We recently celebrated our 7-year wedding anniversary in Curaçao! The island was beautiful and is possibly my favorite island of all time! Curaçao is a constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which makes the island very interesting. Parts of the island, especially the downtown area, have a European look but is still different with the building’s bright colors. The rest of the island offers a true Caribbean flare. Most people on the island speak several languages including Papiamentu, Dutch, English, and Spanish. Everyone we spoke to was fluent in English. The island is rich in history and beautiful scenery. We felt very safe off the resort as well!
If you’re traveling to a Sandals resort for the first time, be sure to read this blog post first. In this blog post I go over the resorts we’ve been to and why we love Sandals! Also, check my Curaçao Instagram story highlight for even more info regarding our trip!
GETTING THERE
We had a long travel time to get to the island. We are Delta loyal but only American Airlines flies to Curaçao. With flight delays becoming more common, we decided to break our travel into two days to be safe. Thankfully we did because two of our flights were delayed by about an hour each. We flew Delta from TN to ATL. Then ATL to MIA. The next day we flew American to Curaçao. We surprisingly had a great experience flying American. Our flight was on time, we were able to upgrade to business class, the seating area was clean, and we were offered snacks, beverages, and a full meal. We did not partake in the meal, as airplane food makes me nervous! But otherwise, we had a great travel experience and it was a less rushed experience since we broke up our flights over two days. If you are flying out of Miami and need to spend the night in Miami we like to stay at the Miami Airpot Marriott as they offer a free shuttle service to and from the airport.
Depending on where you live, you could totally get to Curaçao in one day but keep in mind returning to the states and going through immigration can add to your time between connecting flights.
CHECKING IN
Once we arrived to the airport we went through immigration and collected our bags. This was a quick process and there is no need to book a fast pass before arriving. It took a while for our bags to come through the luggage pickup area which made me nervous but all of our bags showed up! Then we headed to our transfer to the resort. At this time Sandals Royal Curaçao does not offer booking for private transfers so we took a bus with other Sandals guests to the resort. This bus is for Sandals guests only and it was totally fine and comfortable. I fell asleep on the way there and back to the airport! The drive is about 1 hour to and from the airport. The roads are fine so I wouldn’t worry about motion sickness if that’s a concern for you.
The check-in process at this particular Sandals resort was a little different than the others we’ve been to. Everyone was taken to the Club Sandals lounge and given a brief introduction to the resort. This was different for us because we always book a butler category room and usually butler guests are taken to a separate area to check-in. Not a big deal though. A few minutes later an employee came up to us directly and started our check-in process. Shortly after, one of our butlers greeted us and informed us that our room wasn’t quite ready. This was fine because I was starving so he walked us to the food trucks on the resort and made sure our luggage was taken to our room. About an hour later, our room was ready. If your room isn’t ready when you arrive, I would be asked to sit at an indoor restaurant as it was hot outside at the food trucks.
ROOM AND BUTLERS
We booked room: Sunchi One Bedroom Beachfront Butler Suite – B1, specifically room 1446. This room has a long porch, 1.5 baths – which was great so we didn’t have to share, a separate living area, a stocked bar and mini fridge, and a king-size bed. There were two TVs in the room that we did not turn on the entire trip but I noticed you could sign into your Netflix and other streaming services accounts. We LOVED our room and location. At first, we wished we would have booked a swim-out room but as the week went, on we realized we liked the beach area the most.
It’s important to note, as mentioned in my previous Sandals blog post, we only book butler-level rooms. We LOVE the accommodations that come with having a butler team. You can read more about why we love this category most here:
Back to our room, I have to say we really lucked out when it comes to location. This resort is really spread out. However, the nightly entertainment is pretty loud and goes until midnight. With that being said, our room was pretty far from the noise. We did have a bit of a walk to get to the main areas and restaurants but we didn’t mind. Here is our room location on the resort map where the star is in the upper left hand corner:
Again, we really lucked out on this trip, especially with our butler team! Our butlers were Tevar, Romaine, and Jonathan. Since this resort is new, a lot of butlers and other team members have come from other Sandals locations to help. 2 of our butlers were from Jamaica and David and I both agree that we receive amazing service in Jamaica, so we immediately were at ease.
Romaine and Tevar are helping at this resort through December so if you’re visiting before then, I recommend requesting them before you arrive. You can usually do this through the Sandals App and when you arrive. I would do both. You can also have your travel agent make the request on your preference sheet.
I did notice our butler who had just started, Jonathan, was doing a great job but was still in training and that was totally fine! He made sure we had everything we needed but our other two butler were more attentive.
Our butlers did so much for us like, reserve our dinners at all the restaurants, brought us all our room service orders, brought us any drinks we requested, even surprise drinks without us asking, reserved beach and pool chairs for us with a cooler filled with beer and water, decorated our room for our anniversary, made our patio dinner extra special by setting up and serving us. They can also do so much more but those are the things we appreciate most.
FOOD & BEV
We always enjoy the food at Sandals resorts. We’ve figured out which restaurants and entrees we love and what to avoid based on our preferences but I have to say, the food at Sandals Royal Curacao was even better! As always the sushi was phenomenal, the Italian restaurant had an antipasti bar – so good, and the Cobb salad at Strand for lunch was my go to! I also loved the T-bone steak at Butch’s. There were also 3 food trucks open for lunch which was a new addition to some resorts. The Asian food truck was so good! Order the steak teriyaki bowl!
For breakfast every morning we ordered room service and it was always good. There are certain restaurants open for breakfast some with menus and one with a breakfast buffet. I heard the food was great at both from other guests! You can view menus on the Sandals App and on the Sandals website.
BEACH & POOL
This resort is known for its double-edge infinity pool! The pool is beautiful and so big! It faces the ocean so there’s also a beautiful view. The pool area stays pretty busy all day and offers a dj and entertainment daily. Personally, I preferred the beach as it was quieter. Every night when our butler walked us to dinner, we told him if we wanted to sit by the beach or pool so he knew to reserve our chairs early the next morning.
If you prefer a wide long beach with waves, you may not like the beach here. The beach is more like a lagoon and there is a long dock outlining the beach. While the beach isn’t wide, the water does get deep near the dock. There are no waves at the beach and there are boats that go by frequently. However, we didn’t find the boats disturbing. There are stationary floats in the water, which are first come first serve, but I noticed it was easy to find a free one every so often throughout the day! Like all Sandal’s resorts, water sports are included. You can see those here.
A few things to note… bring water shoes. All the beaches we visited were rocky. We were fine without water shoes but just had to be cautious entering the water and look for rocks. Also, bring your own pool and beach float. While the beach had stationary floats we enjoyed having our own to float around! Usually, Sandals offers complimentary floats but we didn’t see many around this time. Click here for the floats we ordered. The water sports team can blow your float up for you! Bring snorkeling gear! I believe the resort offers complimentary snorkeling off the resort. However, I heard this excursion gets booked up quickly. We noticed there was a lot of marine life at the beach! I went to the gift shop and bought snorkeling gear but it was overpriced, so bring your own. The snorkeling at the Sandals beach was great if you don’t want to do a long excursion.
TOUR OF THE ISLAND
Sandals offers plenty of excursions that can be booked before you arrive or on-site. However, through our experience, we really like to book private tours with a local person. We prefer not to be with big groups and we also like to customize our own tours. Through some research, we read great reviews about REMYX TOURS. I 10/10 recommend booking with Remyx (his real name is Remy but he goes by REMYX – like the word remix). David booked with him through email but you can even message him on Instagram or Facebook to book. As of our booking, Remyx charged $250.00 total for an 8-hour tour of the island. I told David multiple times that he needs to raise his prices for everything he did for us! He picked us up and dropped us off at the resort. We went to over ten stops and the tour was completely customizable. He provides snorkeling gear and transportation everywhere. He was driving a nice Toyota truck and we felt completely safe and comfortable. He is very adventurous, whereas we are more laid back, but he was still able to show us so many spots! We toured a bat cave, saw blow holes near the ocean, visited several beaches, saw flamingos, visited a beach with turtles and you can swim with them, he took us to lunch at a local restaurant, I even requested to go shopping – so he took us! I really can’t recommend this tour enough! It was so nice that it was just David and I on this tour. Remyx had his own phone and GoPro. He took over 600 photos of us and Air Dropped them to us at the end of the excursion. He will be sending us a video in the next few weeks. Remyx mentioned he was currently booked through August 2022 but if you are traveling before then, message him to see if there are any cancellations.
You can let him know beforehand if there are any particular sights you want to see and how adventurous you want to be on the trip!
LEAVING THE RESORT
Our departing flight was at 4 pm so we were scheduled on the 12 pm shuttle back to the airport. Again, this was the Sandals shuttle and they loaded our luggage for us. We had to be out of our room by 11 am so I asked our butler to meet us with lunch at 11:30 am in the lounge. Departing the resort was super easy.
The check in line at the airport was long so be prepared. They only had two people working the check-in counter for American Airlines so it was a slow process but it really wasn’t too bad.
I was really surprised at how nice the airport was in Curacao! There were plenty of food and bev options and most importantly, the airport had air conditioning. I ate a second lunch in the airport and the food was good!
ADDRESSING CONCERNS
There are currently a lot of mixed reviews regarding Sandals Royal Curacao. The resort opened about two months ago and it seems like the resort opened a little prematurely based on the reviews I’ve read. Here are some things I noticed:
– We went into this trip with low expectations based on reviews. A lot of the complaints that we read about – we didn’t experience! I think having butlers, we avoided a lot of problems. It does seem like butler requests get the first preference. We never waited on anything! I do believe island time is real. Our lunch wasn’t brought to us immediately – sometimes it took thirty minutes and sometimes it took an hour. We didn’t mind because we were in paradise! Plus there were times when we requested food from two different places like a pizza from one restaurant and a salad from another so it was understandable that it took some time.
– Sometimes the bar at the beach was unable to make the drink we asked for because they ran out of an ingredient. But there are so many other bars on the resort so I would suggest going to another bar to order!
– Sandals has a no-tipping policy except for butlers, spas, and excursions. However, we read reviews that people were tipping at the pool bar to get quicker service. We did NOT witness this happening. Service may have been a little slower but since we had butlers – they ordered and brought our drinks to us.
-We read some reviews about the showers causing flooding in the bathroom. In our shower, there was a gap between the shower door and shower glass wall so some water did leak out. We put an extra towel on the floor and it was totally fine! Housekeeping did an amazing job of replacing our towels and cleaning our whole suite every day.
– There were reviews about dinner service being slow at restaurants. We did not experience this and we usually finished a 3-course dinner in an hour. We typically reserved dinner between 7-8 pm.
TIPS:
– Bring extra sunscreen! We brought three bottles and had to buy a fourth. Sunscreen is expensive on the resort.
-Pack 1 bottle of bug spray. We only had issues with the mosquitos when we ate outside at the sushi restaurant. However, we saw the staff spraying for insects in the morning. Other than the one instance, we didn’t have any issues with the mosquitos.
– We went to the returning guest dinner which is every Tuesday. The food was great! This is the second time we’ve gone to this special dinner and I will probably skip it next time only because you are seated at a table with 2-3 other couples and both times no one at our table talks! I’d rather have a private dinner with David. But again, the food was excellent.
– The spa is small but we had an excellent couples massage!
– We visited the gym almost every day but some mornings when it rained (the rain didn’t last long) the gym was busy and we couldn’t always get a treadmill so we walked around the resort for exercise. The area right outside the resort is gated as well so we did walk around there. There are walking trails and sidewalks for miles in the gated community. You might also be able to walk the golf course if it is early enough.
-Join the Sandals Royal Curacao Unofficial Facebook group. There’s a lot of great info there but take the negative reviews with a grain of salt.
-There are a limited number of American electrical outlets at this resort so we brought these adapters. I would bring two.
– Some people like to bring their own Yeti cups to keep their drinks cold. We don’t bring cups but it’s totally normal to see people with insulated cups.
