The short version
- Around a hundred waterfront rooms and residences on Hamilton Harbour in Paget, with an infinity terrace looking over the bay.
- There is no beach on site. The hotel provides transport to the beach and into town.
- The private water shuttle crosses the harbour to Hamilton in minutes. It is the most agreeable commute in the archipelago.
- Privileged access to the Belmont Hills golf course, also reached by boat.
Is Newstead on a beach?
No, and that is the first thing to understand because everything else follows from it.
The hotel sits on a gentle hill at 27 Harbour Road in Paget, facing Hamilton Harbour. In front of you are harbour water, sailboats and the city lights in the evening. It is a beautiful view, and it is not sand.
The beach is not far for all that. The south shore and its wide pink sand lie on the other side of the parish, and the hotel provides transport to drop you there. Elbow Beach and Warwick Long Bay are minutes away.
If your plan is to step out of the room onto sand, a seafront address will serve you better, and we have them. If your plan is to see the island, play golf and dine in town, Newstead is probably the best base in Bermuda.
The water shuttle, the asset nobody writes about
This is the detail that makes the daily difference, and it almost never appears in descriptions.
Newstead has its own dock. The shuttle crosses the harbour to Hamilton in a matter of minutes. You leave from your hotel and step off in the middle of town, with no taxi, no bus and no waiting.
On an island where you cannot rent a car, that is worth a great deal. Dinner in town becomes a last-minute decision rather than an expedition. And the ride back late in the evening, across black water with the harbour lights, is one of the good memories guests bring home.
The same boat takes you to the Belmont Hills golf course on the far side of the bay.
Getting to Bermuda from Canada
A non-stop flight links Montreal to Bermuda, with a few departures a week in season. The window is narrow, and outside those departures you connect, usually through Toronto or the US east coast.
Combinations change from one season to the next, and the good departures go early. Call 1 866 628-6241 before you settle your dates rather than after.
Allow about thirty minutes by road from the airport to Paget. The hotel offers a transfer service: have your advisor arrange it in advance.
When to go
Bermuda lies in the North Atlantic, roughly a thousand kilometres off the coast of North Carolina. The Gulf Stream softens the climate without making it tropical.
From June through October the sea is pleasant, peaking near 27 degrees in August. From November through March, days run around 20 to 22 degrees and the sea drops to 19 or 20.
Newstead holds up very well out of season, and that is worth knowing. When swimming turns bracing, you still have golf, the spa, a terrace warmed by the afternoon sun, and a whole city five minutes away by boat. Golfers in particular often prefer the Bermudian winter: the courses are beautiful, uncrowded and playable year round.
April and May are the driest months. Hurricane season runs June to November, peaking August to October.
Room or residence?
The property holds roughly 102 units, around sixty of them waterfront residences. The difference matters.
Rooms and studios suit short stays and business travel. The residences, with their separate living space and private balcony over the harbour, change the experience for a week or more. Several are designed with families in mind.
Ask for a harbour view. It is the show this address puts on, from the morning when the sailboats head out to the evening when the city lights up across the water. Your advisor has the request written onto the file, which a booking site does not do.
Eating and drinking
Beau Rivage is the hotel's table, French in character, with a dining room and terrace over the harbour. Blu sits at the Belmont Hills course and is reached by the water shuttle.
Meals are not automatically included. Have your package spelled out before booking.
The real advantage, again, is the shuttle. All of central Hamilton, its Front Street restaurants and harbour terraces, is minutes away by boat. You are captive to nothing.
Golf, spa and pools
Newstead guests have privileged access to Belmont Hills Golf Club, a semi-private course laid out on the heights across the water. Pro shop, club rental, lessons, chipping green and putting green are on site.
The infinity terrace overlooks the harbour and is the postcard of the hotel. Add a hot tub, a steam room, a fitness centre, yoga classes, tennis, and the spa with its hair and beauty salon.
Getting around without a car
Visitors cannot rent cars in Bermuda. It is a long-standing government rule, made to protect the character of the island and its narrow roads.
What remains: public buses, ferries, metered taxis at regulated rates, 50cc scooters requiring no motorcycle licence, electric minicars restricted to drivers 25 and over, and bicycles. Multi-day passes cover buses and ferries together.
Newstead is among the best placed in the archipelago on this front. Between its private shuttle to Hamilton, the transport provided to the beach and the Harbour Road bus line running past the door, you will never need a scooter.
What is nearby
Hamilton is minutes away by boat: Front Street, the cathedral and its tower, the Bermuda National Gallery, the harbour terraces. The town ferry then takes you to the Royal Naval Dockyard in about twenty minutes.
In the other direction, the south shore strings its beaches for kilometres, from Elbow Beach to Warwick Long Bay and on to Horseshoe Bay, linked by the coastal path through South Shore Park. That walk is one of the finest things Bermuda has to offer.
The Botanical Gardens and the Verdmont house museum are in the parish, and the Railway Trail, the old rail line turned footpath, runs close by.
Who it suits
Newstead is built for golfers, for couples who want a fine view and a good table without the crowd of a big resort, for business travellers, for long stays in a residence, and for anyone who wants to explore the island rather than camp on a lounger.
If you want sand at the door, say so to your advisor. Coco Reef is on the south shore with its private cove, Grotto Bay has two beaches of its own, and Cambridge Beaches has four.
What to know before you book
The absence of a beach on site is the point to accept from the outset. The ground slopes, the hotel being built into a hillside, which you feel coming and going. And the water shuttle timetable follows the season: have it checked against your dates.
None of that prevents an excellent stay, which is why we set it down. Newstead offers what no beach address can: a harbour view that changes all day, a city five minutes away by boat and a golf course across the water. For the right traveller, that is unbeatable.
Booking with an advisor
Three things are settled better by phone: room or residence depending on the length of your stay, the harbour view, and the water shuttle and beach transport timetables on your dates.
For the destination as a whole, see our page on travel to Bermuda and our selection of places to stay in Bermuda.
A Voyages AquaTerra advisor will take your call at 1 866 628-6241.
