Sandals Halcyon Beach Hotel

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Two/Three star quality at FIVE star prices. That is the overwhelming feeling we are left with after spending eight nights at the Halcyon. It was not ALL bad; it’s just that the resort consistently failed to live up to expectations......read on.

My wife and I are reasonably well travelled, and are used to staying in nice hotels. Maybe we have been spoiled, but we have had far better service and accommodation in three star resorts than we experienced in this supposedly five star resort. The Sandals logo of “Luxury included” seemed ironic to us, because we failed to identify anything in the way of services or facilities that we have not experienced in far cheaper hotels, even though we were looking out for it. I’m not sure what we expected, but we certainly felt a little cheated by the ordinariness of the resort.
Sure the grounds were nice, and some of the staff was very pleasant, but you can get that anywhere. We were in no sense at all pampered, or made to feel special. The location of the hotel means that evening walks off-site are a real no, because of the busy dual carriageway just outside the premises. On the plus side you can get a free shuttle to one of the other Sandals resorts and have free use of their restaurants.
We were met at the airport as arranged and given a bottle of water to refresh ourselves. Nice touch! We were then sent to a rather tatty red mini bus for our transfer to the resort. I joked on the way there that I hoped the hotel was in better condition than our transport. Sadly my jest transpired to be more of a prophecy. When we arrived at the Halcyon the whole busload of guests was informed that none of our rooms were ready even though it was late afternoon. We were ushered to the beach bar/grill and left there. After over an hour and a half I decided to trudge back to reception to try and expedite the rooms’ availability. On arrival at reception we were all told our rooms were now ready, but nobody had taken the trouble to inform us.
My wife and I were shown to our room, and as soon as we got there I queried the fact that I had booked a de-luxe sea-view room, but could not see the sea. The receptionist, with a dead pan expression ushered us out of the room, and onto the room’s patio, as we could not see the sea from the room. She then pointed seaward and said “It’s over there, behind the trees”, and shrugged off our complaint. It would be more accurate to call these rooms ‘garden view’ or ‘seaward facing’ for we sure as hell could not see the ocean from our oceanview room. We never saw even a glimmer of a smile from this particular individual all through our stay. She was apparently of European origin, and the only non St. Lucian we encountered during our stay.
Our room was nothing special, and did not have an armchair as shown in all the brochures. It was of a reasonable size though. The BIG problem with the room was that the door was warped and could not be closed without a really good kick. Throughout our stay, my wife never once was able to open or close our room’s door unaided, and even the housekeeping staff appeared to have problems, as on at least two occasions they failed to leave the room secure when they had finished.
Immediately outside our room, our “patio” was permanently flooded, and everytime we entered our room we had to wade through the flood, and bring water into the room. The service team tried several times to clear the flooded area, but it was a losing battle because the path to our room had subsided and water continually drained from the main pathway to our block. The other side of this pathway was an area of grass which was continuously covered by 2-3 inches of water throughout our entire stay.
Our next issue was with our room’s bathroom. The toilets blocked on four separate occasions. Our room was not the only one affected by a long way, and on one occasion when I was ‘desperate’, I walked all the way over to the main reception, only to find that the toilets there were also blocked, and filled with ‘floaters!’. I was informed by a member of staff that this was not a rare occurrence.
On one occasion we needed beach towels. We went to the pool and none were available, so we went to reception as our room guide said this was an alternative location. Even though we had obtained towels there the day before, the receptionist insisted that we had to go to another pool to get towels. So off we went to the other pool, only to find that they too had none available. Back to reception with my Mr. Angry face on, and the towels materialised. Not what I call service!
The food in the restaurants was generally pretty good, and there was a choice on the menus. But again the service was a letdown. Most of the staff was pleasant, but a few were quite sullen and humourless. Certainly the staff’s general friendliness was nowhere near the high standards we have become accustomed to expect.
The beach was not cleaned on a regular basis, and on one occasion after a slight storm, rubbish, plastic bags and other detritus was just left there for a couple of days before someone took the initiative to clean it.
Several items in the gym were broken, and when this was reported we were given to believe that there was no budget to fix them. Overall we were left with an impression of a resort that was well past its prime, and where the management appeared to accept mediocrity. As a case in point, the beach grill/bar seemed to be the place for the staff to hang around and skive as it was located well away from the management offices. I have provided constructive feedback both at the resort and on-line, but have received no indication from the management that they are in any way concerned.
“LUXURY INCLUDED?” .............No Way. The management of Sandals need to visit Mauritius, Thailand or Bali to see how friendly and welcoming staff can be, and how they look after visitors every need without being asked.