Over to Mark, our resident Barbados expert!

Thank you Pippy,

I would choose the Turtle Beach - it is located in St. Lawrence Gap, just steps away from the nightlife in Barbados.

I wouldn't choose Almond Beach out of principle. Please remember that the Almond Group of Companies gave wrong information on the opening of their new resort to the tour operators resulting in you having to change hotels. Vote with your feet and spend your money (indirectly) with another hotel

Mango Bay is a well respected and good hotel. It is situated on the West Coast of the island and is away from the centre of the nightlife of St. Lawrence Gap.

Haven't stayed in any of the three hotel personally myself, so can't comment on the level of service and facilties available. Reading reviews here and elswhere, the ABV gets a lot of very mixed reviews whilst the other two appear to be the better ones with Mango Bay the best out of the three.

Trust this helps.

And with that, back to the studio
Mark

did you specifically want an AI hotel or are these the only choices you were given?
We stayed in Holetown but not Mango Bay- great place and some lovely restaurants. However, you may prefer to stay St Lawrence Gap so I would go for Marks recommendation. If you were given other choices non AI choices- don't be scared to go for them. We have been 3 times and the last time was non AI- we worked out at the end of the holiday that it cost about the same in the end as the AI we had been looking at. The bonus was though that we ate somewhere different every night- and there are terrific restaurants in Barbados.

South is much better so yeah Turtle Beach but havent stayed in this particular hotel but the area is more lively and more things to do.. we always stay in st lawrence gap and ive been 9 times

I don't know about the other two, but for daytime stuff you can't really beat Mango Bay for location. Plenty of watersports places, there's a lovely pontoon you can use and excellent snorkelling at Folkstone Park.

Don't know if it's changed hands at all, but it was just a small family run place which gave it a nice atmosphere.

Our appartments actually share the same bay and we love it, as for night life, it's 30secs from Holetown and the famous 1st Street - some of the greatest Friday night's there are! Cocomos is a lively bar at all times of the day and week, with a nice mix of locals and tourists.
And i'm sure anyone will agree that if you do want to go down to the Gap that getting there isn't a problem at all.

I personally couldn't bear the idea of being in the Gap for my entire holiday; way too OTT and touristy (reminds me of towns on the greek islands), but it's personal preference.

Again, I wouldn't go for Almond Beach either.