Just returned from a week at Seabreeze and here are my thoughts and things you might benefit from knowing:
The room:
Rooms are nice with a large closet, safe, tea/coffee setup, ice bucket (never had ice and I don’t know where you’d get it), table and fridge (stocked with bottled water), there’s a large TV with mostly US stations. Some rooms have smart TVs so you can sign into your Netflix account – but not all rooms have this. There are about 20 channels on the TV. The bathroom is equipped with a mirror that lights up (call maintenance if it doesn’t – one of our rooms had a mirror that didn’t light up and they fixed it – because it’s a bit dark otherwise). What they say about the towels is true – while there is a sign in the bathroom that says if you want them replaced, leave them on the floor – you will never see fresh towels again if you do this. So, your options are to reuse your towels or use beach towels when you shower. There is a hairdryer in the room but the shampoo is pretty awful. I strongly suggest you bring your own if you like your hair. The bathroom doors are ‘barn door’ style. Of the three rooms we were in, none of them were installed correctly, none of them had locks, and none of them had handles. There is a quarter sized hole in the door and you use your finger to open and close them. It definitely does not promote privacy and since they are installed incorrectly the door often closed to a point that you couldn’t reach the hole and had to jam your finger past the entry to open it.
Food:
We went while they were under renovation (which you don’t find out until after you book, but I digress), so there were only 2 restaurants for lunch and dinner. Breakfast is buffet style at the Mahogany room – there are some good choices including fresh fruit, cereal, and you can have an omelette made (although the lady that makes them might scowl at you). For lunch there is the Mahogany again which is buffet style with a variety of salads, soup, cooked food, and several dessert options. There is also the Flying Fish which serves burgers, hot dogs, pizza etc. We didn’t find that too be as good as Mahogany, however. For dinner there was Aqua Terra and Mahogany which both served a la carte menus. The food at both places was pretty good. The Cerulean was closed for renovations but they were serving that menu at Mahogany and the food there was definitely better than at Aqua Terra. There was one night they had a beach BBQ with entertainment which was quite good. The service at the restaurants fluctuated day by day, depending on who you had as a server. Sometimes we waited quite a while to order. I was able to get reservations for the whole week by emailing in advance, otherwise they suggest that you book a restaurant when you go for breakfast.
Bars:
There were three bars open when we visited. The Rum Shack, the bar at Mahogany, and the one by the Flying Fish. They were all good with a variety of drinks including some great cocktails and their liquor was genuine and not at all watered down like you might find at other places. In fact, we had to ask for less rum sometimes. They didn’t have any draught beer however, which one of our travelers was unhappy about. You can either go to the bar in the day or there is a person that will offer you drinks at your lounge chair.
Entertainment:
This is where I would say the place is most lacking. If you want to go to a resort and just sit and do nothing but enjoy the heat – this is the place for you, but if you want a bit of entertainment during the day and at night – there isn’t much on offer. In the day there was the occasional morning exercise like yoga or water aerobics which seemed a little disorganized. There is usually something at 4pm like rum tasting or bingo. At night it’s pretty much a DJ or a singer, except for Saturday when they have actual entertainers (dancers, fire throwers, etc). The singers and DJ who played 6 out of 7 days were okay, but they essentially played the same songs day after day (I can’t even guess how many times I heard Red Red Wine in the space of a week) and they didn’t really read the crowd – they didn’t play music that people could dance to for the most part (except the duet of singers).
Gym:
The gym is pretty small and located by the adult pool. They offer towels and water in the gym room. There is one bike, one treadmill, one weight bench, and weights from 5 to maybe 50lbs. It’s air conditioned but generally pretty hot in there. There were very few people who use the gym, however.
Environment:
The hotel is located on a beautiful sandy beach. There are water activities including kayaking, going on a hobie cat with a very nice gentleman who works at the resort, and paddle boarding – unfortunately the water was a little too choppy for the latter. There is a cordoned off area where there are some floating hammock type things for the guests to use. There are lots of chairs on the beach with individual covers (no umbrellas). There are 3 pools – one adult and two for everyone. They are not too deep and the temperature was lovely. There are lots of lounge chairs around and even though there are signs that say you can’t reserve chairs – everyone does it anyway. At this time of year there was no issue finding a place to sit. There is also a jacuzzi (there are 2 but one was out of service) but it was too hot to even consider going in there.
Other:
Communication at the hotel wasn’t the greatest. For example, there’s Ostins market down the street that offers this huge fish fry on Friday, but no one at the hotel tells anyone about it or what exactly it entails. We found out on a whim and were able to book transportation through the hotel but since we didn’t know what to expect (before we found out it was a fish market, we thought it was dinner and a show), we dressed up in heels and dresses which was totally inappropriate for the venue. There was also poor communication when it came to hotel activities. For example, there were two nights they had ‘special dinners’ (Saturday and Tuesday) but we didn’t know when or where they were so we just had to keep asking people.
There are also a lot of minor areas that need improvement across the hotel – like the dining tables all shake because they are not balanced on the floor, there are a lot of TP dispensers that are barely hanging on the walls, etc.
Staff:
Most of the staff are great and welcoming. There were definitely a few that made us feel like we were not welcomed and they resented us for being there. We did drive around the island and it appeared that there was a lot of poverty there so I can appreciate the resentment to some degree. I don’t know why their government doesn’t charge us a higher fee for visiting and redistribute the wealth to the people (and fix the roads – they’re awful).
Overall:
While I have some issues with Seabreeze I would say that overall, it was a very nice hotel with good food and drinks, a relaxing atmosphere and a beautiful beach. There are definitely some improvements that could be made and maybe the staff could be made happier so the few that were grumpy were less so, but overall, I would say it’s a nice place for a week away.
