Sandals vs. Cruises During Covid

At this point, everybody is ready to get back to travel! I don’t think anybody expected the pandemic to last this long yet here we are. My husband and I have been lucky enough to take 6 international trips between August 2020 and January 2022. 5 of these trips were to Sandals Resorts and our most recent was a Royal Caribbean NYE Cruise. So you might be asking, what’s the difference? What are the protocols? In this post I will answer all of these important questions.

“Same same, but different.” -The Interview (watch this movie if you haven’t!)

Let’s start this off with the most asked questions, vaccination status and masking:

Cruises are much more strict with these requirements. On a Royal Caribbean cruise all passengers must be fully vaccinated unless they are under the age of 12. The mask protocol includes wearing a mask indoors unless eating or drinking but masks are not required in outdoor spaces. For example, when we walked outside of our stateroom we were to have a mask on. Once we got to the pool deck we ripped those things off, no mask tan lines for me! If we were headed to a bar or to dinner, our mask had to be on. Once we had our butt in a chair we were able to take them off. During entertainment they asked us to please wear our mask if we weren’t actively drinking. Therefore we always had a drink in our hand 😉 In port if we were outside masks were not required. However if you were in a taxi or shop you were to have your mask on. We live in Illinois where the mask rules are pretty much the same. I honestly felt safer on a cruise because people actually followed the rules! I felt safer than at my local Walmart LOL!

Alright, Sandals time! If you are not vaccinated (as of January 2022) you are able to travel to Jamaica, Bahamas, St Lucia and Barbados. If you decide on St Lucia as your destination you will not be able to leave the resort unless it is on an excursion through Sandals. I would like to point out this information from St Lucia was from when we were there September 2021, I am not sure if this has changed. If you decide on Barbados for your destination and are not vaccinated you have to quarantine to your room and get tested on day 5, once you receive negative results you can leave your room. To visit the resorts in Antigua and Grenada you have to be fully vaccinated. The masking protocols are less strict because a good portion of all inclusive resorts are outside. Masks were not required unless we were in a shop or car/taxi in St Lucia and Jamaica. Grenada was a little bit more strict, we also had to wear a mask at the indoor restaurants while walking to our table.

Next up, Covid testing requirements:

For a cruise, as long as you are fully vaccinated, you are to take a rapid or PCR test within 2 days of your sail date. This means if you set sail on a Sunday, the earliest you can test is Friday. Yes, you can test at 12:01 am on Friday morning! The nice thing about cruises is you can take an at home rapid test as long as it is proctored. We bought tests through the Royal Caribbean website and had to log onto a website to have somebody proctor our test. It was a quick 20 minute process and our results were sent right to our email. We took our test in San Juan at 5am on a Friday morning, we set sail at 8:30pm on Sunday night. We had no issues getting on the ship 🙂 If you leave from a US port ie Florida, Texas and even San Juan; a negative test is not required to reenter the port on disembarkation. As for San Juan, if you decide to extend your stay after your cruise you do have to take an additional Covid test. If you fly home the same day as your cruise, you do not need to test again!

For Sandals, the requirements are a little different for each island. They update the protocols often. The best way to find out your requirements are by logging onto the local governments website or by looking at the Sandals website. Sandals is great at keeping you updated about the changes in protocols. For example: Grande St Lucian August 2020, PCR within 7 days of travel. Montego Bay Jamaica December 2020, PCR within 7 days of travel. Southcoast in Jamaica March 2021, PCR within 3 days of travel. Grenada August 2021, PCR within 3 days of travel as well as a PCR on arrival to the resort. La Toc in St Lucia September 2021, PCR within 3 days of travel. At this time, you also have to test negative to fly home. The resort offers complementary Covid tests for travel back to the US. They typically test you 1-2 days prior to when you go home.

Okay, let’s leave this Covid stuff behind us. Let’s talk about the fun stuff!

Obviously at an all inclusive everything is included! Sandals covers your airport transfers, drinks, meals and of course you have access to the whole resort. There are a few things you have to pay for but they are of course optional. This includes spa treatments, excursions, photos and souvenirs. We do always opt for a Butler room while at Sandals. You are not able to tip any of the employees at Sandals but you can AND SHOULD tip your Butlers and at spa treatments. General rule of thumb for tipping your Butler is $20-$40 per Butler per day. When I broke my foot in Southcoast we tipped our Butlers $300 EACH for a 7 night trip. They went above and beyond to make sure I still had a great vacation. We typically tip $30 per butler per day. If they wow us, we give them more.

Our Butler Don, Sandals Grenada
Our Butler Tenniel, Sandals Southcoast
Our Butler Shervan, Sandals Grande St Lucian

Cruises are obviously not all inclusive. However, there are ways to make your vacation feel like an all inclusive. First things first, we always buy the beverage package before our cruise vacation. The beverage package includes water, soda, fresh squeezed orange juice, specialty coffees and of course all the booze you can drink! Royal Caribbean has an online cruise planner that you can utilize before your vacation. This is where you purchase your beverage package prior to your cruise. Keep an eye on the prices, they change often and you can cancel your previously purchased items for a refund and book the lesser price to save some money! We typically buy the beverage package for around $48-$50 per person per day. That might seem like a lot but a beer will cost you around $8 and a cocktail is typically between $10-$12. It is not difficult to drink a few drinks by the pool, a few drinks at dinner and a few drinks at a show. Even if you have 5 cocktails you have paid for your beverage package for the day!

Next up, if you want nicer dinners make sure you book specialty dining. Each ship has different restaurants to offer but they all have Chops Grille (steak) and Giovanni’s Table or Jamie’s Italian (obviously Italian). Each ship also has Chef’s Table. I highly recommend doing Chef’s Table! It is a 6 course meal and each plate is paired with a wine. You will leave very full and drunk lol. You also get to meet new people as you sit with other cruise guests!

I really want to dig into the difference in dining between cruises and Sandals. I will admit I am more WOWed by the food at Sandals than I am on a cruise. Each Sandals resort offers multiple different restaurants, each resort has on average 7-10 restaurants to choose from. On a cruise, the complimentary dining (on most ships) includes the main dining room, the windjammer buffet and the cafe promenade. Certain ships offer a pizzeria as well as the Central Park Cafe on Oasis class ships. I do highly recommend booking specialty dining to enhance your cruise culinary experience.

If you are looking for a vacation where you can kick back and relax, eat, drink and not do a dang thing but lay in the sun all day, Sandals is where its at. If you are more adventurous, a cruise is right up your alley! We do a lot more relaxing while at Sandals. Each day is filled with brunch, pool/beach (and lunch by the pool or beach), a nice dinner and entertainment at night. We typically take one excursion while at Sandals, most of the time we opt for a catamaran cruise. The main difference between an all inclusive and cruise is the amount of excursions/exploring you do. Our most recent cruise we had four port days, and we did an excursion at each port! We had two full days on the ship where we just chilled by the pool, like we would do at a Sandals! The other days we were off the ship and exploring the islands.

If both of these vacations sound good to you but you think “hmmm am I going to be sea sick if I try a cruise?” I am here to talk through that a little bit. My hubby gets sea sick pretty easily. We went deep sea fishing right off the coast of Florida and he puked the entire time. On a cruise ship, he is totally fine. Now, everybody is totally different! The ships are massive! You will most likely feel ship movement every time you are on a cruise, but some cruises there is more movement than others. For example, if you are worried about rough water I would steer clear of hurricane season. We had some pretty rough waves on a cruise we took in September 2019 but it didn’t bother us a bit! If you are prone to motion sickness I would also suggest a scope patch or oral zofran, talk to your primary doctor about it!

My husband and I were only cruisers before Covid started. We had always wanted to try out a Sandals resort but they were always more expensive than cruises, and we love cruises, so we kept booking them! We have had several people ask us since we have been home, “Will you continue to cruise, what about Sandals? Which one do you like more?” The answer is, we will continue to do both! And we love them both! I will say we are planning to continue going to Sandals for special occasions like birthdays and our anniversary. We plan on sticking to cruises for spring break each year (my hubby is a teacher). As for Christmas/NYE, you can’t go wrong with either!