Sandals Royal Bahamian Spa Resort & Offshore Island

Nassau, Bahamas

The hotel

As if this hotel wasn't luxurious enough already, the recent renovations have taken Sandals Royal Bahamian to another level - and they're ready to welcome you back to experience everything new they have to offer. The swim-up suites are the standout room type at this property, allowing you to step right from the comfort of your room straight into a gently flowing river pool with views of the ocean ahead. The Island Village offers privacy and romance and; as with all Sandals properties; the butler service will leave you not having to lift a finger. The real highlight of this Sandals hotel is the private offshore island - just jump on a Love runner and you'll be there in 5 minutes. It's basically a resort in itself, complete with beach club, pool, swim-up bar and spa experiences. Paradise: found and included. When you are feeling a bit more adventurous, there are a host of activities included in your stay so you can work up an appetite. You'll be spoilt for choice when you do get hungry though, with 10 gourmet restaurants and 2 food trucks - you'll have to make sure you stay long enough to ensure you try them all!

Amenities

  • Hobie Cats
  • Kayaking
  • Scuba Diving
  • Snorkelling
  • Tennis
  • Windsurfing
  • Honeymoon
  • Wedding
  • Bar
  • Evening Entertainment
  • Fitness Centre/Gym
  • Restaurant

Where is it

On Cable Beach, Nassau. Transfer time from airport: 15 min.

Hotel information

All rooms feature air-conditioning, flat-screen TV with cable channels, complimentary WiFi access, tea/coffee-making facilities, mini-bar with soft drinks, wines and local beers, safe, iron and board, amenity kits, hairdryer and 1 king-size bed. All rooms sleep maximum 2 adults and include round trip airport transfers. 

East Bay Premium rooms are located on floors 1-6 of the East Bay building with views of the French courtyard. 

Club rooms include: Access to club lounge which offers a host of amenities including private check-in/check-out, all day snacks, alcoholic beverages and signature cocktails, coffee machine, selection of board games and dedicated concierge. Club rooms also include all day room service, bar stocked with a variety of spirits and Robert Mondavi Twin Oaks® wine, and bath robes.

Butler rooms include: personal butler service for all your needs during your stay with a cell phone to reach them when needed. Guests also receive plush robes with slippers, fully stocked bar complete with premium spirits and 24 hour room service. Some also include Rolls Royce airport transfers. 

Sandals resorts are Luxury Included®; from luxury accommodation, 5-Star Global Gourmet™, unlimited premium-brand drinks, transfers, tips and taxes, to a huge range of sports facilities and entertainment — it’s all included!

East Bay Zen Garden Rooms are located on floors 2-4 of the East Bay building, with views of the resorts gardens, featuring a rainfall shower.

Island Village Honeymoon Luxury Villa Rooms are situated on the 2nd floor surrounded by the lush gardens of the Island Village.

East Bay Honeymoon Zen Garden Rooms are located on floors 2-3 of the East Bay building, with views of the resorts gardens from a private balcony.

East Bay Luxury Rooms are located on floors 1-6 of the East Bay building, with views of the courtyard and an additional cosy seating area.

East Bay Zen Garden Walkout Club Level rooms are on the ground floor of the East Bay building featuring an oversized patio that leads to the beautifully landscaped gardens.

East Bay Oceanview Premium rooms are situated on floors 5-6 of the East Bay building with large bay windows overlooking the sea. 

East Bay Oceanview Grande Luxe rooms are located on the upper floors of the East Bay building, featuring a private balcony with stunning ocean views as well as an additional indoor sitting area.

West Bay Grande Luxe Walkout Oversized Club Level Junior Suites are on the ground floor with a private patio featuring views of the tropical gardens and pool.

East Bay Honeymoon Oceanview Club Level rooms are located in the Balmoral Oceanfront Village on floors 2-6, with a private balcony overlooking the ocean.

Island Village Club Level Junior Villa Suites feature an outdoor tranquillity soaking tub on the patio or balcony, overlooking the gardens. These are situated on the ground or first floor.

East Bay Poolside Walkout Club rooms are on the ground floor, featuring a private patio that's just steps from the pool.

West Bay Honeymoon Oceanview Club Level Suites are located on floors 3-5, offering stunning views of the ocean, gardens or pool from the private balcony.

West Bay Oceanview Penthouse Club Level Suites are on the top floor of the building, with views of the ocean, gardens and pool from the private balcony.

East Bay Beachfront Club Level rooms are situated on floor 2-4 and include an oversized balcony overlooking the beach, ocean and the resort's offshore island.

West Bay One Bedroom Butler Suites are on floors 2-3 and include a separate master bedroom and living room with a dining area. The private balcony offers garden views.

Island Village One Bedroom Butler Villa Suite are on the second floor of this picturesque village, with a tranquillity soaking tub for 2 on the balcony. These suites have separate master bedroom and living room with dining area and fully stocked bar.

West Bay Honeymoon Hideaway Oceanview One Bedroom Butler Suites are located on floors 2-5, with a spacious living/dining room with fully stocked bar. The luxurious suite offers ocean views from the private balcony.

West Bay Oceanview One Bedroom Butler Suites feature a loveseat in the bedroom, as well as separate living room with a private balcony overlooking the ocean, located on floors 2-5.

East Bay Honeymoon Beachfront Butler Suites are located on the top floor, with a fully furnished balcony overlooking the ocean, beach and the resort's offshore island. The master bedroom features a fully stocked bar and cosy seating area.

West Bay Honeymoon Oceanview One Bedroom Butler Suites are spacious suites located near the pool and restaurants, on floors 2-5. They feature a separate master bedroom and living room with fully stocked bar.

West Bay Oceanfront Penthouse One Bedroom Butler Suites are located on the top floor with stunning sea views from the private balcony. There is a spacious open-plan living/dining room, as well as separate master bedroom.

West Bay Honeymoon Hideaway Swim-up Crystal Lagoon Zen Butler Suites are located on the ground floor, with zero entry access to the garden river pool.

Island Village Walkout Butler Hideaway Villa Suites are romantic retreats situated on the ground floor with views of the tropical gardens and a private plunge pool on the patio, as well as a tranquillity soaking tub and bistro set. The expansive bedroom includes a seating area and fully stocked bar.

West Bay Swim-up Oversized Club Level Junior Suites are located on the ground floor with a private walkout patio complete with lounge chairs. The spacious bedroom features a loveseat and fully stocked bar.

Island Village One Bedroom Walkout Butler Villa Suites feature an enclosed private patio complete with plunge pool and tranquillity soaking tub for two. The suite consists of a separate living room and master bedroom.

West Bay Honeymoon Hideaway Swim-up Crystal Lagoon Zen One Bedroom Butler Suites are on the ground floor, featuring zero access to the garden river pool from the private patio. The suite is made up of a separate master bedroom and living room with dining area and fully stocked bar.

Island Village One Bedroom Butler Villa Suites are secluded ground floor suites featuring a private patio complete with plunge pool and tranquillity soaking tub for two. The master bedroom seamlessly transitions into an open concept sitting area.

East Bay Beachfront Swim-up Butler Suites are located on the ground floor, just steps away from the white sandy beach. The patio features lounge chairs and a bistro set, and offers zero entry access to the infinity pool.

West Bay One Bedroom Swim-up Butler Suites offer views of the pools, gardens and a glimpse of the ocean from the ground floor patio; with direct access to the zero entry swim-up pool as well as a tranquillity soaking tub. The suite has a separate living room, with the master bedroom featuring love seat and fully stocked bar.

West Bay One Bedroom Oceanview Swim-up Butler Suite offer full ocean views from the walkout patio, that has direct access to the zero entry swim-up pool as well as a tranquillity soaking tub. The suite is spacious, with a separate living room complete with fully stocked bar.

10 dining options: La Plume (French cuisine), Butch's Island Chophouse (Steak and Seafood), Tesoro (Italian), Kanoo (Pan-Caribbean cuisine), Kimonos (entertaining Teppanyaki, reservations required), Aralia House (located on Barefoot cay, serving fresh seafood and grilled specialities), Calico (cafe), The Queen's Peal (serving traditional pub food), Gordon's Pier Restaurant (Seafood), and Soy (Sushi). 2 food trucks: Coco Queen (Bahamian fare), and Sweets 'N' Tings (sweet treats and coffee). 8 bars including 2 swim-up pool bars. Weekly late night chocolate buffets and sparkling wine breakfasts.

Nightly entertainment with live performances, cocktail parties and theme nights.

4 Swimming pools. Sandals Barefoot Cay private offshore island featuring two secluded beaches, beach club with pool, whirlpool, and swim-up bar, Red Lane® Spa experience and restaurant. Scuba-diving (FREE for PADI-certified divers, fee applies to others), snorkelling, windsurfing, kayaks, paddle boards, water trikes, sailboats and Hobie Cats. Tennis, basketball, beach volleyball, lawn chess, croquet, board games, shuffleboard, pool tables and darts. Fitness centre with aerobic and aqua-fit classes. Red Lane® Spa (treatments*).

Laundry/dry-cleaning service*. Complimentary WiFi access in all room categories and public areas. Shop* and SnapShots Photo shop*. Round trip airport transfers included with all room types, Butler room types include Rolls Royce transfers (arrival and departure).

* Denotes local charge.

Two people in love over 18 years only.

Dress code: evening dress code for gentlemen states that smart trousers or jeans, long or short sleeve dress shirts (with or without collar) and dress shoes or sandals must be worn. Shorts, t-shirts, trainers, flip-flops, hats and caps are not permitted in the evening. 

Please note: please ensure you have adequate insurance to take part in adventurous activities.

Rating summary

  • Location Image of the Tripadvisor rating
  • Sleep Quality Image of the Tripadvisor rating
  • Rooms Image of the Tripadvisor rating
  • Service Image of the Tripadvisor rating
  • Value Image of the Tripadvisor rating
  • Cleanliness Image of the Tripadvisor rating

Traveller rating

  • Excellent (6986)
  • Very good (2954)
  • Average (1541)
  • Poor (920)
  • Terrible (711)
Image of the Tripadvisor rating Stay away, this hotel is awful

Jul 15, 2024 C12OLY

Awful, awful dirty hotel. Customer service is non existent. Just take a look at the pictures I have attached. We booked this holiday for our honeymoon. We booked Sandals on the basis that it is marketed as a luxury hotel chain. This was not the case. The two rooms we were initially placed in for the first two evenings were frankly disgusting.… Read more
Awful, awful dirty hotel. Customer service is non existent. Just take a look at the pictures I have attached. We booked this holiday for our honeymoon. We booked Sandals on the basis that it is marketed as a luxury hotel chain. This was not the case. The two rooms we were initially placed in for the first two evenings were frankly disgusting. Dirty, smelly, tatty and dated. We wasted half of the holiday is awful rooms. On the second evening dealing with Club Sandals concierge staff, who refused to allow me to make a complaint directly, would not pass me an email address, I made additional effort to communicate with your resort management. The staff just do not care and have no substance to the "here to serve your needs". I have attempted on three occasions to contact the hotel before posting this review, with zero response. I would stay very clear of this hotel. Read less
Image of the Tripadvisor rating Wonderful

Jul 13, 2024 Waay2018 Denver, Colorado

The team did a wonderful job helping us celebrate a special birthday. The grounds were lovely, the entertainment was fun, and the food was tasty. Some of the rooms are very worn (even the ones that were supposedly just renovated), especially given how much the resort charges per night. If you are eligible, the dine off the resort program is a… Read more
The team did a wonderful job helping us celebrate a special birthday. The grounds were lovely, the entertainment was fun, and the food was tasty. Some of the rooms are very worn (even the ones that were supposedly just renovated), especially given how much the resort charges per night. If you are eligible, the dine off the resort program is a lot of fun and a great way to see the island. Read less
Image of the Tripadvisor rating Save your money and believe the reviews!

Jul 10, 2024 Jamie K

To say my husband and I were disappointed in our experience is an understatement. We have been to other Sandals resorts and I have always left feeling pampered and rejuvenated. This resort left me in tears and contacting my travel agent to go home after only a few days. We arrived to a dirty room in the West Bay building. There was a puddle on… Read more
To say my husband and I were disappointed in our experience is an understatement. We have been to other Sandals resorts and I have always left feeling pampered and rejuvenated. This resort left me in tears and contacting my travel agent to go home after only a few days. We arrived to a dirty room in the West Bay building. There was a puddle on the floor (which I later discovered was from a leaking fridge) and another guest's hair was on the tables and balcony. We did not have enough towels and when we asked for some, we were told they didn't have enough. We pressed on thinking surely this was a fluke and things would get better. They only got much, much worse. We experienced very slow service at the restaurants, often waiting 50+ minutes between courses. We also received the wrong food on more than one occasion, and it was usually cold. It's sad when the best meal at a "five star" resort is a cheeseburger in the pub because it was hot. I had to avoid water in the restaurants as well because there were things floating in it more than once. Staff was incredibly rude and made us feel as though we were bothering them. I sat at the bar on the island with only one other couple and was not acknowledged for 15 minutes. The bartender just kind of puttered around ignoring me. Most bartenders would ignore guests, or point at you and say "Yeah?". Multiple times I was given the wrong drink order or given a drink in a dirty glass. The worst part came on our last night. We noticed an abundance of bugs, especially inside. Outside, I get it--it's a tropical environment. But why are there so many flies inside? We went to Tesoro after my husband spent an hour and 45 minutes trying to change our dinner reservation at the steak house, only to be told no. My husband went to the antipasto/salad bar, and he noticed an abundance of fruit flies around the lettuce. He tapped the romaine lettuce container and at least 50 fruit flies swarmed out. These are only a very small fraction of the amount of issues we had. We met with Selina, talked with Kevin the GM, were promised improvement and a follow up email with some sort of corrective action, but it was all lip service. This company truly does not care about their guests. I have reached out to customer service multiple times and have yet to get a response. Stay far away from this resort and the Sandals brand if you want to enjoy your vacation. Read less
Image of the Tripadvisor rating Trust the negative reviews you are reading!!

Jul 10, 2024 flipball02

Before booking with Sandals, I would really recommend reading the negative reviews! We saw some before we booked and hoped they were one offs, but this is NOT a five star resort and you will be overpaying for terrible service and terrible management. I would recommend looking elsewhere if you want 5 star service! Below were our issues, and… Read more
Before booking with Sandals, I would really recommend reading the negative reviews! We saw some before we booked and hoped they were one offs, but this is NOT a five star resort and you will be overpaying for terrible service and terrible management. I would recommend looking elsewhere if you want 5 star service! Below were our issues, and Sandals, you can save your templated response to this review. We’ve reached out multiple times to the customer support email you give everyone and have gotten the same lack of service there as well! Here's a breakdown of our stay: 1. We arrived to find out that the room we had booked and paid for was no longer available, a fact we should have been informed about prior to our arrival. 2. After being told about the room issue, we were taken to lunch at Kanoo, where we waited over an hour for our food, which came out wrong. Service was incredibly slow, and we had to ask multiple times for refills on drinks. 3. Upon returning to our room after lunch, our bags were not there, despite expecting them. As a pumping mother with a 6-month-old, this was particularly frustrating as I needed access to my pump supplies. 4.Dining at the steakhouse was another ordeal. Despite having a reservation made by our butler, we waited 15 minutes to be seated (which we were okay with and understood) and endured a two-hour meal due to slow service. We had to fetch our own drink refills at the bar because no one ever came back to our table… they would just drop the food and run. 5. Despite requesting coffee via room service at 6am, it never arrived until we followed up with our butler at 7:30am. What was the point of having an in-room exclusive dining if they never responded? 6. Breakfast at the French restaurant was similarly disappointing with long waits for service and missing beverages. Took over 20 minutes to get water and then another 15 for our drinks. a. After this, we spoke to the food and beverage manager who was super nice and told us everything would change. From then on though, we felt like we were being watched and heard the staff making comments about us. Felt uneasy and unsafe. 7. Our room wasn’t cleaned out 2 out of the 3 days and dishes were left in the room and the bed wasn’t made up. 8. Saturday night, our butler sat us at the English pub and we waited 20 minutes before getting up and asking a server if we could get some service. She then blamed it on our butler saying he should have told them…It’s funny though because while we were sitting waiting there, another server went to the table next to us 3 times to help them. 9. I had asked our butler to freeze my ice packs the night before we checked out so I could travel with my breast milk and he had our checkout date wrong so when I asked for the frozen ice packs back the next day, he lied and told me the freezer was broken… and one ice pack was frozen while the other wasn’t. a. I talked to the F&B manager about this two days prior and they had a room dedicated to these types of things and I specifically told our butler to talk with her if he needed to! Traveling mothers out there you know the stress of pumping and traveling! Overall, the service was severely lacking, even the cheapest cruise has much better service. Staff appeared unfriendly and overwhelmed, and there was a noticeable lack of management presence. Despite assurances from management ( special shout out to Fabion who never followed up with us like he promised and we had to call and email him to get a response), our concerns were not addressed in a timely manner, and we were left feeling extremely disappointed with our stay. We hope management takes these issues seriously to improve future guest experiences. We’ve also asked multiple times for someone to give us a call so we could address these issues! Read less
Image of the Tripadvisor rating Service needs improving

Jul 10, 2024 stephenhH5772MP

This will be a true review I’m not fussy but expect higher standards when I pay huge money and especially on my Honeymoon CHECK IN Absolutely superb from the minute you walk in to the point they take you to your room you feel like royalty and they are lovely and polite. ROOMS Dated but clean well maintained and comfortable, the rooms don’t… Read more
This will be a true review I’m not fussy but expect higher standards when I pay huge money and especially on my Honeymoon CHECK IN Absolutely superb from the minute you walk in to the point they take you to your room you feel like royalty and they are lovely and polite. ROOMS Dated but clean well maintained and comfortable, the rooms don’t get made up like a 5 star or tidied but it’s ok no big deal and fridges don’t get replenished as regular as you would expect BREAKFAST choice of 3 places Buffet and choices which are good, service is slow, and you queue a lot of the time Be aware most of the restaurants have no A/C so of an evening it is like a sweat box and very uncomfortable, service is beyond slow I asked many times for a drink sometimes 3 and still didn’t get one, refill of wine SLOW, there is no buffet in any restaurants of an evening everything is set meal which can be repetitive, getting a reservation is hard unless you want to eat late, and again queue’s if you are going to the restaurants that don’t require one. POOL BAR Staff are rude well the Male ones are the ladies are nice, some don’t even talk to you they just point get your drink and move on, the main pool bar in the music area, I waited 15 minutes and got asked 3 times and still didn’t get a drink on many occasions so just went to the central beach bar which was a bit better, so my experience for day drinks wasn’t great at all and everybody was complaining. So all in all started off amazing then with just slow service and lack of service or sometimes no service, that’s what let’s this place down the staff are just forgetful and slow, and it spoils the 5 STAR experience, also we expected service at the sunbeds we got that for 4hrs on our 9 days holiday which we normally every day at the other Sandles ive stayed at you get that service, everybody was complaining the manager was consistently with guests. So I’d say if your going 4 days with a group happy days but definitely not a 5 start couples experience unless they change their ways and it could save what could be a lovely place to stay. Read less