The aim for this holiday was to have a relaxing all-inclusive hotel with good weather and some golf. All of these aims were achieved.
However my feedback would be definitely not a 5* . We had a lovely refurnished suite on the Buff with great views . I understand that lots of the other rooms are rather dated. My only criticism is that I would have preferred to have recliners on the balcony rather than the small tub which we never used and never saw anyone else use. The trip up and down the hill to the main area was easy as either the butler or more often the shuttle bus ( every 5 mins ) took us .
The beach was nice, definitely not the lovely white sand on the www but good. The sea however was really rough all the time; over two weeks it was always a red or yellow flag . Non confident swimmers should consider other hotels .
The food was good-in particular we loved Armandos and Kimonos. It is all a bit bland and the menus didn’t change over the two weeks except for the daily special . The queues in the evening for the mainly non bookable restaurants were often over an hour! Not very 5*
The Pavilion bar is really the pool bar , filled with the louder and maybe younger clientele. Herbies is fun especially when the steel bar plays but closes at 10pm . The English pub is like a Wetherspoons ( not 5*) and the Sunset bar is awful , devoid of any atmosphere. Management should revamp this as the decorations and soft furnishings are soulless.
We had a butler which was lovely although they all seemed to do things differently. It was great to have our lounger reserved in the morning with drinks brought to you on the beach .
It was around the edges Sandals lost stars for us . Wine ran out at 8:30 in one of our restaurants, we waited 5 days for the bars to be stocked with Bitters and items on the menus such as calamari were always missing across our two week stay .
The small on site golf course was fun and made for good practice , but with poor bunkers and greens would not please a serious golfer . The cost of the compulsory hire of biggies was ridiculous at 40 USD for 9 holes . Caddies are not available due to COVID and a buggy is compulsory.
However my partner is a golfing beginner so it was great to spend a couple of hours going round the very tight course . We did this 7 times and enjoyed each one . Henrik , the Pro , was great , offering little tips and we bought an on course lesson which was excellent.
We did go north on the hotel shuttle to the bigger course Sandals Cap . This was a proper golf course , fairways were wide and bunkers excellent . The views actually were not as great as the La Toc course . It was also a 40 min journey so we only did it once.
Overall good but too big and busy for us to want to repeat
