Sandals Barbados

Food is good quality, didn’t have a bad meal. I’m quite a fussy eater and they accommodated my modifications to the meals as and when I asked. Lots of restaurants to choose from. Steak cuts were good and quite varied meals in all the different places. Beach is lovely, sea is a bit choppy but you’re pretty safe with a row of rocks breaking the flow/waves a bit. Just don’t turn your back on them! Didn’t do any water sports but they do offer them. So many pools to choose from. The most active/party pool is near the beach but you also have quieter ones to choose from a bit further back. The ones in the middle with a swim up bar are great. Room was a bit dated and tired but it was cleaned every day and didn’t have any issues with towels or toiletries being replaced. The minibar is great, with them replacing whatever you take out the next day. Couldn’t hear a sound from the people next door but not sure if there was anyone even in there or not. The only real noise in the morning was people talking outside the bathroom which has a slatted wooden vent so the sound sort of travels in. If you shut your bathroom door and remember not to walk into it in the dark, it helps. Reservations weren’t the best experience if you didn’t have a butler. There were 4 (I think) that were reservation-only. We found out quite early that you need to book at least a few days in advance, to stand a chance. The two times we reserved they messed up the booking. The 1st time they literally didn’t have the booking saved at the chophouse. So an awkward conversation at 8.30pm with the host who was ‘computer says no’ attitude. As we were beginning to walk out she finally gave us a table that magically became available. The second was a booking for Kimonos (Teppanyaki) at 7pm for 4 of us. We got to our room and the TV said 8.30pm for 2 of us. Another awkward convo with the host on the night to get all four of us in. The feeling is that butlers can bump their guests up the priority list at the expense of others, but I have no proof of this so make your own judgement! Perhaps just a coincidence. The on the night reservations where you just turn up and hope for the best weren’t too bad, minus one dodgy one. This was at the restaurant called Portafinos. Turned up at 6.45 to get a table of four, told by the host it would be a 30 minute wait (great!) and to go to the bar nearby where she would come and get us. After about 45 mins we did think to go and check, but then realised it is a popular restaurant so we just sat it out. After an hour and a half, we started getting a bit worried so wandered back up to the entrance to see. We were told sorry it’s busy we don’t have enough tables. I politely mentioned it’s just because she said it was 30 mins that we wanted to check and she wasn’t very happy. She said something to the effect of not her problem people won’t leave or something like that. I think from a customer service point of view if she popped back to the bar even after an hour and just said sorry it’s longer than the 30 mins but I haven’t forgotten you. Or something along them lines it would stop people going back and asking. There were some other people who had the same experience. While we were stood speaking to the host, we did notice some people being escorted to the table by a butler. Again, just a guess, but I imagine they hadn’t waited 1 hour 30 mins. Eventually got sat down on two tables of two (even with a few fours visible) with a big brick pillar in the middle so everyone had one person they couldn’t see. The food itself in there was lovely and we saw the funny side of talking to a brick wall. We ate our main meal at 10pm. Coffee shops were great overall just as a novelty with a decent supply of cakes and sweet food. I’m just an espresso person now so that’s pretty hard to get wrong but I did notice my wife’s cappuccino was almost molten lava every time. I did used to be a barista a while back and knew this meant the milk was almost certainly burnt. You could generally carry a paper cup with hot milk in if it wasn’t over heated, but with these ones you had to sort of grip the base and the lid to stop yourself getting burnt. I was going to mention but honestly on most days the person serving was quite blunt and almost sad to be there so I didn’t want to rock the boat. I couldn’t tell if they had one or not but the simple metal thermometer clipped to the side of the jug would be perfect (and what I used in my job) so they could have the milk not volcano level. Although not the end of the world, this does feel like something that could be fixed with very basic training and/or a thermometer. For people who have coffees a lot I almost guarantee they would say it was too hot every time, so a minor change would make a huge overall experience difference. Bars were relatively good but very mixed service so you range from enthusiastic to rude. The drinks themselves were mostly premium so that was amazing. Entertainment was ok, we had 2 nights with bands on the main stage and enjoyed the karaoke in the bowling alley at 10pm. We also did the silent disco which was great… but whatever you do don’t smell the headphones (damp wet dog smell) 😂 Tips for first timers I wish we knew on day one: Even if you prefer to eat later, I’d try and get to the restaurant for 6.30pm to get a chance at eating there. For reservations double/triple check in your room tv that the booking is on there. There’s some sort of disconnect with staff and systems and we had issues with non-bookings, which we could have maybe caught before it was too late if we checked again. If you are a vegan or have any other dietary requirements, the coffee shops can order things in before you visit so you can have something available. It tends to be next day but was also told you can order for the whole week. Definitely ask so you don’t miss out on cakes and donuts. Hate to do it but you need to ‘reserve’ a sun bed at like 6.30am to get one. Butler rooms reserve beds, in some cases at both the pool and the beach which is sort of ridiculous considering the lack of them. I wish this was policed more with unoccupied beds emptied if they were left beyond 10am. This would really help! Grab some clean beach towels on your way back to your room. You’ll be thankful when they are all gone by 7am the following day. If you’ve never been before, it can be annoying being asked on the beach if you want anything by local salesmen. Just say no thank you and they will move on without issue. To go out the resort, visit Carlisle bay. It’s an amazing beach. There’s a few bars but we went to one called the boatyard. You pay 35 USD (80 Barbados) per person for a bed and umbrella, which also gives you 40 Barbados dollars on a card to spend at the bar. Good idea and value! You also get a snorkelling trip included if you wanted to go. Overall I think 4/5. It’s easy to remember the annoying parts but the location is great, food is great, beach is great and if you just try and navigate around the rudeness and nonchalant attitude with certain people you’re good! If anyone from the management does read this, basic training for small things which people remember like molten hot milk in coffee and maybe some sort of ‘10am you’re not there, the sun bed isn’t yours anymore’, would make a huge difference.

What a fantastic experience at Sandals. The room, The Food, The Staff. Simply made our visit such a pleasure. Everything is a little slower moving in the Caribbean and that’s ok with us. Special mention to Cheyenne at Butchs Chop house who made each meal we had there a truly fantastic experience. An asset to the company.

ust returned from Barbados and stayed on the Barbodos side of the resort. Were there issues? Yes, but they did not ruin our vacation. I was really worried reading people's reviews as for every one good review there were ten bad ones. This is our 8th trip to a sandals and we also travel Grand Palladium. Our biggest issue was towels by the pool. We did have a butler but that didn’t help. I will say if you are doing a morning excursion grab a few towels and put them in your room before you leave so you have them for the afternoon. We had Shikaara, Donald and Dauman as our butlers. Shikaara and her team rocked it. Funny thing was it was our birthdays but somehow they got anniversary. Made me laugh! Butches Steakhouse was great! We ate there the first night. We had Bridgette as our waitress and George was the bartender. Everything was great and our food came in a timely manner. Steak was awesome – we had filets and NY strips and everyone loved their meals. Butchs Steak & Seafood was also very good. We had Amanda, Jainne, Tanesha and Gian. They were all wonderful and very friendly. Our meals were great there and no long waits. We had Antoinette at Spices many mornings of our stay. Kimono’s did not disappoint and we had Christopher as the chef and Chelsea Ann as our waitress. Soy was great too and the staff there are so friendly and remembered our names after our first visit! Marquita very friendly and made us laugh as well as Tawnisha. Merry Monkey was our last night of our trip. We didn’t have a reservation (they don’t take them and we didn’t’ want the butler to reserve a time as we were playing the night by ear) and waited maybe 10 minutes for a table. Shola and Jalissa were terrific. The pool bar by Spices Tashion kept our glasses full and talked to us about the culture of the island and living in Barbados. We had a lot of laughs that night. George by the bar outside of Soy kept us laughing too! I did a massage and had Shana and she was wonderful! I felt like a new person afterwards. We also did Harrison’s Cave and Bird Sanctuary – it was worth the trip and had Sandra and Rawal. The beach was disappointing as the water was very rough so we couldn’t float. In fact the floats were banned the whole week we were there. The pools were great and we spent most of the time outside of Spices. If you have second thoughts about the trip don’t. It was wonderful!

food quality was excellent, drinks also mostly good. Service across the resort was either good (75%) but there were pockets of rude behavior from team members, mainly in the bars which dampened overall service. The limited friendliness or rudeness sometimes came with queuing and confused ways of serving guests at bars. Eye rolls, ignoring sadly was common. But in most restaurant/eatery, spa, reception etc it was good or very good service, even if quite direct ;) Towels - 80% could get one, 20% of the time - couldn't get one or a sun bed which wasn't what we expected. Hard to get a sun bed before 730am! Again, it wasnt a problem all of the time, but I didn't expect it to be a 'thing' to deal with at all. Spa service was excellent. Fab treatments albeit pricey, here is where team helpfulness was v good. Housekeeping and room service - we had a few issues that we had to chase, but nothing major, just a shame it was a bit of a theme. We enjoyed some of the entertainment, gyms, and top highlight was breakfast and meals at la parisienne and greenhouse. Chophouse was also on point. So overall , good, but not great value for money. We are up for paying more but then expect excellence, or very minimal issues, and there were sadly too many issues, or too many examples where it didn't meet the ££ expectation for us. We still had a nice time, enjoyed meeting some great people.

We booked our trip in Jan 24, to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary and Sandals cancelled our booking just 4 days before our holiday. To make it worse this is the second time we have had this awful experience with Sandals and while they said it was because of essential maintenance we don’t believe that at all and assume they oversold our room and then cancelled our booking as we had booked in the jan sales. sandals may claim to be a luxury brand but they are clearly only revenue driven with zero actual customer care