Sandals Grande St. Lucian

We recently enjoyed two weeks at Sandals Grande St Lucian. The resort is great, with many varied good dining options and excellent entertainment (the fire and water show alone made the trip worthwhile). Any accommodation glitches were quickly addressed by the staff and the management team went out of their way to ensure we were satisfied. One note of caution: if peace and quiet is important to you avoid the St Lucia Independence Day weekend in late February as it gets very noisy with motorcycle groups from the island and neighbouring ones racing up and down the nearest road all day. While it is not difficult to stay clear of the "party central" main pool you can't excape the near-constant motorycle noise over that weekend. Any other time should not be a problem.

After a year of reading reviews on the Grande here’s my take on Sandals. Take the helicopter transfer one way & a private transfer back to the airport. The helicopter doesn’t save you a lot of time but take the additional cost as an excursion as it shortens the 2 hour transfer time. We asked ahead (& got) a newly refurbished room- we couldn’t have been happier with the allocated room. We paid for a Club Beachview Room and in our opinion it was well worth it. We had a fantastic view from our balcony & were minutes from the quiet pool & the beach. The bed was super comfortable & and American Kingsize so huge. Air conditioning was great & there was also a ceiling fan. Housekeeping was promptly done (by Rebecca) every day. The bedside lights had 2 charging points each & all plug sockets were UK compatible. Mini bar well stocked & once we gave our preference to Club Sandals it was restocked on a daily basis with water,beer & tonic water or your preferred mixers. Room was a big tick- we were more than pleased. Club levels rooms are worth it-you can access Club Sandals lounge 24/7 for additional alcoholic drinks,water,snacks, towels. It’s manned 8am-10pm so you can book restaurants,trips etc. You can order room service on Club FoC and we used this several times. Deliveries were efficient & trays promptly cleared from hallways. Butlers-we didn’t have one but unless you are incapable of walking for a drink, getting a sunbed or getting your own lunch I just don’t see that you need one. Food-in general better than we expected. The restaurants that you need to book were good. Best food IMO was in Bombay, closely followed by Gordon’s. However over the sea tables at Gordon’s won location wise. Service was of a very good standard at these two restaurants, probably as a smaller number of guests to serve. Bayside did a very good breakfast & lunch buffet with plenty of choice & a lunchtime hot food menu that changed daily. Liked the idea you could get tea/coffee and a cookie any hour of the day from Bayside. Liked Dino’s pizzas & crepes & ice cream from next door. All available as takeaways if required. Barefoot by the Beach was literally on the beach. I wished the menu could have changed in the 2 weeks we were there! Got the feeling it never changed. Service was variable & when it was slow it was painful. In the end we started taking our own drinks with us so we weren’t just left at the table. Maybe more lighting needed as some tables extremely dark. Pools-we by default ended up at the ‘quiet pool’ on the beach as the entertainment at the main pool started at 11am every day. The entertainment team need to turn the volume down on the microphone down as I didn’t go to the Caribbean to hear a trivia quiz or listed to someone counting to 100 as people did arm curls in the strong man competition. The ‘entertainment’ therefore became very annoying and was the main topic of conversation at the ‘quiet’ pool. Maybe limit the time the entertainment goes on? Beach-a good beach to walk down, water very clear & water hammocks were fun. Loads of sun beds available. Cabanas ($130/day) aren’t essential and are one row behind the free sun beds. Take plenty of SPF30 with you as $30 in gift shop. Trips-book Israel King Water Taxi for a private Charter-pickup/drop off from the dock. You choose what you want to do but we went down to The Pitons, Sugar Beach, saw dolphins & turtles & snorkelled by Jade Mountain. Well worth it but book before you fly. Stick to trips by sea as the roads can get very congested and the 2 hour car transfer allows you to see enough of the interior of the island. Sandals do a great deal if you book again before you depart so we are going back next year. Our only bug bear was the noise! Even Diamond members were complaining about the noise so really Sandals Management should really take note.

My wife and I stayed at the Grande St.Lucian and simply loved it. Beautiful beach, great room, excellent food and they were very gluten free aware as well. Only complaint would be the time it takes to get to the resort from the airport, but it was definitely worth the long drive. Out seasoned butlers (Bailey, Kenwin, and Zanius) treated us so very well in every respect. We also need to call out some other staff members for their amazing service as well. - Dabriel - pool bartender - Amanda - - Nicketta - server @ Italian restaurant - Otis - Bombay bartender - Anaiah - lovely curator of all the food bombay - Simeon -- amazing bartender Highly recommend this resort and venue.

Amazing experience. Great beach and pool areas, food and entertainment.

We visited this resort 2/7-2/14 and we had a wonderful time. We had a very fun photoshoot with Delon, his attention to detailed is amazing. The whole photography department is very talented. Neville did a great job giving the tour of the resort. His personally is incredible and he made us feel right at home through out our stay. Otis, the bartender by the Bombay restaurant took excellent care of us. He made the BEST dirty martini I’ve ever had. Lucie was also a very talented bartender! I enjoyed trying different drinks she made. Alex, who I believe works in the grounds was very kind and answered a lot of questions I had about St Lucia. I highly recommend this resort to any couples that are looking for a romantic getaway. The housekeeping team did a wonderful job. We noticed they stocked up us daily with our favorite drinks and waters for the day. All the staff was truly welcoming. The only two negative comments I have is first, the wait time at Toscanini. There was only a few other tables taken that had already been served when we got there but we waited a long time for our food (we had no food restrictions or allergies). By the time our food came, it was more on the colder side. Therefore we avoided coming here for the rest of the trip. Second, we waited for an hour at the pizzeria. Other couples that got there after us received their food. When I inquired about our order, no one knew if it was ordered. Eventually they found that our pizza was in the counter and by the time we got it, it was lukewarm. I believe this problem can be avoided if one person is assigned per party, as we always had a different person either take our order, bring our food, etc through out our dining experience. Overall, the experience was great! I would recommend this resort. There were many activities that we enjoyed daily like sailing and water skiing daily. I love going to Josephine’s! Their banana ice cream is delicious.