Sandals Resorts Reviews

Despite these assurances, an email was sent directly to my sister, completely ruining what was meant to be a heartfelt and memorable surprise. This was incredibly upsetting, as it was my final wedding gift to her—something I had put a lot of thought into. What made the situation even worse was the dismissive and curt attitude of the manager I spoke with when I called to express my concern. Rather than showing empathy or attempting to make things right, the response I received was cold and inconsiderate. I expected much more from a brand that prides itself on luxury and customer care.

1. Deceptive Marketing and Uncommunicated Renovations.

Upon booking, I was not informed—neither by your agents nor via any pre-arrival communication—that majority of the property was under renovation. This omission is unacceptable and misleading. Had I known, I would have made a different vacation choice. A luxury resort under such extensive work should have clearly disclosed this upfront.

2. Subpar Private Transfer Experience.

We paid a premium fee for a private transfer that was advertised as a “luxury car experience.” Instead, we were picked up in a dated BMW with two stale sandwiches and deviled eggs—a far cry from what one expects from a brand promoting itself as “Luxury Included.” Given the short 10-minute drive from the airport, the price and quality were unjustifiable.

3. Dining Experience Failures.

At Bombay Dreams on our first night, we arrived at 6:50 PM and were told to return at 7:30 PM due to not having a reservation. Upon return at 7:28, we were ignored while other couples were seated. Only after we flagged down the hostess (Latoya) did she inform us (with an attitude) we had no reservation—despite following her earlier instructions. We left and attempted to dine at Spices, where again we faced long delays. While Tameka did her best to assist us, the overall service was disorganized, slow, and inattentive. We waited over 20 minutes for appetizers—with no offer of drinks or basic hospitality.

4. Lack of Responsiveness and Accountability.

On July 3rd, we called the front desk to confirm our private departure transfer as we will be checking out the next day. We were told the air desk was closed and someone would follow up the next morning- no one did. When we went in person at 7:30 AM the next day, we had to arrange a taxi ourselves. We were informed it’s 20us$ but 5 minutes later it was 30$. Although the front desk attendant was pleasant, the manager (Steve) arrived only when we were about to leave and showed no urgency or understanding of the situation.

3. What actions will Sandals take to prevent other guests from encountering similar experiences?

This trip was meant to be a relaxing luxury getaway for my birthday and instead, it left us frustrated and disappointed. I urge you to investigate this matter seriously and respond with a proposed resolution. I look forward to your timely reply. BOOKING # **

This company has downgraded their service completely. All of these years I had no idea how bad they had treated a lot of their guests, until I did some research. They have been involved in numerous lawsuits because of their negligence. I will never give them another dime of my money. Save your money and take yourself somewhere else. Take a cruise! It’s cheaper and you won’t get third world country treatment.

• Extremely helpful and friendly staff. They are willing with everything within their power.

• Resort grounds have been maintained meticulously and look like you are in some nice botanical garden.

• Room service is very responsive and willing to meet all your needs.

• Outrageously expensive (which you realize how much you paid and what you got for it once you are there). They advertise their resorts as “the luxury at perfection.” They don’t even come close to that. They are below the level of quality of service and accommodation of all of the resorts that I have visited over thirty years in the Caribbean.

• Both, my wife and I fell for advertising and price, believing that, if we are paying this much, it must be not only good but better than the rest. We were simply duped to believe what appears not to be true.

• You would expect a beautiful beach (almost nobody ever uses it) and, at least large swimming pools. None of that. The main swimming pool is rectangular and much smaller than the Olympic-sized pool. The other two pools for people who rented very expensive rooms wade into the pools and those using wet bars do not even create an impression of being adequate. Compared to other resorts’ swimming pools, these look like a minimalistic approach.

• Food problems are availability, selection, and quality. Some of the restaurants on the premises offer fairly good food. However, some of them are closed at least once a week, selection is very limited, and quality in some of them is beyond any level that you would expect in in this type of resort.

We paid an incredible amount of money for us to be told the buffet is closed a 1/2 hr before advertised & see 10-15 staff members with name tags eating the food we paid for is just a slap in the face. Sitting in our sitting area as well no shame that we can’t eat and they can. It’s really Unbelievable, truly unbelievable. They send you to sit down and order at a different restaurant so the staff can eat the rest of the buffet. This is an easy problem to solve. Why don’t they wait for the buffet to close at 3 pm bring it in the back behind closed doors and let them eat back there!!!! How about plate clean up that never happens?

They will leave the tables a complete and utter mess but go grab food and sit down on the clock? I will never ever, ever book a sandals again. This level of disrespect for our investment is sickening. I dropped a fork directly in front of the path of a staff member who walked right by it. It goes on and on. You would have to see it to it. It’s that unreal.

How about the girl staff member at Dino’s eating pizza while I placed an order and waited 45 mins for it only to go check on it and see all the orders sitting there with all the staff talking and eating. My food must’ve been sitting there for a good half hour all covered. No one called my name. No one acknowledged the food. It’s like they are in their own world.? We are in the way of their cell phone and eating? Sorry to bother you hello you and and drink and let me know when it’s my turn sorry about that 😂🥵 I will say the entertainment team is amazing friendly and attentive. As well as the main bar staff they are all very good attentive and work very hard

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.

Either no response at all or constant redirects to other contacts via email/voicemail that go unanswered as well. In one of the few actual responses, they’ve gone as far as to say “Well, you didn’t purchase the insurance through us, so we can’t help you”. Sandals has caused us to lose the reimbursement because they will simply not provide the information requested by the insurance (confirmation of costs, verifying that we were not provided any refunds, etc.). It’s mind boggling that they refused to help with this, it doesn’t cost Sandals a dime other than a few minutes of someone’s time to provide a statement that would satisfy the requirements of the insurance.

The problems began as soon as we arrived. After checking in we were taken to a room on the third floor in the East Tower. On the walk to the room the front desk agent asked us about our travel day – we informed her that it was full of delays and problems and that we had been up since midnight to fly out and due to all of the delays we had not had time to eat anything. She asked if we had dinner reservations and we told her we did not, since we had just arrived and you’re not allowed to make any reservations until you are on property. She told us that it was “very difficult” to get in to any of the restaurants that require reservations or to get in to Gordon’s on the water. As soon as we got in the hallway we were overwhelmed by the smell of mildew and when the door to the room was opened that same smell was also extremely strong in the room.

We immediately realized that the room we were given was not the room that we chose and paid an additional fee to upgrade to when we did our online booking. It was very small and did not have the oversized 4-poster bed, table and chairs and oversized balcony as it was pictured on your website. We decided that after we received our luggage we would go back down to the desk and inform them that they had put us in a room that we did not book. After approximately 20 minutes and still no luggage we decided to head downstairs and talk to them about the room. We were directed to another agent who sat a separate desk in front of club level check-in. She informed us that the room “looked different” due to a recent “upgrade” and that the website had not been updated to reflect those changes.

We said that different furniture aside, the room was much smaller than what we anticipated based on the pictures on the website, had a terrible smell, a very small balcony that could barely accommodate 2 chairs and most certainly couldn’t accommodate 2 lounge chairs (which, again, is how it is pictured on the website) and even though there is a nice ocean view there was what appeared to be a house with broken windows, trash scattered all over and dumpsters right next to our room. She said that there was nothing she could do about it. We informed her that the room was not the room we paid extra for and we felt it was a “bait and switch” situation. She again said there was nothing she could do about it. My wife asked if there was any way she could upgrade us to a different room since we did not get the room we were promised from the website. She said, “It doesn’t matter what room we put you in, they are all exactly the same.”

We asked then why you advertise multiple room types, sizes and prices if they are all exactly the same? We asked, “So you’re telling us that the honeymoon suite is the exact same room as any other in the hotel?” And she again said that, yes, they are all the same. Really? Then why are you charging people for room upgrades? She said that the only thing she could do was move us to a room that was similar to the one we booked online but that it was in the “older” West tower. We asked to look at it first. We were told on the way to the room that if we decided to take it they would need to clean it. Again, the hallway on the way to the room smelled very strongly of mildew and so did the room. The room was definitely larger and had similar furniture to the room we originally booked – but still much different.

It still had the same tiny balcony and the bathroom did not have the “his and hers vanities” with the tub/shower combo as pictured on your website. We decided to take it, even though it was VERY dirty, because we were promised that it was going to be cleaned while we went to try to get dinner. We went to the Italian restaurant since we couldn’t get in to the French restaurant, Butch’s, or Gordon’s, which is what we would have preferred. After dinner we went to the small bar near the beach. There were approximately 15-20 people at the bar and 2 bartenders and we had to wait at least 15 minutes to get a drink. There was a couple sitting next to us and we started chatting with them. They had been given room #216 on the floor directly below the first room they had put us in – they also requested to be moved because of the garbage dumpster view that they had.

They moved to another room in the same tower but further away from the dumpsters but they weren’t happy about having to move either. We finished our drinks and were going to have another one but after sitting there for at least another 20 minutes no one came back to wait on us again so we headed back to our room. As soon as we opened the door we saw that it had not been cleaned - there were still no towels and no toilet paper. We contacted the desk and told them that room had not been cleaned. After awhile someone came to the door with a basket of towels and toilet paper but no offer to clean the room. We were so exhausted that we decided just to get some sleep and deal with it the next day.

The next morning we went down to the French restaurant for breakfast. The menu offered open face omelets with lobster as one of the choices. We both ordered the lobster omelet and croissants and were informed they did not have croissants (which are available at the breakfast buffet), so we both got toast. After approximately 20 minutes we were told that lobster is not available. We asked why it was on the menu if it’s not available and the waitress could not answer that. We substituted shrimp instead and waited approximately another 20 minutes to get our food. After breakfast we returned to find that our room still had not been cleaned so we changed and went down to the pool. After being at the pool for at least an hour we noticed that there were no servers taking drink orders or bringing out bottles of water.

A couple next to us overheard us talking and told us we would “die of thirst” if we waited for a server – they said that they had been at the resort several times and that it had really “gone downhill” and told us if you want a drink or water you have to get up and get it yourself. Is that really what you think people expect at “luxury resort”?? I got up to get us water and asked for a beer. Both the glass of beer and bottles of water were warm. I dumped out the beer and tried to drink the warm water. Also, the only bathrooms close to the pool (outside of the piano bar) were closed down and the only working bathrooms were inside the buffet restaurant. We had to walk through the restaurant in our swimsuits to be able to use a bathroom without having to go all the way back to our room. At this point my wife and I became very upset.

This trip was for our anniversary and my wife’s birthday and so far it had been a horrible experience. We are not novice travelers and know what to expect at a “Luxury Resort”. We stayed at a Secrets Adults Only, All Inclusive resort last year and booked a very similar (club level) room as we did at your resort and paid almost exactly the same amount - if anything it was a few hundred dollars less than Sandals. It was a 100% completely different experience – top notch service, immaculately clean room, incredible restaurants you could go to any day or night without any reservations required (if there was a wait it was always less than 30 minutes), ice cold water and amazing top shelf drinks (Skol vodka, which we had in our room and is served at the bars at Sandals, is definitely not a premium liquor) served to you promptly at the pool, bar or any of their restaurants. That’s what is expected at a luxury resort.

My wife said she wanted to cancel the remainder of the trip and go home and I was in complete agreement. I said that we should ask to speak to a manager. The person at the front desk in the West tower asked us why and we told him all of the problems we were experiencing. Another guest overhead us – she said she had a lot of the same problems and said that we needed to speak with someone named Kevin Clark because he took care of a lot of their concerns. I said that is who we wanted to speak to. The front desk attendant told us to go back to our room and that he would have Mr. Clark call the room. After approximately 30 minutes no one called us. We went back down to the desk and the attendant was gone and someone new was on duty. He had no idea what we were talking about and we had to re-explain everything to him.

He said someone would call us “sometime” and we asked when because we didn’t want to spend the day sitting in our room, which still hadn’t been cleaned. I went back to the room to get water and my wife stayed in the lobby. While she waited she said that the desk attendant and another worker were looking at her and whispering back and forth, presumably talking about her. She was growing more uncomfortable and upset the longer she sat there. She was noticed and approached by the laundry manager who happened to be walking through the lobby. She said that she could tell my wife was very upset and asked what was wrong. She is the ONLY one who took action and cared.

She got Quethera ** to come and speak with us. Ms. ** took us to a separate room and we told her about all of the problems we’d encountered in just the past 24 hours. My wife was crying and told her she had made up her mind that she wanted to go home and I felt the same. Ms. ** begged us to reconsider and said if we stayed she would make sure our room got “deep cleaned” and that she would get us a reservation at Butch’s that evening. My wife said no and that she still wanted to leave. Ms. ** again assured us that the rest of our experience would be amazing if we would just give her the chance to make things right. We never did get to talk with Kevin ** and should have insisted that we wanted to leave but we decided to give Ms. ** the chance to fix things. She did get us a reservation at Butch’s that evening at 6 p.m.

We had spent the entire afternoon waiting to speak to someone and had to hurry back to the room to shower and get ready. When we got back to the room the bed was made and we had new towels but STILL had not been cleaned and definitely not “deep cleaned”. When we got to Butch’s we were informed that we did not have a reservation. I had to show the host the email that Ms. Stuart sent us telling us we had the reservation and then they squeezed us in, sitting right next to the host stand. Dinner was very good but as we sat waiting for our food (which took approximately 45 minutes) we heard couple after couple come up to the desk – most of them were told that they could not locate their reservation or that they would not be seated until an hour or more past their reservation time.

When we left our room the next morning there was a large amount of water soaking the carpet all around the elevators – not sure if there was a water leak or the ice machine was leaking but there was so much water that it splashed up on us when we walked on the carpet. We went over to the private island for a couple of hours, which was the only somewhat relaxing part of the entire trip. When we returned to our room the water coming out of the faucet and shower was sputtering and very slow. Showering was almost impossible due to the slow stream of water coming out. Since we, again, couldn’t get reservations for dinner and there was already a long line for Gordon’s, we went back to the Italian restaurant. Which, again, was okay but it was the second time we had it in 48 hours so we didn’t eat much. We decided to try to go back to the beach bar for a drink.

There were probably only about a dozen people at the bar and 3 bartenders this time. After waiting at least 15 minutes someone finally took our order. He didn’t start making any drinks and after about another 5 minutes it appeared he was arguing with another one of the bartenders. He then disappeared and never came back. We waited another 15 minutes but neither one of the other two bartenders would wait on us.

It was at this point we decided we were not staying any longer. My wife started to pack and I went down to the desk to find out what we needed to do to get our flight changed to go home and to get our money refunded. I was informed that we would have to wait until the sales office opened at 8 a.m. the next morning. We finished packing all of our things and basically sat in our room and waited for morning to get someone to help us. We left our room and found that the water was still soaking the carpet and no effort was being made to rectify it – nor were there any signs up warning you not to walk through it. We were at the sales office when they opened the door at 8 a.m. Although the woman we spoke to there was very nice she informed us that she couldn’t help us and that we needed to go back to the desk where we originally checked in when we arrived.

She informed us that we needed to speak to Kevin ** or Selena and they were the only ones who could help us and facilitate a refund. Again – completely misinformed and if we had known that we wouldn’t have spent another sleepless night in our filthy room and would have left the night before! We went to the club level desk and waited for Selena. She came to speak to us and listened to our long list of complaints. We air dropped her the pictures of the filthy room we stayed in and she said she was going to show them to the management team to see what could be done. She started making promises and asking us to please finish the rest of our stay. We said that we were absolutely not staying.

While she went to speak with management a very nice gentleman tried to call American Airlines to get our flight home re-booked. He was having a lot of difficulty due to the internet connection dropping repeatedly. We finally moved over to the piano bar where he could get a better signal. American Airlines refused to accommodate us so we had to book an entirely new flight on JetBlue, which required us to travel for the entire day and spend another $1,600.

Selena came back and informed us that she would give us a full refund but only in the form of a credit to go to Sandals in the future. Or she said that she would only refund our credit card for the 2 days that we did not stay because she stated “You ate and drank for 3 days.” Are you kidding?! First of all, aside from Butch’s, we barely ate anything! And drinks?! As I said, we couldn’t get served anywhere so our drinks consisted of a couple of glasses of house wine at dinner and in our room and one drink each at the beach bar our first night! I would certainly say we did not drink “unlimited premium drinks” or eat at “unlimited restaurants”!! We told her that this was unacceptable. We used up an entire week of vacation and all of our paid vacation time from work. We cannot get this time, money or our anniversary back.

We are not asking for any compensation above what is fair and what we deserve and are only asking for the amount that we were charged for the trip, which is $7,469. We could ask for our wasted vacation time and the additional cost of our flight back home but, again, we are will not pursue those lost expenses as long as this is handled by you promptly. This has caused me an extreme amount of distress and my wife is even more upset and depressed over this experience. We have not shared the photos we are attaching with this letter with anyone or any social media sites at this time or posted any reviews online but we definitely will if this matter is not resolved immediately. If you choose to deny our refund our next step is to dispute the charges with CitiCard.

Attached our multiple pictures of our room, which were taken on the final day that we stayed. Please note the filthy décor, torn up carpet, air vents filled with what appears to be black mold, stains and/or urine behind the toilet, mold in the shower, dirt all over the thermostat and around the handles of all of the doors and the string that was on the bathroom floor from the first day we checked in – if the string never moved then they never cleaned the floor or anything in the entire room. All they ever did was make the bed and replace towels – usually after 5 p.m.

We honestly do not want to post the pictures and reviews, as we are hopeful that you will resolve all of these issues and take care of your guests much better in the future, but will do so if necessary. We look forward to your prompt resolution to this matter. Thank you, Richard and Colleen. **ADDENDUM for CitiCard** Colleen has an autoimmune disorder and asthma and we were, and continue to be, concerned about the time spent in a room (and the entire hotel) that was obviously full of mold and mildew. Everywhere we went in either one of the towers smelled very strongly of mold and mildew and the pictures show obvious mold in the air vents and in the bathroom. She had to use her rescue inhaler multiple times during our stay at Sandals and after we returned home.

Liliana was served a mocktail by Kerryann, and when she asked what was in it, Kerryann asked, “What is your name.” Liliana stated, “Acevedo.” Kerryann asked her name two more times before Liliana finally gave her first name. “Well it’s a Liliana. It was made specifically for you. That’s what’s in it,” she said appearing to be annoyed as she walked away. She never informed Liliana of the ingredients in the drink. I noticed two men sitting in the same area we were seated in who did not have on collared shirts. One man was wearing a t-shirt and the other man had on a turtleneck shirt.

Ackhil returned to the restaurant as we were leaving. Once we were out of the restaurant I asked him who does the collared shirt rule apply to. He replied, “gentlemen.” I told him I was discriminated against, and I want to talk to someone. He agreed and said okay. Ackhil stated another butler name Abigail witnessed Kisha telling me I needed a collared shirt. “Abigail told me she took Kisha to the side and said you can’t do that, that is discrimination.” Ackhil informed Zone Manager, Jane, we needed to speak to her and he and I told Jane what happened. Jane spoke to Liliana and me at the Butler’s suite where we recounted what happened. Jane said everyone is trained about how to deal with same-sex couples and it seems like more training needed to be done. Jane said she would speak to the team at the restaurant and will follow up with us tomorrow.

I wasn’t satisfied with the follow up. They just wanted to sweep the issue under the rug. They gave us NDA’s to sign and offered us some points which were equivalent to an extra day stay towards our next vacation. Really??.. We didn’t sign anything because our freedom of speech and our rights are way more important!!!

This resort does not include everything as it is posted on their website. Read the fine print. No watersports are open on the weekends. Motorized sports are not included (but it says otherwise on the website) Scuba diving is NOT FREE. It will cost you. If you want to enjoy the excursions, Sandals will do its best to keep you from going off the property because they what you to spend twice the amount by choosing theirs.

Calling a taxi will cost you more than three times the amount. Instead, you should call Gio at ** and tell him the Griffin family sent you. He will take you anywhere to enjoy any watersport or shopping trip you want for a reasonable price! He is professional and very kind. If you want to eat at certain restaurants. make reservations in advance or you will not get a seat. Although, the 2 that you need reservations for were less than average and dishes were not available and bread was cold. Who serves cold, stale bread at an upscale restaurant?

Now the good things: The property is extremely beautiful and well-kept. Most of the staff are friendly and helpful. Just 1 bad waitress at Strands and Vincents. The Italian restaurant (Pietra's) and Asian restaurants are the best! The servers were fun and the food was incredible! The late room turn down service was a nice touch. The daily fresh cookies were delicious. You can't swim in the ocean but the pools are very nice and not crowded.

The Negatives: After 5 o'clock there is very little to do. The entertainment is not good at the 9pm shows. The entertainment really needs an upgrade. We have stayed other places that have much much much better entertainment. The bowling is a great idea, but only one lane worked the whole week. There was a DJ at 10ish, but the area was too small for dancing, etc.. The nights were boring and I heard this from 90% of the people we talked to not just us. There were water sports, but the water was too rough all week to use them. The staff would not let you take them out the whole week. The resort staff is the main reason for the lower review. 1 out of every 10 staff were good at their job. The bartenders were so slow and were annoyed you were asking for drinks.

The grounds crew picking up towels, cups and garbage would work for 5 minutes then rest for 30 minutes. They did not keep up with the cleaning at all. They often picked up three things and skipped two things. The resort was running out of towels every day. Again, everyone we talked to were annoyed by this issue. I am not sure if the Barbadians are slow to work or if they are not paid enough to care. The workers just seem annoyed by the fact they were serving anyone. There were many broken things on the resort that need work. I am not rating this as a hurricane had come through two weeks earlier. This may improve with time, but there were lots of tile falling off the walls/railings broken, etc... We were offered a T-shirt, but they ran out of sizes we needed of XL. We did not get the bathrobes we were quoted.

Overall, the rooms were fine and there was lots of alcohol available. The meals were Ok, but took forever to get your food. I would not have minded such a long time for our food if the food was exceptional, but it was average. I am talking like 2 hours for dinner for two people. The chicken at every restaurant was tough and chewy. All the desserts were fancy sounding, but terrible to taste. I tasted a lot of them hoping to find one I liked. Even the ice cream shop kept running out ice cream flavors and had very little toppings to choose from. Who doesn't have chocolate or hot fudge to add add to the ice cream?

There were a few good meals to mention: Greenhouse and Kimonos. At these two restaurants, the food had great flavor and did not take forever to serve us. The Parisienne restaurant was slow and my husband's French Onion soup had a chunk of large plastic in it. We did show this to the staff and the staff did respond. The other food was average.

By the end of the week people were making up their own games to try to have fun. Again, if this was my first trip, I would would not know any different. However, we have stayed at other resorts and had better experiences. We are not well off people so a trip that is all inclusive is a treat for us. In the past, Sandals/Dreams Resorts treated everyone more equally. This trip seemed different and a bit sad. The best restaurants now require reservations. The higher butler rooms get the best times and seats at all restaurants. They are put ahead of anyone without a butler. This lead to longer wait times at most of the restaurants. We are members at club level, but do not pay for the butler option.

This trip there were lots of people tipping the bartenders to try to get better service. As I mentioned, the bartenders were soo soo slow and annoyed they were at work. So if you tipped, well then magically you got better service at the expense of other customers. This defeats one of the concepts of choosing Sandals all inclusiveness. I am a teacher not a doctor so I will never be able to out tip others. I would give a positive review for Chef Rashawn and his partner at Kimonos restaurant. They were the best servers all week. They even smiled while they were working which was a rare thing to see at this resort. Barbados Island is very tropical and had lots of color and daily short rain showers. There were lots of birds and small lizards.

We finally got another reservation now they are saying that will be canceled. Tonight, we were told to order room service, after hoping to get sushi. Guess what. Room service not answering. I have many videos of me calling them with no answer. I am paying almost a $1000 a night and have NO FOOD! This is NOT OK! I am requesting a partial refund. This has been a depressing stressful experience. I can not believe the glamour that surrounds the Sandals' name. I have pictures of sharp, broken tile in the walking area around the pool, broken light fixtures on our patio with the glass still laying out there. Water and beer are not automatically refilled, I have had to call and ask every day. Also, got up thirsty last night (because water was not refilled) and went to the club lounge. No water at all. Nothing. We were told we would have updates today at 2:00 about all of this hurricane news? Nothing.

Make sure you get up at 6 am to get a chair or you will be sitting on the ground.

The bartenders were all very young and had limited knowledge in preparing proper cocktails (martinis as opposed to sugary rum drinks). The liquor was not premium - bottom shelf tequila was the only tequila choice and the vodka and rum drinks were watered down or had so much mixer you couldn’t taste the liquor. The dining staff and bartenders appeared annoyed with any request for additional service or special requests. The food choices were minimal - breakfast was basically the same two menus at 6 restaurants. Dinner was 3-star at best and service slow.

Sandals doesn’t inform you that you aren’t allowed to book a reservation at the nicer restaurants before you arrive and that you should try to book as soon as you get there or you aren’t likely to get a reservation. We learned that the hard way. The room was cleaned daily but we found the glasses we had used the prior night had just been rinsed off and placed back on the shelf - one had lipstick smears from the day before and they had water in them. We aren’t sure if this was Sandals or Barbados or a combination but we will. Or be back.

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.