Sandals Royal Barbados

Jodie Harden

We enjoyed a week at Sandals Barbados but not without a few issues. The resort is lovely, the location is great and there are plenty of restaurants and pools to enjoy. We had a butter service, which was OK, but not really that necessary for us. With all the good, we had 2 major issues! First, our room was not cleaned for 2 consecutive days!!! We had to make someone solve the issue the second day! Nobody took the initiative to correct it the first day! This was VERY inconvenient!!! The positive on this was that once they sent someone to clean it the second day, they sent 2 OUTSTANDING individuals, Amanda & Joseph!!!!!! They should win “Employees of the Month”, in my book!!! They worked hard, quickly and were VERY pleasant!!! Second, it took me 2 hours, over 2 days, to get a false $60 taxi charge off my bill before we could checkout! They wouldn’t accept my word that we never used a taxi but finally got another room’s butler to admit he charged it to the wrong room! Again, we loved the actual resort and most all of the staff but I would not spent that amount of money to go there again, after what we experienced.

Lindsay Perrico

Five stars allllll day. Everyone was super friendly, service was above and beyond. I’m shocked there are less than five star re owes here. The spa was amazing, rooms were clean and luxurious. Highly recommend getting swim up room. A ton of pools to choose from. Great fun pool activities and plenty to do on resort. Ian was the best water aerobic instructor, Oshin was the sweetest bar tender and Ricardo the shuttle driver was a doll. I’m so sad to leave and cannot to come back! Oh yea and let me tell you about the Rum!!! 🍹 So smooth and delicious Five stars wish I could give it ten!!

Charles Brackin

The employees who are grounds keepers and house keepers are very nice and a pleasure to talk to. 90% of the restaurant servers are nice but you can tell some are very over worked and stressed. The food was just not as good as other Sandals, period. We had a couple of roaches take a stroll across the table at Bombay . Not good! The concierges are terrible and we felt like they just told us what we wanted to hear! We asked for a mattress topper when we arrived on Monday, again on Wednesday, again on Friday, and I was very nice about it. After sleeping on the couch Friday and Saturday we finally got one on Sunday, just in time to leave on Monday. Honestly you can tell the the facility as a whole, needs better maintenance. A lot of the pool tiles are worn out and missing, and just a lot of little things that could be replaced or repaired. The drink menu's at the pool bars are so worn out you can barely read them. Our friends had the butler service and it was terrible. They asked their butler to make dinner reservations and they completely blew it 3 times, then wouldn't answer the phone. Their room was also out of hot water for 2 days. It's just a lot of little things that make a big difference. St Lucia, Grenada, and South Coast are maintained much better. It's sad because this property could be so much better if management did a better job. There were always towels at the pool, and house keeping always did a great job replacing towels and things in the room. The beach at the resort is beautiful, but a little to rough to snorkel when we were there. Captain Larry's tour was nice. We swam with the turtles, fed the monkeys and saw the north end of the island. Very nice. Honestly we are not "Karens" and I very rarely complain or write reviews about any vacation, but this was our experience. Jan 20-27, 2025

Kaylee

This was our first time in Barbados but not our first time with Sandals. There were a few trade offs with this resort that I noticed that isn’t consistent with other Sandals locations. For example, the food was great but wait times would often be a few hours to receive the food or be incorrect. The only restaurant that did not have this problem was Soy. Soy consistently had fast and friendly service with amazing food! There were a few facilities issues on our trip as well. For example, some of the fixtures in the room didnt fit correctly and so there was a visible hole in the wall as pictured. Also, our room was across from a service closet but workers would consistently leave bags of trash in the hallway and even let it sit all day and overnight so the smell was not pleasant. The service was hit or miss. We had a few very happy, kind, and helpful workers but also there were times when it was difficult to get any assistance. One person in our party went to the help desk 4 separate times for the same issue because it had not been resolved and she was told that the worker who had been assigned that task was out for the next few days but that they would do it when the worker was back. It did not make sense to me that they wouldnt just reassign this to another person since it wasnt a specialized task. Next, we booked fishing through the resort and we were up at 5 in the morning for our taxi that Sandals arranged. After waiting 20 minutes past the arranged time, our taxi driver found us and stated that Sandals told him to arrive at the Sandals Barbados entrance, not the Sandals Royal Barbados entrance, which was frustrating. We also booked snorkeling through Sandals, which is included. The snorkeling team was very kind and knowledgeable and made that experience awesome! I highly recommend booking the included snorkeling ahead of time. The views of the resort were fantastic and we were very excited about the private beach because that was supposed to mean that no one would be trying to sell us things. This was not the case. The first time we stepped on the beach there were a group of men who asked us if we wanted to buy weed/edibles. This was an uncomfortable experience and the only other time we went to the beach after was to watch the sunset. We also visited the spa and that was quite relaxing. The spa was clean and had a calm atmosphere. The surrounding area of the resort felt safe and we went to the fish market one night per a recommendation from someone at the resort. The fish market had long lines so if you plan to go make sure you go early. We spent most of our time at the infinity pool, which seemed to have the most activities. We went to a quieter pool a different day and the pool had algae around the perimeter so we did not go back to that one after. When we were a day out from leaving, our flight information had been updated/changed 2 days prior. No one at the desk let us know and its a good thing that we took it upon ourselves to check because our flight got moved up! Sandals is supposed to have the flight information and taxis arranged and have them be accurate. If we did not bring this up to them, we would have missed our flight by a few hours. Lastly, we had a few issues with our rooms. We had 8 people total so we had 4 rooms. In some of the rooms the shades were broken or missing. My room had both the blackout shades and the white gauzy shades but other people in my party only had 1 type. It felt a little deceptive because if we didnt have those multiple rooms we wouldnt have noticed this so there are guests who are paying for the same room as someone else but not receiving the same things as other guests in the same room type. Two people in our party stayed on the lowest level and their room had many problems. The room smelled musty/moldy the entire stay, one of the doors didnt open (it was stuck and warped from moisture i think), and the battery on the door needed to be replaced. Overall, this vacation was enjoyable based on location but perhaps did not meet Sandals resort expectations in my opinion.

Ed Engle

January 3, We stayed at the Royal Barbados in a south seas club level swim up. The staff, accommodations and dining was excellent. Most beautiful beach with clear blue waters. Visited both resorts. Can’t wait to visit again. Thanks for a great vacation.