Sea Breeze Beach House review: 5 reasons why it’s great for kids

We recently had the pleasure of visiting Barbados with our family of four, and stayed at the Sea Breeze Beach House, in Christ Church, having booked the trip through the Caribbean travel experts at Tropical Sky. We have visited the Caribbean before, spending two great weeks in Antigua. What were we going to make of the hospitality in a different part of the West Indies; beautiful Barbados?

1. All inclusive for your picky eaters

We’ve been on all inclusive holidays with the kids before, and they are, quite simply, a godsend. The Sea Breeze Beach House has a stunning FIVE main locations you can choose to eat, with three restaurants open every night, and (most importantly) a kids menu that is served across all the restaurants. This means that when you dine with your kids, they are likely to be comfortable enough to be a little more adventurous with their food because they have the safety net of a burger or a chicken nugget if the food they try isn’t what they thought it would be. Service in the restaurants is friendly too, which can make all the difference on a holiday.

Sharon, in particular, was a delight to chat to every morning before our buffet breakfast!

As always with all inclusive resorts, it is important to check the opening times for the restaurants, and to book in advance for your evening meals. Your choices at the Sea Breeze are:

Aqua Terra; this is a relaxed, but formal restaurant with an a la carte menu, that includes sushi for the more adventurous kids.

Cerulean; dinner only is served here, and this is a much posher place to get your food. Make sure the kids dress up, and are willing to try a few different flavours from around the world, as well as local seafood dishes. The views from here are stunning, as you can dine and look straight out on the ocean.

Flying Fish; great choice for the simple life; eat your food by the bar near the beach and the pool at lunchtime. Some evening food is also served here, often with a theme such as a Pasta Buffet. The kids LOVED the buffets here where they got to ask for exactly what they wanted, and then watched the chef cook it.

Mahogany Lounge; open for a buffet lunch, usually with five or so hot dishes, and a “live station” which might include pizza, or a wrap. Desserts are to die for; and far too many choices if you want to keep that holiday waistline in check too. In the evening, the restaurant offers some themed nights on buffer, for example Italian, and Curry night, as well as days when they are serving a la carte.

It is well worth checking in the mornings when you are booking to see what restaurant is on, and what themes are available.

The Rum Shop Cafe; a small and quirky little cafe, with picnic benches that enable you to eat under the stars when it opens for dinner in the evening. Grill nights ad fish fries are the order of the day here, and your kids are bound to love the skewed prawns and grilled chicken.

All the meals have a wonderful refreshing selection of fruit with them, as you would expect from the Caribbean of course!

2. Flexible family friendly accommodation

The Sea Breeze Beach House was recently renovated; giving visitors 122 rooms, either classic accommodation or luxury suites.

The suite we stayed in had a double bed that meant my husband was virtually sleeping in the next room (!) it was so big, and a twin for the kids.

The suites are particularly excellent for families as they are laid out in such a way as to make it possible to join rooms together, allowing families to stay in one suites, rather than have to occupy different rooms. This is great for larger families, where you can even put together two or three rooms to cater for those staying in larger groups, or with more than 2.4 children.

In addition, the hotel sometimes offers free kids places (under 12s) for one paying adult within the luxury suites. This can give you a good savings. Just as an FYI, average room rates are as follows:

Winter

• Classic Collection Rooms : US $550 per night
• Luxury Collection Rooms : US $650 per night

Summer

• Classic Collection Rooms : US $400 per night
• Luxury Collection Rooms : US $500 per night

We stayed in a two bedroom suite during our holiday, which was perfect for the kids. The twin room was big enough for each child to have their own space, and the Netflix on the television was a massive hit. The location of the suite meant we even had a gorgeous view of the pool from our balcony; we were almost able to reserve our loungers from there 😉

The decor in the hotel is gorgeous too, giving a sense of the ocean with deep blues, and stunning pictures hanging from the walls. The lines are clean, and the rooms even cleaner.

3. Kids club to keep them entertained while you relax

We have already said that we have been on all inclusive resorts before, but we have NEVER used their kids clubs.

This changed at the Sea Breeze because the kids decided that we were far to boring to “hang out” with, and they wanted to explore the kids club.

It was a massive hit offering:

• Great activities for younger kids (4+); if you have them, which we don’t, but the facilities are excellent with a really big room, and lots of toys, crafts, and fun to be had,
• A games room for the older children, which included:
  • Pool table,
  • Basketball game to challenge your friends,
  • Computer games, including Fortnite,
  • TV for watching DvDs, and a
  • Full schedule of activities for older kids including, slime time (who doesn’t love a bit of slime?), water sports, and a bit of tie dye. The tie dye does cost a little extra due to the materials required.

My only comment would be that given the number of kids that were there when we were there (off season), it might have been a good idea to have a slightly bigger room for them all. However, none of them seemed to mind 😂.

It is an excellent place for the older children to make friends to chill out at the pool with. There is an adult on hand to supervise the kids, and Damion was da man according to the friends that my *not so little* Stuntboy made over the holiday.

You can download a sample of the available activities at the club here.

4. Excellent guest services to help you and your family to explore the island further

Two weeks by a beach is idyllic to many, but without a car, we find that we need to get out and explore our location in a little more detail, and the guest services advice at the hotel is exceptional. Shaun, the manager there for guest services, was able to advise on suitable tours, and get some good prices for pick up at the hotel. There is also a possibility of hiring a car through him too, though we ended up using Stouts directly as we only needed a car for a couple of days.

The island isn’t just about its beaches, and we can’t recommend enough chatting to them to get some tours sorted for you and your family. There is so much to see and do here – it’d be a shame for you to miss out on all the fun and relaxation!

See what we mean?!? *my little fishes*

If you are lucky, you might even end up happening to wander past the Kensignton Oval in Bridgetown and randomly jumping over some of the perfectly coiffured bushes outside… *wasn’t us*

5. Plenty of water-based entertainment for the family; swimming pools, beaches, and something for the adventurous

The Sea Breeze Beach House has three pools, and two beaches. The first beach, near the Flying Fish restaurant is perfect for watersports, but there is a another one, just a little further around, which is more secluded and a little calmer.

The swimming pools include an adult pool, a family pool, and a lap pool. The lap pool is pretty relaxing, with its own sun-loungers!

It’s also a family pool – so you are allowed to have a bit of fun in them too; together!

The kids had a ball in these pools, which are well maintained, and right next to the bar so parents can watch, and relax while their kids let off a bit of steam.

While we stayed at the resort, there was a little bit of a problem with seaweed build up on the beach (visit was July-August 2018). This has been an issue in parts of the Caribbean since 2015 as they have had random blooms. On the Sea Breeze beach this has largely been from 2015, and typically happens in May – July.

We stayed for two weeks, and the hotel handled the seaweed on the beach extremely well. Half of the time we were there, the beaches were fine to paddle in. On the days when this wasn’t the case, the hotel offered a free shuttle service to another bay (Carlisle Bay), which was a delight to visit….especially considering the free drinks that the hotel gave us. Shuttles ran every other day.

If we hadn’t been shuttled to this specific beach, we would never have swum with the turtles there, or discovered the wrecks that were accessible through snorkelling from the shore. It was an inconvenience yes, but enabled us to explore more of the island.

We would highly recommend families stay here for the attitude of the staff and the activities the hotel offers

Sea Breeze Beach House is an excellent, family-friendly resort, with accommodating staff who like to go the extra mile to help you out. The hotel is located within easy reach of the beach, and the food is of a very high standard, particularly for an all inclusive resort.

We wouldn’t hesitate recommending the hotel for families looking to stay in Barbados. The attitude of the staff helped make the trip almost the perfect break.

Thanks, as always for stopping by and reading this. Do check out our other family travel posts, and printables on the site. Both we love writing for you all. If you do like them, why not sign up to our weekly newsletter?

Hope to see you again soon.

Helen

Note: We were given a run of the house upgrade as a member of the press for writing this review. All opinions are our own. Any photos without watermarks are press photos.

 

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