Quick Review:

Geography: The Hilton Barbados is located on Needham's Point which has the Caribbean meeting the Atlantic to the south (main beach, rough water) and Carlisle Bay to the West (Caribbean side, calm water).

Hotel: The previous Hilton was imploded and the current hotel was built on the same site opening in 2005. The hotel seems very well maintained most, if not all, rooms have some view due to being on a peninsula. We were upgraded to the Lighthouse Tower facing the South and the lounge is in the main tower facing the Bay - both are great views. The Naval Dockyard was based on the Point and the Hilton has augmented Needham’s Fort/Charles Fort (1650) to accommodate events or guest to visit.

Hotel Staff: Every member of the staff that we met was very nice and outgoing - the staff seemed older than most hotel staff I come across - and they were definitely were more professional as well (& no "island time" issues). A maid even profusely apologized for knocking on our door when we had the "Do Not Disturb" sign out.

Hotel Lounge: I've read a lot of comments about the Executive Lounge, and timing may be everything, but I felt it was more than reasonable. The only improvement area that I saw was that sometimes food didn't get replaced quickly, but even at 10-minutes till, it eventually got replenished, replaced or removed completely (presuming sometimes they ran out). There's a main room - which has breakfast, snacks, water, a computer with free internet, newspapers and a side room with magazines, books and another TV - we often went in the side room to watch the world news as we ate. The lounge has pretty generous hours 6:30-11:00am for breakfast, 3-5pm for tea time (juice is in the refrigerator) and 5-7pm for an evening snack. During the cusp hours the staff went around and asked everyone, "we're going to take the food away, is there anything you'd like first?" We always saw a few open tables (maybe not in the main room, but in the side room), tables were quickly bussed (not all guest understand the self-bussing concept, yet I didn't see anyone tipping to have their dishes removed) and the staff was always courteous.

Hotel Dining: They have all-you-can eat buffets (not that any of us really need a buffet) on Tuesday (Italian), Friday (Asian, including some sushi), & Saturday (Seafood) around US$50/person - including the VAT & Service.

Snorkel: If you want to snorkel the wrecks from on your own: From the Hilton, walk down the beach toward town, past the Grand Barbados (former Holiday Inn) and to the back of the Boys & Girls Club (you'll see the back of the fenced in Basketball courts). From there you can swim 600' feet straight out and you'll be in the Carlisle Bay Marine Park where you can see the wrecks. If you're experienced the water is relatively calm and you can do this on your own, if you're new to snorkeling/free diving/diving, go with a tour. No need to get in trouble 700' from the shore right after all the tour groups left.

JDiver has some helpful links as well:Water Equipment: Barbados Blue claims to offer Hilton guest free non-motorized equipment (snorkel, kayaks), but this is a farce. The south beach always has a yellow (or red) flag on it, and Barbados Blue refuses to loan any free equipment if there's a yellow flag on the south beach - even when water is still on the Caribbean side (and has no yellow or red flags).

Overall great Hotel & Staff.