Sandy Bay Beach Club Hotel

My hubby and I stayed here from the 20th dec 06 for 1 week as we booked a twin centre holiday we travelled over to Antigua for the new year. This hotel was lovely and its right on the beach with clean with calm shallow blue water. The sunset views here are stunning and it makes for a lovely stroll. We were disapointed on arrival as we paid almost £5000 for our holiday and we did expect it to look like it did in the pictures but they are misleading, they appear to offer a spacious pool which in fact is fairly small and the adult only jaquzzi allows children to splash around in i know kids like to have fun but adults wants to chill out in the supposed desiganted area and this wasnt possible. The pics show a fresh clean decorated bar area, but this was nothing like the blue & white fresh in fact it was brown and quite smelly. BUT PLEASE DONT LET THIS PUT YOU OFF... as i am told by a friend who has been there since we went and she says its been refurbed and they had an amazing honeymoon there, I just expected a little more of an update cleaner hotel for Barbados & for what we paid, but its rated at a 3* plus so i suppose thats a fair rating.
The drinks ( the rum punch) is too nice !! the food options werent great and very repetitive we also paid for a ocean front room which should have been located with the pool / spa literally on our terrace area as we were told this was the only room left, so we paid the £400 supplment for this but when we were shown to our room we were right at the back of the hotel above reception and with a partial ocean view non the less the room was 2 storey and huge but we did not need a 2 bed room and the family that had been given our 1 bed room needed a a 2 but they were too pleased with the view and direct pool access, but the reception didnt help us at all they said that the family had arrived before us and were already unpacked, we were not happy but wed travelled all that way and were not going to let it ruin our holiday ( upon return i told the travel agent and virgin sent us a £100 good will VOUCHER - a bloody cheek as we paid cash when we booked not voucher and they sent us a £84 cheque) aparantly we should have insisted on being given the room we booked and paid for, well we tried this but short of evicting the other holiday makers what could we do !
Barbados is beautiful, we felt safe shopping in Bridgetown and we strolled around the harbour / marina, i went shopping xmas eve alone while my then boyfriend stayed on the beach and i wouldnt have done that if i didnt feel safe. We visisted the SANDY LANE - celeb hotel by a public lane access we sat on the beach, bought drinks from the bar and took a stroll around the hotel shops and gardens. we spotted Michael Winner sunbathing and simon cowell was aparantly there along with other celebs but we didnt see him !! We plan to holiday on Barbados again, and i would stay at the Sandy Lane again but i would research if it had been refurbed and menu options by emialing the hotel direct before booking. Our 2nd week was spent on Antigua a hour or so flight on a small plane ( a little scarey) see my review for JOLLY BEACH RESORT - ANTIGUA - my hubby propsed there that week and we retruned there last July to marry and it was AMAZING!!!!