Almond Beach Village: Shocking!!

Just returned from a 2-week Xmas & New year break (December 2004) at ABV, which cost £12,500 for Mum & Dad and young twin girls. What a dreadful resort this is, I would strongly warn anyone away from this place.

First off, pop along and read what the ABV says on their own website (http://www.almondresorts.com/vil_accommodation.asp) about the standard of their accommodation (and the beautiful photos of rooms!!)

To quote:
"...Almond Resorts will have the final phase of its US$10 Million refurbishment and renovation project by the end of the 2004 summer season. Upgrades... include all rooms, suites, furniture, fixtures and recreation areas. All rooms and suites are being lavishly re-appointed and will feature lush Caribbean and Balinese style fabrics, new mahogany furniture and armoires as well as new refrigerators, television centers and air conditioning units. Bathrooms in every room will be elegantly upgraded with new mirrors, fixtures and sleek granite vanities. Every suite is being outfitted with luxurious new beds and fully stocked mini-bars...."

Absolute, total rubbish. The rooms have not been touched for 6-8 years (according to the Resort Director himself), and are in the last stages of dilapidation as many others have observed in these reviews. When I asked the resort Director why the website presents such a false impression, he told me that it is simply a matter of interpretation, "we had every intention of completing all the refurbishments during 2004". Shocking.

He was unable to let me see even ONE room (out of 300) which had seen the sort of refurbishment lavishly decribed on the website. How do these people get away with this?

We arrived on 18th December. Within 48 hours, our 2 yr 9mnth twin girls were running 40 degree temperatures, with fever, diahorreah, sickness (and so were we, to some extent). We called for the "24 hour, on call Doctor", only to find that this was another marketing fairytale. There is NO DOCTOR AVAILABLE on this resort. Think about that when you consider bringing your kids here. We had to call a Doctor in Fitts Village (a 40 minute cab drive away), and make our own arrangements. The doctor refused to visit the resort, so we spent the best part of a day (and about $400 BD) visiting the doctor and getting the children onto medication.

They continued to suffer from diahorrea for the entire 2 weeks, and these children are not sickly petals. Both my wife and I had the same. about 80% of the people we spoke to by the pool, in the restaurants, etc were suffering, both children and adults alike. The management refused to discuss the matter saying the problem did not exist. We then discovered that there had been a case of salmonella, where a 12 year old boy from ABV had been in hospital for 4 days, this was the same week we arrived. The father of that child had to arrange for an external health inspector to come and test water, and arrange for his son to be diagnosed and taken to hospital. The resort management refused to admit the problem, and denied that anything was wrong. You want to bring your kids here? Think very carefully.

Then I came up with an awful rash, covered in little red bites. We searched the bed and found it crawling with bedbugs. This was reported to the director of operations, who took two days to replace the bed. 10 days later I am still covered in the bites. The room was filthy, even he admitted that it fell far short of "acceptable standards". This resort is listed as 4-star, our room would not even rate 2 stars as a backpackers doss-house.

With the exception of some staff (special mention must go to the ladies in Enid's restaurant), we found most of the staff surly and brimming with "attitude". Simple questions like "what time does the restaurant open" or "where should we sit", got either a blank wall, or a slowly raised stare which made it quite clear what a nuisance you were for bothering them. I'm sorry to say it, but the attitude and sloppiness of the staff made you very uncomfortable to ask anyone anything. 95% per cent of all questions are answered with a raised finger and a curt "just a minute". Broken lights in stairwells, problems with the aged TV, etc all took at least a day to get fixed. However, if you bought a bottle of wine in the restaurant at 10pm, it would be on your room account by 5 minutes past, so they are able to get some things right.

All in all, a complete disaster of a holiday. Sickness and filth, and immense disappointment at the huge difference between what these people promise on their website (it is still all there today if you look), and what you actually get when you arrive. We spent the first week of our holiday walking, and pushing two buggies through a muddy building site where they were building a new pool on the only thoroughfare between our room and the main reception areas. Unbelievable.

In week two, after Xmas, the resort seemed to fill up with familes dressed head to toe in Burberry checked clothes, shiny football shirts, and wearing rather a lot of gold jewellery and tattooes. They, and their teenage children certainly did seem to be having a whale of a time, I must say, particularly later in the evening after a day on the free rum punches.

Three days from the end of our holiday we became so fed up that we hired a full time driver and had him take us and the kids out to various places, and restaurants for lunch, dinner, etc. Within 36 hours we had all pretty mucyh recovered our digestive operations, and this was purely down to the improved quality of the food. If you are a fan of pizza, burgers, and chips, or you have never eaten a decent meal in a restaurant, you would probably love the food at the ABV. Frankly, it is all mass catering, double cooked, tough as old boots school dinners and buffets with pretensions around dress code that are not justified by the standard of food on offer.

If you are a fan of Burberry and gold chains, and have a lot of teenage children, and are very interested in how much free booze the price includes, this is probably the place for you. If you are looking for a slighly more sophisticated family resort in Barbados, try the Virgin Escape Hotel down the road. We certainly won't be coming back here.

We've traveled extenisvely and have stayed at 8 all-inclusive hotels in the Carribean and Mexico. I've decided to post a review as I use this site extensively when we travel and have found it very helpful. My husband and I travelled to this resort from Edmonton, Alberta.

Accomodations:
We booked a standard room and found it to be very outdated and not very nice. Huge disappointment. Went to guest services to upgrade (we were willing to pay). Got a gal that told us no problem quoted us a price ($50 us per night-which was fine) but asked us to return the following day and they would take care of us. We returned the following day and unfortunately got a very agressive staff member that told me I was a liar - that no one promised us an upgrade - especiially at that price. She humilated me in front of workers and guests by being 2 inches away from face and screaming like a hysterical women - we are 'gentle' Canadians and approached her with courtesy and respect. This did upset me greatly and I still thought of it when arriving home. Needless to say we did not upgrade. Staff needs to be better trained. Throughout the 2 weeks we saw othres treated rudly and heard complaints about staff at guest services - at least we know we weren't the only ones treated badly!

Food/Restuarants:
Excellent. The best food we've had at an all inclusive. Staff was very good and gave attentive service - welcomed with a cheery goodmoring daily.

Cost:
Approximately $8,000. Cnd. for 2 people/2 weeks. Expensive for the overall quality of resort.

Bartenders:
Were never friendly or attentive even when generously tipped. Had a 'don't bother me attitude'.

Update July 10, 2004
I have visited the Almond beach Village 3 times now and have decided never to return. The resort itself is very impressive as stated in my last review. However on my last visit I was very disappointed. I had always felt very safe staying at this property but I have now learned otherwise. This resort needs to uprgrade their security. There is no 24 hour security surveying the resort, which is an open invitation for crime.

I have been to the Almond Beach Village twice in the last two years and I am booked to return again next month. I work in the travel industry which allows me to explore the Caribbean a little more often than most people. I was very disappointed to see the reviews posted prior to mine. In my opinion this is a fantastic resort.

The People/Staff: They are attentive, gentle, kind and fun. All of the staff went out of their way for me. Upon my second visit the bartenders even remembered my name and drink of choice. Note: as a tourist we need to learn how to relax and not be in such a hurry.

The Accommodations: The rooms are comfortable. All have a balcony or patio with good view. I would recommend an upgrade from the standard room as they are quite small and a bit out dated.

The Grounds/Resort: Beautiful. Lush gardens and amazing views. The beach is long and great for walking. I have not noticed any rocks on the beach. There is a coral reef in front of the property so yes there is coral under the water but easy to dodge. Makes for great snorkeling. All your water sports are included to keep you busy yet no one bothering you to get involved either. Its just there if you want it. For the golfers there is a little 9-hole par 3 course included in the rates and free golf clinics daily. There is an adults only pool/bar area for parents needing a break or for people who just want to be away from the kids. There is also a family pool beside the kids club where lots of the families hang out. The resort does there best to appoint your rooms accordingly.

Food/Restaurants:Excellent dining experience. Lots of choices from gourmet Italian (adults only) to typical Bajan cuisine all served al la carte.Portions are plentiful with choice of soup/salad, appetizers, entree and dessert and maybe a Bajan coffee (yum). They have 2 theme nights per week where they serve buffet. A Bajan culture night and a beach party. Room service is available for lunch and dinner and presented very tastefully. Breakfast can be either a la carte or buffet depending where you choose to dine.

The Island: If you are brave enough to hire a car for a few days then do it. That is the best way to see all of the island. Stop in at a local Rum shop and enjoy a drink and some real Bajan cooking. Lots of duty free shopping to be had in Bridgetown along with galleries and small local markets for crafts etc. For the party animals...head into the St. Lawrence gap for the clubs..they keep going all night long.

I recently took a group of 29 people to Barbados to stay for a week at the Almond Beach Village. Before we left there was a lot of hype over the property having 10 pools and all the a la carte specialty restaurants and the fact that Barbados was reputed to be such a beautiful destination. First of all I should say that I am the manager of a travel agency so I am very particular about the quality of resorts that I am sending clients to and I quite often go to Debbie's Resort Reviews to read about other people's experiences in a property I am thinking of sending clients to.

The group of 29 people that I took happened to include the owner of our agency, his family, and some very important clients of his and their families. Therefore I was really hoping everything was going to be perfect!

Well I would have to say that I was terribly disappointed. First of all when we arrived at the Village, we were instructed to leave our bags out front by the bus we arrived in and they would be taken to our room. Well, after waiting an hour and a half in our rooms, the last thing you want to do when you leave a blistery cold destination and arrive at a hot one, and after flying for so long, most people started going to retrieve their own bags, myself included.

We also booked the highest category of rooms, one bedroom ocean view and superior deluxe ocean view and I cannot say how disappointed I was about the quality of the room. They were very expensive and looked like any other regular room except it had a view of the ocean. If you were on the ground floor, however, the view was through a bunch of trees and bushes. The ceiling fan in my room wobbled so badly that I thought it was going to take off from the ceiling and decapitate both myself and my son while we slept. Two of the other 8 rooms I booked, including the owner of our agency's, toilet overflowed a few times. I had to request an iron because there was an ironing board but no iron and the ironing board cover was torn. I had to request hangers because there was only about 4. All of the requests took over 2 hours to get.

The beach was very rocky. As I mentioned, for a very expensive 4 star all-inclusive, you would think they would rake the beach so it was more enjoyable to walk on. Most of the coastline in front of the property was reef, which is great for snorkeling but not so great for just swimming.

There definitely were a lot of pools but with nothing fantastic like waterfalls, fountains or swim up bars. They were very plain and dirty (lots of leaves and bugs).

The restaurants were okay as far as decor goes, the nicest being the Italian, but get this, the Almond Beach Village is a family resort and the Almond Beach Club an adult only village, yet the nicest restaurant at the village is an adult only one! Make reservations for the whole week as soon as you get there as all of the restaurants except one require reservations and book up every morning by 8:30am.

Also, there is only buffets twice a week at the village and the restaurants serve extremely small portions of food so most of us were starving by 9:00 again and there was no place to get food so by the middle of the week we got wise and started ordering 2 and 3 appetizers and soup with our entree and desert. We also found out that you can request a picnic basket if you are going on an excursion away from the village the next day. They make sandwiches and put drinks and pastry in a cooler bag for you to take for lunch. Most of us requested it just to put in our fridge to have something to eat or drink in our room after dinner.

The property was not as clean as it should be and there was even garbage outside my door for three days before it was picked up.

The staff are not very friendly or do not smile that much at you unless you initiate it first. Then they will smile and say hello.

The best thing to do is take tours while you are there or you will be very bored. When asked why there are no activities going on around the resort, I was told that their clients did not want that.

The entertainment at night was very good. Excellent bands! There is nothing really to buy there as Bridgetown is very dumpy and run down and offers nothing unique. So if you are going, spend your money on the Jeep Safari Tour which is awesome, thanks to Nick, our driver, and takes you all over the island and to some incredible views and the "Cool Runnings 26 passenger catamaran tour which was good too. The Jolly Roger pirate ship is okay but the crew wasn't that much fun.