Barbados Wildlife Reserve

[afl]

We are cruising on Maasdam Jan 7th.

 

Has anyone had experience with the Barbados Wildlife Reserve?

 

Any tips or suggestions on how best to get there and get back, and of more importance, how would you describe and rate this experience?

 

Thank you very much for your reply and thoughts.

 

al

[FRANCOIS]

Hye Al. just by curiosity what day will you be in Barbados?

Because I am cruising as well on the 07 but on the Sun!

 

Yes my wife and I did last year with Glory tour the wildlife reserve; we had booked more than that because we had the Best of Barbados tour and that was including:

Harrison cave,wildlife reserve, snorkling with at a ship wreck, snorkling with the turtles and add to that a very good lunch (flying fish) on the road at a hunt but excellent!!

At that time it was 85.00 usd each but it was my best tour of my cruise.

Sincerely when I booked the Wildlife reserve wastn exciting me much! but we loved it.

As soon you get in the reserve there are huge turtle that walk everywere you got a becarefull not to walk on them!

Then you follow the sidewalk and see a lot animals as monkeys and others.

As to know how much it cost to enter I cant tell, it was include. I am sure that M. Barbados will answer you on how to get there and the cost.

 

Enjoy you day in Barbados

Francois

[pirate and his mate]

Did this a few weeks ago. Although I generally don't like tours, it was my first time to Barbados and I think the Best of Barbados tour (Glory tours) was worth the money. They take you to a lot of different places - when I added up the entry fees, the tour was cheaper - and you don't get lost!

 

We went to the Wildlife Preserve after lunch. They put food out about 2 pm - that's when you want to be there. Several different critters came by to eat, including one wild monkey. Got some very good pictures of the monkey. I would guess that we were at the Preserve about an hour - this is plenty of time. Main thing is to be there before 2 pm.

 

Linda

[SqueakyDust]

We were there in early December, and loved it.

We hired our car from Stoutes. Their little hut is just outside the cruise terminal and eventhough we were later getting onshore than expected everything was ready and waiting for us. I think we were only USD$ 88.00 but that was without fuel. We put in USD$10 at a nearby station and still had about a 1/3 left after a full day. The Stoutes guy marked on the maps (he gave us 2) the areas we wanted to get to and showed us the best way to start off. We managed the turning at the security gate fine and were soon on the West Coast road making out way to the Wildlife Reserve. We found this easily and really enjoyed our visit.

We had no problem finding the Reserve as there were plenty of road signs for it. You go down a rather bumpy road between banana trees (or was it Sugar Cane, I can't remember now!) At the end of this you'll see a building to your left higher up, this is the Reserve. If you drive to the back there is a rough ground car park and this lies between the Reserve and the Trail.

As we parked at the back we went to our right, which turned out to be the Grenada Hall and Rainforest trail part. Your fee gets you into all 3 sections. We were US$40 for 2 adults and 2 children. We walked up to the Hall first and had a quick look around. There are great views of the east Coast from the top windows. Sadly we didn’t take in the History as the call of nature promptly brought us back to the Reserve! The kids just loved this and we could easily have spent a whole day here if we'd been staying on Barbados. There were loads of Tortoises (some trying to make more too which was fun explaining to the kids!), cute little deer and things called Maro's which are like a giant rabbit/deer cross. We saw a baby one too which was gorgeous. A huge snake, which had killed it's mate!, loads of Iguana, Flamingoes, tropical Birds, Pelican, Alligators, a walk through Aviary... But NO monkeys! Spike the Parrot was out with his keeper. He has a very English accent when he speaks! There is a restaurant and a small shop selling refreshments. They had T shirts, which weren’t very prominent. I wish I’d bought one as I never saw them anywhere else. Afterwards we set back off to the rainforest bit and were told that there had been sightings that day. It is a very long and undulating/steep walk. Wear good shoes as it's slippy even when it's dry! We heard lots of noises but never even saw a monkey tail :( Purely down to luck. Another family did see one but their baby scared it away!! There are caves you can investigate if you're brave too.

We really enjoyed our morning here, and wished we'd more time.

Because we wanted to go to the East Coast and Harrisons caves we came here in the morning so we didn't see anything being fed - but I think we did see everything. No animals were hiding from the afternoon heat etc.

Take bug spray - I collected a few bites here, but that's to be expected.

 

It was our second visit, albeit in 16 years. The last time I visited I was horrified as the Monkeys were in cages. This has all gone and I'd not hesitate to return.

 

hth

[Welly172]

Hi,

 

I just wanted to add my thoughts about the Wildlife Preserve, I was there in May this year and it very much depends what you are expecting, (I think I was expecting a large nature reserve and having to look really carefully to spot any animals) but the Preserve is quite small and the area was very fenced in, we saw loads of different animals but they didn't really have anywhere else to go, it was not what had been expecting.

 

After visiting the preserve we went into the rainforest trail and this was where we spotted the monkeys doing what comes naturally, hiding in the trees and playing in the branches, as we were leaving the monkeys all came out of the forest across the road in front of us and into the Wildlife Preserve so I guess it must have been feeding time.

 

Hope this helps.

Anne-Marie