The Sands Barbados

The staff were very friendly and kind. The daily cleaners would make up our room so when we came back it was all made up. I loved the balcony and the nightly music where we would play some cards. Also the quizes during the day and the buffet. I love how some nights we had buffet and sime we had a menu. Me and my family loved playing in the pool and please thank michael for playing vollyball wih us. All barattendents and waitresses were fab. Overall my stay was amazing and very lovely!!! Read less

We have just returned following a honeymoon here, our views are not great! Location - right on the beach, as advertised Atmosphere - poor. Many staff are mostly grumpy and 'blunt' or plain rude and ignore guests. Some are good, but they are the exception. Value - terrible! supposed to be a 4 star, IMHO it's 2 or 3 at most and NOT worth the advertised price per night! Cleanliness is poor with terrible cleaning standards (beach and pool area not cleaned in the 2 weeks I was there), empty crisp packets left in rooms after cleaning, no towels 30% of the time plus many other instances. Service was poor service in most areas with guests being left without water at meal times, empty plates left for some time despite the birds flying on for the remaining food. Furniture was from the 70's, didnt work properly and we had little drawer space (when they did work) Read less

Just returned from a week at the Sands. The reviews are back and forth but I guess I’ll try to be as honest as I can. Check in went well. Yes there is a fee to stay in Barbados so we paid that right away so that we didn’t have to do it when we were leaving. The staff were nice and offered us a drink. We just had a bottle of water. The unfortunate part was our room wasn’t ready and they sent us to have a drink. We were told they would come and get us in about 30mins. After an hour we went back and the room was ready. No idea how long it had been ready but it was fine. We stayed in the one level garden/pool view room. It was fine. The bathroom was clean as was our bedroom area and the balcony was nice. Just wish they had some chairs and a small table out there. The lounge couch thing was okay but not great for sitting. AC worked well. The fridge however was broken and could not be shut. They left us a cheese platter that was warm and inedible. We did call down as we like to use the fridge and someone was up to fix it in 5mins. It worked well the rest of the week. The bed was soft but okay we do wish it was a king and not a queen but the bigger problem was the pillows. My couch pillows are better. They are so small and you fall right through them. I did get 2 more sent up but it didn’t really help. The hot water however was the best I’ve ever had in all of my resort visits in the last 20 years of travel so hats off to that! The beach was very small. You feel like you are sitting on top of the people around you. Most days you could get an umbrella and chair until 8:30am. If they are gone the staff will pull out more but the space is TIGHT. The pool is also nice. It’s small but so is the resort lots of chairs at the pool as well. Bar and drinks. They did have Heineken Zero which was nice as my partner doesn’t drink so that was wonderful. They do have high end rum but everything else was not high end. Bartenders worked hard and made lots of drinks for people. I am a red wine snob but found the merlot and cab/sauv to be okay to drink. The rose gave me a headache and I don’t drink white so I can’t comment. I was very sad that sparkling wine is only available to buy. I feel like this is a standard almost everywhere you go these days and it should be offered for the price you pay to go to Barbados. The glasses here are also very dirty. I didn’t have one wine glass without multiple lipstick shades on it. There is no glass washer at the bar so they hand wash (sort of) the glasses. It’s kind of a rinse and hang to dry. This was a little gross to me as lots of people had colds and were coughing while we were there. Perhaps a higher standard would be better. The food. This to me was the biggest disappointment. Most breakfast days were the same thing. We got pancakes once and French toast twice. Frozen eggos were very common but I don’t go away to waste calories on that! They also have wet scrambled eggs, yogurt, fruit, toast, cheese, potatoes and beans as well as some random baked goods that were not overly fancy. Lunch was hard when it was à la cart. Not many choices. It would be nice to have some simple sandwiches like BLT, flatbread pizza or grilled cheese, things like that I think would go over well. We did like it when it was a buffet. Although also not many choices but at least it was more than 3 items. I believe you can also get the bbq on the à la cart days. We did do that once and people should know they have a veggie burger that was good but you need to ask for it. Dinner was touch and go. Buffet was definitely better for the most part. We enjoyed the jerk pork, stewed beef and the roast on Sunday. Also enjoyed the pasta, buns and veggies. À la cart was okay. We had steak one night, pasta another as well as fish. The portion size for the à la carts are very small. Our steak was probably 3oz so that was a little disappointing. I felt really bad for the young men and older men as I’m only 130lbs and it didn’t fill me up. The mash potatoes were delicious though. The biggest shocker to me was the day they did the fog for the bugs. The outside bar and restaurant are open concept. At first I thought there was a guy just going around and spraying so I wasn’t that worried but soon after the fog came a rolling in. All of the bar glasses were left in the bar and the tables in the restaurant were fully set. Right down to your salt and pepper. I was very nervous about eating that night as I know the fog rolled right through the bar and restaurant and for sure there was bug chemicals on everything. I thought maybe they might wash stuff after the fogging was over but NOPE! I would say the staff treated us very well but we did tip at every meal and every drink at the bar as well as our maids so I’m not sure if that helped but only one day did we feel we were not looked after. All in all this is a cheap place to go that yes it needs some upgrades or a tub of paint but the staff were good. You get wonderful views and Barbados is an expensive island and it’s in walking distance to many restaurants and bars as well as grocery stores. Personally, if the beach was bigger and the food was a little better I would think about going back. However, we love a good beach and this one is just too tight and small for us. If you want to go to Barbados on a budget friendly price this is a great place. But if you want a 5 star you need to pay the $6k per person or maybe more to get that on this island. I also know that food is super expensive and I understand that but I think 1/2 of the food was good and the other half was bad. It would be great if 80% was good because when it was good it really was good. Thank you to all the staff for making us feel welcomed and looking after us. We appreciate your hard work and efforts each day in the sun and heat! Read less