Buccament Bay Review- Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Go

In Caribbean, Destinations by Tamala Prickett

 

 

Buccament Bay Review- Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Go

1- Buccament Bay is a Luxurious And Family-Friendly Resort In An “Authentic” Caribbean Destination

 

Buccament Bay is  the only “Resort” in St. Vincent, and also the only family-friendly resort in all of the Grenadines by Chic Family Travels standards. Buccament Bay caters to toddlers, tweens, teens and adults as well. This one of the main reasons that we felt inspired to post a Buccament Bay Review. For example, there is a Harlequin Kids Club that allows children as young as 2 years old to attend.  The Buccament Bay kids club staff could not be more warm and friendly. The Buccament Bay kids club has an outdoor  playset,  a blow up bouncy which they happily blow up upon request, computers, wii games, air hockey, and animals for the children to visit and play with. There are also turtles and rabbits at the kids club. Brilliant!  My two year old could not wait to get his hands on those turtles every day. I could write an entire Buccament Bay review of the kids club because it was that good.

Buccament Bay also has a Pat Cash Tennis facility, Soccer Academy & Performing Arts Academy. The resort offers free group adult and children lessons for all of these activities throughout the week.

There are plenty of other luxurious resorts on other islands in the Grenadines, but none of them cater to young children and families. Thus, Buccament Bay is a natural stop for those who wish to explore St. Vincent and the Grenadines.  Without Buccament Bay, St. Vincent and the Grenadines would be a difficult vacation for families with young children, tweens and even teens.

2- Buccament Bay is a tennis player, soccer player & performing artist’s paradise.

 

As I stated earlier, Buccament Bay offers FREE tennis, soccer and singing group lessons and not by just “anybody.”  My girls are tennis players, so I am going to naturally speak about the tennis program. We loved James, the head tennis coach, and he provided tennis coaching equal to what they have received at Nike Tennis camps and possibly better. James was enthusiastic and a talented tennis coach. James improved my girls game in the short week that we visited Buccament Bay, which says a lot. After a 12 hour journey home, the girls requested the very next day to go to the courts to work on their footwork. Again, I could write an entire Buccament Bay Review of the Pat Cash tennis academy so post a comment if you want me to elaborate!

I hope that the resort builds James more courts, so that he can sponsor junior camps and tournaments. The courts were not full during our stay so there is no need to worry, but with more tennis courts there is a huge potential for this resort to become one of the best tennis resorts in the Carribbean. Chic Family Travels hears that more courts will be built soon, which will naturally bring tennis camps and tournaments to Buccament Bay as do similar resorts like Carlisle Bay in Antigua.

Buccament Bay also brings in West End performing artists (the U.S. equivalent to Broadway) and soccer stars. Claire, my 8 year old, really enjoyed the two singing lessons she took at Buccament Bay. The talented performing artists were enthusiastic and took the lesson very seriously. She improved after just two lessons. The Buccament Bay guest staff provided her a huge confident booster, and she is ready to start taking singing lessons at home!

3- Buccament Bay has some of the best cusine we have had ANYWHERE!

 

 

 

I am going to make this one short and sweet. The Buccament Bay food was outstanding. We are self-proclaimed foodies, and the “included food” was beyond our expectations and far above the standards of other all-inclusive resorts and cruise ships.  Also, they do not skimp on the alcohol package as well. Buccament Bay provided top-shelf liquor, and I am a snob on this note as my Fairhope friends will glady tell you. I hate to say this as I feel guilty, but it was higher quality food and top shelf liquor than Carlisle Bay. As of Feb. 2013 there are the following restaurants open : Bamboo (for breakfast), Bay Beach Club (for lunch and dinner daily), Jacks (for dinner 3 nights a week), and Saffran (for dinner 2-3 nights a week). Jack’s and Safran rotate on the nights each restaurant is open.

Bay Beach Club is on the beach so that in itself makes it awesome, and they also serve really fresh and delicious cuisine. The tuna poke was to die for! Jack’s had a more sophistacted and “less caribbean” atmosphere. However, the food was amazing, innovative and on our week’s itinerary for every single night Jack’s restaurant was open. We personally loved the truffle salt 🙂  Chic Family Travels also gave Safran, the Indian restaurant a try one night. Admittedly, the restaurant lacks atmosphere. However, the chef is really talented and if you enjoy Indian food then you will not be dissappointed.

I almost forgot about HQ. HQ is a coffee shop that also serves ice cream, paninis, and pastries. It is a great place to stop for a quick bite. We used it frequently for a bag of chips or ice cream cone for the kids. Also, the paninis at HQ are amazingly delicious!

 

4- Island Hopping in the Grenadines!

Buccament Bay is ideally located in St. Vincent which is one of the best places to lay your head at night after island-hopping to the Grenadine islands. Currently, Buccament Bay offers group excursions to Bequia, Mustique, Dark View Falls, and the Tobago Cays to name a few. Unfortunately, we were only able to book one group trip because the minimum was not met. I have no idea why these people don’t want to get off their bums to see the neighboring islands, but we took the matter into our own hands and booked a private boat. (Contact Us directly for advice on how to book a private excursion at Buccament Bay). The Grenadines are similar to the British Virgin Islands in that you can easily take a day trip to neighboring islands. Bequia is just magical. No one should go to the Grenadines, and not take a day to visit this quaint island of Bequia including the town and Princess Margaret Beach. The picture below is of the land rover that was parked on the beach. My husband swears it will be his one day  🙂

Bequia Buccament Bay Excursion

 

We also enjoyed our time in the town of Bequia on a separate day. The town market is lovely and the people are amazingly warm and friendly. Within 10 minutes of being on the island, I had already met two locals. We had lunch at Mac’s pizza and enjoyed the famous lobster pizza with our friends Michael, Charlie, Nolan & Saywa from Bequia who are boat charter operators in Bequia. Chic Family Travels also visited Mustique through an excursion booked through Buccament Bay. Mustique is a privately owned island where the British royalty have vacationed for years. Apparently, Prince William was on the island when we were there so the island requested that we not bring any cameras on the island. Did we listen? Of course not 🙂  We could have cared a less about the Prince, so we still took a few photos shots of  our time at Basil’s Bar in Mustique . We were also unable to tour the island because the “Prince” was there, thus we had a limited experience at Mustique. Next time we hope the “Prince” stays home 🙂

 

Chic Family Travels also visited the Falls of Baleine. It is closed by the tourism industry, and not an excursion offered by Buccament Bay for liability reasons. In one word, the Falls of Baleine are AMAZING! It was worth every penny we paid for the private excursion to visit the Falls of Baleine. If you want a crowded, touristy, and a really “safe feeling” excursion then the Falls of Baleine are not for you.

First of all, The Falls of Baleine are quite a trek across into the mountains and over rocks in the water. There is not a path of any kind, so you will need to be in decent shape to make it there. The bridge and path to the Falls of Baleine was destroyed by a Hurricane and not re-built. Thus, it is quite an adventure to find the Falls. Howevever, we enjoy a good adventure and trusted our guide Charlie to get us all there in one piece.

We stumbled upon a “Rasta Man,” who walked half a day to get a five gallon drum of water from a trickle of mineral filled water near the Falls. I might have been nervous had Charlie not been with us, but Charlie was able to talk to the Rasta Man in their dialect and all was good. The Rasta Man was actually quite friendly, he just wasnt sharing any of that special water and I don’t blame him!  Buccament Bay offers an excursion to the Dark View Falls which are open and deemed safe by the tourism industry. The Dark View Falls require a cab ride instead of a “boat-only” trip.

 

 

Chic Family Travels plans on hiking the volcano, boating to the Tobago Cays & visiting the Dark View Falls on our next trip to Buccament Bay, which are all excursions offered by Buccament Bay provided that  the 10 person minimum is met. Don’t forget that you can always schedule these excursions privately if there is not enough people interested in going.  It will cost you more, but it is worth it. You have not been to St. Vincent & the Grenadines, if you don’t leave the resort!  We still had plenty of time at the resort even though we took several excursions.  Many of our days were spent swimming in our private plunge pool 🙂

 

5- St. Vincent Offers Some Of The Best Scuba Diving and Snorkeling in the Caribbean.

The Padi staff at Buccament Bay introduced Chic Family Travels to Scuba Diving and we are hooked! Myself, Daniel and my oldest daughter earned our certification for a very reasonable price of $400 a piece during our visit at Buccament Bay. The certification included two tank dives as well. St. Vincent has healthy coral reefs and aquatic life. You can dive everything from a shipwreck to a bat cave! Yes, we went through the bat cave just to say we did it 🙂

 

Also, it is important to note that you can snorkel right off the beach at Buccament Bay. We even did our initial scuba dive right off the beach at Buccament Bay. There are very few resorts in the caribbean that offer snorkeling and scuba on-site like Buccament Bay.

6- Okay, so I know that I said “Top 5 Reasons,” but I just remembered the most important reason! The staff at Buccament Bay will become friends instead of staff by the time you leave. The picture below speaks for itself. We aleady miss Henson, aka “Smiley.” To be honest, this is the top reason why we posted a Raving Buccament Bay Review.

 

I would also like to make a special note of some of the staff members who made our time special at Buccament Bay. First, Guido is an excellent manager who will make certain that your time at Buccament Bay is nothing less than perfect. Charles who was our lifestyle coordinator made sure that my husband did not dissapoint me on Valentine’s Day 🙂 Chic Family Travels also owes a big ‘Thank You!’ to Ishen who went out of his way to arrange a private boat excursion for our family when the 10 person minimum was not met for an excursion that we really wanted to go on.  Julene at the Harlequin Kids Club is a gem and Buccament Bay better keep her around! She always has a smile on her face, and went out of her way to interact with our children and not just “watch” them. My 8 year old actually chose to go play monopoly with her “friend” instead of snorkeling with the rest of us one afternoon. Finally, we enjoyed our days and evenings chatting with the excellent staff at the Buccament Bay Beach Bar including Henson, Kevin, Brenton and Santa (the sushi chef).

Buccament Bay often posts heavily discounted deals at TripAdvisor.


Tamala PrickettBuccament Bay Review- Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Go