Luxury Included
I stayed at Sandals Grande in St Lucia and booked a Club Level room.
So, what makes Sandals different from a regular all-inclusive? For me there were several things that stood out compared with other hotels I’d stayed at in the past.
1/ Restaurants – this is the biggie for me. At this hotel alone there were 12 restaurants and they are ALL included in the price and there is no limit on how many times you can visit particular ones, so over a 6 night holiday we were able to dine at a different one each evening and lunch time and not repeat any of them! The standard was excellent and choice of food was good. For breakfast there was a French café where you could get a continental breakfast, the main buffet (excellent standard and choice for a buffet) and the Italian restaurant served an a la carte breakfast with indoor and outdoor seating.
For lunch you could have crepes at the French café (these were A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!), hot dogs at Doggies (never got round to having these), pizzas from a wood-fired oven at Dino’s, Jerk chicken at the Jerk Shack (a must!) and of course a buffet lunch at the Bayside. For dinner we dined at Bombay (the Indian, this was my favourite although only had indoor seating and I do like to be outside when away!), Toscanini’s Italian, Barefoot by the Sea (seafood restaurant and as we visited on Thanksgiving they had an extra choice to celebrate this too!), Gordon’s Pier Restaurant (lovely setting, International cuisine), Kimono’s (the chef cooks in front of you, this is great for a lively entertaining meal!) and Soy (the Sushi restaurant) – all of these were included in the price. Three were bookable in advance and we had no problem getting reservations. The rest you just turned up to and we were always seated immediately, there was never an issue with availability.
2/ Tipping – no tipping is allowed at the hotel (with the exception of your butler if you book a butler level room or if you have a spa treatment). Many of the staff wear badges saying “No tips please, my smile is included” - I love this concept and the staff are instead rewarded when they get good reviews on Trip Advisor. Overall the service was excellent and nothing was too much trouble. It was nice not to have the awkwardness of “Should I tip? How much should I tip?”!
3/ Water sports – there was a wide range of water sports, again all included in the price with tuition if needed. I learnt to water-ski while I was there and had 4 sessions overall – this was brilliant fun, a whole lot harder than it looks and I felt such an achievement when I made it up on the skis! The instructors were really patient and wanted me to succeed!! We also took a kayak out for half an hour whilst we were there. They had hobie sail boats, again they could give you tuition and you were then allowed out by yourself with them and they also had paddleboards available. The other biggie for Sandals is the diving, if you are already PADI qualified you can dive for free! They also had jet-skis available from the beach but these weren’t run by Sandals and so they did have additional charge if you wanted to use them.
4/ Club Lounge - as we'd booked a Club room we had access to the Club Lounge which gave us some nice little extras. Three of the evenings we were there they had special events in the evenings - a wine and cheese evening, a cocktail evening and a canape evening. It was nice to go to the lounge before going to dinner and was a good opportunity to meet other people if you wanted to. They also did a free trip to Pigeon Island once a week which was only available for Club guests. The lounge itself was available 24 hours, staffed for most of the day and meant you never had to go to the main reception - having this, made everything really smooth and we enjoyed this side of the room category.
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There are lots more inclusions that I haven’t mentioned but the above were the main ones for me, it meant a very stress-free holiday and no bill from the hotel at the end of our stay. We will definitely visit a Sandals again and hope to take the kids to Beaches too!