Sandals ResortsReviews of sandals.com

Our first holiday with Sandals, based on their promises of the “World’s ONLY 5-Star Luxury Resort”. Sandals will sell you a promise of sheer luxury, romance, 11 restaurants serving exquisite cuisine, peacefulness and tranquillity. You have a choice of room types, each escalating in price. Having spent 10 days in the Sandals Antigua resort, from the moment we arrived, we knew we had been suckered by the Sandals hype! So here is our translation for all you future holiday makers of what to expect, rather than what Sandals wants you to believe: - Don’t expect to get the room you booked! We paid premium for a pool side room. What we got was a first-floor room overlooking a car park. After 30 hours of disturbing confrontation with ‘the manager’ – a hostile man who simply did not give a ‘you know what’- We eventually were moved to another room, again no pool in sight and a whole host of other issues. - There are not 11 restaurants as advertised! There are actually 7 and some smaller ice cream and snack rooms. Of these 7 restaurants, 3 must be pre-booked and we only managed to eat once in these due to them being fully booked. The residual restaurants are also really difficult to get a table with up to 2 hours wait per restaurant every night. Each have a small set menu so you will end up eating the same food. Furthermore, even the slightest hunger will warrant you having to order 2 main enters as the portion size is embarrassing small. - The beach is public and swarming with local drug dealers. We stopped using the beach because of the persistent hassle from these dealers and local trinket sellers. On one occasion walking along the beach, I was offered cannabis 4 times and cocaine once from this army of dealers. - All the rooms are very ‘tired’. Our second room had a leak in the ceiling dripping what we assumed was toilet water (due to it’s location). Fault reported and nothing done. The ceiling fan did not work. The aircon was stuck on “Ice Age” and could not be adjusted. The decor had not seen a coat of paint for quite some time. The drawers smelled awful and we had to take our clothes out as they started to smell. The rooms have the most minimal of complementary toiletries, no robes, no slippers or nay other luxury commensurate with their self-certified 5-star rating. - Although the rooms do have stocked fridges as part of the all-inclusive, you will be lucky if it re-stocked. - Sandals Antigua is more like a Club 18-30 holiday – a far cry from the quiet romantic holiday we were promised. If pool all day foam parties are your thing, with loads of really load music all day, then this is for you. - The staff are, in the most part, so miserable! A few kept a brave face, but the majority were awful. Every query at reception (or anywhere else) met with the same response: “Come back tomorrow!”. - This is the first resort I have ever stayed at (In the 5-Star category) where all sunbeds acquire a reserved towel by 6am daily in order to actually get a sunbed. Sandals actually promotes this for their ‘Butler Service’ rooms as the butlers take the majority of sunbeds before 6am, putting towels on the beds for their guests. Every day was the same. I apologise for such a lengthy review, but having given Sandals every opportunity to resolve (or comment) even some of these issues we reported both while on holiday and following our return, without so much as an acknowledgement of receipt of my complaint, and given the eyewatering prices Sandals charge for so many false promises, future travellers’ must be aware of what to expect. Sandals appears to have a 100% ignorance approach with ‘customer service’. Income is the only thing they care about. However, Antigua is a wonderful island full of friendly people. I would definitely return to Antigua (and I’d recommend it) but only book Sandals if you have a very broad mind, a vivid imagination and money to burn. We saw so many better resorts along the North West coastline. Do yourself a favour, give Sandals a wide berth and select a real resort!

Sandals South Coast,we had butler service. A lot of money for nothing. Worst food and drinks I ever had in a all inclusive.Beach terrible, pictures from sandals beach do not represent what’s shown on Sandals Website. Will never go to Sandals again, what a rip off.

Our trip to Sandals Ochi was the worst vacation ever From check in to check out when shuttle forgot about us Service was awful , food was awful , restaurant staff was rude and dinner was at least a 2 hour ordeal ! spent thousands more for butler village and it was a complete waste of money Other then make our dinner reservations which we had to keep asking it was a waste of money Cats everywhere along with cat urine and feces outside your door everyday that they never cleaned up They want you to put empty food trays outside door which attracts cats more The smell was unbearable every time we left room and we had to avoid the cat waste every time No poolside drink service at main pool had to walk up to bar and wait a half hour since there was maybe 2 bartenders helping people in pool and out of pool which they seem to help people in pool and not pay attention if anyone was standing needing a drink Room was Cleaned twice during 9 night stay we had to ask for towels daily to shower because they never cleaned the room. I took a picture of the thick dust on coffee table from not being cleaned when they did do turn down if we were lucky they wouldn’t leave clean towels and leave dirty ones I have been to several sandal resorts and will never go Back I notified customer service in a detailed email with pics and no one ever acknowledged it

June 2022, my husband and I made a vacation reservation to visit Ochi Sandals in Jamaica beginning September 25th-October 2nd for roughly $6900.00. While making the reservation we noticed the room we selected for the week was available everyday except Wednesday, which seemed odd and so we called a representative to figure out whether the availability was an error. We called to speak to a Sandals representative to learn whether the information was an error. She could not explain the anomaly ( the resort would not book a G4 room for one night), and offered us another room for one night. This would mean staying in one room e.g. Sunday-Tuesday in one room, and Wednesday in a different room, returning to the original room on Thursday- Sunday. We were advised by the representative that this was an computer error and for the purposes of completing the reservation for the room of our choice to proceed with securing two rooms. We reserved two rooms and we were assured that she would make a note so when we arrived in Jamaica, the reservation desk would sort it out; this did not happen. We arrived on September 25th, and showed our room. Approximately 25 minutes into our stay, we noticed towels on the floor and a persistent drip from the ceiling. This drip increased for 90% of the duration of the stay. We notified the butler on Tuesday that we were worried about the amount of water coming into the room and he said he would notify his supervisor. On Wednesday, I asked to speak with the General Manager Ms. Williams. Ms. Williams was not on the premises but a representative in the Concierge office, called her and handed me the phone. I explained the severity of the leak and the unresolved matter with the room. I asked that we meet so I could show her the damage to the room and asked that she compensate us for the poor condition, or place us in a similar room with butler service. Later Ms. Williams connected us to Ms Glenn, who is responsible for reservations. Ms. Glenn informed us that there were no other rooms available, but allowed us to remain in the room. We were shown an alternative room, which was considerably smaller so we decided to stay and avoid the area with the leak. The leak continued, expanded and ultimately consumed the entire right side of the ceiling in the living room causing water to drip over the bar and television set. This resulted in the staff having to visit the room at least every 20 minutes to replace the towels. It was our choice to remain in the room, however if the staff and management knew that the room was in such disrepair why allow is it to be reserved. Why not call a plumber to fix it. When we asked for partial compensation, we received no response and management was never physically available and no telephone numbers were provided that allowed us to follow-up. In general, I believe this situation was poorly handled and the lack of responses to company survey communicates poor customer service at best.

I am writing about my experience for my anniversary vacation at grand Antigua sandals on October 2nd through October 6th 2022. During our stay, we never received any acknowledgment for our 15 year anniversary at all! This really upset my wife! Overall the service was very poor compared to our last experience at sandals in Jamaica. Our first morning we waited 40 minutes for breakfast at Eleanor’s for 2 people. At the barefoot restaurant for lunch, we waited for 10 minutes to be greeted, and then was told it would take 30 minutes to an hour to be served. I did highlight in my survey to Sandals some of the exceptional service of Talicia, Shanique, Kimberly, Angela and Blondina. However overall we felt the service was very poor and many of the staff were seemingly unfriendly. Finally at check out, we were told that the credit card machines were not working. Our airport shuttle was supposed to leave at 10:30am and was then rescheduled to 11:30am. We sat in the lounge for an hour and then taken to the other side of the resort to do the check out. The shuttle driver said that he never experienced such incompentency in all of his time working there. The front desk staff were clueless and had no idea what our final bill was and just estimated. I am writing this because I too am a business owner, and always strive to provide 5 star service to my clients. Sandals has an exceptional reputation which is why we went with them. However, this experience was very disappointing.

My wife and I booked our 30th anniversary at Sandals in Antigua. I took her there for our Honeymoon 30 years ago and thought we could re-live some memories. I had no issues with booking an ocean front room online. I spent around 6500.00 for a 7-night stay. My issue started when I saw the room, re-living the same decor from 30 years ago except it looked like the room hasn't been cleaned for 30 years. From Cockroaches to rust around the tub, scratched and nasty furniture and carpet that was completely filthy. The staff was not friendly nor competent nor cared about their jobs. the food was 2- star at best. I always touted Sandals to everyone I know and have been to other Sandals on different islands. By far this was the worst Sandals. I was offered by management 10,000 points if I wouldn't write them a bad review. I could not in good faith let anyone else go to this Sandals. If you are booking this Sandals, please do not go to the Carribean side unless you like cockroaches. I only wish i could include pictures.

I cannot stress enough how much I advise you to avoid this company. If ever there is an organisation trading off historical reviews it is Sandals. Long story short- two of us were planning to row across the Atlantic. As a treat at the end of having rowed 3200 miles we booked into Sandals Antigua. For various reasons and with three months before departing the event was cancelled. Every other company we had made arrangements with realised our disappointment and bent over backwards to help with refunds etc. And then we contacted Sandals! The response was initially so automated we thought it was AI. Explained the situation and the fact that reviews were so awful that we didn’t want to book at the moment. We were happy to book later when reviews improved and issues had been addressed. We are previous Sandals visitors, having been to two venues previously. The auto responses continued. “You can rebook now before your already booked holiday but this will attract an outrageously high admin fee or lose your deposit of £350. We asked if we could have a voucher which we could use in the future once issues had been addressed and reviews improved. Answer-“book another holiday now, pay outrageously high admin fees or lose your deposit”. We went back again explaining in more detail just in case the human that responds like a computer didn’t understand and then the same reply. I can only surmise that Sandals is actually being funded by people who wish to cancel due to bad reviews etc and lose their deposits. I explained we will book again but again the answer book NOW or lose your deposit. I pointed out that as a business they will lose out on thousands of pounds of future bookings for the sake of £350 to which they didn’t even reply. Several senior managers were contacted but again no reply. Conclusion- would I recommend Sandals, absolutely not. Not only do their resorts seem to be falling apart and attitude of staff seems worse than ever but their customer service is even worse. Will I book again, absolutely not. Will I continue to raise awareness to the general public regarding the above- absolutely!! Well done Sandals. Not only have you managed to make a bad situation worse by your insistence “that it is in the terms and conditions “ but you have managed to lose future guest booking. Awesome business acumen. I can only assume you are managed by Gerald Ratner! (Google him)!!

This resort very disappointing in every way. Ranges from dated decor, cleanness, mediocre food, non attentive staff, difficulty getting reservations in restaurants. Spoke to management multiple times without resolution. Save your time and money and go elsewhere.