Anniversary Trip to Sandals Royal Bahamian

We were thinking about taking a short cruise for our anniversary, but the prices had gotten so high! After looking at all the cruise options, Ron said, “if we’re going to spend that kind of money, we should just go to Sandals.” That sounded great to me! Taking advantage of a last-minute deal, we were able to snag three nights at Sandals Royal Bahamian.

We landed at Lynden Pindling Airport at 10:15 AM, flew through customs, and were at the resort by 11 o’clock. Our room wouldn’t be ready for a few hours, but we’d put swimsuits in our backpacks so we could start our vacation right away. After changing out of our travel clothes, we walked around the East Bay side of the resort, checking out the new over-the-water wedding chapel. The East Bay building had also been remodeled since our last trip two years ago. I barely recognized the billiards room. It used to be decorated in British colonial style with formal portraits, warm wood and black accents. Now the room was pink and green with pictures of flamingos and tropical plants. People in the Sandals Facebook group seemed to have a love-hate relationship with the pink-felt pool tables. :-)  I could see both sides. I’d liked the stately, traditional look, but the new look was more cheerful and Bahamian.

Sandals Royal Bahamian - Part 2

Wednesday

In the morning, we had breakfast at La Plume, the French restaurant that served an a la carte breakfast. When we got to the restaurant, we couldn’t find the door! Apparently, they had moved the entrance during the renovations, and now you had to go through Mr. B’s Bar to get in. La Plume was my favorite restaurant, with its pink Art Deco accents and beautiful curved glass windows. My eggs Benedict were tasty too.

Sandals Royal Bahamian - Part 1

Sunday

After 70 nights at 9 Sandals resorts over 22 years, Ron and I finally earned our free week vacation! We just had to decide where to take it. We thought about Grenada or Curacao, but the flights were terrible, so we ended up choosing our “home away from home”, the Bahamas.

Our plane landed at 1:10 and by 2:30, we were checked into our room at Sandals Royal Bahamian. We’d booked a West Bay Oceanview Penthouse room, which was on the top floor of the West Bay Building. Our room had a 4-poster king bed with comfy, white bedding and a great view of the West Bay pool, the pier, and the insanely blue water. I don’t think I could ever get tired of looking at that water. Pictures just didn't do it justice.

Sandals Montego Bay

Getting There

We planned this vacation earlier this year when we realized that we were just shy of 70 nights at Sandals, the milestone for getting a free week at a Sandals resort of our choice. Then in June, Judi had her stroke, and we didn’t know if we’d be able to make the trip. We hired a home aid company who could help out while we were away and crossed our fingers. Everything looked like a go, but then along came Tropical Storm Nicole and our Friday morning flight was cancelled. Jet Blue rescheduled the flight for Saturday afternoon, which meant we’d miss a day in Jamaica, but as long as we could get to the resort sometime on Saturday, we’d still earn our free week. We spent Friday night in Orlando and woke up to the news that now the airport was fogged in. Seriously??? Our flight was delayed another two hours, and by the time we finally made it to Sandals, it was 7 o’clock, dark and raining, and we were tired, hungry, and grumpy. We had dinner at Cricketer’s Pub since it was the most casual restaurant, and we were still in our grubby travel clothes. Once we’d gotten some fish and chips and steak pie in our bellies, we were feeling much better. We’d made it! The rain had stopped, so we walked over to Latitudes, the over-the-water bar, enjoying the night breeze and the lights of the resort. I couldn’t wait to see everything in daylight.

Sandals Barbados and Sandals Royal Barbados - Part 2

Wednesday

Wednesday was the day for our Story of Rum Tour with Glory Tours. Our tour guide, Stephen, met us in the lobby at 8:30 and then we drove to Bridgetown to pick up four more passengers. As we went along, Stephen pointed out the Parliament Building and the Garrison Savannah Racetrack where we saw some of the horses back from their daily swim in the ocean. But once we got to the other passengers’ hotel, we found out that they had rescheduled, so we ended up having the tour to ourselves. :-)

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!

Sandals Royal Caribbean

Thursday

Sandals Royal Caribbean was our very first Sandals resort, back in 2000. Ron and I had been going on cruises every year and we really wanted Jenny and Jeremy to join us, but since Jeremy gets seasick, cruising was out. We decided to try an all-inclusive vacation instead. That trip with Jenny, Jeremy, Mama and Daddy was one of the best weeks of my life, and I cried when it was time to leave. Now after 21 years, we were going back to our first Sandals “home”.

Sandals South Coast - Part 3

Thursday

Finally, the winds had died down and water sports was up and running again. I thought I’d better get my wakeboarding in as early as possible, while I still could. It had been almost a year since the last time I went wakeboarding so I wasn’t sure I would be able to do it. But I got up on the first try and managed to stay up the whole way down the coast to the cove and back. Woohoo! I couldn’t wait to do it again the next day but then I remembered that the next day was our last day and we would be on a tour. Rats, the week was going by way too fast!

More Sandals South Coast Photos

Here are a few more pictures from around the resort.

Sandals South Coast - Part 2

Tuesday

Another day of relaxing by the main pool. When we got to the pool, the ski boat was running and people were out skiing or wakeboarding. But while I was trying to decide if I wanted to wakeboard, the wind suddenly picked up and water sports shut down again. Darn it! I don’t remember it being so windy on our last trip.

Since I wouldn’t be wakeboarding, Ron and I took another walk down the beach, stopping at Latitudes for a cold drink. Latitudes was built on a pier and encircled by hammocks that hung out over the water. Ron and I tried out the hammocks. They weren’t easy to get in and out of but we found if we scooted on our butts, it wasn’t TOO awkward.  We managed not to fall out, at any rate. :-)

Sandals South Coast - Part 1

Ron and I love Sandals and have been to seven different resorts. This trip was the first time we’ve stayed at a resort for a second time. We vacationed at Sandals South Coast in 2011, although back then it was called Sandals Whitehouse. The resort is made up of three “villages” (Italian, Dutch and French) plus a central piazza which includes the lobby, the main pool and most of the restaurants. The grounds are full of tropical flowers and wandering peacocks. Since our last visit, a section of over-water bungalows was added, as well as a new sushi restaurant and an over-water bar called Latitudes, the perfect spot to catch the sunset. With all the recent updates to the resort, we thought it would be a good time to go back and check out the changes.

One Love - Sandals Negril Part 3

Thursday

I woke up early and couldn’t go back to sleep so I went out on the balcony to read. I could hear Henry the peacock making his morning cat sounds over at Bayside. It was even breezier that day and the red flags were up. That meant there wouldn’t be any watersports, so when Ron got up we decided it would be a good day to go to Beaches Negril to check out their pools.

It was a quick $5 cab ride to Beaches where we settled in by the main pool. Beaches was a larger property than Sandals and had a Polynesian feel, with dark wood balconies and window shutters. There was a pretty courtyard, a large main pool and a water park with a lazy river and water slides. Of course, my favorite part of the resort was Café de Paris, the French pastry shop. Too bad Sandals Negril didn’t have one of those. :-)

One Love - Sandals Negril Part 2

Tuesday

Another day on the beach. We set up our towels under our favorite palapa and watched the skiers while I worked up the nerve to try wakeboarding in front of an audience. Finally I was ready. I fell down on the first try but made it up the second try. The boat driver was great and went just the right speed, but he took me so far down the beach that by the time the boat turned around, my legs were shaking. I didn’t know if I was going to make it back to Sandals. But I did! I was proud of myself since the water had been too cold at home to practice before the trip.

When ski time was over, the water sports guys brought out the water tube, “Great Big Mable”. A couple from Utah, Jim and Angie, invited us to go tubing with them. We agreed and climbed on. It was a blast! The driver whipped us over the waves and we all hung on for dear life, with me screaming most of the way. I know I was a foot off the seat a few times. When we got back to the beach, the water sports guys asked us who was screaming and Ron said it was him. :-)

One Love - Sandals Negril Part 1

Ron and I knew we wanted to go to a Sandals resort for our twenty-fifth anniversary; it was just a matter of picking which one. Finally we settled on Sandals Negril. Our last two Sandals vacations had been at larger properties (Whitehouse and Antigua) so this time we wanted to try a smaller resort with lots of fun water sports. Plus Negril was one of my all-time favorite places, with its endless beach, gorgeous sunsets and friendly people. We stayed at Couples Swept Away in Negril in 2010 and couldn’t wait to go back. But just as we were packing up the car for the drive to Orlando, Cedric started acting groggy and weak. Since he’d been fine earlier in the day, we decided it would be alright for us to leave, but we emailed Judi to ask her to keep an extra close eye on him.

The next day was a long day of traveling from Orlando to Montego Bay to Negril. It was almost five o’clock when we made it to Sandals. We’d booked a Club Level room in the Paradise Building, right in the middle of the resort and about as close to the water as you could get. The building was completely remodeled about a year ago and our room was gorgeous. It was decorated in light colors with turquoise artwork and had the Sandals signature king sized 4-poster bed. Our second floor balcony overlooked the Beach Bistro Bar and the sailboats anchored offshore. Beautiful! The Club Level rooms included a few extra perks like a concierge lounge, room service and a mini-bar, but that’s not why we'd booked it. It was all about the location, location, location.

Sandals Grande Antigua - Part 4

Thursday

I woke up early and couldn’t go back to sleep, thinking about it being our last day and how much I still wanted to do. Why does vacation always seem to be one day too short??

We had the “Best of Antigua” tour scheduled for the morning. Our driver and tour guide, Fish, met us in the Caribbean lobby at 9 o’clock. He was an older gentleman who had been driving taxis since I was born, and he drove carefully and safely. He wasn’t very talkative but he did answer all of our questions and pointed things out along the way. Antigua is known as the land of 365 beaches (one for each day of the year) and Fish told us that we could have most of them all to ourselves. As we passed one beach, he commented that it was crowded that day. There were maybe five people on the beach. That was crowded? :-)

We drove past pineapple fields and Mount Obama, the highest point in Antigua at 1300 feet. As we started up into the mountains, it got cloudy and I was worried that we were going to have bad weather for our tour. Then I realized that we were in the rain forest. The road through the rain forest was called Fig Tree Drive because of all the bananas trees. The Antiguan word for banana is “fig”. Fish said that until he started traveling, he didn’t realize that bananas and figs were two different things.

pineapple fields

Sandals Grande Antigua - Part 3

Tuesday

By Tuesday we were ready to get off the resort and see some of the island, so we signed up for the Segway tour. We met in the Caribbean Grove lobby at 8:45. We were a small group – just 2 other couples from Ontario and Louisiana. It was a short ride to the Segway of Antigua office, where we all donned helmets and elbow pads, then watched an instructional video featuring a very clumsy stick figure that fell off his Segway a lot. Our tour guide, Yandeen, assured us that we wouldn’t be doing that much falling. :-)  Then it was time to practice with our Segways – getting on and off, turning and stopping. Ron and I were the only ones who had ridden a Segway before, but it didn’t take long before everyone was ready to go.

First we rode to Runaway Bay for a photo op of the beautiful deserted beach, passing some grazing horses and the ruins of an old sugar mill along the way. Then it was on to Fort James, built in 1706 to guard St John’s harbor from French invasion. The views from Fort James were spectacular, and I had a hard time tearing my eyes away long enough to snack on the fruit kabobs and sugar cane that the guides handed out. We had a little time to walk around or play on the Segways before it was time to head back. What an awesome tour! It was only 11:30 when we got back to Sandals but I was starving! All that fun makes you hungry. :-)  We picked up two pizzas to-go and ate them sitting on our balcony. Now that’s what I call vacation.

Runaway Bay

More Sandals Grande Antigua Photos

Here are a few more pictures from around the resort

Cypress Building

Sandals Grande Antigua - Part 2

Monday

I woke up early again and went out onto our balcony. A black and white kitty was sitting on the sidewalk below so I clucked at it. The next thing I knew, the cat was on the balcony! I was so surprised! It had jumped from our neighbor’s lounge chair to the top of the wall and then walked across the arbor. What a smart little cat. I petted it and it settled onto a chair for a bath and a nap. The resort seemed to have quite a few resident cats, many with a notch in one ear. Someone had mentioned in a Trip Advisor review that the notch meant the cat had been spayed. Good idea.

Sandals Grande Antigua - Part 1

Sandals Grande Antigua first opened in 1991, but it was expanded 6 years ago. Now it has two distinct sections - the original “Caribbean Grove” side with cozy, gingerbread-trimmed buildings and lush gardens and the new “Mediterranean Village” side with a huge swimming pool and modern, luxurious rooms. It is like two resorts in one - the best of both worlds.

Saturday was a long day of traveling, starting when we left the house at 4:30. We had a 3-hour layover in Miami, and when we took off for Antigua, we could see the Port of Miami and the tiny cruise ships below. I thought of Mama and Daddy, who had just gotten off one of those ships that morning. The skies were clear over the Bahamas chain but by the time we landed at the VC Bird Airport, it was cloudy and drizzly. Booo! Finally, we made it to the resort and checked into our room. But surprise, it wasn’t the Caribbean Grove room we had booked. We had been upgraded to a second floor ocean view room in the Mediterranean section! The room was gorgeous. It had a king-sized 4-poster bed, a sitting area and a mini-bar stocked with water, soda, beer and several bottles of liquor. The bathroom had double sinks, a whirlpool tub and a separate shower with a “rain” shower head. From our small balcony we could just see the ocean beyond the main pool.
 
We unpacked and got showers, then wandered down to Bayside, on the Caribbean side of the resort, for dinner. The food was good (broccoli soup, seared scallops and mussels in white wine); the atmosphere was great. After dinner, we walked around the property, getting lost a couple of times in the Caribbean Grove. The tree frogs were out and singing loudly. I couldn’t wait to see the resort in daylight!

flying over the Bahamas