Turtle Beach Hotel was in a fantastic location, South of the island, an easy walking distance to other beaches and close by restaurants if you wanted to eat somewhere else other than the hotel.
The board basis as standard is all-inclusive which gave you access to all the restaurants and bars at the resort. Included were all drinks anything from soft ones, cocktails made fresh, beers, wines, you name it. Just not the premium brand stuff but that is always the case no matter where you are.
The hotel is open plan so you could see the beach and the pools from the reception or the restaurants. Making the hotel feel encompassing and homely. They have three different pools, one for kids, one which was rectangle; best for anyone wanting to do any lane swimming and a smaller whirlpool one where you can enjoy a cocktail at sundown. Plenty of choice. Loungers around the pool and on the beach were sparse so it’s best to get out quickly if you are visiting in peak season. We actually went slightly off-season in November so luckily didn’t have a problem with being disappointed.
The beach at Turtle Beach is also attached to the beach which runs along the front of the Sandals property a long sandy beach just like you would see from generic laptop wallpaper. This beach is perfect for morning walks or runs if you will, a huge amount of people were exercising. On holiday? Um not for me thank you, but you could if you are one of those holiday types. They also provide a huge amount of watersports there as well from snorkeling to kayaking, boogie boarding or hobie cat sailing. I believe recently they have also added surfing lessons to this list as well. We did jet-skiing there also but for an extra cost rather than included in the all-inclusive. But again this is usually the case for all hotels you stay in with all-inclusive as they can charge quite a lot of money for a short amount of time – great fun though. Needs to be done once on every holiday.
Majority of the rooms are ocean facing but if go for the interconnecting they are usually on the first floor therefore a garden view. This is what we had. But with the ground floor meant a terrace, and with a terrace was a footpath which led all the way round to the pool and the beach, so it was actually perfect for us. We don’t spend long in ours rooms anyway, so view isn’t the most important thing for us. We didn’t want to pay the premium for the interconnecting ocean view rooms, but this is definitely an option if you are wanting something a bit more special.
The staff at the hotel were always very attentive and friendly, the same as all people in Barbados, they were just lovely, so you expect nothing different at the hotel. They always had a smile on their face whenever you greeted them.
The one great highlight from the Elegant hotels group is that you have the ‘dine-around’ already included. You can use your all-inclusive at one of the other hotels if you wanted to go and visit it for a day. We did this with Crystal Cove just one of the sibling properties of Elegant. All we had to do was ask the concierge at Turtle Beach if there was room for us to go up and visit the following day. When we drove up and got to the gate of the Crystal Cove they already knew exactly who we were and just confirmed that we could still use all the same features at this hotel. At the time the Crystal Cove’s restaurant was closed but their swim up bar and beach grill where open for business as usually. Watersports were also included here and as we were at a different side of the island (West) the waters are calmer, so clearer for snorkeling. We visited this hotel twice, for the whole day, through-out our ten day holiday.
We visited this hotel back in November 2014. I have sent many clients over to this hotel since I have been and always get very positive feedback still.
If you have any further questions, feel free to head over to my contact me page. I will be happy to answer anything.
LEAH HANCOX 