Sandals Royal Curacao

My daughter and I decided to take a last minute trip to Curaçao. Since she’s considered an adult, I thought an all-inclusive mommy-daughter getaway at an adult only hotel would be great. 1st day, upon arrival, we go to get food. Roaches at the Pietra restaurant. I summons the manager Celeste that one of her waiters stepped on a roach. He looked at it and kept walking. She said she would attend to it but not quickly. Finally, she removes it. They bring our food and 2 more roaches come from under a neighboring table and the couple besides us lifts their feet so the roaches do not crawl on them. I’m done eating at this point. I go summons for a resort manager at Club Sandals. Khalif asks me “How many roaches?” Peculiar question. One is too many in my opinion. I wait for the night manager, Ernesto for some time. He finally comes, apologies and tells me he will credit my credit card and make us reservations at the top restaurant on the resort. I’m really ready to leave but it’s my daughter’s Spring Break and everything is booked. Ernesto stated “the restaurant was fumigated that morning.” So you know there’s a problem and your restaurant is still open?? So we decide we will not eat at that restaurant. We go for our reservation and a reservation doesn’t exist. We’re in line looking like misfits like we don’t have a reservation that was promised. A second reservation is promised at another restaurant. We get there, again no reservation. We pay for an excursion and pictures with my credit card because I want to keep my bills separate. At checkout, they tell me it was a resort credit not on my credit card. That is not what Ernesto explained. Ernesto said he did not say that. I wouldn’t have paid on my credit card if that was the case. Told me I had 10 mins to use the credit. How can I use the credit in 10 mins before departure. Then they told me they would credit my account with points. My account has yet to be credited and with this experience, what they want to credit me with is not enough. I will say most of the staff is really nice. There are some who act like they don’t want to be at work. Restaurant Aoloos, Vincent’s, Gusto Gusto were good restaurants. Their mishaps were not the normal Sandals experience. But Beware if you partake in this Sandals. I’m waiting on a personal response, I’ll report back if I’m contacted.

We stayed in a swim-up room that was wonderful. The infinity pool there is huge and the bar service was exceptional. Most of the restaurants for was good but the service was terrible. The Strand restaurant was the absolute worst. I asked for a drink refill (a Diet Coke) four times and never received it. At all of the restaurants the servers would take your drink orders and bring those very timely. Then they would take your meal order and it came somewhat timely. After that - that was it. I don't think my wine was refilled at any of the restaurants except for our dinner meal at Butch's and Vincent's. We loved the beach area and the pools. We were about an hour from the airport depending on traffic and the ride was comfortable. While the resort was pretty I'm not sure I'd go back to that particular location. For the money that we paid it was definitely not a worthwhile experience.

Dive team is a 5 star for sure. Great people. Corwin and the rest of the crew went above and beyond on all my group's dives. If you are a diver I recommend this destination for its staff and the entire dive experience. Perhaps tipping would help the staff of the resort go from a 4 star to a 5 star. Some were friendly, some were not.