Turtle Beach by Elegant Hotels – All-Inclusive

Vanessa Greenwood2 years ago

2/5

Shortly after arriving we realised we had made a mistake. I had never taken an all inclusive holiday before as my family like to have adventures, explore countries and experience their culture rather than stay in one place. But our short holiday was a last minute decision as my husband had passed away after a long illness and myself and my children were utterly shattered and needed to be looked after. I must note that my bed was comfortable with lovely linen and pillows. Some staff members were wonderful, particularly Randall, and the hotel Concierge, the activities we arranged through the hotel were also fantastic. We had SPECIFICALLY requested a quiet location and a room adjacent to my two boys, in advance, by email. We had one reassuring and thoughtful reply to our request and one that was frankly quite dismissive. Clearly the dismissive respondent was in charge when we arrived. I haven’t stayed in such a small room with two other people since I was at college, and these rooms were called Junior Suites. We were not adjacent to my sons and we were on the 3rd floor, so mixing as a private family group on our tiny balcony wasn’t possible. We were also placed in the noisiest location in the whole hotel, right by the restaurant, and immediately below us was the bandstand where the singers “entertain” at night. Pretty awful. We visited a sister hotel on the west coast and were struck by how different our time recovering and regrouping in beautiful Barbados would have been if we had stayed there instead. No towels covering every sunlounger by 6am, a useable beach and sea you can swim in…. the sea at Turtle Beach was too rough and red flagged every day. A well maintained sister hotel with plenty of helpful team members visible and available, and excellent healthy food choices, and an environment that made you feel calm just stepping through the door. We tried to transfer but it was sadly not possible in the time we had left on the Island. On checking out, which is at 12 with our return flight not until 9.35pm, we requested a courtesy room. The room we were given for all five of us to freshen up in before airport transfer was so much nicer and quieter and bigger than the two we been given for our precious week that I was feeling pretty damn annoyed. Made even worse when another family actually walked in on us just as the last one of us had got out of the shower. Then over the phone in the room Ms Dismissive from reception informed me we were impolitely holding up said couple who were also trying to freshen up pre flight…. IN THE SAME ROOM ??? No cleaning ??? Not often have I experienced such an embarrassing scenario. That whole issue needs looking at immediately. Maybe I was in a sensitive frame of mind given our reason for needing a holiday. With Turtle Beach we made a mistake, seduced by the hideous all inclusive that was somewhere between a Monty Python sketch and Wall E, but it was not an epic disaster. We have things to laugh about and new found places to look forward to.We will go back to Barbados but we will be staying elsewhere.