Sandals Royal Bahamian

“Better Than Many Reviews Suggest”

We booked our stay at Sandals Royal Bahamian about 11 months prior to our trip in March 2026. We had booked based on availability of flights and had not looked at the TripAdvisor reviews until shortly prior to our trip. We were a bit nervous about what to expect due to the number of poor reviews he… more

We booked our stay at Sandals Royal Bahamian about 11 months prior to our trip in March 2026. We had booked based on availability of flights and had not looked at the TripAdvisor reviews until shortly prior to our trip. We were a bit nervous about what to expect due to the number of poor reviews here. Overall we were pleasantly surprised that the hotel exceeded our expectations based on these reviews. Check-In Check-in was a shambles. Our flight from the UK had been delayed by almost 3 hours and we then had to wait approximately 30 minutes for the shuttle bus to the hotel which had around 20 guests on it. Everyone was invited to sit down in the concierge lounge for the check-in process, but this was very slow and laborious and we had been in the hotel over an hour before getting to our room. Check-in seems to be a particular weakness of Sandals Resorts and after a long day spent travelling, this is not the best start to a vacation. Rooms We stayed in a West Bay Honeymoon Club Level Oversized Junior Suite (HG). This is a very nice room in the west building. The room itself was very large with plenty of storage space and we had no complaints about the cleanliness of the room or bathroom, although the provision of smaller towels and face cloths could occasionally be a bit haphazard. Our only real complaint about this room was that it faced to the west over an area of wasteland that had construction in progress at one end. Given that our room was fairly close to the beach end of the building ,we were not disturbed by the construction, however guests further away from the beach may have been. If you are staying in this building, we would recommend trying to get a room facing to the east and overlooking the pool area. The West Bay building did have problems with the elevators during our stay. There are three elevators in the building, one of which was out of order for most of the stay. Over one weekend, all three elevators had stopped working which was particularly annoying given that we were staying on the fifth floor. All three were fixed by Monday lunchtime, however. Dining The standard of restaurants and bars was generally excellent. You do have to make your reservations as soon as you arrive as the three restaurants requiring reservations are normally booked up approximately four days in advance. The food and service were very good everywhere, particularly in the Italian and the steakhouse. You cannot get a decent espresso or cappuccino coffee anywhere in this resort, however. Pool area We generally had no trouble finding sun loungers around the pool, although many of these are reserved by the butlers at first light (7 am). We were out diving most mornings and were generally not trying to find a lounger until around 2 pm. The hotel has a private island a short boat trip away, so a number of guests each day are on the island rather than around the pool. On a couple of days when the island was unavailable due to choppy seas, demand for sun loungers around the pool was noticeably greater. There was always a plentiful supply of pool towels. Diving We are both divers and spent most mornings of our stay out on the dive boat. The dive team led by Wenzel were excellent. The quality of the diving was generally very good. The Bahamas does not have the spectacular colourful coral that is found in other resorts such as St. Lucia and much of the coral here is rather bleached out. What it does have however is generally excellent visibility, lots of wrecks and plenty of reef sharks that will often follow a group of divers around a reef. We had not previously been close to sharks when diving, so this trip to the Bahamas was worth it just for that. The diving was generally very well organised however the filling of cylinders was inconsistent. The dive boat was fully loaded every day with approximately 70 cylinders whatever the number of divers on the boat. At the start of our trip we were finding that a “full” tank could vary in pressure from anywhere between 2000 and 4000 psi. You could end up trying 3 or 4 different cylinders to find one with sufficient air. 2600 psi (for example) may be sufficient for most dives, but nobody wants to be the diver with the lowest air, and if some divers have 3600 in their tanks then 2600 is just not enough. By the end of our 10-day stay, the filling of cylinders seemed to be more consistent. We are from the UK and have our own equipment with DIN regulators. Although the dive shop did have some DIN cylinders, we were unable to find them during our first couple of days diving as they could have been anywhere on the boat (and all of the ‘full’ cylinders had caps on). Once Wenzel returned from his weekend off on day 3, he made sure that the DIN cylinders were all tagged and arranged for us in one particular place on the dive boat. It is worth noting that Sandals Royal Bahamian has diving ‘on site’ and under normal circumstances, the dive boat leaves from a jetty near the dive shop. During our stay however, the majority of our diving was conducted from an inlet on the south side of the island due to choppy seas on the north side where the hotel is located. This meant a 20-minute bus journey at the beginning and end of each morning’s diving, which was a bit of a disappointment given that we had specifically booked a resort with on-site diving. It did mean, however, that we were able to dive on many more of the South Coast dive sites that would've taken considerably longer to get to by boat. Overall Overall we thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Sandals Royal Bahamian and would return there. The hotel is better than many of the reviews here would suggest however we have rated it at 4 stars rather than 5 because there are some shortcomings that need to be addressed.

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“Bahama Royals Sandals”

Very nice resort. Nice employees. A little compact. Seaweed issue needing resolution. Shoutout to Chauncey (water sports), Ronnie (pool service), Khamrin (beach service) for taking great care of us.

“Great hotel and good value all inclusive - The best”

First time forking out the money to stay at a Sandals resort and it pretty much lived up to expectation. I actually leave in 2 days time so this could be premature, but the food and drink is absolutely first class. Not having a butler service has meant getting down to the pool to reserve sunbeds at… more

First time forking out the money to stay at a Sandals resort and it pretty much lived up to expectation. I actually leave in 2 days time so this could be premature, but the food and drink is absolutely first class. Not having a butler service has meant getting down to the pool to reserve sunbeds at 6AM, but thats not the end of the world, its quite nice to say good morning to everyone up at this time! Bedrooms are clean and tidy and the buildings are slightly older but well kept and definitely not tired. Well maintained. The only negative I would say is 80% of the staff go overboard to make you welcome and enjoy your stay, the other 20% don't even make eye contact when serving you a drink and more than often walk straight past you with their head down when you're waiting, despite trying to attract their attention. But this is what it is and doesn't distract from a really nice resort and what has been a great holiday for us. Highlight - The piano bar!

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