Barbados Hilton Offers Family Value and Safety
Written: Feb 24 '08
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Reasonable prices, clean, well maintained and great water sports for free.
Cons: Off-site, walking to attractions is a hike.
The Bottom Line: The Barbados Hilton offers value and a standard American setting that is familiar and safe. Gold Hilton Honors members enjoy special benefits free breakfast, snacks and drinks.
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| DGodesky's Full Review: Barbados |
The Hilton Barbados is the place to stay if you are looking for reliable accommodations and reasonable prices. Most important, if you are a Hilton Honors Gold Member, or can become one by staying enough times at Hilton before your trip, make sure upon check in you receive Gold Member floor access. As a Gold Member at the Barbados Hilton you receive at no cost a full daily breakfast and evening snacks and open bar. Even if you are not a Gold member, the Hilton Barbados offers the most consistent dining and accommodations you likely can find for the price. One of the most frustrating things about Barbados is finding good, reasonably priced food, thus my emphasis on the Hilton Honors Gold level membership benefits.
Hilton Barbados offers all of the typical things that a major hotel would and should offer. Two great pools, several dining options right in the hotel, beachfront, etc. What I believe can benefit you are the traveling hits that we have specific to this hotel, and most others that a typical American family might want to consider.
Overall Setting: The Barbados Hilton is a resort style hotel built on a point of land (Needham’s Point) which is why the hotel offers more privacy and security than most other regular consumer hotels. Everything is well maintained and of higher end quality. The people are friendly and costs reasonable in context that many things are higher priced on Barbados. The pool and ocean settings are first class, and essentially if you simply enjoy the pool and beach, chances are you will be very pleased. This private setting gives you safety and security without paying for a more exclusive resort.
Beach & Ocean: The Barbados Hilton is on a point of land that is fairly windy compared to other beachfronts on this side of the island. The breeze is steady and that can fool you with respect to how hot and how much sun exposure you are getting. The hotel puts out a reasonable number of chairs and umbrellas, but during on-season stays, they are taken up by 8 AM. Each morning at 7:30 AM I would make it a habit to go to the beach and occupy chairs and an umbrella for my family to have for the day. I strongly recommend you designate someone to do this each day otherwise, you will be dealing with direct sun all day long. The quality of the lounge chairs is very good, and they not only put out several rows each morning, there are typically stacked chairs that you can take on your own if you need more.
Fish & Reef: We highly recommend that you bring a dive mask, snorkel, and fins; you can pick up a travel kit on the web for under $50 or at any sporting goods store. There is a reef immediately in front of you at the beach, it splits the beach in two. You can snorkel around the perimeter and stay in safe depths of 3 to 8 feet all the way around. A trip around the reef brings you face to face with dozens of different fish species, and if you are lucky, a sea turtle or two. Taking your time, you can snorkel around the entire loop in about 30 minutes. Every day there is something new to see and it is great exercise. Free, enjoyable, educational, and exercise – do not leave your dive great at home. You can also travel the short 2 miles to Acra Beach (East, Northeast from the hotel along the coast), and swim a larger public beach with a big reef that the tourist boats come to each day – you can dive it an easy 75 yard swim off shore.
In-hotel Dining. Many nights the hotel’s main restaurant offers a buffet for about $25 per person and it was available every night of the week when we stayed there. The food is of moderate quality, but we have had a difficult time finding good quality food anywhere at reasonable prices. If you are looking at $25 or less per person, in Barbados, quality food is difficult to find and the buffet is a reliable solutions. At the Hilton, you can ask for just the salad bar at $12 (price varies, it is not on the menu and it seems to be up to the waitress to establish the price!). The salad bar can be quite filling and offers the typical salad choices as well as some seafood; one night, shrimp!
Drinks: Either come prepared to pay $2 to $4 for each non-alcoholic beverage at the hotel or save several hundred dollars a week by brining a 2nd suitcase filled with drinks; since the airlines usually let you bring two suitcases per person, fill at least one with non-carbonated drinks, mostly fruit drinks and juices; make sure you weigh it to say under the 50 pound limits (read what your airline requires it could be only 35 lbs!). Each night we would ice about 6 and have them for the beach the next day. With a family of 4, paying for several drinks a day at those prices would have been like a 4th meal each day.
Local Attractions: The Hilton is located a short 5 minutes from Bridgetown if you like the town setting. I can not offer much advice about Bridgetown because being in town was not part of our agenda; we were beach and pool people, and only left the hotel to eat out, or jog. However, there is one local attraction that is within about a 1/3 mile walk, and that is the local horse racing track. If you are fortunate enough to be at the Hilton during a time when races are in season, you must go to enjoy the local fun. Admission was essentially free ($1 US best I recall), beers were about $3 and betting was cheap. The horses run clockwise, which is the reverse of US racing and they are filmed by a camera crew racing alongside the horses in a van – loads of fun to watch.
Jogging: If you are a runner, from the Barbados Hilton, there are two directions you can jog along the coast. Towards Bridgetown, you are in town in 1.5 miles of two lane road and sidewalk about half the time. While some of the community appears to be lower income, so much of the island is lower income; the people were friendly, and both my daughter (20 yrs old) and I jogged on our own with no problems. Once in Bridgetown, you’re around plenty of people and businesses. In the other direction towards Acra Beach about 2 miles away. Acra Beach is a public beach very popular with locals. The jog to Acra Beach is safe, but the traffic is a bit faster but there are sidewalks for about ¾ of the distance.
Gold Hilton Honors Level: If you are able to take advantage of the gold level benefits, you will receive a full English style breakfast daily. Great coffee. Breads and meats. Fresh fruits and juices. Pastries. From 5 to 7 they serve light meal and from 7 to 11, a full open bar of wine, beer and usually brandy. Typically there are two wine selections, and 4 beers; they can change daily. Getting this benefit makes it so much simpler to vacation because not only is it free, you save lots of time.
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Families
Best Time to Travel Here: Dec - Feb
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Epinions.com ID:
DGodesky
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Location: Maryland
Reviews written: 74
Trusted by: 5 members
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