Sandals Royal Bahamian Resort & Spa Hotel

WARNING – Do not book this hotel if you’re expecting five star service!! Unless you pay the extra for butler service this Sandals resort just doesn’t care about its guests. We booked for 6 nights for our honeymoon and were disappointed on a daily basis. They offer a daily resort guide advising where you can eat and drink but throughout the day will change their minds – leaving you wondering why you bothered picking up the guide. We ordered breakfast in our room on 3 consecutive days before it actually turned up and when it did turn up it was wrong. We found ourselves with a romantic breakfast eating cereal out of a glass.

When you complain the concierge staff are pleasant but don’t offer any solutions – they apologise for the mistakes and problems but never rectify them. During a torrential storm it took them 2 hours to find an umbrella for us (everyone else already had them!) our whole evening was ruined, as we were too late for our dinner reservation.

The private offshore island wasn’t available for half of the time we were there – although there was no advance warning. A photoshoot closed it on a special day for us (my birthday) but even on the actual day when we phoned for times of the boat across to the island no one informed us it was closed – even the resort guide said it was open. After standing and waiting for the boat for more than half an hour someone came over and told us the island was closed all day. We later found out from some other guests that it opened in the afternoon – the communication between staff and guests was atrocious!!

We spent half of the first day without towels for the pool or beach. We were told there was a problem with the laundry machine but no one offered a solution for us – we couldn’t go swimming for quite a few hours on our very first day and were told to simply wait until the machine was working again.

I’ve highlighted just a few of the daily problems we faced and would definitely have booked somewhere else if I’d known Sandals shows so little regard for its guests and their reputation.

I did send the manager a complaint letter once I’d returned from my disappointing honeymoon and was offered 3 nights free accommodation. This is useless to anyone based as far away as the UK as flights would cost a fortune so you would have to increase you stay to at least 6 nights to make it worth while -thus spending a lot more money to experience the service we should have received in the first place. The Manager didn’t care and simply stated he felt this was a fair offer.

A rip-off. The advertising for this is so misleading and it was not the romantic luxurious resort we expected. It also lacked class and elegance. Despite it being a 'couples only' resort, there were loud groups of Americans and half the time they did not adhere to the dress code. What was the point in us dressing up when others (esp the men) could wear 3/4 length trousers and baggy t-shirts. The wedding areas were also very tacky and expensive for what you actually get. We were accosted every day by a loud waitress each day for breakfast and it was really annoying. I don't understand where the 5 diamond award comes from. If you are British looking for quiet and elegance, do not go to Sandals. You will be better off paying your money for the med or somewhere like Mauritius. We met other couples at the resort who thought the same thing.

this was a very special holiday for my wife & i as it is the year we are both 60 years young.

the holiday was everything we were told to expect, and a whole lot more.

the hotel was fantastic, and the food, drinks, swimming pools & beaches second to none.

all staff were polite, friendly, kind & outstandingly efficient - they just couldn't do enough for us.

entertainment & other guests were great.

we did some things that we have never done before, including parasailing, jet-skiing & swimming with the dolphins.

this was our first visit to the carribean, and our first sandals experience - finances permitting it certainly won't be the last.

very well done to "the holiday place" and "sandals".

keep up the good work !!!

This was the most beautiful place I have ever stayed at. The rooms all had four poster beds with a free mini bar and 24 hour room service.

The food was excellent I tried most of the restaurants and they were al exceptional. The staff were all very friendly and Nassau itself is beautiful.

There are a lot of pools scattered around the place where you could relax and have some peace and quiet. Sandals Cay is well worth a visit. All in all a great holiday. Recommended especially for Honeymooners.

Having read the awful report written by a chap in August I have to say I was nervous about spending two weeks plus having our wedding at the royal Bahamian.

All I can say is that guy is wrong. We were so well looked after from start to finish, the resort is fantastic, the food is gorgeous and the wedding planners are so helpful.

We had a magical wedding and a honeymoon we'll never forget. I would not hesitate to recommend this resort.

This holiday was amazing! The hotel was excellent and the staff were very helpful. However don't expect the same standards as UK 5*. We had a suite, which was cleaned daily along with clean towels and the fridge re filled if anything had been taken out.

There are 8 restaurants altogether. I especially recommend Baccarat and the crystal room - excellent food and service. The Italian restaurant was also very nice. We didn't get to go over to sandals cay due to the weather. It was windy at for the first two days therefore the island was closed. I recommend that you book your restaurants straight away after arrival in order to secure places.

There were plenty of activities every day - or there was no pressure to participate if you just wanted to relax by the pool. Both pools were big, and one was very lively whereas the other quieter. Also I would recommend getting up early in order to secure a bed by the pool.

The weather wasn't excellent for the whole week. But once the sun came out it was very warm.

I would definitely recommend this resort.

Having spent 12 hours travelling to get there, we were then held for almost an hour in a rather tired looking reception room while staff sorted out keys/passes etc and a very unimpressive bag of shampoo/shower gel which was to last for two weeks.

On entering our allocated room we were appalled to find two people already making themselves at home there and it took another hour to sort out the error. They were eventually told to leave and we were finally allowed in, having been standing outside for all this time, and spent another hour trying to get housekeeping to clean up the mess. Not a good start.

The whole place is in dire need of complete refurbishment including all the public areas and restaurants. The food was very average and the all inclusive wine was very low standard. Decent wine had to be paid for. Trying to get a bottle for our table at dinner was impossible, so we just had to sit there waiting for the glass to be topped up as and when we managed to get someone's attention, which was very difficult.

There were insufficient towels both for the room and the beach, and sometimes the room was not serviced until late in the afternoon. I am sure that this hotel was once beautiful but shabby does not even begin to describe it. I would certainly not recommend it to anyone for the money it costs.

Fantastic resort, premium drinks included all day and night. Always a bar or restaurant or grill bar open at some point in the day to eat or drink from. 2 pool bars served excellent cocktails all the. The icing on the cake for this resort is the 2 First Class restaurants....The Cristal and The Bacarrat. The Bacarrat was one of the best restaurants we've eaten in (and we live in Central London!) Amazing menu, personal waiter and fantastic service. Dress code applied.

Plenty of sun loungers both round the pool and beach, we took the boat across to the private island for the day, very secluded and also has a grill restaurant and bar. Fantastic.

An absolutely outstanding resort, to look at fairly small at first and not hugely impressive but its simplicity is its key. The resort is all about pampering the guests the staff couldn't do any more for you and the service is out of this world.

The rooms are luxurious and the well stocked fridge is refilled every day with whatever you wish for. Food has to be sampled to understand how great it is, large buffets in most of the seven restaurants offer a huge amount of mouth watering foods and with the alcohol all inclusive what more could you ask for!

The swim up bars are fantastic and with all water sports thrown in my wife and I were never bored for a minute. We will certainly be going there again and I urge other couples to do the same, a FANTASTIC RESORT.

I recently returned from getting married and honeymooning atSandals Royal Bahamian and we had an absolute blast!!! If we had to do itall over again, we wouldn't change a single thing!Throughout the wholewedding planning stage, I'd read tons of on-line reviews about this resortand although most were encouraging, there were those few negative reviewsthat had me skeptical about what could potentially go wrong. But with greatrelief, myself, my husband, and our guests all had an absolute fantastictime at the Royal Bahamian! NOBODY wanted to leave and go home!A fewpointers: Defintely stay in the newer of the 2 buildings...there is a BIGdifferent between the rooms. Do make your dining reservations the day youarrive. The reservations fill up extremely quickly. Speaking of dining, doNOT bother eating dinner at Cafe Goombay (on the private island). We atedinner there with another couple who was there for the wedding. Before ourappetizers arrived, we were being eaten alive by sand fleas. OUCH! It gotso bad that the servers brought cans of Off Bug Spray to each table! Andeven though we pretty much used a whole can on just our table of 4, thebugs still kept biting. It was so bad that after we arrived back atSandals, everyone from the first seating warned everyone who was waiting totake the boat over to Cafe Goombay for the second seating NOT to go b/c thebugs were horrible! Otherwise, all of the other restaurants were great andwe didn't have any other problems with bugs.The wedding was fabulous andwas just as we had hoped! During the Memorial Day weekend, there werenumerous weddings that took place, and each of the very newlyweds we metwere extremely happy with how their big day unfolded.My husband and I hadsuch a great time at Sandals that I know we will be visiting other Sandalsresorts. The reviews that shed a negative light are way too critical andshould be taken with a grain of salt. Rest assured that a honeymoon /vacation at the Royal Bahamian will be a great one!! Enjoy!