Sandals Royal Bahamian Spa Resort & Offshore Island

Good but not great. The sea and sand in The Bahamas are truly stunning, the welcome generally (but not universally) warm. Sandals nice but don’t pay extra for the butler service: in our experience it is not worth it. Restaurants hard to book, over-subscribed from day 1 (and they won’t let you book in advance because you have to have an assigned room number!) We were promised access to a car for the time in Nassau but it turns out that you only qualify if you have stayed 7 consecutive nights! Not sure why that qualifies you to drive a car…. Read less

First let me say that it is rare that I write reviews, however after having seen the mixed reviews about this resort I felt I need to write this. First, we stayed in the West Bay Garden Zen Swim up with Bulter service. Butlers were a first for us and I will get to that. The arrival was excellent, with a full tour of the resort. Obviously, we were first floor, and the hallways had the normal beach type smell that every resort near the beach has, nothing overwhelming. The room was wonderful, and we had no complaints about its condition, could we have found reasons? I am sure we could have but no reason to. Service of the room happened every day, sometimes twice a day. The restaurants were wonderful, and we had no wait for seating or for food! The breakfast was really the only place that seemed understaffed in the entire resort. Everyone we encountered was friendly and welcoming! The entertainment team was a lot of fun! So, the butlers! We had the team of Haci and Alin, they were absolutely incredible! We could have not asked for better service or smiles! These two put in work for us and always ensured that our stay was AWESOME! From arrival to departure, they worked to make our trip incredible! I could go on and on about how great they made our experience! Did we enjoy the trip? Absolutely! We rebooked for next year and we are bringing our daughter for her senior trip! We have already requested Haci and Alin! Don't go into this with the thoughts of the negative reviews, it will ruin your trip! Don't let the seconds take way from the hours that you will enjoy! Live, love and laugh! Enjoy your Sandals Royal Bahamian stay and say hello to Haci and Alin, from the biggest fans, the Moore's! PS Make sure you play water volleyball with Giovanni! Although his team never seems to win, he makes it a lot of fun! Read less

Had an awful experience at this resort and with Sandals as a whole. We arrived at 5pm on our first day, with check in being 4pm we expected to get right into our room. After we checked in, they told us to wait in the lobby and someone would be right with us. We waited, and waited, flagging down employee and employee asking when we'd be taken to our room. They kept saying soon. It wasn't till after an hour that we were told our room wasn't ready yet (2 hours past check in time). We were frustrated because they kept us waiting for so long, rather then telling us from the start the room wasn't ready and invited us to enjoy the resort while we waited. When we finally go to our room the toilet was still covered in filth. We then had to BEG 3 separate employees to send someone to clean our toilet. 30 minutes later, someone finally showed up, not to clean it, but the confirm it was dirty because they didn't believe us. The rest of the trip was similar level of service. Staff was unorganized and not very pleasant. We often times had to flag down a waiter after being seated for restaurants after waiting 20 minutes for someone to come just to take our drink order. Since returning we've tried voicing our concerns with corporate but they have continued to brush us off. Not responding to emails, not giving us a phone number of someone to contact directly and pretty much not caring about us now that they've took our money. I would avoid this resort and any Sandals resort at all costs. Read less

My wife and I stayed at the Sandals Royal Bahamian (SRB) resort located on the island of Nassau in the Bahamas from 13-20 July 2024. Though we have previously stayed at other Sandals & Beaches resorts in Turks & Caicos and Antigua, this was our first time at the Royal Bahamian and we were booked in room 611 of the East Bay building which is categorized as an East Bay Honeymoon Beachfront Butler Suite (BP). Overall, our time at the resort proved to be a great, positive experience with just a few minor quibbles here & there. Resort observations: The resort was recently renovated to very good effect and the updates were evident throughout, inside & out. The resort footprint itself is quite compact as compared to the other brand properties we have stayed at it, it never felt crowded to us. Though many chairs were reserved each morning by butlers, there appeared to be many more chairs around the various pools and beach available well into each morning, up to maybe 10:30. The property was extremely well maintained, was VERY clean, and the grounds were immaculate though greenspace was limited due to the small resort footprint. Room: We really loved our room which had a true beachfront view. The room had the benefit of being recently renovated with new décor and had ample outlets which had USB A & C plugs by the nightstands. The AC worked great and we kept it set to 66 throughout the stay (though if you open the balcony door, it will shut off). There were double sinks, hand-held and regular showers, and water pressure varied but was mostly decent. Rooms had an iron & ironing board along with a hair dryer, hair straightener, and a curling wand. The bed was huge and fairly comfortable (but a bit hard for me personally). The best part was the view of the beach and hearing the gentle waves wash up on the beach as soon we opened the sliding door to the balcony. Butlers: We had a 2-person butler team (Sterling and Kevinson) during our stay which was different from our other Sandals butler experience where we had a 3-person team. We found our butlers to be personable, attentive, and professional. Sterling especially often texted or called to see if we needed anything and Kevinson would come by our chairs to bring us drinks or just to check in with us. Sterling told us up-front that his primary goal was to make our vacation as stress-free and enjoyable as possible without being intrusive and that was certainly the case for us. He found a stock of IPA beers for me somewhere which I really appreciated and he also helped my wife immensely when she woke up one morning with some tummy issues with his recommendations for warm ginger ale which helped her A LOT. Food: Fully understanding that taste is subjective, we found the food to be anywhere from good to great (with one notable exception). We tried to eat at least one meal at every option and my favorite meal was the lamb shank from the French restaurant La Plume while my wife’s was sushi at Soy. The pizzas we had were excellent and we both enjoyed the breakfast buffets (Kanoo & Tesoro) as well as the ala carte breakfast at La Plume. We thought both the dinners at Tesoro’s were enjoyable which also had a very good antipasto bar, and great bread. Butches, the chop house was also quite good and the steaks were cooked absolutely perfectly. My wife really loved her ribs and Chicken Quesadilla from Aralia house on the private island and I though their jerk chicken was pretty good as well. Unfortunately, the dinner we had at Gordon’s on the Pier was frankly not good at all. I tried the signature swordfish steak dinner and I had to use a steak knife to literally saw through the fish. Also, my wife’s filet from the surf & turf dinner was barely cooked and had a weirdly off-putting taste and texture and neither one of us could eat more than a bite of it. The private island: Twice during our stay we took the boat over to the private island and both times we enjoyed ourselves. It’s a much more secluded and relaxed experience than even the quiet pool on resort property with its own restaurant, bars, a small pool, lots of paths to explore, and beaches on both sides with lots of covered seating. Great snorkeling there as well but we did see a small shark right off the beach and other people mentioned they saw various kinds of rays as well. Staff: One of the most common complaints I read about on social media regarding Sandals resorts are the mixed, if not downright poor attitudes from resort staff. My wife and I most strongly believe that you get what you give and we strive to be friendly, respectful, and appreciative to everyone we meet starting with the people at the Sandals desk at the airport, to those working throughout the resort, to the driver Oswaldo who took us to the airport for our return home. For our experience, we found the vast majority of SRB staff to be friendly, professional, happy to help us, and just genuinely nice people who always greeted us with a hello or wished us a good morning during our walk to the pool or beach. That said, we did meet a rare few here & there who were ambivalent, got annoyed at a request, or looked just downright unhappy to be there. Shoutouts for Outstanding Service: Our Butlers who I mentioned previously. Valentino, bartender at the Coconut Grove bar, an excellent mixologist with a bright attitude and friendly smile who introduced my wife to her new-found love of chocolate martinis. Micah, the East Bay pool drink attendant who came around first thing with the drink of day and was always looking for opportunities to refill your glass, take away your empties, or find you some towels or a chair in the shade. Darcy, a server at Tesoro who was one of the only servers to check on us throughout our meals to see if we needed drink refills and who went above & beyond to get us a dessert we mentioned we loved from one of the other restaurants. David at the Aquacenter who took us out on a hobie cat sailboat and found us some sea turtles to watch swimming. Ms. Tanya from the Redlane Spa who my wife said was knowledgeable, professional and very kind to her during her massage. Quibbles & Concerns: The social media talk of the mold / mildew smell in the West Bay building is not exaggerated and goes well beyond the “What do you expect, it’s a beach hotel in the Caribbean?” level. We can’t speak for the rooms, but we did go in to take a look around and the smell is quite apparent and personally, we would not stay in that building until they figure out how to alleviate it. Housekeeping was very good and they always did an excellent job keeping the room neat, clean, & stocked with toilet tissue, soap, shampoo, etc. and the minifridge was aways refilled daily with waters, sodas, and whatnot every day. But they were inconsistent. Sometimes they came at 9:00 am, other times they came at 2:00 pm, sometimes they would leave 4 new towels, other times 6, other times 2. And even though the towels were refreshed 6 out of 7 nights while we were out for dinner, only twice did a turndown service happen despite requesting it nightly. GINA – The Sandals app feature where you can report things or make requests needs work as the one time I tried to use it to get some new towels, none ever arrived despite getting a response from the housekeeping manager acknowledging the request. Sidebar - Called Sterling the butler who came thru in short order with a whole new set of towels. Room coffee was not the signature Jamaican Blue Mountain we were so looking forward to sipping on the balcony but was instead this Royal Cup Rainforest Select brand you can get in any Holiday Inn Express. Very disappointing… One bartender at the East Bay swim-up pool bar clearly & intentionally skipped us on multiple occasions when we tried to order a drink. The only reason I can think of is that we didn’t tip him immediately as I did see others surreptitiously do… We ended our stay with a decent meal at the hibachi restaurant Kimonos but it was an odd experience as the chef was cooking and serving us main dish items from the grill well before the appetizers arrived which caused a large plate pile-up in the very limited space in front of each person dining. Bars on occasion did appear to run out of certain liquors & ingredients and drinks were inconsistent in both strength and how they were made. For us beer drinkers, a much better selection of beer beyond Kalick & Sands would be appreciated. I actually saw guys who were staying at an all-inclusive resort have to go across the street to the local liquor store to buy cases of their preferred beer. The food trucks were pretty good but there was no dedicated lunch or dinner buffets. Totally a personal thing for us but sometimes we like the simplicity of just being able to grab a quick plate of whatever looks good from a buffet and then get back to the beach or pool. Our room was apparently under the East Bay gym and twice very early we were woken up to the ongoing thump thump thump thump of large footfalls from someone running on a treadmill above us. Finally, there was no enforcement of the “resort evening” dress code at any of the 3 restaurants which supposedly required men to have long pants and closed toe shoes to eat there. Don’t get me wrong, I firmly believe the long-pants requirement is completely unnecessary and I don’t personally care if shorts and shirts (with or without collars) are worn in any restaurant. But we were specifically told at check-in and again by our butlers of the dress code for these 3 restaurants and then to see each time it didn’t appear to matter at all was annoying as I could have just left the pants at home had I known… Overall though we had a really enjoyable experience and will definitely be staying there again I think. Read less

We are currently staying at sandals Bahamas and I am extremely disappointed in everything starting from the rooms down to the service. We landed last night and got an outdated room, different from the one we booked. We had to wait until the morning to change rooms and they still gave us a small room when we booked an oversized suite. We waited over an hour to get luggage's to the new room.The service has been terrible everywhere besides water activities. Waiting hours for food at restaurants. Ordered room service and they dropped the food outside without notifying. By the time we got it the food was already cold. Went to dinner yesterday and the food gave my boyfriend an upset stomach. Every restaurant we have tried to book has not been available. I am extremely disappointed in how much we paid for this vacation for my birthday and how bad we have been enjoying it . Do not come here !! Read less