My husband and I have been loyal guests of Sandals resorts for many years. We love the experience of being pampered and Sandals have always been excellent on this! Until we holidayed at The Halcyon .....
Like others, we found the quiet pool was the only place to relax, as the main pool is very noisy and the beach is a public one with various vendors. However, you need to put towels down on your sun loungers before 7am, in order to reserve them-this became a daily chore-but it was a case of if you cannot beat them...then join them!
One of the most enjoyable things about being by the pool at a Sandals resort, is being offered drinks whilst relaxing. This rarely happened here! I think maybe on two occasions only, during the whole 12 days holiday.
Even when we swam up to the pool bar-we were basically ignored. On a number of occasions, my husband had to get out of the pool, climb the steps to the upper level of the bar...and still had to wait 10 minutes to be served! Considering that there weren’t many other guests at that time at the bar, we found this incredible! The staff seemed more concerned about filling up the popcorn machine.
On one occasion, we managed to place our drinks order with a friendly male staff member, at the quiet pool bar. He brought my husband’s beer and was about to set it down on the bar in front of him...only then to be loudly instructed by “Agnes” who seems to be the bar supervisor, to give my husband’s beer to another guy who’d just appeared at the bar, whom Agnes obviously recognised!!
When we protested, and asked her why she’d done this..Agnes pointed her finger at my husband’s face and sternly told him that he “still had some left in his glass”! Incredible anywhere-but at a Sandals resort-unbelievable......!!!
We also agree with others, that there is nowhere to relax in the evenings after dinner. It’s nice to chat with others and make new friends on holiday -but almost impossible to exchange conversation at the busy noisy, main bar here. It’s often hard to get a stool there too, as there just are not enough stools available, for the amount of guests at the resort.
There are lovely seats and fire pits situated around the resort. However, due to the occasional sudden rain showers most evenings, we often found the seats rain sodden, so impossible to sit on. Mainly, we just retired early to our room most evenings and had a “digestif” on our balcony.
Our room was advertised as a “Honeymoon Hideaway Walkout poolside room”. It is none of these! The first sentence describing this is ..and I quote directly from the Sandals website
“Honeymoon in serene seclusion...”.
We were allocated a room on the upper floor of a block of many. There is no “serene seclusion” as the balconies are all adjacent to each other, without any private screening whatsoever. There are small metal railings between each balcony and we could see other guests, six rooms away! The pool is also approximately a 100 Metres walk away. Come on Sandals-this is misrepresentation at best!!
I will say that the Manager, Christopher Elliott, when we spoke with him, is very polite courteous and professional. He does have a big responsibility and a large task in managing this property.
As another guest pointed out, the average age group of guests, is around mid fifties to sixty. I had previously read on trip advisor good reviews about the “Joe Knows” tour. So despite this being slightly more expensive than similar tours, decided to book it. We asked at the Sandals tour desk for all information and filled in the required forms, which asked our ages (although quite fit and young thinking-we fall into the latter of the average age group here!)
The tour was a speedboat trip to see the Pitons, try out a mud bath and shower in a natural waterfall, lunch and some snorkelling and then enjoy convivial rum punch cocktails during the return journey.
BEWARE..... this extremely expensive trip is in our opinion, not for anyone over 35! Not for the bit of walking involved, as you’re now imagining....as we mainly enjoyed that part of the trip- but the return boat journey was for us, teeth grindingly embarrassing. The trip was later described to us, as “A party boat”. I only wish someone had forewarned us. In a small boat -there is no escape! In retrospect, we were surprised, when booking, that the tour desk seeing our ages, had not advised us differently or suggested an alternative tour.
In summary...Sandals, we have always loved you- and in our long relationship, have always thought you worth every penny, despite you being comparatively expensive to other similar luxury holidays.
However, our recent experience this year at The Halcyon, has soured our relationship and our feelings towards you have now cooled somewhat. We haven’t ended our relationship just yet -after all we are Emerald Members and have experienced 70+ nights in your company. We hope that we can resurrect our former good opinion in time.
It may be a good idea Sandals, in view of your increasingly expensive holidays, to return again, to the first class, six star service that was once enjoyed by all!
