The Crane Resort, Barbados Timeshare

My best friend and I arrived on Friday, April 20, 2018, at approximately 10:00 PM. The trip was the beginning celebration of our 50th birthdays. We checked in and was told about the towel policy and given two drink tickets. We immediately went to our room, as it was a long travelling day.

The next morning, I read a letter that was tucked behind the general welcome letter. This letter explained that due to the seaweed, we would have to be transported to another beach. I was told by several staff and guests that the alternative beach was not safe. There were scheduled times listed regarding when we could be transported to the other beach. Immediately, my heart felt heavy. I work Extremely hard; therefore, I was really in need of this vacation. This was to include walking to the beach at my leisure. Also, I wanted to share the experience of one of my favourite places to stay with my best friend.

I went to speak with the manager, who agreed to reimburse me all expenses (my account was paid in advance).

I then went on a frantic search for other accommodations. The relaxation I hoped for was at a zero. Later, I learned that the manager was saying that I received the letter, but that I forgot to read it! I received the letter when I checked in late Friday night. The anxiety-inducing experience of trying to find another place was ultimately the reason I decided to stay. Including all that I’ve stated above, below are reasons that the Crane has lost my business going forward:

• I received an email a few days before arriving with instructions for online pre-check in. Nowhere in this information did it explain the condition of the beach.
• At check-in, the front desk worker never mentioned the condition of the beach. That information was in the letter, which was not called to my attention.
• As I was researching other places to stay, I was told that the manager said that I received the letter, but had forgotten to read it. Not only was this a lie, but it was also deflecting the blame to me. He did not deny saying it, instead, he attempted to blame it all on Mother Nature. I told him that i understood that; however, I was not given important information that would have helped me to decide to stay at the Crane.

This is sad for me, as I truly was looking forward to spending time at the hotel again. This was definitely my last stay at the Crane.

I’ll start with the positives of The Crane as it’s truly not a bad resort option for the island. The rooms are well maintained, most offer excellent views and very well serviced. This resort is a bit remote from the “normal” activities/attractions on the island but it makes up for it by offering all you could need in an expansive resort setting…. pools, restaurants, shopping, snacks and more.

With that being said they’re also a few other resorts in central locations that also offer similar around the same price point.

With such positives, I still couldn’t give the Crane a higher rating due to 2 factors (one of which they have no control over). In the recent weeks, there’s been a huge influx of Sargassum seaweed which has literally blanketed the eastern beaches (and some southern beaches) of the island.

This has rendered their beach useless for swimming or relaxing. An attempt to rectify this has been made by shuttling guests to other beaches on the coast. Again this is out of their control but just something to be wary of when booking.

Lastly, they have an ongoing issue with customer service and the management of such when it comes to guests.

We were initially looking to book this hotel last summer and due to ease of communication, we sent an email to their reservation address listed on the website.

Needless to say, summer went by and no one had the courtesy to reply with the rates.

As another summer approached we once again emailed The Crane and due to issues last time, this email was specifically addressed to the Sales & Marketing Manager….maybe this would warrant a response.

As true to standards at this resort, no one responded. It took a phone call to the hotel to finally get the information re the reservation.

It’s very unfortunate that many businesses (not specific to Barbados) fail miserably with customer service and simple issues but then try to correct it after it’s been made public especially on sites like TripAdvisor.

Better care needs to be taken with regard to such simple issues and hopefully, Mr Doyle would look into having his HR Department properly train staff in this regard

Before I describe our experience at The Crane, let me just say that the staff is wonderful and kind and this only has to do with management and owners of the resort.

I booked 2 rooms at The Crane, one a 2 bedroom suite with pool and the second a regular room. I asked if we could all be in one building so we would be close together. I also requested a pick up from the airport through the hotel. When we arrived in Barbados and cleared customs, we proceed to go outside to meet our driver.

There was no driver with our name waiting for us. I saw a person from The Crane with a sign for a different party and came up to him and asked if he knew if there was another driver for us. He called The Crane and told us there was no one else there so he put the four of us in a van with the other couple.

The other couple was very upset as they also requested a private car to take them to the resort. When we get to the resort, we are all placed into building 5, Room 516 and 524B. The first thing we noticed when we got to our suite is that it was very hot in the room so we turned on the air conditioning to cool off.

We decided to unpack and get ready for dinner at L’azure. The air conditioning never turned on. It was completely broken. The Crane was aware of this issue and still checked us in knowing the air conditioning was not working.

The next morning, we were woken up at 7:30 am by gardeners working outside the pool area right by one of our bedrooms putting in a sprinkler system and clearing the path. At 10 am, construction started outside our suite with two bulldozer clearing rocks which continued all day.

I brought up these issues with the manager and said that we were never told that the air conditioning is broken, there are gardeners and construction right outside our room. He tried to find us a different room but there was no other availability. Finally, after 3 days, they came and installed 2 portable a/c units in each bedroom.

The room never got below 84 degrees. It was hard to use the pool as you constantly had gardeners and construction workers walking by. The pool also was not heated.

The other issues are the inconsistency with housekeeping and pool/beach towels.

The housekeeping staff did not change linens even after they got dirty and there was never enough towels left behind. Once, we had to share a bath towel because they did not have any more towels and another time we had to use a kitchen towel as a washcloth because they did not have any more left.

They also ran out of beach towels and pool towels with no explanation.

A continental breakfast once took 2 hours to deliver after 3 calls to room service.

If you have an early morning flight, there will be no one there to pick up your bags as no bellman are working so you are left on your own with your luggage.

This entire experience cost me over $7,000 for two rooms alone.

The management did not offer any credit towards the rooms. I will NEVER return to The Crane.

I would rather spend more money elsewhere the next time I visit Barbados.