Sol Barbados

Shocking! If you reading the reviews wondering if it’s really that bad.. well 3 people out of 5 being sick throwing up, my 2 year old was poorly twice within space of 6 days, yes it is really that bad! No one is interested that multiple people are sick once in this hotel just brushing it off under the carpet, but small babies or these with not the best immune system can get really poorly.

Food is bad especially at tea time luke warm leftovers, it’s such a bad quality especially all the meats no wonder everyone gets sick.

I’m taking this further as the manager I spoke to was not interested, asked for one of the rooms to be extended that’s at least what they can do so we can have a bed and bathroom to use rather than being stuck in the hotel waiting for our 10:30pm flight! Said no rooms available but when we checked you can book rooms on booking.com.

My advice is if you can move to a different hotel do it, don’t even think twice unless you want your holiday spent with a poorly child in the room or be sick yourself.

Sadly this is our lesson learned and we will never trust any SOL group hotels.

I will start with the good points.

Check in was quick, no instructions after that though. No information on where anything is or where to find what’s on etc.

Hotel is clean. Rooms are spotless and we had a lovely pool view. There are rooms that have sun beds I think they are called solarium rooms. Don’t know what they were like inside but they never got the sun at any point at anytime of day the whole 5 days we were there so if you planned for Sept and to sunbath on your balcony forget it. Save your money, you will need it for food.

Lifts are small and slow we were on 5th floor so didn’t mind walking but can imagine how much of a pain this would be in hype of summer and with buggies etc.

The kids pool looked great we didn’t use as we didn’t have any kids with us and I can better would be sunbed wars in the hype of summer.

We used the bigger pool which we thought was adults only but had loads of kids in them. I might have read that wrong. One of the kids did poop in the pool and it was closed for the full day. Obv understand that the pool had to be cleaned and we saw they pool getting new clothing and other stuff so hats off to them for that.

There is no atmosphere around the pool, there is music but it’s soooooo quiet, it got a bit more lively when the animation team done their bit with water activities and other stuff but when that stopped the atmosphere was dull again.

The animation team did their best they came round and asked everyday if we wanted to join in but didn’t pressure you if you didn’t.

Can’t comment on kids stuff/animation

Cup system was not an issue and cups were big enough for beer etc. big shout out to Jesus behind the pool bar. He was funny and welcoming. The Pina coladas are really good but ask Jesus for an additional shot of white rum.

Now the worst part - the food. We always do All Inclusive as we are normally away with the kids. This is by far the worst food we have ever had.

Snack bar omg the most horrendous snack bar I have ever saw. Frozen u Dee cooked burgers. Pale hotdogs (crispy onions were good) frozen chips, frozen nuggets and a small salad bit. Ice cream was good. And a small pick and mix bit.

Breakfast was the best meal of the day…if you were happy to wait 10 mins for a fresh omelette. Again I could only imagine how long you waited wait in summer…the chorizo sausage was good as well. The bacon was inches thick in grease and the English sausage was pink in the middle. Biggest problem is everything is stone cold! There are 2 microwaves but that was mostly used for baby food. Never tired the pancakes but again always a big queue for them.

Plenty fruit but the melon and watermelon had zero taste. The coffee was rotten as well. There is a little supermarket straight across from the hotel that does amazing cheap take away coffees. They guy is lovely there also do fresh pastries and pizza slice but you have to be quick or they are gone.

Lunch I only tried once and again everything was frozen I really think the hotel would invest in heat lamps. The meat all looked inedible, the pizza was great can’t fault that and the salad was fresh as well. Fresh pasta station but the pasta was soggy although hot and you capsule add stuff like mushroom peppers sauce etc.

Dinner was the left over from lunch with a few other bits added in. Plenty of fish but again the meat esp the chicken didn’t look right. This is when I think I caught good poisoning and I have read a few other reviews from folk that there there the same time as us or just before say the same thing. The last day of our 5 day break was spent in the room glued to the toilet myself and hubby. I never take ill and have a cast iron stomach usually but this floored me. I didn’t report as I said I could not move the last night and we checked out at 5am the next day. I am still in agony and not are 2 days later.

We are not fussy in the slightest but as I said the food really lets this place down and as such I would not recommend this hotel. We have stayed in SOL by Melia hotels in Greece and the food was fantastic. Don’t know if it’s just this hotel or the whole SOL brand in Spain. We were looking at SOL Palma Nova for next year but this has put us off. It’s a shame as the hotel as the potential but lacks in areas that they should be excelling for the grade and the price.