My Honest Review of Sandals Royal Bahamian

Oh my goodness! This is one of the BEST all inclusive resorts I’ve been to and here is my honest review.

When you arrive at the airport, before you exit completely, you will stop by the Sandals kiosk and they will take you to your (included) transfer. We did have to wait about 20 minutes for other people to get on the shuttle before we made our way to the resort. Upon arrival, we were greeted with a glass of champagne and sat in the lobby for a few minutes, before we were walked to our room. We were given a short tour as we were going to our room. This was the only resort where there was no real “check-in” process here. We sat and sipped champagne until they were ready with our room keys.

Sandals Royal Bahamian is located on Nassau Island in the Bahamas. You would fly into Lynden Pindling Airport (NAS). There are tons of excursions, but we only had a few short days so we didn’t end up doing any. But, I’m definitely going swimming with the pigs next time! It’s not on Nassau, but you can book an excursion where they will take you to the beach where you can swim with the pigs.

Side Note: On your way back to the US, you will actually go through customs in the Bahamas! We were so glad we didn’t ask the transportation company to change our shuttle to leave a little later because it gave us enough time to do everything we needed to do. The line was very long to check in your bag, even though we had checked into our flight on our phones already. The security line wasn’t too bad, but then we had to wait to get through customs before we were finally able to get into the airport. Once we landed back in the US, it was like we had taken a domestic flight in and we didn’t have to go through customs at that point. I actually much preferred this system since it made getting home after we landed that much quicker.

Our room was nice, clean, and traditional, with a view of the quiet pool. I tend to prefer more updated, upscale, modern rooms, but I had no real complaints about the room.

The resort itself isn’t too large, which is also to my preference. I’m not the biggest fan of resorts where you have to grab a shuttle to get around. There are two pools: the quiet pool and the party pool, both had swim-up bars, but the party pool also had a DJ, a volleyball net, and way more (younger) people. Our room was on the second floor right by the stairwell and we were less than a minute from the quiet pool. A few more minutes and we were at the party pool or the beach. Between the two pools, there are two food trucks (more on that below) with some great food and dessert, plus a bar that was always well stocked. The swim-up bar at the party pool was busy and always running out of things. The swim-up bar in the quiet pool was always well stocked, as well. Right behind the party pool is where most of the restaurants are located. The restaurants were beautiful and the food was delicious. Room service was better here than at most resorts I’ve been to, but it is not 24/7. There is a British pub that is only until 2am with food.

My favorite part? The pools never close! They also have two hot tubs. After dinner, we changed back into swimsuits and made our way down to the pools.

Ok wait, my favorite part is THE BEACH. It is absolutely stunning. The clearest waters. The most beautiful beach! The sand is so soft and powdery and white. The water so clean and blue. It was absolutely stunning. One of the most beautiful beaches I’ve seen, ever. We rented a jet ski and took one of the free glass bottoms kayaks, both of which were amazing.

They have a private island and a ferry that takes you there and back on scheduled times. The private island has its own restaurant for lunch. We didn’t make it to the private island on the ferry, but we did make it there on the jet ski. It looked much quieter than the main beach.

The beach is split by a pier/dock where they have a beautiful restaurant over the water. They have lot’s of chairs, some of which have tents for shade. The ocean is roped off and they have really large floats that look like large life savers you can sit in the middle.

The food was delicious. For breakfast, we tried Le Plume and Kanoo, then did room service on our last day. For lunch, we had the Coco Queen food truck and Tesoro. At Coco Queen, we had the conch fritter, conch salad, fish taco, and Bahamian mac and cheese. Oh my goodness, the Bahamian mac and cheese was so good! Everything we had at the food truck, we enjoyed. The food trucks are so good and conveniently located. I loved this touch! The pizzas at Tesoro were great, as well.

For dinner, we made a reservation at Butch’s (not every restaurant requires a reservation, but pro tip: make all your reservations as soon as you arrive to make sure you get in where you want), ate at the sushi bar at Soy, and our last night was spent at Gordon’s. After one of our nights swimming late, we made it to the British pub, the Queens Pearl and grabbed some wings and fries and brought it back to our room. We weren’t there long enough to try every restaurant, but we certainly tried quite a bit.

Soy was so, so good. Our sushi chef was staying at the Bahamas for two years from Japan. The chefs were very nice and didn’t take too long to get our food. We couldn’t decide which sushi rolls we liked best because they were all so good! Definitely try the Crispy Rice Spicy Tuna appetizer, we ordered it twice. I normally don’t like fried sushi rolls, but the Futo Maki Roll was great. We tried both the Exotic Fruit Plate and Yuzu Cheesecake, but we only liked the Exotic Fruit Plate.

At Butch’s we had the crab cakes as a starter and they were on point. Our entrees were the Lamb Chops and T-bone steak and I definitely recommend the Lamb Chops. I asked for the Diane sauce and didn’t love it. For dessert, we had the Willy Wonka Creme Brulee, which sounds weird but was good and the Chocolate Sin Pie, but the Creme Brulee was better. Overall, a great dinner.

At Gordon’s, the best thing was the sunset we got to watch from our seats and the scallops appetizer. Wow, just wow - both of them! We had the pan-seared swordfish and the surf and turf. Both were great, but the real highlight was definitely our view and the scallops. We opted out of dessert and got crepes at the food trucks instead. Check out this sunset view from dinner!

The drinks were great, too! I did not feel like they were watered down in the least. They can make whatever you ask for and always have a new drink of the day.

We also made it to the spa, which was lovely and our massages were great. It was a small spa and did not have facilities like I am used to at resort spas, so I’m not sure I would say was “worth the price,” but a quick tip: if your flight isn’t too early, you can schedule your massage for the last day and use that time to shower after check-out!

Between dinner and our nightly swim, they had a great entertainment team that kept us, well, entertained.

This would be an absolutely excellent resort to have an adults only destination wedding. We enjoyed it as just a girls trip, but I would also recommend it for a honeymoon. How great would it be to end your wedding with a jump in the pool and a midnight snack at the British pub?

Want more information on how to get married at a Sandals property? We can also help plan vow renewals, elopements, anniversary trips, friend trips! I definitely recommend Sandals if you’re looking for a great time!