Hello -
I just got back from a week in Barbados on March 4 - March 11, 2012. I used a lot of great advice already posted on this forum but wanted to add some stuff to those interested in coming to the island. I'd like to thank prior visitors who have shared info, particularly RichinNC whose advice was very helpful.
Some good links already posted for planning your dive trip:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/lesser-antilles/239310-here-some-info-barbados.html
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/lesser-antilles/374051-barbados-trip-report-2011-a.html
I would go to those links, print them out, and bring them with you on your trip. That's what I did and it was great advice on places to go. For all general logistics and advice, it has already been provided. I would like to thank RichinNC because it was amazingly helpful to me.
Food addendums
I want to add a couple restaurants to the lists mentioned above:
Pun de Grill - has a cajun chicken linguini; in a country where the food is consistently great, this dish stood out as the best. This dish is something you'd expect at a high end cajun-italian fusion restaurant in New York City and would certainly be worthy to be served there. Just the bold combo of flavors that worked amazingly.
The Blue Room - if you are staying in Hastings, this food is particularly good, especially for a sports bar. Would be the perfect place if there is a worldwide sporting event you want to catch at the same time.
A final addition about the food in Barbados - I did not find it expensive when compared to other Caribbean countries - most of it was reasonably priced and the food was VERY GOOD AT EVERY MEAL. Surprisingly high quality food, fresh and made to order(so it takes some time from when you order til when you are served). Reasonable prices.
Non-Diving Addendums
At Oistens Fish Fry, I went to Angel's Shack. I thought that particular place was disappointing and there were other restaurants that were more frequented by locals - I'd suggest going to one of those / whichever smells the best. Definitely look around before you sit down.
There seem to be new competitors to Tiami Catamaran trips. They are certainly not the only show in town in 2012, and there are some smaller catamarans if you want increased privacy. Similarly El Tigre looked exactly the same and came to the same places and had a similar sized catamaran and was 20% cheaper. Having said that, I went with Tiami (without shopping around) and still had a great day trip - just paid a little more than others in my hotel.
My lodging review - Amaryllis Beach Hotel
I stayed at the Amaryllis Beach Hotel because I had locked in and prepaid via Booking.com. If I had to do it again, I'd probably stay at one of the apartments near Hastings.
Pros: Beach front; good food; large rooms; great location
Cons: understaffed; lack of towels; nickel & dimes customers, misleading
The Amaryllis is a beach front hotel with basic amenities. It provides a comfortable night's sleep with a nice beach. It is not very luxurious but provides adequate services for its price range within Barbados.
The hotel advertises itself as more than it really is. The gym, arcade, and spa are not really up to par. The staff is very nice but are challenged by the fact that there are not enough of them. The phone is ringing all day in reception and 1 person cannot handle them all (people are constantly on hold) - so there is a wait time to talk to reception at times. A large group waited over 30 minutes to get checked in as they arrived off the same plane. There also seems to be a lack of in-room towels. Furthermore, it seems like in all of Barbados and in Amaryllis, female clientele are not treated to the same regard as male clientele and my girlfriend made me aware of this. It does seem to be something we observed outside the hotel at restaurants as well, with me being asked to order first and things of that variety.
After we stayed 1 night into our room and the air conditioner was not working, we asked for it to be fixed, but the repairmen were unable to do so. They showed us an adjacent room where there was a dead cockroach in the center. After a 3 hour wait, the manager contacted us, and we finally switched rooms. There seem to be some problems with some of the rooms as I overheard 2 separate guests complaining about a lack of hot water. Having said that, after we switched rooms, we had no issues whatsoever.
Another downside to the hotel is that it charges extra for use of the in-room safe (to give you the password, 4321, to unlock the safe that is already in the room). The wireless internet is an additional charge yet the speed and coverage varies depending on where you are located. Furthermore, there is some confusion whether internet is free with certain packages...
On the postive side, the rooms are spacious and we had a kitchenette with minifridge, stove, and microwave in both rooms. There is a convenience store on site to buy snacks, drinks, alcohol, and other essentials which is very helpful. The store's prices are also reasonable. The rooms with balconies that overlook the beach are tremendously beautiful and the hotel is right on a calm, nice beach that is peaceful. A lot of Barbados' beaches have locals come up trying to sell you some wares but this is more private than those and you will see much fewer locals trying to sell you things which is a nice relief. Also along their pretty beach you will sometimes see a family of monkeys in the nearby trees which is pretty cool.
The staff did help make phone calls for day trips and were very accomodating.
Furthermore, the location is very good. We were the last to be picked up on almost all our excursions because we are closer to the docks where boats come out and only a 5-10 minute drive to the Gap where a lot of restaurants and bars are. Unlike hotels by the gap which have numerous negative reviews about noise, Amaryllis is very quiet and you can definitely get a good night's sleep as there are no clubs blaring music until 4 am nearby.
Both of the hotel's restaurants provided good food at a reasonable price. The breakfast buffet matches what you'd expect at higher end resorts with a person making omelets to order. The bacon and potatos were very good as well. In fact, the food throughout Barbados is particularly good and not as expensive as other islands.
All in all Amaryllis is a basic hotel with its good sides and bad. It is not very luxurious but does the trick for a beach side hotel at around $200 / night (what we paid off Priceline). If you cannot afford to pay more to one of the higher end resorts, there are numerous beach side apartments available and if we were to do the trip again, we would have likely stayed at one of them. If you are staying in a group of 4+, an apartment or villa is probably the best bet. A final note - I would not pick this place to be 'all inclusive' because there is so much to do in Barbados and so many places to eat, you will want to get out and experience what the country has to offer!
Barbados Diving Reviews
I went to two dive operations - total of 7 dives. I went on 5 dives over 2 days with Roger's Scuba Shack and then 2 dives over 1 day with The Dive Shop. I would give both operations a 7/10. Here are my respective reviews.
Roger's Scuba Shack
Pros: Large dive boat, above average equipment
Cons: Timed dives, decent not great diving
Roger's Scuba Shack is a very good dive shop along the South & West Coast. I went for 5 dives with them to obtain my Advanced Open Water certificate. They are funny, laid back dive shop and they are great at pointing out the life including hard to spot sea horses. They have 2 boats - a pontoon boat and a large boat for longer journeys. Both were quite comfortable although there is a lack of shade on the pontoon. You carry your gear aboard and get a little wet to get on the boat initially (this is common for almost all dive shops in Barbados so you'll have to just deal with it if you want to dive here) but the big boat is high quality with bathroom and areas to protect you from the sun or sunbathe. Both boats had ladders to climb on both to get on initially and after the dive.
The downside to Roger's Scuba Shack is that it seems that the dives are timed. Even if your computer and air tell you can keep diving, you go up when the divemaster tells you to. Everyone had plenty of air left by the time the dives were done.
Although this dive shop compares favorably to those in Barbados and the Caribbean, the diving in Barbados is average for the Caribbean: 6.5 or 7 out of 10. There are few large fish to be found as unfortunately they seem to be fished out. You can find them on the menus but not in the water. You'll see snapper and grouper but never more than 12 inches long. On 1 dive we even saw a fish trap (a cage where fish would swim in but could not swim out). Most of the reef fish did not get of a large size as spear fishing and regular fishing is popular. Stories of famous large barracuda living at a site were told but also mentioned that someone spearfished that particular guy.
Having said that the corals and reefs themselves are of high quality and visibility is typically good with generally calm waters. There is still plenty of life and things to see and the turtles, stingrays, and wrecks are pretty cool features. There are 2 huge pluses: the wrecks, particularly the Stavronikita a wonderful 300 foot freighter, and the sea turtles. If you are a diver in Barbados, you must dive the Stav - and not just to say you did it. If you can only dive 1 day, call around (there are many dive shops) and find out which shop is diving the Stav and go with them. Beautifully preserved wreck with hard coral all on it.
Sea turtles are protected in Barbados and we saw them on half the dives. I also got face to face with an octopus (by accident) and it inked me - that was cool as it was my first real octopus encounter. There are also plenty of sting rays and typical reef fish (goat fish, bigeyes, parrot fish, angelfish, triggerfish). It would be great if the country put some more effort into sustainable fishing and offer some protection it gives the turtles because the diving here could have been so much better. The quality of the reefs is high and visibility was pretty good (50-75 feet mostly but it dipped to 30 after the full moon). I only wish there were a bigger variety and size of creatures.
The Dive Shop
Pros: Full length dives; non-Stav dive sites were more interesting.
Cons: A lack of full service - no drop off to hotel and hard to get on boat
The second dive shop I visited in Barbados was "The Dive Shop" for 2 fun dives. In the words of Barack Obama, I chose to "spread the wealth around" by using a different dive shop even though I was quite pleased with my first one (Roger's Scuba Shack). This shop seems to offer the lowest prices on the island and offers up to 3 dives a day. It also tries to accomodate all its divers to visit different places that they haven't seen so that is a real plus if you plan multiple dives with them. Unfortunately, by doing so, they do not always know where they are going to dive the next day and that may cause many people to avoid choosing them if they have a particular spot in mind. I'm glad I did go with them because they are right on Carlisle Bay, which provides a unique opportunity for wreck diving in the shallows and I saw lots of turtles on my other dive.
The boat has covering to protect you from the sun - which is good if you want to avoid it but bad if you'd like to sunbathe. Some trip advisor reviews complain of a small boat but we were 10 people and there was more than enough room on the boat. In addition, the dive groups themselves are small and spread into 2 groups with different divemasters. The equipment is average quality for a rental but well maintained with some signs of wear and tear. They fill their tanks up with plenty of air and let you stay until you the computer says to come up - but most dives in Barbados have <3000 psi according to what I've read or timed dives. So this was a real positive.
Additionally, they took us 2 really good dive sites. One is right off their shore - Carlisle Bay Marine Park where you can dive 3 wrecks between 30 and 50 feet and can actually penetrate one of the wrecks - cool! The park actually had schools of fish, a barracuda, and some other interesting critters! The other dive site - THE BOOT - had visibility of only about 30 feet with a strong surge but I saw 6 green sea turtles and the largest hawksbill I have ever seen! (At least that's what the dive master told me - I couldn't really tell the different species of sea turtles apart). It was tearing into a big piece of coral. This dive site had the most life I saw in Barbados with several schools of small fish. Also saw some flying gunards (which I had never seen before) and several sting rays.Really great despite the lower vis and high surge.
The main drawbacks to this shop are that they do not provide a car ride home (although they can pick you up) and you return to the shop after the first dive. They did not pack a second tank for those doing 2 dives, so we had to trudge it back to the shop, drop off and pick up new divers, and drag a tank on board again. Also the boat requires some effort to get onto if the waves hit you, and some of the older people struggled to get aboard as you have to lift yourself up out of neck deep (not waist deep) water onto the boat. The ladder is only for climbing after a dive as it's too shallow to use to get on initially.
I just got back from a week in Barbados on March 4 - March 11, 2012. I used a lot of great advice already posted on this forum but wanted to add some stuff to those interested in coming to the island. I'd like to thank prior visitors who have shared info, particularly RichinNC whose advice was very helpful.
Some good links already posted for planning your dive trip:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/lesser-antilles/239310-here-some-info-barbados.html
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/lesser-antilles/374051-barbados-trip-report-2011-a.html
I would go to those links, print them out, and bring them with you on your trip. That's what I did and it was great advice on places to go. For all general logistics and advice, it has already been provided. I would like to thank RichinNC because it was amazingly helpful to me.
Food addendums
I want to add a couple restaurants to the lists mentioned above:
Pun de Grill - has a cajun chicken linguini; in a country where the food is consistently great, this dish stood out as the best. This dish is something you'd expect at a high end cajun-italian fusion restaurant in New York City and would certainly be worthy to be served there. Just the bold combo of flavors that worked amazingly.
The Blue Room - if you are staying in Hastings, this food is particularly good, especially for a sports bar. Would be the perfect place if there is a worldwide sporting event you want to catch at the same time.
A final addition about the food in Barbados - I did not find it expensive when compared to other Caribbean countries - most of it was reasonably priced and the food was VERY GOOD AT EVERY MEAL. Surprisingly high quality food, fresh and made to order(so it takes some time from when you order til when you are served). Reasonable prices.
Non-Diving Addendums
At Oistens Fish Fry, I went to Angel's Shack. I thought that particular place was disappointing and there were other restaurants that were more frequented by locals - I'd suggest going to one of those / whichever smells the best. Definitely look around before you sit down.
There seem to be new competitors to Tiami Catamaran trips. They are certainly not the only show in town in 2012, and there are some smaller catamarans if you want increased privacy. Similarly El Tigre looked exactly the same and came to the same places and had a similar sized catamaran and was 20% cheaper. Having said that, I went with Tiami (without shopping around) and still had a great day trip - just paid a little more than others in my hotel.
My lodging review - Amaryllis Beach Hotel
I stayed at the Amaryllis Beach Hotel because I had locked in and prepaid via Booking.com. If I had to do it again, I'd probably stay at one of the apartments near Hastings.
Pros: Beach front; good food; large rooms; great location
Cons: understaffed; lack of towels; nickel & dimes customers, misleading
The Amaryllis is a beach front hotel with basic amenities. It provides a comfortable night's sleep with a nice beach. It is not very luxurious but provides adequate services for its price range within Barbados.
The hotel advertises itself as more than it really is. The gym, arcade, and spa are not really up to par. The staff is very nice but are challenged by the fact that there are not enough of them. The phone is ringing all day in reception and 1 person cannot handle them all (people are constantly on hold) - so there is a wait time to talk to reception at times. A large group waited over 30 minutes to get checked in as they arrived off the same plane. There also seems to be a lack of in-room towels. Furthermore, it seems like in all of Barbados and in Amaryllis, female clientele are not treated to the same regard as male clientele and my girlfriend made me aware of this. It does seem to be something we observed outside the hotel at restaurants as well, with me being asked to order first and things of that variety.
After we stayed 1 night into our room and the air conditioner was not working, we asked for it to be fixed, but the repairmen were unable to do so. They showed us an adjacent room where there was a dead cockroach in the center. After a 3 hour wait, the manager contacted us, and we finally switched rooms. There seem to be some problems with some of the rooms as I overheard 2 separate guests complaining about a lack of hot water. Having said that, after we switched rooms, we had no issues whatsoever.
Another downside to the hotel is that it charges extra for use of the in-room safe (to give you the password, 4321, to unlock the safe that is already in the room). The wireless internet is an additional charge yet the speed and coverage varies depending on where you are located. Furthermore, there is some confusion whether internet is free with certain packages...
On the postive side, the rooms are spacious and we had a kitchenette with minifridge, stove, and microwave in both rooms. There is a convenience store on site to buy snacks, drinks, alcohol, and other essentials which is very helpful. The store's prices are also reasonable. The rooms with balconies that overlook the beach are tremendously beautiful and the hotel is right on a calm, nice beach that is peaceful. A lot of Barbados' beaches have locals come up trying to sell you some wares but this is more private than those and you will see much fewer locals trying to sell you things which is a nice relief. Also along their pretty beach you will sometimes see a family of monkeys in the nearby trees which is pretty cool.
The staff did help make phone calls for day trips and were very accomodating.
Furthermore, the location is very good. We were the last to be picked up on almost all our excursions because we are closer to the docks where boats come out and only a 5-10 minute drive to the Gap where a lot of restaurants and bars are. Unlike hotels by the gap which have numerous negative reviews about noise, Amaryllis is very quiet and you can definitely get a good night's sleep as there are no clubs blaring music until 4 am nearby.
Both of the hotel's restaurants provided good food at a reasonable price. The breakfast buffet matches what you'd expect at higher end resorts with a person making omelets to order. The bacon and potatos were very good as well. In fact, the food throughout Barbados is particularly good and not as expensive as other islands.
All in all Amaryllis is a basic hotel with its good sides and bad. It is not very luxurious but does the trick for a beach side hotel at around $200 / night (what we paid off Priceline). If you cannot afford to pay more to one of the higher end resorts, there are numerous beach side apartments available and if we were to do the trip again, we would have likely stayed at one of them. If you are staying in a group of 4+, an apartment or villa is probably the best bet. A final note - I would not pick this place to be 'all inclusive' because there is so much to do in Barbados and so many places to eat, you will want to get out and experience what the country has to offer!
Barbados Diving Reviews
I went to two dive operations - total of 7 dives. I went on 5 dives over 2 days with Roger's Scuba Shack and then 2 dives over 1 day with The Dive Shop. I would give both operations a 7/10. Here are my respective reviews.
Roger's Scuba Shack
Pros: Large dive boat, above average equipment
Cons: Timed dives, decent not great diving
Roger's Scuba Shack is a very good dive shop along the South & West Coast. I went for 5 dives with them to obtain my Advanced Open Water certificate. They are funny, laid back dive shop and they are great at pointing out the life including hard to spot sea horses. They have 2 boats - a pontoon boat and a large boat for longer journeys. Both were quite comfortable although there is a lack of shade on the pontoon. You carry your gear aboard and get a little wet to get on the boat initially (this is common for almost all dive shops in Barbados so you'll have to just deal with it if you want to dive here) but the big boat is high quality with bathroom and areas to protect you from the sun or sunbathe. Both boats had ladders to climb on both to get on initially and after the dive.
The downside to Roger's Scuba Shack is that it seems that the dives are timed. Even if your computer and air tell you can keep diving, you go up when the divemaster tells you to. Everyone had plenty of air left by the time the dives were done.
Although this dive shop compares favorably to those in Barbados and the Caribbean, the diving in Barbados is average for the Caribbean: 6.5 or 7 out of 10. There are few large fish to be found as unfortunately they seem to be fished out. You can find them on the menus but not in the water. You'll see snapper and grouper but never more than 12 inches long. On 1 dive we even saw a fish trap (a cage where fish would swim in but could not swim out). Most of the reef fish did not get of a large size as spear fishing and regular fishing is popular. Stories of famous large barracuda living at a site were told but also mentioned that someone spearfished that particular guy.
Having said that the corals and reefs themselves are of high quality and visibility is typically good with generally calm waters. There is still plenty of life and things to see and the turtles, stingrays, and wrecks are pretty cool features. There are 2 huge pluses: the wrecks, particularly the Stavronikita a wonderful 300 foot freighter, and the sea turtles. If you are a diver in Barbados, you must dive the Stav - and not just to say you did it. If you can only dive 1 day, call around (there are many dive shops) and find out which shop is diving the Stav and go with them. Beautifully preserved wreck with hard coral all on it.
Sea turtles are protected in Barbados and we saw them on half the dives. I also got face to face with an octopus (by accident) and it inked me - that was cool as it was my first real octopus encounter. There are also plenty of sting rays and typical reef fish (goat fish, bigeyes, parrot fish, angelfish, triggerfish). It would be great if the country put some more effort into sustainable fishing and offer some protection it gives the turtles because the diving here could have been so much better. The quality of the reefs is high and visibility was pretty good (50-75 feet mostly but it dipped to 30 after the full moon). I only wish there were a bigger variety and size of creatures.
The Dive Shop
Pros: Full length dives; non-Stav dive sites were more interesting.
Cons: A lack of full service - no drop off to hotel and hard to get on boat
The second dive shop I visited in Barbados was "The Dive Shop" for 2 fun dives. In the words of Barack Obama, I chose to "spread the wealth around" by using a different dive shop even though I was quite pleased with my first one (Roger's Scuba Shack). This shop seems to offer the lowest prices on the island and offers up to 3 dives a day. It also tries to accomodate all its divers to visit different places that they haven't seen so that is a real plus if you plan multiple dives with them. Unfortunately, by doing so, they do not always know where they are going to dive the next day and that may cause many people to avoid choosing them if they have a particular spot in mind. I'm glad I did go with them because they are right on Carlisle Bay, which provides a unique opportunity for wreck diving in the shallows and I saw lots of turtles on my other dive.
The boat has covering to protect you from the sun - which is good if you want to avoid it but bad if you'd like to sunbathe. Some trip advisor reviews complain of a small boat but we were 10 people and there was more than enough room on the boat. In addition, the dive groups themselves are small and spread into 2 groups with different divemasters. The equipment is average quality for a rental but well maintained with some signs of wear and tear. They fill their tanks up with plenty of air and let you stay until you the computer says to come up - but most dives in Barbados have <3000 psi according to what I've read or timed dives. So this was a real positive.
Additionally, they took us 2 really good dive sites. One is right off their shore - Carlisle Bay Marine Park where you can dive 3 wrecks between 30 and 50 feet and can actually penetrate one of the wrecks - cool! The park actually had schools of fish, a barracuda, and some other interesting critters! The other dive site - THE BOOT - had visibility of only about 30 feet with a strong surge but I saw 6 green sea turtles and the largest hawksbill I have ever seen! (At least that's what the dive master told me - I couldn't really tell the different species of sea turtles apart). It was tearing into a big piece of coral. This dive site had the most life I saw in Barbados with several schools of small fish. Also saw some flying gunards (which I had never seen before) and several sting rays.Really great despite the lower vis and high surge.
The main drawbacks to this shop are that they do not provide a car ride home (although they can pick you up) and you return to the shop after the first dive. They did not pack a second tank for those doing 2 dives, so we had to trudge it back to the shop, drop off and pick up new divers, and drag a tank on board again. Also the boat requires some effort to get onto if the waves hit you, and some of the older people struggled to get aboard as you have to lift yourself up out of neck deep (not waist deep) water onto the boat. The ladder is only for climbing after a dive as it's too shallow to use to get on initially.
