The SoCo Hotel

Food all A la Carte, but repetitive. Breakfast really good, and lunch and dinner both 3 courses with wine or drinks. Room large and all have a sea view. Negatives - poor air conditioning in the room and not working in the restaurant so very hot. Bar ran out of top shelf drinks and did not get replenished, staff spent all their time apologising. Food not available on the menu, at least a couple of things a night/day. The worst was the rats running around by the bar, eventually after many complaints they got the pest control in, not acceptable! Cockroaches by the restaurant as well. The place is looking tired and needs an refurb, the owner needs to complete all the repairs ASAP, he is opening a SoCo in St Lucia and more concerned about that hotel. The owner needs to take note, and improve his standards or else travellers will not use this hotel. I have not been put off Barbados, and will hope to revisit one day, but not stay at Soco.

No greeting, cool flannels or drinks,shabby furniture.Barely an acknowledgment from the receptionist who continued with her work for quite a while. Eventually we went through the process, told our room number, receptionist opened the door into the hallway & pointed.

No welcome pack in the room, no Do Not Disturb tag for the door, empty fridge. Unpacking, to find 6 hangers between us. I later went to reception for more, to be told they’d been allocated equally between the rooms. After explaining the duration of our stay (21days), advised more would be ordered, basically living out of suitcases, returned to receptions few times, eventually received Wednesday.

No hairdryer(luckily I’d taken my own)nowhere to hang wet bathing costumes, no WiFi in room(although other rooms had it)no WiFi in restaurant. Sporadic change of beach towels.

Room was tired & grubby, showerhead full of calcium. Often no warm water for shower, spent morning of last day on beach, went to shower, again - cold water, could only bare to shower lower legs/feet.

I had no WiFi from Wednesday until we left Saturday(unless we went outside to bars & restaurants) Travel locator forms & ordering day 2PCR tests were a nightmare,my husband(on same network)had to do both on his phone, set up my email on his phone to get reference numbers to travel. Over 2hours in reception doing this, where it became obvious many guests at the hotel experiencing same issue, the staff happy to give lip service.

If you expect breakfast when restaurant opens at 7am you’ll be disappointed, reasons given-kitchen staff not ready or lost keys to the fridge. Quite often breakfast would start 7:30.

I’d ordered one poached egg, however people who also arrived at 7 & ordered a starter ie yogurt or fruit, the process is:- starters are served & you wait for everyone to finish, their tables cleared before they serve the cooked breakfasts. They have their routine which they do not deviate from. Breakfast can take at least an hour, lunch an hour & a half. My husband waited 90 minutes for breakfast, eventually gave up & walked out. They do prepare bacon in advance, as you smell it cooking, yogurts & fruit plates should be ready to be served

We had lunch twice on our 3 week holiday, due to time wasted in the restaurant. I mentioned to reception staff, wasting approx 5.5hrs every day waiting for food was unacceptable. When you’re on holiday you want to enjoy the sunshine, not sit in a boring restaurant, no air con & no WiFi. The music in the restaurant was totally depressing, one evening it was piano music, very slow & sullen. I mentioned to reception staff, we’re on holiday, should be listening to cheerful reggae music, Bob Marley & the likes.

No music at the bar, guests using their own personal speakers. Big thank you to Sam & Amy for a really good night using their speaker, which made a normally boring evening akin to a holiday.

The huge rat infestation is disgusting, no rat bait boxes used. Kitchen door being jammed open is an obvious attraction for them. We witnessed an intrusion of cockroaches & they went into the eating area.

Very rarely could you get cold beer, they’d completely run out of bottle beers. Top shelf drinks would constantly be unavailable for days.

On a positive, fabulous views from the rooms, comfortable beds, excellent air con & most staff were exceptionally helpful & hardworking, namely:-Tony, Chantelle, Shane, Abi, Lucrecia, Narcisa, Raheem, Corey also Carlton & Pedro. Good luck to you all & I hope you find new employment, where you’re friendliness, hard work & dedication is appreciated & rewarded. They’re a credit to this failing hotel.

One restaurant manageress should definitely not work with people, she treats the staff appallingly, glares at guests just as badly & there’s never a smile on her face.

To summarise we would never return to the Soco, the worst all inclusive hotel we have experienced. Barbados is a Beautiful island, very friendly, helpful residents. We were lucky to meet some lovely people which is due to faces becoming familiar in a small hotel environment.

When the correct room was ready we moved ourselves in. No refund was offered for this inconvenience, Little interest or concern shown by the management. We endured several other issues with this hotel including rats scratching at night sounding as if they would get into our room. apparently bait boxes had been ordered didn't help our lack of sleep. The hotel was full and the sunbed situation was a major issue, i felt the reason for lack of sunbeds was the condition of them and not being replaced rather than the covid excuse that was offered, it was ok to line the plastic ones together on the beach but not around the pool! Drinks including beer were served in glasses around the pool and often drunk in the pool.no thought of safety they did have plastic but not always used. You may have read elsewhere about the length of time service was taking at meal times this was correct, it was due to major staffing issues there where a handful of amazing staff that worked very long shifts to try and provide some sort of service in the restaurant, special mentions to Tony and Channel but with new faces most days service suffered, again a few of the girls need medals for there efforts ( apologises for my lack of names but ladies you know who you are)
Smoking was another major health concern for non smokers, no control as to were smoking should be it was very uncomfortable to sit on a sunbed and sometimes ever vaporing at the tables in the restaurant area. i was told complaints had gone to the ministry as Barbados has a strict rule on smoking. lack of management control and ever changing staff meant this was not the holiday we had looked forward to after all of the lockdowns. Barbados is a beautiful island with