I was recently marveling — to myself — at how much variation there is among the Sandals and Beaches Resorts, located in the Caribbean. I can count 8 of the Sandals/Beaches Resorts I’ve personally stayed at or inspected, and I can certainly remember each one distinctly.
Each one also has its own uniqueness…the energy level, the menus (though I never had a bad meal at any of them), the charm of the resort overall. The only thing they really had in common was with the logo located in the pool!
I’d never send a luxury, mid-forties couple to Sandals Montego Bay. And I’d never send an energetic, nightlife-loving young couple to Sandals Grande Emerald Bay. Beaches Boscobel is disappointing at best, while Beaches Turks and Caicos will blow your socks off (provided of course you are in the right section of the resort).
And yet, I hear people from time to time treating Sandals/Beaches like they are interchangeable. “Oh I don’t want to go to any Sandals in St. Lucia. My sister went to one in Jamaica and she said it was too loud.” Or, “We loved how much there was to do at Beaches Turks/Caicos last year, so this year Jim and I want to stay at Sandals Carlyle Inn.”
This is where the experience and knowledge of your travel agent really pays off. See, these resorts are NOT interchangeable. To make things more confusing, Sandals/Resorts do not allow their wholesalers to RANK the resorts, so you don’t know if you’re talking 3 stars, 4 stars, or 5 stars (which is truly the range that they cover). Travel review sites aren’t really that helpful, because the reviews are generally written by folks with LIMITED experience of the Sandals brand as a whole. Sandals/Beaches has more room categories than Subway has sandwich combinations. And they are forever changing the room names too, I think just for fun.
So, what’s my point? Use a travel agent! So, off my soap box…