Hôtel Southern Palms Beach Club 3

We’re just back from a 7 night stay at the Southern Palms hotel. The positives: Beach front location Welcome drink in room Good WiFi Decent breakfast Friendly staff (generally) Sunday steel drum band was great The not so positive: Rooms desperately in need of modernisation, very very dated. Ocean view room on ground floor (103) is basically a view of a hedge - asked to swap on check in but advised not possible without paying an additional £155 per night. Ask for a room not on ground floor!! Reservation of sun loungers by other guests from circa 6am every day - ridiculous Music from Chattel House bars very loud until 2am some evenings so take ear plugs (air vent in bathroom makes it feel like the singer is in your bedroom) Hotel caters for guests aged 60 plus (suspect many returning) and lacks any atmosphere. St Lawrence’s gap is basically a strip with a small selection of bars and restaurants which just wasn’t for us - we found the west coast of the island better. Not the fault of the hotel but the sea was extremely choppy for our entire stay (red flag) so we could t go in the water. We went to the west coast beaches which were far calmer and nicer. We booked a late check out room at 5pm on the day of our departure which never materialised so we had to fly home covered in sun cream and sand after a day on the beach ( staff blamed other guests). Pool bar service super slow - husband ordered chicken wings on our last day which took c2 hours to arrive.

Really enjoyed Southern Palms this year. We did visit the hotel last year but this was the first year we have stayed in it. We were in a garden room. It was in need of a refurb and although the balcony and room were a decent size we didn’t have much daylight in the room not helped by a proper door to the balcony. Service in the bar area is pretty slow i agree with others but the whole complex is clean and i found staff helpful the reception were always great too. The location of the hotel is perfect. Always the normal idiots that put towels on sunbeds around the pool (the hotel should remove these) but plenty of sunbeds on the beach whatever time you visit. A minor gripe is that it’s really hot and the sun is intense but you can’t get umbrellas on the beach. I think it was the only hotel that doesn’t supply when asked. i did see 3 or 4 but that’s not enough. Will come back next year but do think the beach umbrellas are needed. Happy hour every day except Monday 6-7pm. Again really good before leaving for the evening.

Hotel has a fantastic location on the white sands of Dover Beach. Rooms are clean, very large and had a great sea-view balcony. Furnishings getting somewhat dated and could do with a refresh but not a major concern. Great facilities with 2 pools which were never crowded and sun loungers also available on the beach. Breakfast buffet very good, although pricey if not booked as part of a package. The key thing that lets the hotel down is the slow and chaotic service in the bar/restaurant by the pool. It could take up to 30 minutes to get served and equally long to get the bill. Situation not helped by the fact that they were implementing a new billing system which either didn’t work or staff hadn’t been adequately trained as half the time they were hand writing bills. As a result we never bothered dining in the hotel at night and plenty of other good restaurants in St Lawrence Gap (recommend Mimosas, Harlequin and Primo). If management sort out the service ( which has been noted in several other reviews) this could easily warrant 5 stars.

This was our first ever trip to Barbados and we chose Southern Palms based on it's location and great reviews. We were not disappointed! We booked an ocean view room and boy did we get an ocean view!! (The pictures attached to this review were taken from our balcony.) The room was huge, well equipped and spotlessly clean. The bed was comfortable and great pillows! Not that you want to spend any time in your room watching tv when you're in paradise but ours had a smart tv that had Netflix, Prime etc. so if you wanted to log into it, you could. Given the idyllic nature of it's location, you could be forgiven for thinking it'd be a struggle to get a sunbed either on the beach or around one of the pools but it wasn't. Yes, you still get those people that will go and put their towels out first thing and stake their claim on sunbeds they have no intention of using until several hours later BUT, there are plenty of sunbeds and lots of space so we never had an issue getting beds/finding a good spot regardless of the time of day we chose. I want to take the opportunity to give a shout out to Makayla who looked after us all week with drinks service. We literally did not have to leave our sunbeds whether we were on the beach or poolside, Makayla was making sure we could totally relax! We loved the idea of having a flag for use on the beach when you wanted to order something, that was really cool! The steel band on Sunday lunchtime was very good! We really enjoyed listening to them from the beach. We were on a room only basis so we only actually had 2 meals in the hotel (one breakfast and one lunch.) Both were very good and it was easy to charge things to the room ad-hoc given we opted not to book any meal packages. The location of the hotel in the gap was ideal for us. Nice and easy to wander out in the evenings with many bars and restaurants on the doorstep to choose from. All the staff we interacted with at the hotel were wonderful, nothing was too much trouble. If you're looking for a stunning place to relax and re-charge your batteries, you couldn't go wrong with Southern Palms! We hope to go back as soon as we can!