Sandals Royal Barbados All Inclusive - Couples Only

Review: Sandals Royal Barbados (February 9-16, 2024) We stayed in the Royal Seaside Crystal Lagoon One Bedroom Oceanview Butler Suite with Balcony Tranquility Soaking Tub (OL1B). The room was lovely, and we had an excellent view of the ocean. Flights: We flew from Toronto with Air Canada. No issues at YYZ airport on departure or arrival. Dining: We had the chance to dine at all the restaurants we wanted to try. Butch's Steak & Seafood, La Parisienne, Bombay (which was our favorite), Portofino's, and Chi were all fantastic. The lunchtime variety was great as well—we never felt bored with the food. I was thrilled with the drink options and tried every possible combination. Service: We experienced butler service, but we’ve decided it's not for us in the future. 2/3 butlers were great but it wasn’t worth the extra cost. The bartenders were excellent. I wish there was more poolside service. Pools: The pools were well-kept. We spent a lot of time at both the Main Infinity Pool and the South Seas Pool. I never had an issue finding us a spot at either pool. However, we felt that there could have been more activities from the entertainment crew around the pool area. Scuba Diving: My husband enjoyed the diving experience and thought the staff were great! The long bus rides to the boat were hard and took up time from breakfast- we definitely prefer resorts where the dive boat is on site. Gym: I preferred the equipment on the Barbados side of the resort. The air conditioning was great, it was well kept and had enough options for a quick morning workout. Photographers: I loved the Sandals photographers on site. Highly recommend allowing them to take candid photos and booking a sunset photo shot. Overall: It was a very enjoyable trip, and we’re looking forward to trying Grenada in October.

Just returned from our honeymoon at Sandals Royal Barbados and it was the most magical, amazing experience of our lives! This was our first time at a Sandals resort and it definitely exceeded our expectations. We had a pool/ocean view butler suite and it was beautiful! We had a bottle of champagne and rose petals in our room on arrival. All of our butlers were amazing! Shameka King, Moesha and Romero each made us feel like royalty. We really never expected the exceptional level of service we received, and were just absolutely catered to every day. Special shout out to Shameka King who went above and beyond every time she saw us, bringing us special drinks, drawing us a bubble bath while we were at dinner, and just making us feel so special! She's truly amazing! Every meal we had was incredible! Not a single meal was less than extraordinary. I highly recommend the candlelight dinner on the beach. It was so romantic, and quite possibly the best meal we have ever had. We left the resort twice, once for a catamaran sunset snorkel cruise, and once for the local fish fry in Oistins on Friday night. Highly recommend both experiences! Every employee we encountered at the resort was so friendly! The resort photographers were great! We had so many great photos taken we ended up buying most of them. I highly recommend Sandlas Royal Barbados and the butler experience. We hope to go back soon!

Beautiful resort with plenty of activities, a great variety of restaurants with tasty meals, and gorgeous beaches to relax by all day. But what made this trip extra special was a great team of butlers who really know how to take care of people. We’ve never used a butler service before. Kevan, Ron, and Shakeel are experts at taking excellent care you! Will definitely come back and ask for them again!

This is in two section. What should be addressed and fixed and what is already ‘Sandals Perfect’::: -What fell short - these items are simple fixes to elevate your experience to a perfectly awesome 5. 1. Not raking the beach. Between two co-located Sandals resorts, a daily rake of the sea grass would easily be one of several attention to detail items lacking here. 2. Karaoke - this is an awkwardly wonderful way to let loose one night a week. It shouldn’t be an opportunity for the DJ and entertainment manager to eat most of the time rapping, singing and carrying on instead of the guest performers. 3. General ‘just okay’ in the overtly positive guest engagement among the Sandals Club and the Sandals Travel offices. At other Sandals resorts the folks from these offices in particular embodied the very best of Sandals. Not so much here. One exception was Charise, a young concierge rep who was wonderful. 4. Cleaning the seating areas before the evening entertainment venue. Many are situated under trees that release some dark goopy material that can stain clothing and wreck the experience. 5. Very poor towel availability all mornings and often during the day. Each early morning the ‘butler’ staff take all towels to mark and reserve lounging areas at pools and beaches. That there are NO towels remaining for other guests is unacceptable. The trick until they ever solve this is get what you need the day before, then rise early to claim where you want to be. 6. Cleaning back area pools. The pool just outside of our room (9124) was always littered with debris such as vegetation and poor drowned bees. Other pools were pristine and wonderful. 7. Lack of management curiosity to learn about and fix these easy items to elevate our experience to the ordinary Sandals quality. 8. A last minute entry to La Parisienne restaurant after a one tank dive ended with a possible slow roll of our breakfast meal. From the time we arrived and had to share the actual time with the manager who tried to shoo us out saying the breakfast service was closed, we felt a certain unwelcomeness from our hosts. We ordered soon after being seated. However, our simple (eggs and French toast) meals were served approximately 50 minutes later, long after the last other guests departed. I had to inquire about progress before being served. -What was wonderful?There is very much to be very happy about at the Sandals Royal Barbados resort. 1. All grounds and built in activities. The beaches are massive and the lounge areas are numerous and made for a sprawling and delightful experience on the beach and at every pool area at the resort. That goes for our room. It was spacious and very comfortable in appointments. We enjoyed a massive shower, double vanity, private loo, expansive clothing closet, and ample other storage. We also enjoyed a comfortable private sitting area outside our suite. You will love: Lovers Lanes All bars All of the 20+ restaurants with very different cuisine. Just a few

The grounds are beautiful and very well kept. Pools are nice and clean and we especially enjoyed the rooftop pool and bar. We also liked the service at the Beach House shop. We agree with some of the guests that stated about the towels being hard to come by. Housekeeping was atrocious until we complained to the right people. This aspect was disappointing to us and if they can fix these minor issues I would rate it 5 stars.

The surroundings was beautiful The restaurants had excellent service,and the food was always displayed beautiful. The breakfast was buffet style except for the Greenhouse which was horrendous as waited for an hour for my breakfast which when it arrived was cold and burnt,there was a Supervisor there but literally she took you to the table and done nothing. When you arrive book the restaurants as soon as possible The team do say on arrival you don't have to book but we found with the Italian you do. The drinks are not all imported There are plenty of sunbeds but not enough towels ...all gone by 10. I asked a staff member at the pool bar where to get them from and she told me try another pool. I went to three pools and there were none. More towels come out mid day. The room was very spacious but no welcoming pack like all 5 star hotels. No slippers or gowns. Towels are a hit and miss we waited all afternoon for fresh ones and even went to reception twice and phoned housekeeping and we still didn't receive them. Sometimes we would get 3 bath towels no face cloths no towels to put on the floor. With shampoo etc.,we had 4 conditioners 1 shampoo and 1 cream,again when I used w they were not replaced So with the faults this is why they will receive 4 star. Travel wise if you want to go Bridgetown go to the top of the road where there are mini vans that are available For example we wanted to go somewhere the taxi wanted to charge 64 Barbados dollars and we was able to do it with 14 dollars. Entertainment was amazing. We went for my birthday and this is the first time I have not received a happy birthday acknowledged maybe it was because they never took my passport at reception and also not asked if we was celebrating anything.

Overall we had a nice time. The food was really good especially at Portofino’s and Greenhouse. The service was mixed—a bit disappointing at time. Some restaurant staff clearly didn’t want to be there. Written all over their faces and body language. The front desk staff was stiff and less than helpful at times. The concierge office was very good. Hardly ever saw anyone on the beach taking drink orders. The beach was good—clear, blue water. Seaweed was an issue at times, but tends to be that way throughout the Caribbean. Entertainment was OK, although we missed most nights. One night featured a female singer who was really good! Sang a bunch of oldies! We ate breakfast in our room most mornings. Room service was iffy—staff who took the order wasn’t very friendly and sometimes made you feel you were imposing and told us that certain items weren’t available when turned out they were. We ran into a “power dynamic” more often than we’ve experienced at other resorts. Luggage was misplaced and not delivered for hours on the first day of our trip. And, we were locked out of our room a day early before departure. Rookie mistakes you don’t expect at a high-end resort. We went to Oistins Fish Friday as an excursion. Pat’s Place is the main attraction—be prepared for long lines (and bring an umbrella for pop-up showers and bring cash) but the food was great. Large portions. Shout out to our room attendant Khadijah—she went above and beyond to make our stay relaxing. Also, Shaquille is a jewel. Made check out and airport transfer enjoyable. Again, had a good time—but not enough of a good time to return. There are far less-expensive options (like Excellence Resorts) with better hassle-free service and wonderful hospitality.

We gave this a 4 but barely. We were spoiled at Dunn’s River in January, which was near perfect. As usual, our butler experience made the trip. Tremayne, Kadeen and Tony were perfect attentive gentlemen. So gracious and helpful. They like to surprise you with little graces, food and drink to try and we like that. This is our third trip with butlers and they all have been beyond great. The weather turned out better than expected. Only one day was rainy most of the day, a couple of others had some afternoon showers but not for long. We heard a lot of banter about a long customs entry process, but experienced a very quick one, about ten minutes. Same thing going out… very fast. Baggage was out as soon as we reached the carousels. We preregistered on the Barbados customs website and figured that must have helped. and this was on a Saturday afternoon. We waited about 20 minutes for the sandals transfer bus and that took about 20 minutes more to get to Sandals Royal Barbados. So we arrived in the lobby about an hour after landing. Not bad at all. The beach, however was attacked by a blight of sargassum algae on our third day so we hung out at the pools. The big infinity pool by the beach is the happening pool. There are two others on the Royal side. The Swim up bar pool is more chill and relaxing, We hung out there for 4 days. We went on a terrific catamaran snorkeling cruise with Silver Moon Tours and another with the famous Captain Larry, (our driver was Ricky the “Evangelist” and a really fine gentleman). The restaurants were all good, especially SOY, Kimono, Greenhouse and the two Butches. Gilbert, the Sushi chef at Soy, was phenomenal. We had a butler room in building 7, the wahoo building on the 4th floor. The Red Lane Spa was very nice and the massage therapists were very good. The fitness center was a little small compared to Dunn’s River, which is a spectacular rooftop location, very large and looking out over the ocean, which you can’t beat. Warning: do not get a room under the jacuzzi on the roof of the Whoo building, number 7. Two floors down and you can hear it in the early morning fairly loud. The relief valves make a loud noise starting around 5 AM and will wake the dead. I went up and checked and discovered a couple of relief valves in the catch basin of the infinity whirlpool were half covered by water when usually 100 pct covered. So they made this awful slurping sound like a hippo slurping water in a Jungle River. We moved a few rooms down and could still hear it but it didn’t disturb our sleep. The first room had issues with the sinks draining and the second room had issues with the rainfall shower not working at all. The bowling alley had one lane or no lanes working the whole 8 days, and two of the whirpools were not working, but the one on the roof of the wahoo was spectacular. The Wahoo and Sand Dollar buildings near the ocean have some exterior mold and rust issues they are having scientists study. The fronts with

This was our first Sandals stay and I have already booked two other resorts for next year travel. We had the butler suite which I highly recommended for first time or anyone who likes that extra attention. Our butler staff Princess Latrell and Roshanna was hands down stellar and all the staff were amazing. The resort itself is beautiful and breathtaking the restaurants were delicious and room service was always a highlight every day. The entertainment was good and I enjoyed the bowling alley as well. We got in later due to the IT issues with airports but our butler left us a note and reached out to us immediately the next day. You have a personal cell phone so the butler staff is alarm one call away for anything. Princess ensured we were taken care of during our beach days and that we had reservations for all our restaurants and each night Latrell or Roshanna escorted us and retrieved our drinks which was an added bonus because we were not waiting for someone to get our drinks