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Sandals - Grande St. Lucian Traveler Review :: "Stay Somewhere Else!!"

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Summary of All Property Reviews Ratings based on answers from a total of 5 reviews (All Reviews) 10 is best 1 is worst
Feature	Ranking	Feature	Ranking
Cleanliness of Property	7.60	Quality of Property	6.60
Privacy & Quietness	3.40	Quality of Service	6.00
Courtesy & Hospitality of Staff	6.80	Accuracy of Website (marketing hype) VS. Actual Experience	6.00
Food and Dining Experience	6.80	Price/Value of Property	5.60
Safety Factor (Did you feel safe at property)	7.00	Quality of Beach (ranked closest beach if property is located off the beach)	7.20
Total Property Score: 6.30 | Average Star Rating: 3.20 out of 5

• 40% (2 visitors of 5) said they would go back to Sandals - Grande St. Lucian again.
• 40% (2 visitors of 5) said they would recommend Sandals - Grande St. Lucian to friends.

Resort Deals from CheapCaribbean.com: View All Island Deals
Almond Morgan Bay Resort St. Lucia	Almond Smugglers Cove	Anse Chastanet	Bay Gardens Beach Resort	Coco Kreole	Coco Palm

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My wife and I decided to do a destination wedding in St Lucia. We went for one of the top of the line rooms, what they call a Rotundo, complete with a pool you can jump into from the living room, and a personal butler. The price was well over $1,000 per night, but was SUPPOSED to be all inclusive. But that is just the tip of the iceberg, so let me give a rundown of events from the beginning.
1. Get out of the car at the resort for the first time, expect to be greeted with professionalism. Instead, we are greeted by a man who is high as a kite, and gives me a "pound" (very casual way of shaking someone's hand) lasting for about 1 minute. Then proceeds to give my wife a "pound". Being originally from the Bronx, NY, this attitude was nothing new to me. The issue was I was expecting to be greeted by someone trained in service, obviously not the case.

2. Same gent that gave my wife and I the pound, comes to engage us in conversation while we wait for our butler. My wife is attractive being a former model, but is not overly endowed (her words, not mine). We had been traveling all day, her with a hooded sweatshirt on, zipped to the top. The high greeter proceeds to have a conversation with my wife's chest. He stared so intently that she started to look at her own chest, thinking maybe she had spilled a gallon of mustard on herself, and simply not noticed. At this point, I had words with the young man.

3. We are greeted by our butler, and taken to our room. We have a wedding in 3 days, and were told before arriving at the resort that we would be advised about the time/date of the meeting with the wedding planner once we checked in. My wife asked the butler when the meeting with the wedding planner was scheduled. The butler replied by asking my wife when the wedding was (he did not know we were getting married). My wife replied we were getting married within 3 days. The butler (supposed to be highly trained in the art of service) replied, "well, you have plenty of time then, don't worry about it". This was obviously not what you should say to a young lady with a wedding 3 days away.

4. Butler gives us a tour of the room we will be staying in for the week. Butler makes a reference that the bath tub is large enough for 3 persons, if we wanted to invite a 3rd person in the tub. Now, we are not the most prudish people on earth, but 2 people planning to get married normally do not want to hear nonsense like this, as if we are going to invite our butler into the tub...or anyone else. We didn’t immediately read too much into the comment, but both felt it was inappropriate and in bad taste if nothing else.

5. My wife heads off to find a manager. She insists on my allowing her to handle it, since she has the cooler head. She speaks with the manager and is initially happy that he individual seemed to be concerned with what she was saying, and even took some notes. We are reasonable people, we were not looking for free nights or for anyone to be fired. We just wanted to receive special treatment, but no more special than anyone else paying over $1,000 per night at a resort.

6. We meet the wedding planner. My wife continues to get upset, as the wedding planner has the eagerness and intensity of a drive-thru employee at McDonalds. I can understand she does this many times per week, and therefore whatever glimmer may have once existed in her job has long since left the building. I was very tempted to take her outside, give her $100 and ask her to act like this is the first time she ever planned a wedding for someone.

7. We find that "all-inclusive' is far from it. We are charged for additional things at every turn. In addition to paying over $1,000 per night for our room, we also had spent a couple grand to pay for the wedding (very small event). The money we paid was supposed to cover the flowers, cake, after-wedding dinner, pictures, etc. The reality is we were charged thousands of dollars in addition, for pictures (they take the pictures but then charge you nearly $20 per picture. The way they set this up deserves it's own section, but I'll throw it in here. They take the pictures during the wedding, never mentioning cost. They then plan a time for you within the next couple days following your wedding, for you to meet with the salespeople in the Photoshop. Ever buy a used car? This is the experience here. They hold your pictures hostage, requiring you to choose which prints you want, at a charge of nearly $20 per picture. They take a couple hundred pictures, and you wish you could have them all. But by the time you think about what you are paying for the room, how much you spent on the wedding, how much you have spent for all the extra costs at the supposed "all-inclusive" resort, you end up doing what we did, and only able to select 40 or 50 pictures.

8. My wife had a couple family members who made the journey down to St Lucia to be there for the wedding as well. Both family members were guests of the resort as well, which was also supposed to be all-inclusive for them as well. The resort however insisted on charging a couple hundred extra dollars if we wanted the family members to join us for dinner after the wedding. The resort wanted to charge this extra money because the menu for the dinner reception included a few extra items. We agreed to pay the additional cost. Of course on our wedding night, with family present, we are served the regular menu, not the wedding menu. In other words, we were being charged for a menu of "special items" we never received.

9. Any time we wanted to schedule something such as a beach dinner, horse-back riding, skiing, or any other activity, we were charged (a lot!). All-inclusive does not mean the same thing to all people apparently. For us, we were under the impression that all-inclusive meant that even though we were spending almost our entire savings on this trip, at least we KNEW how much we were spending. As opposed to having to spring for unexpected charges left and right, and ending up spending thousands more than you had budgeted. Even though we were at this "all-inclusive" resort, we still ended up spending thousands on all the extra fee's, none of which were ever explained or outlined to us prior to our arrival.

I could go on, but will stop here. I have been waiting to have the time to sit down and write this review thoroughly. When I selected St Lucia and Sandals, I did so after looking at some reviews, which were for the most part, positive. After having such a horrible experience there, I feel obligated to post this on as many sites as possible to spare others. If we could do it all over again, we would have rented a small house in St Lucia, and fended for ourselves. This was my first experience at a resort, so maybe this doesn’t apply for other Sandal's resorts. All I know is avoid Sandals Grande in St Lucia as if your happiness depends on it...cause in many ways it does.

Feel free to email me at harridave@gmail.com if you want further information or clarification on any point. I would be happy to spare others our miserable experience.

Property Review
10 is best 1 is worst

Would you stay at this property again?: ... No
Would you recommend this property to your friends?: ... No
In your opinion, how would you classify the "style" of this property: ... Family Oriented
Possible Anwswers: Family Oriented, Couples Oriented, Mixed/Diverse in a Good Way, Mixed/Diverse in a Bad Way

• Cleanliness of Property: ... 6
• Quality of Property: ... 8
• Privacy and Quietness: ... 0
• Quality of Service: ... 2
• Courtesy and Hospitality of Staff: ... 1
• Accuracy of Website VS. Actual Experience: ... 4
  
• Food and Dining Experience: ... 3
• Price/Value of Property: ... 4
  
• Safety Factor (Did you feel safe at property): ... 5
• Quality of Beach (ranked closest beach if property is located off the beach): ... 8

Destination/Island Review
10 is best 1 is worst

Would you visit this destination/island again?: ... Yes
Would you recommend this destination/island to your friends?: ... Yes

• Cleanliness of Destination/Island: ... 7
• Options of Activities in the Area: ... 8
• Ease of Transportation (air, taxi, bus, shuttle): ... 5
• Quality of Beaches in the Area: ... 8
• Courtesy & Hospitality of Locals: ... 9
• Safety Factor (Did you feel safe in the Area): ... 9
  
• Local Restaurant Experience/Options: ... 7
• Price/Value of Destination (Does your dollar stretch?): ... 5
  

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