Sandals Resorts Reviews

General

- Our luggage took at least 30 min to get to our room after we checked in. When we asked the luggage person where the ice was, he pointed to where it was instead of offering to go get it.

- The beds were very hard (much harder than average hotel beds).

- The music was way too loud during the daytime at the main pool. We had difficulty having a conversation with anyone. The DJ should consider suggestions for the type of music the crowd would most likely enjoy (e.g., country or '70s rock). At the smaller pool (closest to us) the DJ did take suggestions but went back to the same music after perhaps an hour.

- The service attitude was sometimes not very enthusiastic (especially among some of the women – no smiling, for example).

- A gift of chocolate strawberries (that we intended for our new friends) was sent to us instead of our friends. Our concierge said they would pay for the corrected order. Unfortunately, we had to walk down to the concierge and have them correct it. They didn’t immediately correct it and we had to ask again on our last morning (as we were checking out).

- We received a courtesy call for feedback on Wed. I asked them to call back because we were in the middle of something and couldn't talk. They never called back that day.

- There was a system issue when we were checking out (we had to walk to the front desk, and they also had issues).

- We didn’t notice any AED devices on site (in case someone has cardiac issues).

Room and Related

- The cleaning service came at 5p (we shouldn't have to ask every day for cleaning before 4p). After we asked, it started coming during the days while we were out by the pool/ocean.

Restaurants

- The plates in the Bayside restaurant for the morning buffet were often missing. Food was sometimes not updated (e.g., cobbler missing for a considerable amount of time). We hardly got any service at our table the last full day we were there (and had to chase someone down for coffee). There was also no offer of mimosas.

- Candles should be placed outside for Eleanor’s Restaurant - it was too dark to see our food.

- Why are various restaurants closed on different days? All restaurants should be open daily for normal business hours.

Some food on the resort was great like the sushi and the French restaurant but some was just ok and definitely needs to be better to match the rest. I would stay away from the pizza. It took over an hour to get 2 pizzas and they were cold and had wrong toppings on them when we finally got them. Ochi is a beautiful resort but just needs some updates to rooms and a few common areas. We have booked 3 more vacations all to different Sandals resorts and very much look forward to all of them.

During the day there is a "quiet pool" (East Bay Pool) and what we called the "fun pool" (West Bay pool.) The fun pool has dance music playing most of the day, and games happening near the pool on and off all day. We spent all of our time at the fun pool. The bartenders at all the bars are friendly and make excellent drinks. For example one of their drinks is a fruity concoction with banana, and they use real bananas, not just a banana-flavored mix. My husband loves whiskey and he was served *plenty* of good whiskey. The food was also good - we really enjoyed everything we ordered all week long.

The steakhouse and Soy were, in our opinions, the highest-quality "fanciest" meals at the resort. The other restaurants were all very tasty and good but don't expect four-star Michelin restaurants the entire resort-stay, which is fine! We had tons of grouper and shrimp and steak and all kinds of goodness. Every meal was satisfying. The Italian restaurant has an excellent antipasto bar (so good!) We loved the two food trucks, the coffee truck has delectable sweets, and the fish tacos at the other truck are delish. Breakfast buffet is good, and the French restaurant breakfast is great too. We did not get to try the French restaurant for dinner because someone (me) drank a little too much and went to bed early.

Coconut Grove at night is great fun with Giovanni and James. Genie is an excellent entertainment manager, and such a lovely, fun and lively lady! Angel sang at the Coconut Grove and was amazing, Karaoke and dancing was a blast, the evening couples games were hilarious (we took part and had a blast) and I loved that one evening it was very cool and windy and while sitting out on the couches they passed out blankets.

Private beach was beautiful and SO relaxing. Beach at the resort is smallish but very pretty. Being January the weather was a bit cool and very windy so we didn't go in the ocean much. Please do NOT expect the pools to be so heated that on a cool and windy day you can comfortably hang in the pool. We had a few windy days, and a few calm days with a lot of sun. At about 70 degrees with lots of sun and little wind, in January, the pool was fine because the sun was hot enough to keep it enjoyable. At 70 degrees with 20 MPH winds and not full sun (passing clouds) there was no way to hang in the pool, too cold (the pool had waves!) but it was still fun to sit around the pool, eat drink and be merry! The hot tubs were nice and hot and fun to relax in. We highly recommend Sandals!

With multiple times of trying to communicate via email, and social media apps, we were constantly given a generic email response. There is no way to contact an actual human being. The only thing that we were asking to be refunded was for those last three days due to the horrific room we were put in and how we were treated by management team and customer service team. Over a month later and there has still not been any resolution. I should also mention that the food is subpar, one part of the beach area is saturated with rocks that you cannot see, so please be aware of your feet, also one of the most obnoxious things was constantly being hit up by staff members wanting to sell marijuana. The resort overall lacked customer service and professionalism. On a positive note the trees in the flowers are beautiful.