Sandals Regency Golf Resort & Spa

We had spent months and months looking for the perfect wedding venue that we could combine with a honeymoon and we were totally drawn in by Sandals "the wedding of your dreams". Well in reality it is nothing short of a production line wedding resort.
Sandals cheapened the whole meaning of getting married making it meaningless and tacky. The whole thing cost us around £8,000.00.
My husband and myself have just come back from St Lucia Regency. Our wedding day was "the wedding from hell". As both of my parents have passed away, the thought of walking up an isle in church filled me with dread as it is every girl’s dream to be walked up the isle by her father, that is why we decided to get married abroad.
Anyway we came across Sandals website and were totally drawn in by the perfect wedding of a lifetime. I take marriage very seriously and I wanted that reflected in the day.
The wedding co-ordinator arrived 20 minutes late when I was supposed to be getting married. I was rushed into a golf buggy and then informed that my husband to be was not there!. I had to crouch behind a wall so he would not see me. No sooner had my foot reached the bottom of the stairs then the wedding music began. My husband was still frantically trying to get the rings out of his pocket before I got to him. The wedding co-ordinator was no longer to be found. The photographer was grumpy and barked orders at us to the point we said that we had had enough. We were left alone in the pool area with the wedding office being locked up and the wedding co-ordinator nowhere to be seen. We then had to get a lift in the hotel shuttle bus because we had no transport to get us back to our room.
We then got changed and went for our supposedly wedding meal to find out that no wedding meal had been booked and I also forgot to tell you, we had our wedding cake pinched whilst having the awful photographs taken.
When we did get the photographs, three of them had a semi naked old man being massaged in the background. Many of them were out of focus and blurred.
We had also booked private transfer which was our equivalent of a wedding car, again this did not turn up and we ended up having to travel to the resort with luggage, wedding box etc on our knees for over an hour, which was quite uncomfortable.
We were told by some Americans at the resort that on 5th May there had been about 17 weddings in one day. This filled us with dread, but we kept an open mind as we were fortunate to be the only wedding that day (30th May). As I said in my review the wedding coordinator turned up late to collect me, my husband told me that he had sat in a room with five other couples who were frantically trying to organize their wedding details whilst he should have been getting married. The wedding coordinator seemed more interested in booking other weddings in.
We heard people complaining about the most ridiculous things, like not having their ice bucket filled. We were in awe of the place and could not believe we were there. The rooms in some areas were quite shabby, not like the fabulous rooms in the brochure etc. There were stains everywhere on the carpet, a tap dripped constantly in our room. The wood on the door leading to the bathroom was broken.
On a positive note the scenery is beautiful. There is a drive in volcano, which smells like rotten eggs due to the sulphur content. Marigot Bay is also beautiful and worth a visit.
Places to eat which in our opinion were worth a visit were La Toc, which was lovely food. It was quite difficult to get a reservation as many of the guests from The Grande and Halcyon go there. The pavilion was like a buffet, help yourself kind of thing, but again we found this to be ok. We were not quite as impressed with The Pitons as you were literally sitting on the next person’s lap. Food was not quite as good in our opinion there. Our food was quite cold when it eventually arrived. Amando's Restaurant we found it to be better in the evening then at lunchtime.
It is a very poor country, which is a shame, and it is quite a contrast between Sandals and the surroundings areas. It is not safe to go out alone, especially in the evening. You are best to keep to the excursions provided. Although these can be very expensive.
This has caused considerable tension between us as a married couple and I just want to prevent this from happening to somebody else. I know there is no such thing as perfect but I wanted it to be near to that as much as possible. I cannot bear to look at the wedding photographs because they just upset me too much.
I could go on forever about this as so many awful things happened on what should have been the best day of our lives.
If you are having your honeymoon there, fine but if you are considering marrying there, save your money - I cannot stress this enough!