Madison S.
Complete Lack of Hospitality
I recently had a very bad experience staying at the Sandals South Coast resort in Jamaica for my honeymoon in November. The hospitality was very poor and staff were condescending and gave misinformation from the moment we arrived. The value of our room was very bad considering the cost, and I was told I could not upgrade to a better room, even if we paid more. The champagne bucket ice was melted when we arrived and the fake rose petals were very disappointing, plus our room smelled like cigarette smoke. We arrived around 7:45 p.m., the check-in experience was awkward and lengthy, and we were told the restaurants would be open until midnight so we took our time getting settled in the room before heading out only to find everything had closed at 9 p.m. We tried to order food at the late night bar but they were between meal service. It was a terrible start to be so hungry and exhausted and have nowhere to eat. I asked for a different room because it was not up to the standards I had requested upon booking (for example, the room did not have an outdoor tub on the patio) and was told there was likely no room for me to upgrade but that the Club Sandals desk would get back to me. Nobody ever got back to me. I asked for a cancellation and refund of a snorkeling trip because we got pressure-sold into a scuba certification, and I was told to go to the Island Routes desk. Sure enough, the Island Routes desk told me to go back to Club Sandals. Everyone was so unresponsive, unhelpful and dismissive that I ended up calling the main Sandals phone number for help with the refund and still nobody got back to me. I went again to Club Sandals and received condescending attitudes about my request for a refund. I never heard back about the refund while I was on site at the resort and this was very stressful. With regard to the pressure-sale of the scuba certification, we had only intended to try out scuba diving. After our first dive we were told we would get certified and it would be so easy. Only at the last minute on the day of our first dive as we were leaving were we told we needed to take an online test. The test took 4 hours to complete and the wifi was so incredibly poor that it slowed everything down to a standstill several times while trying to complete the online certification. Doing this on our honeymoon was the absolute opposite of relaxing plus the certification cost was not disclosed to us until checkout and it was very expensive. I requested to book the beach cabana that was just outside our room on a strip of beach that was not so near to the boat dock because I wanted to swim and not worry about boats and have better water clarity. I was told I could not book that particular cabana or the one right next to it because they would both be closed for refurbishing. Sure enough, nobody came to refurbish the cabanas on the day I had requested and nobody offered it to me once they realized the crew wasn't coming. I asked for a dinner reservation at Schooners on the day I arrived because I was told to wait to make dining reservations when I arrived rather than in advance of the trip, but was told there was no availability for any of the 5 nights of our stay. I tried asking again the next day and kept getting told no until on the third attempt I was finally offered a 9 p.m. time for dinner at Schooners. Service at the restaurants varied tremendously and generally we would go long stretches without anyone checking on us while dining. While dining, we received pressure from waiters to leave a review on the Sandals app that neither of us could even get downloaded since the Wifi was so bad. It was clear that preferential treatment and dining times were being given to other guests. We did not appreciate this treatment on our honeymoon. All around, horrible hospitality, very stressful miscommunication and misinformation, and way more money than the whole experience was worth. I will not be goming back to a Sandals resort.