Sandals Barbados and Sandals Royal Barbados - Part 1

Sunday

Sandals Barbados and Sandals Royal Barbados are two separate resorts, but because Sandals Royal Barbados was built right next to the original Sandals Barbados, they are more like one large resort. Even though we were staying on the Sandals Barbados side, we could use the amenities at both resorts. That meant we could choose from twenty different restaurants and six pools, including an infinity pool and Sandals’ first roof-top pool. I was looking forward to trying them all!

When we arrived at Sandals Barbados after a long day of traveling, it was almost 4 o’clock. We checked in at the Club Sandals lounge and one of the staff walked us over to our room in the Royal Building, which overlooked the main pool and the beach. The room was on the 3rd floor and had a four-poster king bed and an updated bathroom with lots of blue glass tile and a rain showerhead. One strange feature was the picture on the wall beside the bed that slid open to reveal a window into the shower. I guess it might be kind of romantic to look in on your showering mate, but directly across from the shower was the toilet. Not so romantic. :-)

Unfortunately, our air conditioning unit didn’t seem to be working. We’d only been in the room for a few minutes when a maintenance worker knocked on the door to say the problem had been reported and he was going to go up on the roof to take a look. It probably just needed to be charged. An easy fix! I really wanted to settle in and unpack, but Ron said we’d better wait in case we needed to change rooms, so we took a short walk around the grounds and went to Café de Paris for an iced coffee. An hour later, we went back to the room, but the air conditioner was still blowing warm-ish air. Ron called the front desk and asked to be moved to a different room, but they told him the air conditioner might take a while to cool down so we should go to dinner, and it would be working by the time we got back.

We choose Schooners, the seafood restaurant, for dinner. It was a pretty, open-air restaurant between the main pool and the beach. I ordered the seafood ceviche, peppered shrimp and the Mother’s Day special dessert, a spiced poached pear with white chocolate. I also tried the restaurant’s signature drink, which was like a cucumber gimlet but with Appleton rum. Yum! I was frustrated about the air conditioning, but I knew the problem would get sorted out eventually, so I was determined not to let it spoil the evening.

When we got back to the room after dinner, it was still warm. Sigh… We walked over to Club Sandals and one of the ladies came back with us, looked at the unit, called maintenance and confirmed that yes, the air conditioner was broken. Then she tried to find us another room but there weren’t any available for that night. It was 10 o’clock and it had been a long day, so we gave up, unpacked our suitcases and went to bed.

Monday

We slept OK, but even though the room cooled off overnight, everything felt damp and musty. After breakfast, we decided we would try one more time to change rooms. This time when we went to Club Sandals, they said they had another room for us. Hurray!! We just had to wait until the new room was ready at 3 o’clock. That was fine; we weren’t planning on being in the room anyway. It was beautiful outside!

We spent the day exploring the resort. It was a stunning property. There were brightly colored flowers and fountains and pools everywhere. From the roof-top pool and Sky Bar, the views of the infinity pool and the electric blue ocean were incredible. We could even see the red and white stripes of the South Point Lighthouse in the distance. We played for a while in the infinity pool but decided we liked the main pool on the Barbados side better. It was close to our room and the beach and had a swim-up bar. I found Sweet n’ Salty’s, the donut shop, and picked up a couple of donuts – a Coco Loco and a Red Velvet. They were delicious, and I ended up going back every day after that. By the end of the week, I’d tried most of the donuts on the menu. My favorites were the S’mores, 24K Carrot and Coco Loco, which had jerk seasoning in the glaze and was just a little bit spicy.

the infinity pool

Ron at the main pool swim-up bar

Around 2 o’clock, I left the pool to go to the room and discovered that my key didn’t work. That either meant that I’d accidentally demagnetized the key or it had been recoded for our new room. Either way, we had to go to Club Sandals, so I collected Ron from the swim-up bar. The new room was ready! We went back to the Royal Building, threw everything into our suitcases, rolled them a few doors down the hall and unpacked again. The new room had a slightly better view, but most importantly, the air conditioning worked! The toilet seat wouldn’t stay up, but we could deal with that. I told Ron to just aim carefully. :-)

view from our new room

We had dinner reservations that night at Chi, the Asian fusion restaurant surrounded by a koi pond. I had the orange dragon roll and miso-ginger glazed salmon, then we went to Café de Paris for coffee and dessert. Later, there was a “Beach Party” which, weirdly, was at the main stage and not on the beach. The entertainers were playing loud, frantic-sounding steel drum music. Ack! We walked back to the room and sat out on our balcony listening to a guitar soloist playing songs by Lionel Richie and The Weeknd outside of Schooners. That was more our speed.

photo by Sandals photographer

Tuesday

The sun rose at 5:30 so I woke up early. Since I was awake, I decided I might as well get up and look for the monkeys. Barbados, like St Kitts, is home to green monkeys that were originally brought over from Africa over 300 years ago. I’d read that there were several monkeys living in the forest behind the resort that would sometimes walk through the grounds and drink out of the pools. Since animals tend to be more active in the morning before it gets hot, I figured early morning was the best time to see them. I found the service road that ran along the back of the property and walked slowly, looking into the trees. Just when I was about to give up, a monkey ran out of the gate right in front of me and jumped up onto the fence and into the trees! Then three more monkeys sauntered by. It was so cool! Unfortunately, I’d broken the first rule of monkey spotting which we’d learned from our tour guide in St Kitts: Make sure you aren’t the only one to see the monkey. :-)  At least I’d taken a few pictures, so I had photographic evidence.

When Ron was up, we went to breakfast at Portofino’s, the Italian restaurant next to the European pool – blueberry pancakes for me and French toast for Ron. We saved a couple of pieces of bacon to feed the little kitties that lived outside Café de Paris. After breakfast, we relaxed on our favorite chairs by the main pool and walked down to the beach to take pictures of the “love tree”.

Portofino's Italian Restaurant

Cafe de Paris

the love tree

At 1:15, it was time to meet in the lobby for our snorkeling tour. Sandals Barbados didn’t have an onsite snorkel or dive boat, so we had to take a shuttle to the marina in Bridgetown. The first snorkeling spot was in Carlisle Bay to see the sea turtles. Before we’d even gotten into the water, we saw our first turtle swimming around the mooring buoy. That was promising! Our snorkel guide pointed out a strange-looking fish sitting on the sandy bottom. She said it was a flying gurnard and that she would try to get it to open its “wings”. She dived down close to the fish, and it spread out its fins like a fan and scuttled away. Before long, a turtle started swimming around us and then a second larger one appeared. So beautiful.

Our second snorkel spot was a shipwreck. There were several scuba divers exploring the wreck, and it was neat to float over their bubbles and watch them swimming in and out of the sunken boat. We saw two groupers hanging out near the bow of the boat and schools of sergeant majors. It was like swimming in a fishbowl. What a great day. I’d seen monkeys in the morning and sea turtles in the afternoon!

For dinner we went to Portofino's where I ordered Caprese salad and seafood fettuccine. I was in the mood for a chocolate martini, so we skipped dessert and went to the Oyster Bar in the lobby. I loved the oyster shell chandeliers over the bar and the gas lanterns in the lobby fountain. The resort was so pretty at night with all the firepits and fountains glowing with light and the smell of night-blooming jasmine in the air. We had a couple of chocolate martinis and then headed to bed.

Sandals Barbados lobby fountain

continued on Part 2