Car Rental - Barbados

[fireballz315]

Has anyone ever rented a car in Barbados? If so, what kind of experience did you have and would you recommend it? We're looking for a way to get around and see lots of things in one day.

[MrSchwump]

We did that very thing on our first visit to Barbados. We rented a Moke right at the pier. The company we rented from was Stoutes and had a kiosk right at the terminal. We paid less than $100 but this was 6 years ago.

 

We had a ball! It's like the Flintstones car only with a small engine. No doors and everything was on the opposite side. We got lost so many times but managed to find everything we wanted to see. The tricky part was driving in Bridgetown and finding our way back to the ship. It was quite an adventure!

[fireballz315]

What kind of things would you recommend doing/seeing while you're there? We've never been to that port and have NO idea on what to see.

[MrSchwump]

We basically made a lap of the island. My first piece of advice is, get a good map. The one that the rental place had was very rudimentary. It would have made navigating much easier if we'd had a decent map, especially of Bridgetown.

We drove north, along the coast, past Sandy Lane, where Simon Cowell and all the British celebs stay. At Speightown we hung a right and headed across the island. We found Nicholas Abbey easily enough but decided not to do the tour. Then we headed for the Morgan Lewis windmill. After one wrong turn we found it. We did pay to do the tour of it, it was pretty cool. In this area you'll have good vistas of the east coast which is beautiful. We drove down to the shore, parked and walked down to the beach. It was deserted here as the water is rough and not appropriate for swimming. We drove south toward Bathsheba. Again, beautiful views of the huge boulders that dot the coast here. Lots of great photo ops! We decided we wanted to try to find Gun Hill Signal Station and after a few wrong turns, we did. Again, we did the tour here and enjoyed it. You could see all of southern Barbados from here. We could see our ship in the harbor, all of Bridgetown and the southern beaches.

Leaving there our plan was to drive to Bridgetown for lunch. The streets there are a crazy hodgepodge and not well marked. We would have done better with a decent map! Frustrated, we said, forget it and headed back to the ship. We stopped 3 times for directions. We could SEE the ship. We just couldn't get to it. We finally made it in plenty of time.

It was a lot of fun driving such a crazy little car and on the "wrong" side of the road. I read that they now have cars available with GPS. That would make driving there so much better.

[Nole0202]

Yes highly recommend, just make yor reservation in advance because Stotes is the only agency at the port and they run out of vehicles early.

 

We rented an SUV for 6 last year for only $90 including insurance.

 

Take the east coast drive.

[gators70]

Yes highly recommend, just make yor reservation in advance because Stotes is the only agency at the port and they run out of vehicles early.

 

We rented an SUV for 6 last year for only $90 including insurance.

 

Take the east coast drive.

 

They keep cars in reserve for Gators though. Hehehehe

[bandtaxi]

We've done this twice. Def make your reservation ahead. They ran out last year right before we got to the window. We wondered what would have happened if we had waited an hour to get off the ship..... Search for driving in Barbados and read the tips, especially about navigating a roundabout! Drive to the north point for gorgeous view!