Our Honest Sandals Barbados Review
Sandals Barbados is a great choice for a beach vacation because you get two resorts in one! It’s right next door to Sandals Royal Barbados, so close you can easily walk between the two.
Read on for our honest and real Sandals Barbados review so you can decide if it’s the right resort for you.
What to Know About Sandals Barbados
There are two Sandals resorts in Barbados: Sandals Barbados and Sandals Royal Barbados. They are literally right next door to each other with just a pathway between them, so you have access to everything at both no matter which one you stay at.
Sandals Barbados was a different resort brand before and Sandals renovated it when they purchased it, whereas they built Sandals Royal Barbados from the ground up. This means that Sandals Barbados has a bit of an older feel, while SRB is more luxurious and newer.
It also means that Sandals Barbados is cheaper. So if you don’t mind staying in a room that is not as fancy, this is a great way to have the full Barbados experience for less money. Sandals Barbados also has more of a quiet atmosphere.
Getting to Sandals Barbados
Sandals Barbados is located close to Grantley Adams International Airport, so you can get your vacation started quickly. After we arrived at the airport, we checked in with the Sandals desk and they put us on a complimentary shuttle. We got to the resort just 15 minutes later!
Sandals Barbados Rooms and Suites
Rooms at Sandals Barbados are divided into three villages: Caribbean, Beachfront, and Crystal Lagoon.
We stayed in a beachfront club level suite with a Tranquility Soaking Tub™ for Two on the balcony. While we loved the great views over the resort to the ocean, we did find the room a bit dated in its décor.
If having a more modern room is important to you, you can stay at neighboring Sandals Royal Barbados, which has swanky options like Rondoval suites with private pool sanctuaries and beachfront SkyPool suites, which have long balconies with elevated private infinity pools.
However, there is a new room type that has been added at Sandals Barbados: the Beachfront Penthouse One-Bedroom Butler Suite. This features a huge top-floor terrace with great views and a soaking tub; separate living room; and personal butler service.
Other good room options at Sandals Barbados include Crystal Lagoon swim-up suites, which have private patios offering direct access to a lagoon pool plus soaking tubs.
Sandals Barbados Food and Drink
You get access to 21 restaurants between Sandals Barbados and Sandals Royal Barbados, which gives you a huge variety of cuisines to try.
Sandals Barbados has 11 restaurants serving Caribbean, Italian, Asian, Indian, sushi, pizza, steak, seafood, and more. There’s a café offering Parisian-style pastries and a hot dog stand by the pool for quick lunches.
Something special about these resorts is that they offer some healthier dining options. New concepts for Sandals are Heart and Sol, which has smoothies plus lighter fare for lunch including vegetarian and vegan options, plus Greenhouse, which is a farm to table restaurant serving amazing fresh dishes that we thought were some of the best we’ve had at any Sandals resort.
For breakfast, we alternated between going to the buffet at Spices, an a la carte restaurant, Sweet’n’Salty for doughnuts, Heart & Sol for smoothies and acai bowls, and the Cafe de Paris for crepes and pastries plus specialty coffees.
At lunch, we loved smoothies and wraps at Heart & Sol for smoothies and wraps, pizza at Dino’s, and burgers, jerk chicken, and quesadillas at the Mariner.
Top restaurants we tried for dinner include Soy for sushi, Chi for Asian fusion, the American Tavern, and Bombay for Indian. As we mentioned before, we loved the new restaurant Greenhouse, even though we aren’t vegetarian. I had the most flavorful meal I’ve ever had at a Sandals, a grilled portabello mushroom dish.
Sandals Barbados has 8 bars including a swim-up bar and a beach bar. There are more bars at Sandals Royal Barbados including the amazing Sky Rooftop Bar, which has a glass infinity pool and incredible sunset views.
Sandals Barbados Pools
There are 3 pools at Sandals Barbados, with the main pool being beachfront. We really liked hanging out at this pool and found it easy to get chairs here. It’s also close to restaurants so you can easily get something to eat. There is a nice quiet pool close to the Crystal Lagoon area as well.
You also have access to multiple pools at Sandals Royal Barbados, including the rooftop infinity pool.
The Beach at Sandals Barbados
Sandals Barbados has one of the best beaches at a Sandals resort, in our opinion. It’s on one of the top beaches in Barbados, the sand is soft and white, the beach area is large and lined with palm trees, and the water is calm and clear.
The only issue we had with the beach is that it’s hard to get a good lounge chair. We got up at 7 am and still ended up three rows back from the water. Note that this is a public beach, and there are some vendors.
Activities and Entertainment at Sandals Barbados
Sandals Barbados has a ton of complimentary activities including snorkeling, paddleboarding, kayaking, Hobie Cat sailing, scuba diving, and glass bottom boat rides. Land activities include day and night tennis, beach volleyball, bocce ball, table tennis, pool, and a fitness center. There’s also a bowling alley at Sandals Royal Barbados.
There is entertainment every night including beach parties, live music, theme nights, Barbados Day celebrations, and more. One of the bars is a piano bar.
The Red Lane Spa is also available here, for spa services which cost extra. (We liked going to the one at Sandals Royal Barbados, as it has a nicer ambiance and is bigger.)
Barbados is a really interesting island to explore, so we recommend doing excursions if you can (although these do cost extra). We loved our snorkeling excursion to three shipwrecks; it came with food onboard and a fun vibe with music.
Sandals Barbados Review Final Thoughts
We loved Barbados and thought the beach at this resort was incredible and one of the best we’ve seen. And while we liked Sandals Barbados, we found that we prefer the newer rooms at Sandals Royal Barbados. However, if you don’t spend much time in your room, Sandals Barbados is great for a less expensive option. Either way, you get access to a ton of amenities and really good restaurants, in a beautiful setting.
