The Crane Resort

The environment was very inviting. The music in the back ground made the atmosphere magical. Shakenya was extra nice. We want her to be our host on our return.

Beautiful property, spacious suites, nice options for dining and drinks, multiple pools, easy beach access, super friendly and accommodating staff, plus cats to pet!

Excellent bar the staff are run off their feet most evenings but especially during happy hour Love coming in and getting the ready welcome especially from Dale (with his snazzy shirts) and Shakenya - always smiling!! ❤️❤️❤️

This was our second time visiting The Crane and it was just as wonderful as the first! The resort is beautiful and was the perfect way to spend our anniversary week. The dynamic duo of Joan and Donna in reception made sure we were taken care of from the moment we checked in until we left yesterday. Last year, Joan told me “You have to leave so you can come back” and I am so glad I listened to her! Everyone is super friendly. The restaurants were very good, especially Zen! They gave us special desserts for our anniversary and it made the dinner complete! We loved that they had the complimentary shuttle to Carlisle Bay because of the sargassum. Our deluxe 1 bedroom with the rooftop pool was perfect! We are very excited to return again! Don’t hesitate…book the trip!

My family and I (three kids, ages 9, 11, and 15) just returned from a week at the Crane. The resort was beautiful, the view of the ocean from our patio was gorgeous, and we enjoyed lounging at the pools and eating at Zen, Azure, and The Carriage House. The kids also loved the cats and monkeys they saw around the property. Anytime we wanted to travel out from the resort or book an activity, the staff was very helpful and attentive. So all in all, this was a good trip. However, we felt that the hotel was probably more of a 3 star for the 3 reasons below and would likely choose somewhere else (on the west coast of the island - calmer beaches, less wind, less seaweed) if we returned: (1) The most negative side of the trip was the beach at the hotel. It was not usable for the duration of the stay due to the sargassum (note that besides being an issue in the ocean, the resort did not clean up the beach up either) and the wind (there was a red flag each day so the ocean was too turbulent to test out even besides the seaweed). As others have noted, there is a shuttle offered by the hotel but between our work schedules (yes we had to work on vacation) and the Easter weekend (the shuttle did not run everyday) this did not work for our family. We could have paid for a taxi (about $90 US round trip) but again with our schedules it just did not work well. So we only went to the beach on the days we arranged for an activity. As we are a beach over pool family, this was not ideal, but I did see from the reviews here that this was likely to be an issue - I just didn’t realize that this is apparently an issue most of the year from what we heard. (2) The other negative of the hotel was how slow the service was by the pool and at the restaurants. Drinks and food were just fine (the kids really loved Zen!) but it would take forever and the resort was fairly empty. For example, it took about 45 minutes to get a drink at Zen and drinks by the pool could be had about once every hour and a half. (3) The housekeeping was a bare minimum. For example, there was a large dirt stain that got on the master bed - this bed was remade each day with the stain front and center. Dirty towels would be taken without replacement. We felt these issues were minor overall but I mention them because when combined, this led to our impression that this was probably more of a 3 star resort. One other point about the hotel - there is ATM on site but we were told at check-in that most people have an issue with it and they can exchange cash for us at the front desk for a 10% fee instead. In fact, the ATM never worked for us and it appeared that it does not work for most people as well. We felt it would’ve been better if there was no ATM at all as doing it this way just seemed a bit off and 10% is a hefty fee! When you’re offsite, you can ask your cab driver to stop at an ATM elsewhere and the fee will be much lower. The best parts of our trip were the excursions. We took a day tour of the island with Ezra Quinn who was recommended in other posts. He was fantastic - the trip was perfectly tailored to our family and he would offer to take photos of us throughout. He was super responsive while arranging the tour as well (and drove us to Oistin’s Friday Night also!). You can reach him at 246-234-8176. We also did a private catamaran excursion with Dreams Catamaran and Captain Mick and Hanjie (apologies I am probably misspelling his name!!) (arranged through the hotel) and it was amazing! The boat was beautiful! They took us snorkeling in Carlisle Bay and then for lunch at a more remote spot up the coast (where there were also plenty of fish to spot). Again, would highly recommend! Finally, outside the hotel we ate at Dis Old House (great atmosphere and great food), Le Shack (just across the street and you can arrange them to drive you - really good drinks and food and super service!), and at Cafe Luna (lovely rooftop dinner overlooking the ocean - it was windy and service was slow but food and view were great). Most taxi drives cost us about $90 US round trip for a family of 5. Enjoy Barbados!