There were 4 of us (2 couples) on this trip and we stayed at the Barcelo Cayo Largo from April 2-9/05 and here are our impressions of our trip. I should mention that originally we were supposed to be booked at the Sol Cayo Largo until Air Canada cancelled their flights from Toronto with a week and a half to go and left us scrambling. We got a full refund from Air Canada and booked with Signature but all that was left was the Barcelo. Not what we wanted, but wanting to work on our all over tans, we decided to go.

The flight down was with WestJet. The flight left on time and it was one of their new 737-700’s with the satellite TV’s in each seat. Nice idea but there are still bugs to be worked out. The pilot said they work ok east-west, but heading north-south as we were it was constantly dropping off-line. The seats are leather but not the most comfortable, lots of squirming after about the first ½ hour, legroom was good, however, probably about the same as Air Canada and definitely better than SkyService and Transat. Service consisted of dragging large cardboard boxes down the aisle filled with individual cardboard snack boxes, courtesy of the tour operators the flight attendants said. They were ok because we were unable to get anything at the airport early in the morning.

If you have an early morning flight out of Toronto’s Terminal 2 there is nothing open for food outside of security until 5:30 or inside security until 6:00. We got there early to get seats together (3:30) as there is no pre-booking on WestJet and proceeded through security at 5:00 A.M. when it opened. My advice would be to wait until the restaurant opens at 5:30 and then go through security. By 6:00 when the coffee bar inside security opened we had decided we would just wait until we got on board. After the snack boxes they took drink orders and got what was probably the weakest cup of coffee I have ever had. We had another round of beverages later in the flight. The flight attendants are all young and energetic and have all these jokes to tell while you’re taxiing, funny the first time, but would be pretty stale after awhile if you travelled on WestJet regularly.

Landing and de-planing in Cayo Largo was good and we were on the bus to the hotel fairly quickly. Check-in was fairly fast. We had wanted a sea view room in one of the bungalows but none were available as the bungalows on the east side of the resort were closed to fix the water problems that they have been having. We did get the sea view room in the main hotel area that we had paid for.

Our room was on the top floor overlooking the pool area just behind the snack bar area. Nice big room and clean. The halogen lights above the mirror in the bathroom did not work and when I inquired about getting them fixed I was told that they could not get any so we didn’t have a lot of light in the bathroom. The other couple we were with had ants in there room and the cleaning staff had to spray them all week.

There isn’t a lot of landscaping around the resort and around the pool area there isn’t a lot of shade. They don’t have many umbrellas either. Some women were topless around the pool but certainly not the majority. Pool area was pretty full for what had to be a half full resort. Hard to find loungers in the shade but there were all ways some in the sun.

The beach was not too bad most days. It was usually pretty windy most days. Wednesday was really windy; the waves were coming right up to the stairs going down to the beach, so we stayed at the pool that day. On other days, yes, we did get all over tans. We were just past the last palapas as we had our own umbrella that we had brought with us. Other naturists were further along past the first rock outcropping. Still others walked further up the beach past the radio tower. All beach goers seemed to respect each other. Although we were in the minority we never felt out of place. There were a fair number of topless women on the beach.

We rented a jeep (40 pesos for 6 hr.) the 2nd day we were there and did a little exploring. We had to go to the Pelicano to replace some eyeglasses that were lost in the waves at Barcelo beach. So we checked out the Pelicano and the Sol while we were there. We wandered through the Sol and down to the beach. From what I saw it was far more elegant than the Barcelo and certainly the beach was a lot nicer. The Sol was definitely more along the lines of what we were looking for. We carried on in our jeep to the town area to see what it was like. Stopped and checked out the marina, went for a beer at the bar and bought some water at the store for the beach later. We visited the turtle farm (1 Peso) and tried to get some money exchanged at the bank but gave up because the line was moving so slow.

We went down to Sirena beach for some food and drink at the restaurant/bar there. Now I know why we needed to stop at the bank as we only had enough pesos for some fried chicken and some beers. We wandered down to the beach and found a palapa to the far right side of the beach as you are looking out over the water. The beach was not overly crowded and no one was around us so we worked on our all over tans some more. No one bothered us although we seemed to be the only naturists on Sirena beach that day. Again there were a lot of topless women. Took the jeep back and got some more beach time down at the Barcelo.

We went back to Paraiso beach the next day on the train from the hotel. We walked down the beach to the east and found a spot where we could get naked. There were more naturists in this area but I think a lot had walked up from Punta Mal Tiempo. We walked naked quite a ways east back towards the Sol and saw quite a few naturists off by themselves relaxing and enjoying the sun. We had seen quite a few naturists at the Sol beach at the far end palapas but we never ventured farther to the west where I think most naturists go. The rest of the time we spent at the Barcelo beach until Friday our last full day when we went back to Sirena beach and managed to get our same spot on the right side of the beach to get our last bit of all over tanning in.

From all the reports we had read we weren’t expected great food and we didn’t get it. Anything from the buffet was luke warm at best. The pasta station was the best in the evening and the made to order omelettes were the best in the morning. We always had enough to eat. The best meals were the lunches at the Ranchon and the pizza at the snack bar although they did run out of pizzas one day. We ate at the al a carte restaurant one night and the food wasn’t bad. The servers do try to do the best they can with what they have to work with and I certainly have no complaints with the staff except for one that caught me off guard as I had not heard of it before. Apparently the locals cannot buy cell phones for themselves, so I was asked by one of the staff if I would go with someone to another hotel to buy a cell phone and card from someone selling phones there. Apparently they can only sell the phones to tourists so you have to bring along your passport and the locals will give you the money so you can buy the phone for them. Now I’ve done a lot of travelling all over the world and have often helped out hotel staff by bringing items for them that they can’t get in their own country, but this one didn’t feel right and declined saying I was busy for the afternoon. I didn’t really like being put on the spot like that by this individual and didn’t know if it was a scam or not. I did ask one of the hotel staff later that I had gotten to know and they said that yes that is the way it’s down and is quite common. Anyways it’s something to be aware of. Again other than that the staff was great.

We hit all the bars and found the best bar to be the 24 hour bar by the theatre. It had the best selection of liquors and the best staff. The bar on the beach had the least but I was only drinking beer so it was ok. The only other thing he had was run for rum punches.

We went to most of the shows in the evening. They would alternate between the dancers and the entertainers every other night. The shows were OK except the Monday Night Comedy show put on by the same people that look after the kids and provide entertainment during the day. We walked out. We found the skits to be in poor taste. In one they did a skit where a guy would come out crawling across the stage pleading for water. He would go so far and drop dead, and then another would crawl over the first one pleading for water and drop dead a little further along. The problem was that every time they crawled over the guy ahead of them they would either sniff his bum, dry humping him or try to pull down his shorts. There were others just as bad but that was the last straw, plus we didn’t think it was appropriate for all the 3-5 year kids that were in the front row.

We did the catamaran tour on the Thursday. The weather was great that day. It was amazing to see how tame the Iguanas were on the island. We did think the tour went a little long. We could have done without the last stop. I think most of the people had had enough by that time and just wanted to get back. The Lobster lunch was good. Snorkelling was also good.

All in all it was a relaxing holiday and we all got great tans. While the Barcelo was alright I think I would much prefer the Sol as it appears to be more elegant, has more to offer and has a better beach. We did enjoy the beaches and will likely be back at some point.