We were lucky enough to finally stay a week at the beautiful Sandals Grenada. This was actually the first Sandals resort we booked for August 2020 but due to Covid it wasn’t open at that time. Our vacation got pushed back to August 2021 and it was well worth the wait!
Grenada is known as the Spice island and is best known for Nutmeg! It was a long stressful travel day for us to arrive at this beautiful island. Of course we are still battling the Covid pandemic and we had to test negative within 72 hours of our travel. Our local testing site is no longer open on Sundays therefore we had to test Monday morning for a Wednesday departure. We actually flew out of O’Hare without results yet, yikes! It was a 3 hour flight to Miami followed by a 3.5 hour flight to Grenada. Once we landed we went through customs and our resort was a quick 3 minute drive from the airport!
We made some really good friends in St Lucia last August and actually booked Grenada at the same time as them! When we arrived at the resort not only was our Butler Don there to greet us, but Catherine and Ben were with him as well. Don whisked us away to take our arrival Covid PCR test and then brought us to our room. Its time to party now!
We headed straight for our private plunge pool and within 10 minutes Don showed up with pizza and frozen drinks for us. He must have known how hungry we were after our long travel day! Ben and Catherine came over and hung out with us in our pool until it was time to get ready for dinner at Butch’s Chophouse.
We made so many new friends on this vacation and had a total blast! Most of our days consisted of hanging by the beach followed by the party pool. We also made sure to hang out in our private pool each day. Of course there was a ton of booze and food, what else do you need at an all inclusive?!
Speaking of food and booze, lets talk about the dining options in Grenada. There are a total of 10 restaurants at this lovely resort. Our favorite Sandals restaurant is at this resort, Butch’s Chophouse. They have the most amazing steak and lobster mac n cheese! Its so good, we had to eat here twice. Spices is the Caribbean cuisine restaurant at this resort, it was very yummy! We also always enjoy a fun dinner at Kimono’s and of course pizza from Dino’s by the beach. There were a lot of visits to Cafe de Paris for late night espresso followed by late night drinks and wings at the Tipsy Turtle Pub. As for drinks, you can’t go wrong! Make sure you order Caribbean Painkiller, it comes garnished with that famous Grenada nutmeg 🙂
This particular resort is one of the newer resorts and it is very up to date. For this reason the prices do tend to be a bit higher. We decided to do a split room stay at this resort. It was so neat to be able to stay in two different rooms but I will say it was a lot of packing and unpacking and we didn’t feel like we had enough time in either room. We stayed the first three nights in the South Seas One Bedroom Butler Villa with Infinity Edge Pool room and the last four nights in the Italian Oceanview SkyPool Butler Suite. The SkyPool suite is the most expensive room at the resort but to help offset the cost we only did it for part of the stay. I must say though, it was absolutely stunning. It was hard to want to leave the room!
The entertainment at this resort was wonderful. Each night, aside from the beach party, the entertainment was held in the main lobby area. There was a silent headphone party, reggae night and my personal favorite- the beach party. Make sure to go to the entertainment every night! The entertainment is on a rotating 7 night schedule so I do suggest staying at least 7 nights when you go to a Sandals.
Our one excursion we did at this resort was a half day morning excursion. I am not going to lie, the drive was kind of rough. I believe our excursion left at about 8:30 am if I remember correctly. I am not one to get motion sick but the longest drive was the first drive when we got in the van. It was super early for being on vacation and I was very hungover. There were a lot of winding roads and of course its hot in Grenada. After our first stop the drives got much shorter and I felt better. We stopped at Fort Fredrick, a chocolate factory, a rum distillery and finally finished up our excursion with a stop at a local restaurant for some local cuisine. The last stop was my absolute favorite! YUM!
Phil and I joke bout this being the most stressful vacation we have ever been on and unfortunately it is true. The Covid testing situation prior to our trip was a huge part of this. Flying to Grenada without results was very risky but thankfully our results populated and we were negative! We did have to get tested at the resort two times as well. Once on arrival, a PCR test. Once you had this result you were able to leave the resort for excursions. One last test was taken two days prior to departure. This one was an antigen test for flying back to the US. Thankfully they were all negative but it is very nerve wracking.
If this wasn’t enough, on our journey home, our flight left from Grenada about 30 minutes late. We arrived at the Miami airport and there were no gates available for us to deplane. We sat in what they call the “penalty box” for 30 minutes until our gate opened up. Of course we still had to go through customs and security again. We had a two hour layover originally but with the delays there was unfortunately not enough time and we missed our connecting flight. American Airlines did put us in a hotel for the night but the bad news was we were on standby for the flight the next morning to O’hare. We headed straight to the hotel bar once we checked in LOL. Thankfully we were at the top of the standby list and we were able to fly home the next morning without issues. Phew this trip had a lot of hiccups but man was it worth it!
All right, this wraps it up! This Sandals resort is one you must add to your list if you love glitz and glam. We loved visiting this beautiful island. Just a little tip: right before you depart from the resort to head to the airport, grab your phone or go pro so you can take a video! If you want to spoil the surprise you can watch my vlog on YouTube 🙂
Sunshine and booze with the Dempsey’s 