Southern Palms Beach Club

Currently staying here and cannot fault the place. The staff from groundsmen, cleaners, bar and restaurant staff are just lovely! I’ve been to Barbados many times as I have family here but not been for 20 years! Perfect location in the gap, taxis outside or we used pickup app. Lots of bars etc and dive bar on sat have fabulous band on! Nothing is too much trouble and if you report an issue it’s dealt with straight away. Beach is beautiful, yes lots of seagrass but you can’t control that. Oistins Friday is just fabulous. I would not hesitate to stay here again.

This place needs knocking down, the service is awful, the staff are hostile and just do not want to be there, awful rude beach guy called Rodney who is miserable as sin, if you want lunch it will take about 2 hours, so many more hotels that will give you what you pay for, avoid Christmas time because a strange type of family who own the property stay there and all the staff tend to them and leave the paying customers to wait 2 hours for the food and drinks that they’ve ordered, the place is a dump and for what it costs just beggers belief.

We booked an ACV supersaver room with Air Canada Vacations, and received room 243. Our package included transfer, we had no issues at customs on arrival (pre-filled our arrival form), and didn't have to wait long to be transferred. It took about 15 minutes to get from the airport to the hotel.

Room: Supersaver room 243, faces the gap and has a wee European style balcony (lots of room for one person, just enough room for two). A bit of road noise, but nothing disruptive. We had a king bed, a mini fridge, a kettle. The AC worked wonderfully and there was no trace of dampness or must in the room. The shower worked well and we had no issues with hot water, we were also provided a hair dryer. We had 4 pillows of varying firmness, and the bed was very comfy! We were actually thoroughly impressed with our room, only notes for improvement would be more hangers to hang clothing (lots of storage in drawers, but not much space in the closet), a kettle with a longer cord (we had difficulty finding a good location to plug it in), and 2 sets of towels per person instead of one (we usually only have our room made up twice in a 7 night period, and we know we could have asked for towels at any time, I'm sure they would have accommodated).

Note on construction: the hotel is replacing the walkways at this time. The construction is starting at approximately 7:30 am and is ongoing throughout the day. It is not especially disruptive, though depending on where your room is located you might hear some machinery that they use to move the bricks around. Not sure how long this will be ongoing for, but I do believe they plan to replace all the walkways on the property so perhaps over the summer months.

The beach: Dover beach is beautiful, but there was quite a bit of seaweed that washed in the week we were here (May 29-June 5). It made swimming in the ocean unappealing, though we are not big ocean swimmers anyways. The sand is beautiful and we had the great privilege of witnessing a sea turtle dig her nest, lay her eggs, and then return to the ocean (please don't approach closely or shine lights on them, it's very disruptive!). We saw evidence of nests on several occasions, and the Barbados Seat Turtle Project volunteers are out documenting the nests as well. They have a hotline you can call to report nesting turtles (246-230-0142). Such a wonderful experience, though we were too early to see hatchlings. :)

Hotel grounds: the grounds of this hotel are lovely with lots of loungers and decent shade opportunities. There is mini golf and shuffle board. The two pools on site are well maintained, the main pool is a bit larger and the secondary pool is quite small (we did not try that one out). There are several very friendly cats who will hang out with you, and may even try to follow you up to your room.

Restaurants: we ate at the restaurant on several occasions (twice for dinner and twice for lunch, plus drinks on several occasions). The happy hour is a pretty good deal, but the wine here is expensive. Beer is also pricey compared to what you can buy at the local streetfood places or even the convenience stores close by. We brought some wine from home, and there was also wine for sale at the convenience stores close by.

All the food that we ate was very tasty. We tried the curry, the flying fish plate (excellent macaroni pie), the flying fish cutter, and the roti. The lunchtime roti are an excellent deal, get the shrimp one it's delicious! It's a little pricy compared to the local streetfood, but on par with the more established sit down restaurants (Mimosas, My Friend's Place, etc.).

The service: everyone who we interacted with was very friendly and helpful. We didn't find anyone to be surly (though not everyone was performatively happy). We had wonderful service from the ladies in the restaurants and Eurita even brought me some recipes for local Bajan specialties, which was so kind of her. :)

Entertainment: this resort is very chill and that's one of my favourite things about it. No entertainment staff yelling at you to participate in things. No blaring music or people yelling into microphones. There's evening entertainment some nights, which is chill but they were all talented. There's a steel drum band on Sunday afternoons and Thursday evenings. There was also a Rum Punch cocktail reception with management on Monday evening.

Location: we were about 15 minutes from the airport, 10 minutes from Oistins, and 7 minutes from Champers by cab. We were walking distance to a wide variety of food and drink options, ranging from budget to fancy. The Gap can get lively in high season, but we didn't find it too crazy at this time of year.

Overall: we loved this hotel and the relaxing chilled vibe. We'd come back in a heartbeat and are already dreaming of our next stay.