of guests clearly looking for their next drink and very quickly the vibe in the room transformed into an awful karaoke bar… we left…such a shame. Sadly during our stay the sun bed reserving brigade were out in force both in the pool and ocean terrace areas. That was despite signs asking people not to reserve and a note on the hotels welcome letter advising people not to reserve with towels or personal belongings before 8am or they would be removed. For this reason we only sat around the pool on two occasions one of which we observed the ‘reservers’ arrive at their chosen sun beds some three hours after we had found ours. Just so selfish and arrogant. Our ambition is that one day we will find a hotel who enforce their rules but somehow I doubt that will ever happen. We enjoyed very much our double kayaking session from the water sports hut. We did not use the Spa or Gym on our stay. All in all a great holiday despite the niggles and a hotel that grows on you as the days go by. The management do need to keep on top of the ‘attention to detail’ in particular with the two ocean view blocks which total 36 rooms and 12 loft rooms. These are premium view rooms that provide a lot of extra upgrade revenue for no real extra running cost. The Hotel’s ocean front location is definitely 5 star, the rooms probably 3 star, the service 4 star and the food close to 4 star. Would we go back to The Club Barbados? You betcha we would Read less