Beautiful grounds and great food, but the service fell far short of the price
Six of us stayed at Sandals Barbados from September 26 through October 3, 2026. Having stayed at more than 10 all-inclusive resorts throughout the Dominican Republic and Mexico, I had high expectations. This was easily the most expensive resort I had booked, and I expected the experience to reflect that. Unfortunately, despite some great meals and a few wonderful employees, it did not.
A storm back home led us to fly into Barbados two days early. We spent those nights at The Abidah by Accra, a small, 44-room all-inclusive that pleasantly surprised us. Our room was spacious, with an ocean-view balcony and a large Jacuzzi. The food, drinks and service were okay, and it was a nice start to our vacation. We expected a significant upgrade when we moved to Sandals, but that wasn’t our experience.
The grounds and food were the highlights
The Sandals grounds were beautiful. It’s a large property, but everything looked clean and well maintained, with amazing landscaping. I’m not much of a beach person, but the other two couples in our group loved the beach.
Overall, the food was probably the best I’ve had at an all-inclusive. Butch’s was the standout—the filet mignon was incredible and easily my favorite meal of the week. The hibachi food was okay, and the chef put on a good show. Chi Asian Fusion was mediocre food-wise, but our waitress was the best we encountered all week. I wish I had gotten her name because she deserves recognition.
Sweet n Salty’s became my go-to for great coffee, donuts and consistently good service. Café de Paris also had good coffee and amazing crepes, but the wait could be frustrating. Each crepe order took about 15 minutes, so with two people ahead of you, you could be waiting roughly 45 minutes.
Service was the biggest disappointment
“Island time” was very real during our stay. At every sit-down restaurant we visited, we waited at least an hour for our food. With the exception of our waitress at Chi, drink refills were rare. Typically, someone took our order, and we barely saw them again until the food arrived.
More broadly, the attitude often seemed to be that if something wasn’t specifically an employee’s job, they simply weren’t going to do it. There was very little sense of teamwork or willingness to help beyond assigned responsibilities—essentially, “not my job, not my problem.” That made even simple requests unnecessarily difficult and contributed significantly to our frustration.
We also never saw servers walking around the pool or beach taking drink orders. That was a first for me at an all-inclusive. If we wanted a drink, we had to go to the bar ourselves. Many of the bartenders we encountered seemed disengaged, which was disappointing. At other resorts, the bartenders have often been a highlight—fun, welcoming and quick to remember you. We rarely experienced that here.
There were, however, some excellent exceptions. Around our fourth day, we discovered the swim-up bar on the Royal Barbados side. Zebe, Heidi and Chrystal were fantastic. We spent the rest of our pool days there because they delivered the friendly, attentive service we had expected throughout the resort. If that had been the standard everywhere, I would happily return.
Dionte at Soy also deserves recognition for his sense of humor and great drinks. A waitress there was particularly kind, sharing pictures of her family from her drinking cup and telling us about the island. Those personal interactions made a difference.
Cockroaches in dining areas
One particularly upsetting issue was seeing cockroaches at the omelette station during breakfast at American Tavern. We also saw cockroaches climbing on the walls at The Merry Monkey, which serves food. Seeing this in dining areas was disgusting and unacceptable.
Room and housekeeping issues
Our room was nice, although not especially large, and we enjoyed having a tub on the balcony. Unfortunately, the service problems continued there.
We were on the third floor, and our elevator didn’t work for roughly half our stay. Repeated trips up and down the stairs became tiring, especially for an older couple traveling with us.
On multiple occasions, housekeeping removed our dirty towels without replacing them. We called repeatedly but received no replacements. Eventually, we tracked down a maintenance employee who brought us towels, even though it wasn’t his responsibility. That was the only time someone assisted with something outside of their duties as on multiple other occasions when we asked for assistance from employees we would hear “that’s not my job”.
Another day, our bottled water wasn’t replenished. We called concierge, but nothing arrived. We later learned that refrigerators weren’t being restocked because the elevator was broken. That is hard to understand at a resort charging this much. The same maintenance employee eventually helped us get water, too. I wish I knew his name—he went out of his way to help when our calls had gotten us nowhere.
Would we return? No.
The beautiful property, good food and handful of exceptional employees couldn’t make up for the inconsistent service, housekeeping problems and cockroaches in dining areas.
Butler service was heavily promoted, and our experience left us feeling that we needed to pay for that upgrade to receive the level of attention we expected from an already expensive stay. I’ve had butlers at other resorts, but basic, reliable service never felt dependent on having one.
For the price we paid, our expectations were reasonable, and Sandals Barbados fell well short of them. None of the six of us plans to book another Sandals vacation.
