My wife and I, with our daughter and four-year old granddaughter, recently spent a week at this resort. We all had a great time, and the five stars reflects this fact. I do want to make clear, though, that five stars do not signify “perfect”; there were some glitches along the way, which will be explained below, but by and large these glitches did not detract significantly from our enjoyment of our trip. ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE. Our arrival and transport to the resort went better than I expected it to. Beaches had wisely recognized that there were more people than could fit in a van and had arranged for some extra taxis to be there. The process was, overall, fairly smooth, despite the fact that there were a bunch of people heading to the resort. We gave our names, our bags were taken, we were directed to a cab, and off we went. Departure, though, was less pleasant. We gathered at a Departure Lounge that was not terribly comfortable and did not (for those of us who prefer, thanks to Covid, not to sit around indoors in a room full of unmasked people) have decent outdoor seating. There was some water and light snacks available, but there could have been more. Things were more chaotic than at arrival, and I had some trouble finding my suitcase, which I had left outside my door previously. Let me put in a plug here for the “Fast Track” system that they have at the airport. For an extra charge, you can have a personal escort and bypass a lot of very long lines. Unless money is really at a premium, this is worth buying, both arriving and departing. GROUNDS. The resort grounds are stunning. You will have to go far to find a beach that is more beautiful than the one that runs the length of the resort, and the interior of the resort is gorgeously landscaped and well maintained. This is a huge resort and it may take some time to get acclimated to where things are, but maps are plentiful. There is also a “bus” (really more like a huge golf cart accommodating about half a dozen people) that makes a circuit every ten minutes. The resort is divided into “villages”; we stayed at the Italian village, which is more or less in the center of things. (Of course, all guests at the resort have access to all facilities, wherever they are located.) The four of us stayed in an Italian Village Concierge Suite with Kid’s Room. The door opened directly onto the kid’s room (bunk beds) and then you could walk to the adult room and (smallish) balcony. The bathroom was between the two rooms. The room was comfortable, but the logistics of it presented some difficulties. If you are, like we were, traveling with a small child who goes to sleep pretty early, this arrangement makes it difficult for anyone to leave the room. Also, the fact that there is only toilet for three adults and a kid can also be problematic. STAFF. I read a lot of reviews complaining about the unfriendly and surly staff, but I did not experience this at all. Everybody we encountered was friendly; being greeted with a smile and a “how are you?” by staff people while walking was in our experience the norm rather than the exception. However, although people were friendly enough, they were not always efficient or knowledgeable. When dining, for example, I had, on several occasions, had to repeat (sometimes more than once) requests for simple table things like butter, ketchup or more coffee. Also, at Barefoot by the Sea restaurant (at dinner on our first night at the resort) it took 20 minutes for us to be seated even though we were something like fourth in line and the restaurant was not crowded at all; then, my daughter and granddaughter, after some more wait, got served their dinners but my wife and I did not; after about twenty minutes I got up to inquire about where our food was, and it came shortly after. Talk about making a first impression! (I am not a Type A personality and am experienced with the concept of “island time”; sitting in a beautiful location for a little while longer than I am accustomed to is not a hardship. However, there’s a limit, particularly when other people in your group have been served.) A similar thing happened at Cricketer’s, later in the trip, but the times involved were shorter. After avoiding Barefoot for our entire stay based on our initial experience there, on our last day there we went there for breakfast. Despite the fact that it was open, there were no patrons there and nobody came to greet us; after a few minutes we just gave up and went to another place for breakfast. I also got incorrect information on some occasions: for example, one night I asked what the theme buffet was for Reflections restaurant and was told it was southern night; since we like southern food, we walked over there for dinner, only to be told at arrival that tonight was Filipino night and that southern night was the next day. As yet another example of inefficiency, halfway through our visit, the menus all disappeared from the Beaches website. Shortly thereafter, the entire website went down for maintenance and was down for almost a week. The website is now back, but, as of this writing, the menus are still missing. ACTIVITIES. There are lots of pools, a waterpark with slides and a lazy river, and of course there is that wonderful beach. There are Hobie cats that you can take out for a sail, a glass bottom boat, and snorkel trips. There is also an area for good snorkeling that is not actually on-premise but can be walked to along the beach. However, when my daughter and I walked there, we encountered huge surf, high tides and murky waters. In fact, on all but one of the days we were there, the beach was “red-flagged”, which signified hazardous conditions, and this resulted in cancellation of many of the trips. One cannot blame the weather on the resort, of course, but I did notice that the one optional excursion tour that we paid for did not get cancelled. This was the Iguana Island tour, which stopped first at a snorkeling place, then at Iguana Island, and finally at a swimming place. The snorkeling was difficult and unrewarding, and I had to fight my way back to the boat against the waves. Iguana Island was quite pleasant, though: the island is pretty and has a nice beach, and we saw about half a dozen iguanas. The catamaran that we took on the trip (Red Dread) was pleasant and not overcrowded and the boat trip itself was enjoyable. DINING. There are more than 20 restaurants on-site: some buffet-style, others with a menu. Unless you really are pressed for time, I recommend you avoid the buffets. None of the ones we tried had particularly exciting choices, and of course food that has been sitting around for awhile just isn’t as tasty as freshly made stuff. Here is a quick summary (in no particular order) of the places that we visited: Bayside: serves buffet for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Nice outdoor atmosphere, but the breakfast we had there seemed uninspired: just the usual eggs, bacon, potatoes, bread, juice, etc. We only ate here once. Neptune’s: probably our favorite restaurant overall. We ate all three meals here at one time or another and enjoyed them all. Good steak and eggs for breakfast, and a nice assortment of seafood (with some non-seafood items as well) for lunch and dinner. The chocolate “pudding” (not really what I would call pudding, more of a dense cake) was great. Excellent service. Arizona’s: my daughter and I had a great dinner here (my wife and granddaughter went elsewhere). My ribs were excellent, and my daughter’s fried chicken was exceptional as well. (She raved about it, and based on the sample she gave me, I share her high opinion of it.) This place ranks very high on my list of favorite restaurants at this resort, and I wish I had found time to try lunch here. Schooner’s: another of our favorite places. We had several breakfasts here: there were steak and eggs here also, and particularly good bacon. The pancakes were excellent also. We also had a good dinner here. Service was quite prompt. Jerk Shack: if you like this kind of food, you’ll enjoy this place. I had the jerk pork, my daughter had the jerk chicken, and neither of us had any complaints. The char-grilled corn on the cob was a nice touch too. Very informal and quite fast. Sky: this is an adults-only place for dinner but is open to everybody at breakfast. Because we had a four-year old in tow, we didn’t get here for dinner but did make it to breakfast. We enjoyed the excellent views from the rooftop outdoor restaurant, but thought the menu was rather limited. My wife really loved her apple-filled French toast but my daughter and I were underwhelmed by the chocolate fondue pancakes, which were just OK pancakes (certainly not as good as Schooner’s) with a little chocolate sauce on them. Mario’s: breakfast is buffet-style with items similar to those at Bayside, though you can order individualized omelets here. Dinner is off a menu. My wife and daughter weren’t wild about the dinner here. We all had, as I recall, the chicken parm, which I liked more than they did but did not think was exceptional. We did agree, however, that the warm chocolate tart was an outstanding dessert. Bobby Dee’s: this is a 1960’s style diner in the water park. The food was unexpectedly very good. My cheeseburger (“smash burger”) was the best burger I had during the week, and the hot fudge sundaes here are phenomenal, with real authentic, thick hot fudge sauce. Dino’s: this is one of the two pizza places on-site. Quite good individual-sized pizzas, and also an assortment of other stuff (paninis, etc.) available, but untried by me. Not too bad a wait, either. Bella Napoli: this is the other pizza place. I thought the pizza was slightly better than at Dino’s, but my wife went the other way, so call it a tie. Extremely long wait (45 minutes). Don’t waste your time with the “pizza bites”, which, despite the menu description, seemed not to have any garlic taste at all. Bombay: neither my wife nor I like Indian food that much, so my daughter tried this on her own. She reported that the food seemed authentic but very spicy. Cricketer’s: this is Beach’s version of a British pub. My wife and daughter liked their cottage and beef and stout pies. My burger was adequate but not exceptional. Service was fairly slow and when my daughter and I were served, there was no meal for my wife. (History repeats itself.) When this was brought to the attention of the waitress, she quickly brought my wife’s meal out. Giuseppe’s: another buffet. Despite its Italian name, there didn’t seem to be much Italian food. There was some pizza, but it was much worse than at Dino’s or Bella Napoli’s. Mediocre at best. Reflections: another disappointing buffet. Each night has a “theme”; we went on southern night, and despite the fact that I love southern food, there wasn’t much here to interest me. Probably tied with Giuseppe’s for my worst meal of the trip. Food trucks: there are two food trucks in the water park, one offering about a dozen varieties of mac ‘n cheese and the other offering ice cream treats. I had the cheeseburger mac ‘n cheese at the former and a vanilla shake at the latter. The cheeseburger mac didn’t have much meat in it but was moderately tasty, and the shake was quite good. Each place is certainly worth a visit, particularly if you have kids in the group. CONCLUSION. An all-inclusive family resort that caters to families (many with young kids) cannot, I think, be expected to provide the kind of ultra-luxurious experience that one might find, say, on the highest end cruise lines. If you’re looking for that kind of luxury, Beaches is probably not for you. (For this reason, some people might think that Beaches isn’t worth the fairly hefty price tag.) But if you want a place that offers a beautiful setting, lots of activities for children and adults, and a wide variety of good if not spectacular food, you’ll have a lot of fun here.

My husband and I first visited BTC for our 1 year wedding anniversary in 2002. I said at the time that someday, when we have kids I want to bring them here. Well, that day finally came! We travelled to BTC with our 15 and 12 year old boys 1/25-2/1. I honestly could not have dreamed up a better vacation. We stayed in the French Village in a luxury King walkout with a twin trundle for the boys and the room was perfect. It met all of our needs and the location was great. Not terribly far to most restaurants and less than a 10 minute walk to the dive shop. We took the resort diving course and were able to go on 1 dive per day after qualifying. Going scuba diving for the first time was an amazing experience and one that I will treasure forever. A word of caution, the guys at the dive shop will try to tell you that you have to get your full PADI certification in order to go on more than one dive during your stay. This is NOT true. I showed them a screen shot from the Beaches website that clearly states you can go on one dive per day after taking the resort course. I did notice that many others in our resort class were duped into spending the additional $200 for full PADI cert. The one dive a day was more than enough for us. We also took advantage of the daily snorkeling trips, however, the snorkeling at Coral Gardens was much better and I wish we had taken the walk down the beach to that location more than just once. The kids had the time of their lives and we took full advantage of all of the activities. The water slides are a blast, and they enjoyed all the swim up bars. My youngest loved learning to play pool and that was an end of night destination for us every day. While there are plenty of options for eating, the food is really just so so. If you are expecting gourmet meals, you will be very disappointed. Most restaurants are buffet style and serve much of the same foods. There are some exceptions. Soy is great for sushi, and Neptunes was also pretty good. While we were not able to hit up all the restaurants, we made it to a bunch. The japanese hibachi restaurant was not nearly as good as I remembered it from 2002. The food was dry, and the entertainment was extremely loud. All of the chefs are singing comical versions of songs by Bon Jovi, etc, at the same time. I will say that my son has an egg allergy and this was handled very well everywhere we went to eat. All of the staff we encountered save 1 or 2 folks were incredibly friendly and very accommodating. Overall, I can honestly say that this was the best week of our lives!

This was our second trip to this location. We enjoyed our 1st visit so much we jumped on the chance to return. The property is well maintained and looks amazing. They have 21 restaurants all the way from a kids burger joint to top of the line fine food places. We have been to almost all of the food places and enjoyed each. They have their own dive boat fleet for certified divers offering a 2 tank dive in the AM and a 1 tank in the PM with all equipment free except $10 per day to rent a wet suit. The beach itself has white sand and crystal clear water with free loaner no powered water sports equipment. Good time for all in the family including Sesame Street characters and game rooms for the kids.