Southern Palms

We came to Southern Palms beach club from 3rd to 17th sept 2019 and stayed in the super saver garden room. We were pleasantly surprised at the large size and found it more than sufficient for us with a large king size bed, a separate 'hallway' space with our own fridge and kettle (bring your own tea/coff) and en suite shower room. It also had a dressing table with stool and 2 bedside tables. There was also a casual chair and a small table too. The room was cleaned daily with fresh towels provided. You are provided with a pink hotel beach towel for a deposit of b$50 which you can change when required. The room has remote control a/c and a wardrobe with 10 hangers. It had an iron and board also. We stayed self catering as there is so much choice of quality restaurants in St Lawrence Gap which is literally on your doorstep to the left as you leave the main entrance of the hotel. The hotel has security day and night. We hired a car for 48 hours which was £100 which we used to drive all over the island. The roads are easy to follow and you drive on the left side. Happy hour at the hotel is 1800-1900hrs. Breakfast is help yourself but we found to be expensive at £50 so we ate at Happy Days cafe over the road which has great service, wifi, is cheaper and has HP sauce! Dover beach is amazing but be mindful of the beach sellers who will try and do you a pedicure and sell aloe vera and drugs to you. On the afternoon of the 7th sept we arrived back at the hotel and found Dover beach and the sea to be swamped with Sargassum seaweed. It didn't ruin our holiday as there are so many beaches on Barbados to choose from and the seaweed was gone within a week. We used public transport and paid b$3.50 there and back to Bridgetown. Taxis are plentiful and the drivers will offer to take you on tours to wherever you want to go for a set price. Haggle with them for your best price but if you are a driver we would highly recommend hiring your own car and doing it yourself. The hotel has a guest laundry room which you can use yourself with washer driers, when we stayed they had broken down and the maid service did our washing for no charge! The hotel has quality entertainment every couple of nights and an English pub night on a Saturday with a live band. Cocktails are the usual pina coladas and daiquiri etc. Mozzie spray is required for sitting out at night. You will be billed for a safe if you want one for your entire stay at $3 each night and you sign for your drinks and food each time which you can pay as and when at the hotel reception. Snorkel and other watersports equipment is available for free at the watersports hut. Check out is 12 and we were given a room to shower and change before our transfer with fresh towels which was free. A late check out is half a day room charge so makes more sense to check out then use the spare room for free. Angela on reception was really helpful and friendly but the other receptionist's were unfriendly and quite rude when asked to clarify information such as directions to the bus stop. In general the female staff were not very friendly and at one point would talk about me even though I was right there! We were given a happy anniversary card and complimentary bottle of prosecco by the hotel which we thought was a nice touch. A small crazy golf and outside gym is available and the hotel has 2 pools, one of which is 8ft deep on one side. It only rained one day whilst we were there. Overall we would return here as it is close to the gap and easy to get to places but far enough away that you wont be disturbed by late night revellers. We would also choose the same room as when we used the room to change in we found it to lack things that our room had even though it was more expensive! We also saw turtles every day in the afternoon swimming in the sea?

After reading all the great reviews on TripAdvisor we decided Southern Palms was the hotel to stay at in Barbados. From the moment we arrived til the day we left it was wonderful. The staff were all very friendly and helpful. For me through...it was seeing the turtles swimming close to the shore whilst you was in the water. And many evenings seeing them come up on the beach to lay their eggs. But the best bit was helping gather the baby turtles..just seeing and holding them was absolutely amazing. We were not expecting this as the season was slowly coming to the end but it seemed not..those memories will live with me forever. Spoke to many other tourists at different hotels and it seemed our beach had more turtles. How lucky was we.. When we wasnt helping save the turtle population we enjoyed peace under the many palm trees. Thank you Southern Palms the best 10 days..