The Sands Barbados

Absolutely fantastic hotel and holiday. Perfect location to get anywhere you want to go. So chilled out and actually got a holiday I felt relaxed coming home. The singers were really good at night just to top that chilled vibe. Room was incredibly clean and perfect size for my mum and myself. It was my birthday and I got the cutest card I’ll treasure forever with a towel swan on the bed so thank you so much the sands. Brilliant value for money I’d say. Food was incredible apart from 2 nights so 8/10 was fantastic (I need the recipe for the potato salad haha). Staff were lovely. Jakeel the watersports and pool guy was just amazing. Emerson on reception, Nikolai also on reception, Olivia in the restaurant, Danny and Tyrecce on bar just made the stay even more enjoyable. Free snacks and drinks to watch the football. Definitely coming back in a couple years. Read less

We have been to Barbados many times and stayed in the hotel next door to the sands a few times and looked enviously at the Sands’ clients. The hotel was walk in to the sea and sun beds on the sands where you got waiter service for your cocktails right on the beach. A few times we walked past and they were serving bbq food from the bbq on the beach and it looked and smelled great. The price was always a bit expensive compared to other hotels around the area and we aren’t normally a fan of all inclusive but wanted to give the hotel a try. Our son visited last year and gave us feedback. He said the food was good as was the beer but he was unfortunate with sargassum on the beach for a fair part of his trip. We thought that was bad luck as we had been in this location at that time of year several times before and had no sargassum issues. He did say his room was AVERAGE, the balcony not really being unusable with just a day bed, no table and chairs so when we looked at options we bore this in mind. He also said he had tried without success to get trips to the sister hotels without any help from reception. When choosing our trip via British Airways, we opted for an ocean view 1 bedroom suite...ocean view is a must for us as we like our own balcony time on any holiday. This was much more money but we decided it was worth it. On arrival in Barbados we saw with sinking heart the south coast sea was very brown with the sargassum. Not much that can be done but we hoped our stretch of the beach would be ok. We arrived at the hotel to check in and it was a bit strange. There were 4 staff on the desk but we were handed a card with wifi and a QR code and told to do check-in ourselves. We have had this kind of check-in before and are quite tech savvy but it took a bit of navigating as they kept having to pipe in with..”just press next when you see this...ignore save when you see this” etc. Once complete our receptionist read us a script about the hotel and what was available...including a fine dining option and visiting the sister hotels. So armed with what our son had told us we were right up front with a request to go to Mango Bay in Holetown, to be told from a very rude male on reception (who wasn’t even serving us but chipped in that we couldn’t visit until at least Sunday (this was Tuesday and we were there for a week). We asked then for Monday and we were told they would ask Mango Bay and we had to check back to see if this was ok. We then were taken to our room. What a disappointment. The room itself was “a suite”, with aircon in bedroom ONLY but the ocean view we were looking forward to was in the far distance across the entire hotel grounds, if you looked to the right across the gardens, across the pool, across the restaurant, across bar and across the “beach”. We then double 0checked our booking, of course if you literally read the fine print we got what we paid for...it was “a suite”, and in the very far away distance you could just about see the ocean, but the room was simply not what we expected. What you need to look for in your booking is ocean FRONT not ocean view…..silly us (despite paying quite a bit extra for it too). Time for a trip to the bar and to see the beach. Oh no...when we got there the beach was taped off and covered with caution hazard tape and where there used to be a beach there was nothing but a 4 ft drop. We asked and were told there had been a weather event 4 weeks previously and the beach had been washed away. There was a stair being built down to the 'new normal' beach which was not much in use during our visit. A couple of days brave souls went down there in risk of being swept away but without the previous sand as a buffer the sea was much closer and most days the sargassum was deep. It was red flag and no swimming our entire trip. Now I really appreciate the hotel is not at fault for nature and were making the best of it but guests could have been pre-warned (as it happened a month ago) and other options could be considered. How about bussing guests to a usable beach?? There were some great beaches only 10 minutes away (Pebbles, Carlyle bay etc) . How about offering a move to sister hotels, there were 2 and both a lesser standard to the Sands allegedly so the hotel group wouldn't lose out. Also on previous visits to this coast we had seen Sands hotel staff sweeping away the sargassum, to try and clear the beach…..not this time, the beach and the sea was simply out of bounds for most except a for brave souls who didn’t mind wading through knee deep sargassum). On the first night we went to bed very tired from our 24 hours of travelling to get there, so expected a good sleep. How we were let badly down by that expectation. The hotel has installed a lot of LED strip lights on the outside of the hotel (so it looks good from the streets), but these lights shone very brightly into the bedroom, it was so bright it was as if it was daytime, and sleep was impossible. The next morning I complained at the front desk to be told “Oh the lights should go off at 1100, we’ll tell the maintenance team to make sure they go off”. However, the next night and EVERY night it was the same issue….very bright bedroom and impossible to sleep….Complaining to the front desk is pointless (especially to the male staff member who is very very rude), as they simply don’t help at all and just want you to go away (this is not the kind of service that the hotel has written in big letters on the wall in reception saying they want to provide a superb customer service to clients…..we never experienced this service at all. Nothing was done to switch off the lights and nothing was done to swap room to a darker one, despite us repeatedly asking for either of these. When you visit the Caribbean, and I go to the Caribbean a lot, you get used to how things are quite structured and rules abound when dealing with officialdom. This doesn’t always apply quite as much when dealing with your hotel but it certainly does at the Sands. As an example of this you MUST book a time for your lunch and dinner every single day. Quite restricting but ok. However, we went for lunch at 1227 for a 1230 booking to be told off as we were we were 3 minutes early. Every arrival time was noted, every 1231 for a 1230 booking. It was like school role call. The females greeting you at the restaurant in general were very rude, very brusque and were obviously not happy to be serving or assisting you in any way. What on earth can be the point of all this time control and clock checking? Also, every 2nd day the meals were not buffest style, you were instead given a VERY limited meal choice via an a-la carte menu (and this was both at Lunch and Dinner). The swimming pool at the Sands is worth a mention. It is the shallowest pool I have ever come across on a holiday. It’s very 'Instgrammable' but you couldn’t swim without bashing your legs on the bottom for at least a third of the pool.. maybe 3.5 ft at the deepest? This review sounds like a real complaint but I had a good holiday and enjoyed many aspects of the holiday (but the Sands hotel was not one of them). The Sands was so not what I expected, no bbqs, loads of a-la carte meals with limited food options, controlling behaviour around catering and limited information. We did get our trip to Mango Bay but I had to ask 5 times over 4 days, many of the times to be told by reception staff they hadn't heard anything back without them even checking or asking who we were or looking at the system the exception here was Monica who did speak to me like a person and help me when asked. On a positive note, a Margarita from Gregory on the bar was fantastic and worth a mention, Jacqueline on the bar was friendly and so accommodating throughout our stay. Will I go back to Barbados……of course Will I go back to the Sands hotel…..Definitely not, Read less

Fantastic hotel and location. Myself an my partner Mike went 02.06 - 10.06.2026 and the weather was perfect. Cloudy and windy at times which was welcomed as even though its 'winter' its still 28 degrees plus. I will start by stating the only negative thing i experienced with the hotel was the beach is not as shown in the pictures. Sadly, it got washed away and the images haven't been updated. You can still use a small section, go for a walk and swim in it but there is only a small section of sand left. This can't be helped as its mother nature and the only issue ill take with the hotel is that the pictures are misleading. It certainly didn't spoil our holiday. As for the rest of the hotel and facilities, i cannot complain. The staff especially in the bar and restaurant are amazing. I found everyone really friendly, chatty, helpful and polite. They have a good list of cocktails but the best ones i had was when i asked the staff for a suprise or their own recommendations. All fruity cocktails are made with fresh fruit and no measures when it comes to the alcohol (woohoo). Also, they have a spa at the hotel which isn't included in the price and you have to pay separately but i had the most amazing massage which after 16 hours of travelling was needed. The food is all made fresh and sourced locally. It's mixed up with an a la carte menu and buffet for lunch and dinner with buffet for breakfast and they have a huge range of choices. There is also a snack bar in the afternoons. The locality of the hotel is very close to shops, bars, bus route, hotel and very easy to jump in a shared taxi which are super reasonable or, jump on a bus. I highly recommend visiting the Boat yard where you pay a fee of $80 pp which includes your sun lounger, parasol, snorkeling which was out of this world and highlight of my trip and $40 to spend behind the bar on refreshments and food, Oistins fish market which is bustling and amazing food although if you aren't a fan of very busy places it can be overwhelming, Basheba for the views, Mango bay and pebbles beach. Pebbles beach is where the local race horses get taken every morning around 5am for a swim and cool down. Its amazing to watch them swimming out very far, splashing in the water and rolling around on the sand. They are very well cared for and loved. It has been on my bucket list to ride a horse on the Caribbean beach since i could remember and i got to do it! You do have to pay 90 barbados dollars but was worth it. The island overall was very clean, safe, people are friendly and i cannot wait to go next year. We only went for 7 days which wasn't long enough to get in everything we wanted to do and have the downtime to chill but we are absolutely going back next year, to the same hotel but for 10 days. Read less

This hotel has some strengths and some weaknesses. On arrival a lovely reception lady came and helped us bring in our luggage , then we had to scan qr codes to get on the wifi and to enter all our details , we struggled to do this and at one point the male reception person got quite frustrated with our inability to go fast enough , and was rude to my husband , Our room was lovely and spacious and clean and looked out onto a gorgeous pool. The room was near the housekeeping department so there was always their trolleys and noise from them on the corridor but it really didn’t affect us as we get up early . Our first major disappointment was the beach - we booked this hotel based on pictures of the beach , there really was no beach and there was hazard tape everywhere , the sea was brown with seaweed ! I was told this was Mother Nature and global warming , and whilst this may be true I feel strongly that both the hotel and tour operator information is misleading . In our 2 weeks they did put 4 or 5 sun loungers and parasols on the beach for an hour or two some days but it was very cramped and we inly managed to bag them one day and by 11am the sea was floating them away ! Hence we spent much more than intended leaving the hotel and renting sun loungers in Carlisle bay ( beautiful ) . We found the dining experience very poor . You have to book both lunch and dinner which can be restricting. The food quality the first week was very poor- we are not fussy but the first Sunday buffet was awful! I am coeliac and had to stand in the kitchen area every morning for a good while to get bread or toast and was told to use the same toaster as everyone else ! The labelling was incorrect . The menu also incorrect with the catch of the day stated gluten free but came with pasta ( not gluten free pasta ) some days were buffet , some à la carte , , some staff very defensive and unfriendly - others amazing and lovely ! The birds flying in the restaurant and bird poo everywhere is horrid , the lighting which is also filthy is a built in perch for them so don’t sit under it . Staff seem lethargic dealing with this . There is just one bar at this hotel , the staff there are superb , friendly and skilled at their job, The pool and beach guys work really hard keeping everyone happy and the pool area spotlessly clean , they are the best ! The manager was receptive when I raised my coeliac concerns , and does want guests to enjoy their stay . For us it wasn’t the holiday we expected , and we spent much more time and money away from the hotel than anticipated , We did meet some lovely people and will return to Barbados . Read less

Checking staff were rude and unfriendly you have to us QR code and do it yourself.Our room was very good ground floor straight into the pool for morning dip. Beach wash away due high spring tides and rising sea levels Sargassum came and went sun beds on the beach only at low tide to make it look like we had a beach although we would have gone to other beaches not every day which we had too luckily Carlisle bay is still as good has ever not a bit of Sargassum form there all up the west just spent more getting to the good beaches when booking thought we would stay on the hotel beach some days to have a chilled cheaper day. Food not good some days set menu some days buffet I’m not a picky eater and even I found it hard work the wife is coeliac she really found it hard work must staff poorly trained and one meal fish and pasta was labelled as gluten free.Birds in the restaurant were a problem been to lots of open restaurants but not as bad has this bird droppings everywhere and not being clean up staff seemed unaware of it so again spent more then planned going out for meals specially dinner we really used it more like a BB We love Barbados and still had great holiday sadly for Barbados first timers and there were a lot will not be coming back we will but not to this hotel Read less