Sandals ResortsReviews of sandals.com

My wife and I recently enjoyed a vacation at Sandals South Coast in Jamaica. The hotel itself was wonderful, located in a beautiful setting with stunning beaches, and the food was delicious. While the overall experience was good, I’m not entirely convinced that it meets the five-star standards they claim. The staff was friendly, and the cuisine was great, but the service didn’t always feel top-tier. However, a significant downside was the journey to the hotel. The road conditions are quite poor and the drive, which takes about two hours, felt risky and challenging. The roads are mountainous and not well-maintained, making the trip stressful. Although the drivers were kind, the journey itself was not what we expected from a luxury experience. We genuinely worried about safety during the ride. In conclusion, while Sandals South Coast offers a beautiful and relaxing environment, the transportation aspect needs serious improvement. It’s important for the resort to ensure safer and more reliable travel conditions for their guests. Until then, we would hesitate to recommend this destination to others.

So we stayed at the Sandals in the Bahamas twice and absolutely loved it. So we booked a third one at the Dunn Falls in Jamaica. We booked it two years ago while we were in the Bahamas. We booked a category room that came with a living room and a butler. My husband called many months in advance to see if it would be an issue to just switch our dates by a week or so so we could travel with family on a cruise. He was told it was no problem… Our room might be one floor down from where we were booked. He called the day before we left because we hadn't heard from the Butler . He was informed that we no longer have Butler service. For whatever reason, although we were told it was not a problem, they downgraded our room with no refund. At the airport, we had to wait 30 minutes or more… They tried to stick us on a bus when we paid roughly $500 for private round-trip transfers. It was frustrating to watch him search his emails to prove that we paid for it… Which we did. They didn't even have our name on the list. When we got to the hotel, they tried to stick us in a room. That was a shit room… They should've called it a "tile view" or air conditioning view instead of an ocean view room. We sat on the balcony waiting for them to figure out where to put us… But they did put us in a much better room, but it's not what we paid for. We paid for a room that had a living room and we are in a room without one… visited guest services twice, and there is no refund offered. It appears that may be so because the rates have increased blah blah blah. Not cool that the representative he talked to recorded notes that he called to change room categories… That doesn't even make sense that we would downgrade our room and not expect a refund… That's not what we did. He changed the dates and told nothing would happen except we might be a floor lower We are still here and not happy. There's not much going on… The lobby was full of people loading on a bus to go to their sister hotel for entertainment tonight. This place sucks and we will never do a Sandals vacation again. We expected more for a $10,000 vacation.

Site useless! Pot luck if you find a correct day they fly to a certain country, it’s like find the flight you might find a holiday! I gave up after 10 searches returned “we do not fly on this date please change date” ermmm give me a clue? Which date should I pick? Website absolutely useless, if they can’t even get thy right it don’t look good

My review is all down to sandals customer service in the UK. I actually had a decent holiday the time I went and felt looked after by the resort staff etc. but their customer services completely let them down and I’ve literally had a better level of service from budget airlines like Ryanair. My first trip with sandals, I had an amazing trip booked. Upgraded flights and a butler suite. I splashed out because it was due to be my honeymoon. Unfortunately the trip had to be moved because of covid. It happens. I wasn’t offered a refund and was told I could either rebook the same holiday or take “credit”. I enquired about the “same holiday” option and they told me that my booking had gone up in price and I had obtained “an excellent deal” that they could no longer honour so for the same price my holiday was changed to the bog standard everything. Fast forward a few months and we were due to go and the government were advising us against travel to Jamaica tendering our insurance invalid. Sandals then cancelled our trip presumably because of this. I was offered a holiday change to Antigua on the same dates (near enough) but then entered the “up sells”. Antigua is a nicer resort and even though our trip had been cancelled, they wouldn’t let us change it unless we paid an extra £400. I very reluctantly agreed and paid the money. This was about a week before travel. I then received contact a day later and I was told there were no rooms left available at the price I had paid. They told me I would need to pay another £600 for the next room up. At this point I was starting to wonder if I was being scammed by a fraudster pretending to be sandals. I was sat thinking how can this 5* hotel and resort chain have such ridiculous policies. Alas it was not a fraudster. I refused and was told that they would have to cancel my holiday. I tried to explain to them that this was their mistake and it wasn’t a hardship for them to just put me in that room that would otherwise be empty without charging me more and I even said about them upgrading someone else and putting me in a standard room. They gave zero f**ks. I ended up cancelling the whole trip and other than the £400 I sent them the day before, I had to take “credit” for my entire fee so i had to book with them again a year later so my money wasn’t wasted. As I said, when I eventually got a holiday it was amazing but they should be ashamed of this kind of service. I made a complaint and my response was rude and dismissive with about 200 spelling mistakes. I should have shared my email trail on their Twitter really. I booked with them a second time recently a few years on. Due to go in 4 weeks. Luckily my booking has been more low maintenance with no cancellations or dodgy upsells. However I have emailed them 3 times to try and get my booking added to the app so I can claim the loyalty etc. each time they have replied telling me they need information that is clearly in the email I have sent them and then when I have replied I have been ghosted. I wonder if their employees are idiots or they don’t exist and they are using AI or something to reply to complaints and customer service questions. Nowhere near as bad as the first experience but there is a clear pattern. Adding to that, their website is clearly built by a 7year old. It makes up loads of discounts and when you put codes in (such as the emergency service discount) it still quotes you the same price as if you don’t put the code in. They advertise prices on their “offer” page which often aren’t available anymore so they are essentially false advertising. It baffles me that they aren’t out of business. Maybe the Americans get a better service. But the service in Europe is abysmal! Do better sandals.

Booking a vacation for 10 people was brutal. It took hours to set up; the website is poorly designed. The representative told me that I could cancel any time in the next 2 months at no charge. However this didnt include the travel insurance. 5 rooms at $250 = $1,250 I am now out of pocket with no recourse other than to never book a vacation with Sandals or Beaches. I consider this to be a dishonest business practice.

Shocking! Had to have an interview about food??? Yes..we dont eat meat...actually we didnt eat anything!! There were starving cats who wouldnt eat the food we put in front of them. Catering for the American taste i was told. We had a corner swim up room where dead leaves etc built up so for most of the time it looked as unappetising to swim in as the food was to eat. We asked to extend our stay and we had packed by the time we were told we could. Never again!!

Stay History: January 10th: Arrival date, all went smoothly, and we were checked in and escorted to our room. That evening, we ate at the La Tavola; I had fettuccine alla Bolognese and Jerri had penne Alfredo. The meal was wonderful. After the meal we strolled on the beach for a while and retired to our room. No signs of illness at this point as we both went to sleep from the busy day. January 11th: After waking up from our sleep, we dressed appropriately and went to Spices and had the breakfast buffet. Afterwards we went to the beach bar area and had a pizza from Bella Napoli, where we relaxed for the day anticipating our beach candlelight dinner at 8:00 pm that evening. We did not have anything to eat between breakfast and dinner. We were greeted at our room and escorted to the beach from the table setup for us. I had. I had the steak and lobster tail; Jerri had the salmon, and we split the bottle of champagne along with ice water. We finished our dinner, took a stroll around the property, and retired to our room; there were no apparent signs at this point of any illness. January 12th: We woke up late morning with neither of us having any signs of illness. We decided to have lunch at the Mariner Seaside Bar & Grill, where we each had a hamburger and fries. After we ate, we layed out on the beach for a few hours, at which point Jerri’s stomach was upset as well as mine. We spent the rest of the day in the room feeling sick and did not venture outside for any additional activities or food that day. As the evening progressed, we both felt sicker than we did earlier. We had expressed our not feeling well to the front desk. Not sure exactly what time that was. They did check on us later and asked if there was anything they could do, and we said, Can you make the illness go away? and the individual at the door said, No, and left. This is when I developed diarrhea, which progressively got worse. We spent the balance of our trip in our room. January 13th: We spent the entire day in the room with our illness getting progressively worse; we did not eat or drink anything that entire day. During the evening, my diarrhea was so severe that I soiled the bed, the floor, and the bathroom and became so weak that I fell to the floor, lying in my own mess. Jerri called the front desk, which promptly sent two employees to the room to help me get back into bed, only to lie in my own mess. I spent the rest of the night crawling to the bathroom in my own mess, barely able to lift myself up to sit on the bathroom stool and to get back in bed. It took me quite a bit of time to return to the bed once again to lie in my mess. Throughout the balance of the night, I continually had diarrhea through early morning. January 14th: Upon packing to leave, I still had diarrhea with uncontrollable bowel movements, wondering how I was going to handle the plane flight back home. Jerri was still ill but did not have bowel issues, only a very upset stomach. After showering and taking a taxi to the airport, I managed to make it but had an immediate need for a restroom at the airport. I made it through the flight to Miami and had an uncontrollable urge to use the restroom. As I was walking to the restroom, I was having bowel movements, and by the time I reached the bathroom stall, I had completely soiled my jeans. I had to call Jerri to find a pair of shorts and bring them to the men's room, where there was a gentleman kind enough to pass them off to me. I had to wash myself with toilet bowl water, put on the shorts, wrap the jeans in a ball, and throw them in the trash. Somehow I managed to make it to Orlando without further incident, where we picked up our car and headed home. On January 15th, I continued to have diarrhea throughout the day, so I called my personal physician, and he had me try a few things, none of which worked. Taking Imodium was one of them. He told me if it doesn't get better by day's end, go to the emergency room. I did not have any food again and drank only bottled water the entire day, and still there were no signs of improvement; I still had uncontrollable bowel movements. January 16th That morning I was so weak that I fell two times; after the second fall, I continued to have uncontrollable bowel movements. I went to an emergency room, where I was told I was in pretty bad shape. They admitted me into the hospital, where I spent that afternoon and evening, January 17th & 18th, in the hospital and was told It was something I ate and also had severe hypotension with a blood pressure of 60 over 38. After extensive treatments as noted in the medical records, I was released on the 18th with some control over my bowel movements.

This was our first vacation with Sandals and our last. Having had our first week in a much smaller hotel in Barbados we checked in to our pre-paid room in the main Mediterranean building. Within 24 hours I noticed a pool of water in the toilet area. I saw that water was running down 2 walls. The front desk informed me within half an hour that there was a problem 3 floors up and it was being fixed. When we returned to our room in late afternoon, it had not been fixed and worse, there was another deluge dripping in the bedroom area. People at the front desk seemed to think there was no urgency to either visit or attend the room until I started shouting that we needed a room change immediately. Fortuitously, one of the senior managers came out and visited the room and agreed we should change the room. I asked if we could change to the Caribbean side, which I realised was much quieter and to be fair to the management a room was found which was much superior (Caribbean Honeymoon Suite) and they provided me with a US$200 voucher in compensation for the upheaval. Trevorne was very helpful. The plus points were the food, which was excellent in all restaurants. The beach if you like to spend all day getting burnt and bored. “Entertainment” varied but have to say that some of it verged on the banal with constant music being blasted out over the Mediterranean Pool. The negative points. Service at times patchy, both in restaurants, room servicing (why did I have to keep asking for things when a normal hotel would always replenish when servicing the room), poor maintenance (had to request a number of times for the outside stairs light to be fixed and on the last day the basin plug became stuck).