For the Low-Key Holiday: Almond Casaurina Beach, Barbados

Originally published March, 2009

Tested by Sean Mallen & Family

Photo by Sean Mallen

Ask an almost-four-year-old what she liked best about Barbados and you get a direct answer. It wasn’t the turtles or toucans, not the Bajan variety show or the kids program at the resort. Nope. “I could make volcanoes in the sand,” said Julia, focusing on the essentials.

Certainly the sand at Almond Casuarina Beach, an all-inclusive resort near the capitol of Bridgetown, is wonderfully soft and white. But it, and Barbados, both have much more to offer your little tourist. The resort specializes in welcoming children, from newborns up to teenagers.

Why it’s family-friendly

For smaller children, the resort provides either cribs or playpens. Julia slept quite nicely on a foldout couch bed.
The resort’s three restaurants offer the typical kids’ menu items: pizza, pasta, chicken fingers, fries. Upon request, they will add a couple of pieces of broccoli on the side to assuage parental guilt. And the chef will purée fresh fruit and vegetables to prepare baby food. Oh, and the grownup food is pretty good too.
Three pools, one of which was shallow enough for Julia to stand in. And the pool was partly shaded for large portions of the afternoon so she could stay in until wrinkled without either parent getting scorched.
There’s a full-service nursery for tots under two, as well as a well-organized Mini Club and Kids’ Club for children aged three to 12, where you can drop them off for an hour, or all day from 9–5, for various play programs. For older kids, the teen centre has movies, sports, video games and a disco night geared just to them. All are included in the resort package. Babysitting is also available in the evenings, for an additional charge.

day trips

There is a free shuttle to another Almond property, the Beach Village, where we purchased a boat tour to swim with the turtles just offshore. We also visited the Barbados Wildlife Reserve, on the island’s north coast, where we got a close-up look at Barbados’ famous green monkeys. Only a 10-minute drive from the resort hotel is Ocean Park, an aquarium with 27 displays where our girl enjoyed the pretty tropical fish, although she was not so keen on the barracuda eyeing us curiously through the glass.