Sandals Halcyon Beach

The gardens are beautiful and well maintained. Very quiet resort and lacks atmosphere. Some noise from traffic and tree frogs at night. The transfer is not for the faint hearted due to winding roads and distance, about 90 minutes in total. On arrival we were given room 701 which absolutely stunk of mould, damp and the air con was broken and wouldn't turn off! We complained and were moved to room 609 (same room category) with no stench. The pools are very dirty and the tiles very dated and could do with a complete refurb as could the rooms. On a couple of occasions the pool was being 'cleaned' at 10.30 in the morning so not in use for guests, my husband found this out when he entered the pool to cool off and got verbally abused by the pool cleaner, she is so rude. The small sign was around the other side of the pool from where we were sitting so not visible to us. Pool maintenance should take place early in the morning so not to impact guests. We enquired about booking on site for a future trip and were told we would be given a price later that day (3 days ago) but it never came across, probably for the best as I doubt we'll visit Sandals again after this. The food here is ok and not 5 star in my opinion and the service is hit and miss. Some staff are wonderful and an absolute credit and some are surly and indifferent. The last two days we have returned to our room to find no housekeeping had taken place, on both occasions around 4pm so quite late in the afternoon therefore fully expecting it to have been cleaned by this time, I had to contact reception and ask, also had to ask for refills of coffee creamer etc as they were all finished with no sign of replacements, definitely not 5 star at all. We are here until 17th and I hope things improve but I doubt they will. Seems to me like they're getting worse by the way. Disappointed is an understatement.

Stayed 6 nights for a honeymoon. First time Sandals guest and first time all-inclusive guest. Coming into the stay we had high expectations and were super excited to stay with sandals and enjoy everything that came with it.. however from the moment we have arrived there’s been a problem or multiple everyday. We arrived to our room before our luggage- not a huge deal until I see the luggage being taken in the wrong direction and have to flag the gentleman down to have him bring it back to us. After a long day of travel we were ready to shower and change clothes. Our room was definitely not the cleanest, and had plenty of ants crawling all week along our bathroom items. Also during the first night we heard these loud noises coming from outside our room later finding out tree frogs love to make these high pitch alarm sounds all night long. As a light sleeper this was a headache every night, usually starting around 6pm and lasting until 6am. I looked at other reviews and saw the same complaints so probably should have done some more research but I’m just here to tell you it’s a lot louder and worse than you think. Booking anything is an absolute nightmare at this resort. Concierge insist you book any dinner reservations or excursions with them but anything you ask about doing they call a different department (who doesn’t answer) and then say they will get back to you. This happened to us at 5+ times for restaurants and excursions and we only had a few things we wanted to do. There’s a lack of communication between guest and resort that’s a little concerning, we were here to enjoy ourselves and do some exploring and have good food. Not walk back and forth from our room to concierge to find out if we have a reservation or not. There’s also groups of guys along the beach soliciting excursions and little items that go way over board considering you have to walk by them every time to get to your room or to leave. At the bottom of the sandals excursions list it states “reframe from booking excursions with people on the beach” it’s obviously a problem if they have to put that in their own packet. I also played golf one morning which comes with a sleeve of ProV1s which is nice but when the time came.. a sleeve of TruFeel… not really an issue but these are the things that add up to make the experience less enjoyable (also a guy on the course walking around trying to sell used balls he found, asked me 4 times) I’m writing this review during day 5 because there’s been so many things wrong and it’s disappointing after paying so much money to get here. Overall I’d give Sandals a 2 out of 5 stars and could be less by the time I leave Monday.

Was an amazing week stay. Service is amazing and made my 50th Birthday amazing. Will definitely be back once we visit all Sandals properties. Top notch.

This the review I didn’t want to have to write and sorry for the length of it ! Firstly I’d like to say we have waited several weeks to write this review to give sandals the chance to address our many complaint emails (to the customer service address which is always referred to in their standard trip advisor response). We have emailed that email address 3 times and the resort directly without a response. We even said we would be contacting ABTA yet still nothing . The reason for our complaint could have easily been rectified and we would have been happy to book a sandals holiday again, but now I would never use them again. We arrived in the evening and after the welcome song were taken by a club lounge member to our room. On the way to it she casually mentioned that we couldn’t have the room we paid for (club level crystal lagoon swim up room) as there were maintenance issues. She gave no apology and just said we would be contacted first thing in the morning so we could get the room we paid for. The room we got put in was not an upgraded room it was just a club room in the garden. The following day we heard nothing so we visited the club lounge in the morning and just got fobbed off by a surly male employee who said we would be contacted by Gina (the resort app) when it was ready. At around 4pm 24hrs after checkin we still had heard nothing so again contacted them ourselves to be then told it was ready and a member would let us checkin to the club crystal lagoon finally. Therefore they just didn’t bother to get in touch. So after living out of a suitcase for 24hrs and having to keep chasing any help we were really disappointed. The only people who were on us for that first 24hrs was the predatory spa staff (we had 3 of them knocking the door wanted us to book nearly 200 dollar massages on the first night). The room we ended up in was the crystal lagoon club level, room 609. The room was tired and shabby, the handle on the shower came off in my hands and the cabinets looked worn out. The bath looked old and so did the tiling however as we’d lost 24hrs and we were only there for a week we didn’t bother to ask for a move. Plus points of our stay: Grounds are very nicely kept The bay side restaurant, all the staff we saw were great, but big shout out to Veronica the egg station lady. Mario’s was excellent the food was amazing and so were the staff. All the bar staff were great and really on it, great cocktails and no waiting for drinks. The staff were fun and lively Sushi bar was also good. Crystal lagoon pool was relaxing and chilled out, very nicely designed and cool water. Resort negatives (aside from our personal complaint): Bayside dinner was a let down, the food was the worst we had especially as we booked for our anniversary and the staff were disinterested and looked bored. The ambience was flat. The main pool area is so dated, it looks more-like a butlins type resort than a 5 star hotel. Definitely needs upgrading. The entertainment was hit and miss, better when they stick to authentic Caribbean nights rather than the cruise ship cheesy stuff. Our club room bar was not restocked as sold on the website until you had to go out of your way and ask. Club lounge staff were unfriendly, unhelpful and disingenuous (I’ll explain this shortly) Again the spa staff, they actually harass you, they wait in numbers by the main walkways, by the restaurants and bars and it’s high pressure selling which is not relaxing on holiday. This was a common complaint from lots of guests during our holiday so should be addressed! It’s not particularly romantic for couples as on our stay there were large groups of friends overtaking sun beds. This was particularly around the paradise pool area and a lot of other couples were unhappy with this too. St Lucia is beautiful, but this beech is not, which is not their fault, but if you love a beautiful beach this is not one of them. The tranfer drive was wild (overtaking 4 cars on a bend up a mountain) and very bumpy so definitely needed travel sickness pills. Conclusion At the end of our holiday we asked the club concierge if we could check out of our room later than 11am as we had lost 24hrs in the correct room, but were told no by a male member of staff. His attitude was unhelpful and quite hostile so for the first time we asked to speak to a manager, mostly due to how we were treated by him in the club lounge. We spoke to a manager called Ruth and she gave us a later check out of 3pm. Check out (reason for complaint): We checked out at 3pm as agreed by Ruth the manager on the previous day and surprisingly were clearly told by the male club lounge member that checked us out that we were now getting a refund as we didn’t have our room for the first night accommodation (24hrs), we hadn’t asked for this so it was a nice surprise. The club employee acted like he was surprised we hadn’t been told this already and we said it was the first time we’d been informed of the refund. We thanked him and asked how this would be done and he clearly stated that the refund would go on the same credit card we paid with in a few days time. However, To this day we have received no refund whatsoever and as I said above no response to any of the emails chasing this. We have tried calling their UK helpline and even spoke to an employee in the finance department called Carla. She said there was nothing on the system about this, but she just said to use the same customer service email that gets ignored even after telling her we’d done this already. She would not help any further or put us through to anyone else so we are stuck in a viscous circle of misery, stress and getting nowhere. To be honest if we hadn’t been lied to about the refund we wouldn’t be so angry, but the customer service attitude really sucks and we feel that we were lied to deliberately. Sandals have no interest in their customers at all after they have got your money so if you have any issues once your checked out you are screwed. Note to sandals/response to trip advisor team…. Please do not respond telling us to email customer services We Have They Do Not Reply!! We will be taking this further with ABTA as we stated in our last email to customer service dated 23 July. Booking ref 16944042.

Lovely holiday… but 5 star? I'm not so sure! We stayed at Sandals Halcyon in St Lucia for 10 nights from 27th August. Overall, we had a fantastic holiday, met some lovely people and made some great memories. St Lucia itself is absolutely beautiful and we really did enjoy our time here. BUT… and it's a fairly big but… I'm not convinced this is a 5-star resort. For us, it's much closer to a 4-star experience. Arrival We arrived at the airport and made our way to the Sandals lounge, where we were promptly seated and offered refreshments. We had around a 30-minute wait for our shuttle, which was absolutely fine. Once we arrived at the resort, we were greeted by staff singing the welcome song and then taken into the Club Lounge to check in. And then we waited… and waited… 😂 We were in the Club Lounge for around an hour before a small group of us were finally escorted to our rooms. Not exactly the quickest check-in, especially after a long journey. We had booked a Club Crystal Lagoon Walkout (WPL) and we had room 607. The room The room was spacious and, on first glance, looked clean. Unfortunately, closer inspection told a slightly different story. There was quite a lot of dust built up on the bathroom door — and I mean enough that I actually wiped a section of it myself, partly because I couldn't help myself and partly in the hope that housekeeping might take the hint and clean it properly! 😂 There was also mildew starting to develop around the grout and sealant in the bathroom. Again, not something I'd expect to see in a resort that's marketed as 5-star. The room was otherwise well equipped with two bathrobes, slippers, umbrellas, a hairdryer, iron and ironing board as well as usual toiletries. The walkout was lovely, a few steps away and we were in the lagoon pool. We had two sun loungers, a small table and two chairs outside. The food We tried quite a few of the restaurants during our stay and, thankfully, the food was generally very good. Kelly's Dockside – Lovely food but, oh my goodness, the service! 😩 We went several times for both breakfast and dinner and it was painfully slow every single time. I really think they need more staff. We weren't in any particular rush while on holiday, but there is slow… and then there's Kelly's slow! 😂 Bayside – We went here for breakfast and managed to walk through the wrong entrance. We were promptly chastised by one of the servers. We genuinely didn't know we couldn't go in that way, so a simple "Sorry, guests enter this way" would probably have done the job! I also wasn't particularly keen on the birds landing on tables and around the food-serving area. I appreciate it's an open-air restaurant, so I know they're difficult to keep away, but it wasn't particularly appealing. In the evening, Bayside serves French cuisine. Mario's – Lovely Italian food and the chef was very accommodating, happily tweaking dishes when asked. Definitely worth a visit. Pizza Truck – Yummy! 🍕 Who doesn't love pizza on holiday? Kimonos – The food was lovely, although I did feel the chefs could have put a bit more effort into the "show" part of the teppanyaki experience. We were expecting a little more entertainment and interaction. Beach Restaurant – Great for a snack during the day when you can't be bothered getting properly dressed and sitting down for a meal. 😂 Bombay at Grand St Lucian – WOW. Absolutely amazing. One of our favourites and definitely worth the trip over. Cricketers Inn at La Toc – Pub grub and exactly what you'd expect. Nothing fancy, but sometimes that's exactly what you fancy. Bucaan at La Toc – Superb food. Another definite highlight. So… would we go back? Probably! Despite the niggles, we genuinely had an amazing time. We met some lovely people, enjoyed the resort and its beautiful setting and came home with some fantastic memories. But would I call Sandals Halcyon a 5-star hotel? Honestly… no. For me, the slow service, the housekeeping issues and a couple of experiences with staff just don't match what I'd expect from a genuine 5-star resort regardless of time of year (we were low season). Maybe I'm expecting too much, but when you're paying 5-star prices, you expect 5-star attention to detail too. That said, none of the above ruined our holiday. We still had a brilliant 10 nights and St Lucia has definitely left us wanting to come back. Would I recommend it? Yes. Would I return? Probably. Is it 5 star? For us, it's a 4-star with aspirations! 😉 And ultimately, we came home relaxed, happy and with some wonderful memories — so I can't complain too much. ❤️🇱🇨