Thursday, December 17, 2009

Day 1 - Barbados

We arrived in Bridgetown after a fairly uneventful flight from Toronto. One tip though, Westjet uses Bell Satellite TV onboard their planes, which doesn't work once you leave the "Bell" region. So, it was a VERY long flight with no tv to distract us for about 4 hours of the 5 hour flight! But, I kept myself busy knitting a summer tank top and was able to finish two thirds of the whole thing in 4 hours.

We arrived in Bridgetown at about 4:00pm and was pleased to find a Hilton Needhams Point rep waiting outside the Arrivals terminal. I had not booked a transfer to the Hilton as we figured it would be just as easy to grab a taxi, but the rep had our name on her list and a taxi was waiting to take us straight to the hotel!

Once at the hotel we were given a fantastic room with an oceanview balcony. Delightful but loud. The surf in Barbados is VERY noisy. We had just enough time to check out the property and clean up for our dinner at The Cliff Restaurant.

The Cliff is a local and tourist favorite. My husband and I had dinner there 7 years ago on our last visit to Barbados and it hasn't changed a bit. In a good way. The food is phenomenal. Exquisite. The service is impeccable. The view is breathtaking. I think it is my most favorite restaurant of all time. It's not cheap, but worth every penny. I suggest a dinner at The Cliff for anyone visiting Barbados. It's a really memorable, fantastic time.

A few other tips - the cabs/taxis are NOT metered in Barbados. It seemed like every trip, whether 10 minutes away or 30 minutes away was $20US per ride. This was a bit confusing when going from the Hotel to the Pier to meet the Windsurf which was only 5 minutes away from the hotel. We managed to negotiate down to $15US once we realized all the other taxis dispatching their riders were charging $15US. The ride all the way up the South Coast from Needham's Point was over 20 minutes and still only $20US. The ride to the airport is $22US-I guess to cover the cost of hauling your luggage? And the exchange rate is $1US to $2BBD which is a very easy conversion. And they ALWAYS give you change in BBD so make sure you take lots of small US bills or you'd get stuck with lots of BBD at the end of your trip.

Next time: Meeting the Wind Surf for the first time.

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