Guest
over priced and very over rated. never again
If you expect Sandals to be a top end hotel, please read this and other true reviews before booking and ignore the obvious “ghost” reviews written by people who obviously never stayed in this hotel. It is not a really awful hotel, it is simply not what one would expect from a top class hotel. Arrival. - Plane arrived on time and no problem at customs, however around 10 guests had to wait for over half an hour before the minibus turned up. No apologies or reason provided? The Welcome. - not particularly inspiring but OK. We were given a poorly photocopied A4 showing the restaurants but when we asked if there was a list of entertainments they said they did not have enough photocopies so we had to photograph another photocopied sheet with our phones. The Rooms - very underwhelming compared to other top end hotels. Clean but pretty tired and in need of an update. Both sinks did not drain properly and the shower did not have a hand held head, only a rain shower. [not always suitable for ladies who do not wish to wash their hair every shower as my wife informs me] They did not provide some basic items such as slippers, ear buds or even a laundry bag. Communications. - The internet continually dropped out and had to be reset for every use. There as a large television but no guidance or instructions of how to access any global news such as BBC or CNN. Swimming. - The pool we used was fine but there was often no towels available until mid morning. Some guests became aware of the shortage and took fresh towels to there room to ensure they had towels for the morning. Bars and Coffee. - Bars were very hit and miss, in many cases running out of bottles of water. Getting a drink was never quick and often it seemed the staff were talking [or shouting] amongst themselves while there was a queue. The coffee machines in some lobbies were a bit of a joke. In the morning they were often not working or there was no take away cups. very unreliable. I did ask a member of staff if she could get me some cups and suggested I walk to the other side of the hotel where they “might” have cups. [unbelievable!] One strange thing we noticed was none of the bars appeared to have a glass washing machine, everything was washed by hand??? Surely unacceptable in a so called “high end hotel” Restaurants. - Service. One of the most disappointing issues. Regularly there was a long queue at many of the desks and no one to seat the guests, over 10 minutes in one case with around 20 guests waiting [Spices lunch] There was often a long queue at the non booking restaurants and guests being told to come back in an hour in spite of the restaurants having more than half of their tables unoccupied. [ Portofino evening was the worst for this] The desk lady was extremely rude and officious. One evening when we went to the desk to ask for a table for 2 she just shouted “come back in 1 hour without even looking up from her desk and making eye contact. After speaking to some other guests we were not the only ones who experienced this unacceptable behaviour. Restaurants. - Food. Other than the Bombay which was excellent the food was extremely average. in one case a monkfish dinner was inedible and in another some ribs were so dried up it was impossible to get the meat off the bone. In one restaurant a glass of red wine for me and a glass of white wine for my wife were served 10 minutes apart. [obviously ordered together] Average waiting time for lunch at Mariner/Dinos was always minimum 45 minutes plus. Steaks were certainly not up to standard in quality or portion size. There were a couple of incidents where some guests did not follow dress codes. In one case a man dripping wet from the swimming pool with no top and bare feet was allowed to wander around “Spices” lunch buffet. It would be easy to blame much of the above issues on staff but it is pretty obvious the problems is a lack of good management and proper staff training. Most of the staff were simply not trained to a professional standard however a small percentage were simply rude and offensive. Simply this hotels brands itself way above it’s level and comes nowhere near other similar resorts in the same price range. There are many much better hotels available offering a much higher level of holiday at a similar or even less cost. Sandals Barbados is over priced, over rated and not worth the money. Never again!