Some clients come to me with a firm vision in mind, and others look to me to recommend the right destination/resort/experience for their “escape”. Sara and Jason considered several different honeymoon ideas before taking my suggestion and booking the Turtle Beach resort in Barbados. Looks like it was a hit!
Hi Ann,
We had an amazing time on our honeymoon in Barbados. So here is the run down on our trip. We were 20 minutes from landing in Barbados [and had mechanical issues], and they turned the plane around to San Juan. I think the next time we go, we would definitely fly Jet Blue — better flight times, and Business Class was not that great on American because of their older fleet.
The hotel was amazing, it was recently redone, and we had a new suite. Our suite was tucked away from everything, and ocean front with king size bed. All we could hear was the ocean from our balcony. A lot of honeymoon perks, we must have had at least 3 bottles of champagne during the week, chocolate covered strawberries, different desserts in our room each day, fresh flowers in a vase for the week, turn down service, flowers in the bathroom, and rose petals throughout the room. We had booked a honeymoon package before we left, and we had a romantic dinner for two on the beach, with a menu we picked out, and we had a hotel concierge that was assigned to us for the week.
With the hotel, when we did check-in there was an issue with our reservation, for some reason it was in two segments and they were going to have us check out and check in to a new room since the second reservation was for two double beds. We explained it was our honeymoon and the following morning when the manager was in, they took care of it, since it had been very late when we checked in.
The first morning we were there, there was a rep from Destination Management there at 9:30 to meet with us, we had no clue and were very tired from getting into our room at 2:00am. We needed to give them our return shuttle voucher and wanted to book our tours. We did not book anything with them, and would suggest people not. You need to give a cash deposit to them, and can pay the rest the day of with whatever tour company they hook you up with. We booked our activities through the hotel instead and they had a much better selection and better prices.
We did an all day catamaran snorkel trip with lunch, worth it. The hotel put together a special adventure for us with a driver to the Harrison’s Cave, Animal Refuge, Botanical Flower Garden lunch at a local Bajan restaurant and a trip to Earth Works. So worth it! We learned so much and covered most of the island in one day. The hotel also arranged a driver for us to Mount Gay Rum, for the hour tour. It was not worth doing the tour with lunch, so we went early, went back to the hotel for lunch and had time to still hang out on the beach. Our hotel was great for getting us drivers, you set a set fare and they come back for you. We also had a driver take us to Oistins for the Friday Fish Fry, such an amazing time and so worth it for a really fun night. We did not do St. Lawrence Gap, about a 15 minute walk from our resort, as it’s not really our thing, it was mostly bars, and our hotel always had entertainment and dancing and the bars were open to 12:30 at the hotel.
Our hotel was really good about making sure you got the island feel for music, food, and culture. You need to make reservations for dinner, which is not an issue, you just do it at breakfast and they have the menus out for the different restaurants. Two restaurants are semi formal and one is formal. We checked out Crystal Cove, their sister property, and it was smaller and not as nice as ours. We also checked out Sandy Lane, which was really not that much nicer than ours. Turtle Beach and Sandy Lane have strong reputations on the island. It was nice to be traveling somewhere where there were no Americans, we met a lot of honeymooners at our resort. If there were kids, they were in the kids club and you never saw them. The food was amazing, the pool service was great, they would set up your lounge chair, always came through with drinks, fruit, and popsicles. Captain Sam is in charge of the beach, where you take your towel card to get fresh towels, and they will set your lounge chair and cabana up for you. There were waves but you can swim, do water sports, and boogie board. The staff is amazing, they take the time to get to know you, we got so many hugs when we left.
So thank you for putting together an amazing honeymoon, and we will be back at Turtle Beach with children — it was a great place! You will be hearing from us again!
Thank you!
