TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

My wife and I visited Sandals Royal Barbados for one week (Saturday - Saturday) during mid- December 2024. We booked Sandals Royal Barbados while onsite at Sandals Grenada in December 2023 in order to get the loyalty (11%) discount. We arrived at the resort after a short ride on the shuttle from the airport. We checked in at Club Sandals and were taken to our room, which was in the St. Lawrence Building. The St. Lawrence Building in adjacent to Sandals Barbados and we typically walked through Sandals Barbados in order to get to Sandals Royal Barbados. The two resorts are essentially one large resort and guests can use amenities on both sites. Room - Our room was large with a king bed, a firm mattress, lots of storage, a mini refrigerator, wine, liquors, sofa, safe, two robes and balcony with a table and chairs along with a round soaking tub. The bathroom had two sinks, toilet and a shower with several shower heads. Our room had a musky, almost mound smell and was very humid. The thermostat was constantly on 73.5 F, but the room probably needed a dehumidifier. The St. Lawrence building is the furthest building and is next to a local neighborhood separated by a wall. Housekeeping - Housekeeping was horrible. Our towels, wash clothes, body wash and other things weren’t consistently replenished and one day housekeeping totally skipped our room. It was a constant effort to call housekeeping for items or to escalate to Club Sandals. After a perfect day at the beach, it was always a mystery to find out if we had the supplies get ready for dinner. I would suggest using the GINA feature within the Sandals app to make any requests. It provides an audit trail and after several days of calling housekeeping I discovered that using GINA provided a better response. Service - Service was not very good other than a few bright spots. We consistently waited a hour between ordering and receiving our meals. In some instances we waited fifteen minutes to be seated and for someone to come to our table after being seated. The bright spots included dinner at Chi and Bombay as well as Tony who made omelettes at the American Tavern. Food - There are about twenty-one places to eat between the two resorts. The food was mostly very good when we could get it hot. The lobster at Schooners was excellent as well as the dinner dishes that we had at Chi and Bombay. Dinner at Portofino’s was also very good although it had cooled off significantly when we got it. Lunch at Dino’s, The Mariner, The Jerk Shack and Neptunes was good and convenient. The Merry Monkey English Pub is a nice concept but the music was too loud and the ribeye was a cheap cut. Even with a knife, it was difficult to cut let alone chew. We would have eaten at Spices more than once but didn’t feel safe eating with so many birds walking and flying around since it only has outside dining. Neptunes only has outdoor seating but doesn’t have this issue. Beach - The beach is wide and long and we spent several hours there everyday. I typically reserved our chairs on the beach at 7:00 AM. This was similar to Sandals Grenada. After working out and eating breakfast, we would hit the beach until dinner, eating lunch on the beach. The music and activities at the infinity pool was nice but wasn’t too loud. Entertainment - During our seven day stay, there were several concerts on the main stage, karaoke at Lover’s Lane and the Oyster and Piano bar and a street party with dancers, steel drums, etc. Checkout - Checkout was easy and taken care of at Club Sandals. We left out luggage outside of our room and they were picked up and taken to the shuttle where we needed to identity them prior to being loaded onto the shuttle. Lockers are also provided to store additional bags that you want to keep with you and to change prior to leaving the resort. This was very convenient since we checked out at 11:00 AM but our shuttle to the airport didn’t leave until 1:00 PM. We probably won’t stay at Sandals Royal Barbados again, but may consider another Sandals in the future based on some good things and our experience at Sandals Grenada in 2023. We stayed at a Club level room which seems to explain some of the issues that we had but it shouldn’t matter if you have a butler or not in order to receive good service.

Our first visit on recommendation but have been very disappointed given the cost of the accommodation. The transfer service was like shuttling cattle - a fairly long wait in the heat On arrival a further wait before being shown to our suite. We’d been very specific at the time of booking about our requirements and chose a superior room on that basis and was assured by the sandals sales rep that all our requirements were covered - namely quiet seclusion and a separate tv area as my husband has neck problems Our room is on the main thoroughfare for staff arriving and leaving, along with fellow guests completely overlooked and zero privacy. Indeed, after dark you have to close the blackout curtains We immediately sought the assistance of customer service who eventually came back and said we could move but it would be an additional$7000 !! We’d already paid in excess of £7,500 for the accommodation alone I’m currently on my terrace and the maintenance team have a generator going cleaning the footpaths So much for customer service. The staff are friendly but jaded. The sunbed situation is disappointing . We’ve not secured beds on the beach despite 2 trips at 7am We’re very disappointed and will be taking it up with Sandals on our return to the UK

The property is beautiful. The rooms are newly updated and I liked the access to 2 properties so we had 20 restaurants to choose from. It also felt safe to walk around the facility even late at night. Food was good too. The beach is beautiful. However, the customer service was horrible. Most staff acted as if it was such an imposition to ask for any help. Eating meals typically took 20 minutes before appetizers are served and 45 minutes for the entree. I would like to say though that there were a handful of great staff in the week we were there. Rashan at the Merry Monkey, Mark at Chi, Sherwin and Chris at Kimono and our room attendant and Ricardo the driver who took us back to the airport, that gave us superb service. It is commendable that they were not influenced by the poor customer service culture that was prevalent throughout the resort. I will not be rushing back to the Sandals Royal Barbados. It is not a cheap place to stay to get such poor service.

Our butler team of Akhil, Rashied and Rahyeme were fantastic. Easily amongst the top butlers we’ve had across all of our Sandals trips (87 nights, primarily at the butler level). Our butler preferences had been noted and addressed. I do wish some of the smaller touches we’re used to with Sandals butler service were present but nothing significant was missing. And certainly nothing that impacted the quality of our stay. The coup de grace for this team? The lobster kabobs they surprised my husband with and BBQ chicken wings for me. Our room was clean and comfortable. The balcony doors could be a bit touchy to close completely so the A/C would kick on, but I figured that out pretty quickly. The location was spectacular and the skypool was amazing! The resort as a whole is beautifully kept and the groundskeepers seemed to always be working. We skipped a lot of dinners because our butlers kept us so well supplied with snacks during the day. La Parisienne was quite lovely and even the French chef at the restaurant where my husband works gave two thumbs up to the escargot and lamb shank photos. The infinity pool bar gets very busy in the afternoon and could likely use a couple more bartenders in the post lunch hours. But they kept things flowing regardless. Abike was a gem. Lovers Lane was a blast! We never did get around to bowling, but we spent a few nights there, on Sunday, the staff was kind enough to let us watch NFL inside until some ingenious folks figured out how to get games on the outdoor TVs. My only “complaints” about our stay (and I use that term very loosely), were the pillows on the bed (seriously, those things squish into rocks) and the outdoor tile running in the Stargazer and connected buildings. It gets very slippery, very quickly when it rains. Some texture would be beneficial to prevent someone from slipping. All in all, a great trip. We’d happily go back.

Had an amazing and relaxing trip. This was our first sandals experience, and we will definitely be coming back in the future. We had a butlered swim-up room. The room was beautiful and our butlers (Aquila, Malisa, and Rachael) were extremely attentive, helpful and friendly. The butlers were definitely worth the extra cost, as they got us reservations at the nicest restaurants and reserved us the best chairs in the mornings. The beach was gorgeous and the ocean was nice and calm for swimming.