I live here & have been to lots of Hotels here, some 'All Inclusive' some not, to visit friends staying on the Island. Yes you give your name & don't expect to be included in the 'All Inclusive' & pay for your drinks/meal whatever. But this visit to the Almond Beach Club made us feel embarrassed & ashamed & incredibly angry, we didn't know till we were sitting with our friends that they'd been charged $158.40 BDS (£50) for 'drinks passes' for us!! Friend had said while we were in reception that we were visiting for an hour or so maybe coffee or a drink, well shan't recommend this place to anyone & at West Coast prices they made about $100 profit on our 2 hour visit!! Disgusting! thank goodness we didn't stay for lunch.

On our arrival at the ABC, we waited at reception to be shown our room and we waited! eventually after a tiring journey we asked to be directed to room 415 (upgraded deluxe sea view!!) we would find it ourselves, then along came the bell boy. Without lifts, at the bottom of the stairs to the room, the bell boy indicated to my husband the room was on the 4th floor and he couldn't carry both cases. When we got to the 3rd floor on turning left we then had to climb to the 4th via a very shabby winding staircase, with out hand rails. With a huff and a puff the bell boy stood waiting for a tip!! The room had no balcony whatsoever and we were disappointed to say the least. We decided we could not stay in this room for 2 weeks and voiced our concerns at reception, they were sympathetic and told us to come back in the morning and they would show us another room, but to come down a floor to the 3rd, with balcony, we would have to upgrade!! Next morning we were told the only rooms available were on the 2nd floor with out sea view, we changed rooms and decided to just chill out and get on with our holiday, after all you don,t go to Barbados to stay in the room all day. The breakfast at the ABC had no variation, o.k. . if you enjoy a full english with baked beans (every day) not what I had envisaged at all. Enids Restaurant at the ABC was good and we took advantage of the facility to visit the Casuarina and the Almond Village via shuttle to give variation which was enjoyable, and we also ate out, there are some lovely restaurants on the west coast not to be missed(The Cliff) just being one of them. On our last day we arrived back to our room to find a bottle of champagne with a note from the management expressing their apologies for our inconvenience we had experienced concerning our room, which was a nice gesture. Overall we had a wonderful holiday in Barbados and will definitely return, but not to this hotel.

I must admit I'm not one to read reviews ahead of planning a trip, but I somehow stumbled upon trip adviser whilst checking out the weather in Barbados. I was pretty gutted to read some of the reviews of the ABC&Spa - myself and my husband had booked to go there on our honeymoon and I felt sick at the thought of going! I didn't tell him about what I had read, and decided to hope for the best.

I have to say that all of the negative comments I have read on here are unfortunately true.

The food was poor - I can see there are a lot of people on here that say the food is great but I would presume they have very low expectations of what good food is. The a la carte menu is pretty much what you can stand and wait to be served at the buffet (I felt as though I was back at school), plain simple cheap white fish served with bland vegetables, or for an additional £17/20 you could treat yourself to lobster that had obviously been under the grill for around an hour.

Our bedroom floor was dirty, the bath and sink was dirty - granted you do not go on holiday to stare at a plughole and analyse how clean it is - but we had paid a lot of money for this holiday and the standards just weren't acceptable. I haven't got a clue where the 4 star rating came from. Also - we did make it clear that we were on our honeymoon... we didn't exactly want this shouting from the rooftops - but two single beds pushed together?!

As I mentioned about people commenting on how good the food was - I can't understand why you would visit this hotel year on year - again, I can only assume people have pretty low standards. On our first morning we went down to our welcome meeting and the amount of people that we spoke to that were unhappy with the standard of their rooms was unbelievable.

Please take this as an honest review of the hotel, I am not someone that moans about the smallest things and we certainly tried to make the most of this holiday - but it really was poor.

I had hoped that given that it was situated next to Sandy Lane that it would mean surely it couldn't be that bad - but it was.

Last week 3 couples spent a very relaxing vacation at this resort. We were advised ahead of time that this resort did not have a sandy beach and that you had to walk a short distance to get to a beautiful beach. The resort is actually located right next door to Sandy Lane which is where Tiger Woods was married. It is an older resort and could use some upgrading but we met wonderful people and had a very relaxing time here. It's a small, inviting hotel - adults only - which was a big plus for us. We did visit the sister resorts- which that in itself is a bonus. The Almond Village is a hugh spawling resort on 30 acres of land and the Almond Casuarina is also a large busy resort that caters to the young. Our Almond Beach Club fit us perfectly - quiet, alot of brits - so you can have your afternoon tea . We had good entertainment, good food and great hot weather - so what else can you ask for. If you go - do the Good Times Catamaran Adventure swimming with the sea turtles and don't miss the Bajan Carabana show just outside of Bridgetown - well worth the money. Our Air Transat rep - Margarite - was wonderful. She had 1 day off and spent it with us on the Catamaran trip. All in all - it was a good time.