When we got invited to our friend's Jamaican wedding, we were pretty excited to find out that our stay would be at Sandals resort. With only one other All-Inclusive vacation under our belts, we were eager to experience a larger scale take on the all expense pre-paid resort.A few weeks ago, we shared about a friend's destination wedding we attended last May... If you haven't checked out our trip to Whitehouse Resort in Jamaica: On that post, we shared a few pro's and con's that we thought were pertinent to the story. Today, we wanted to dive in a little deeper and just reflect on the differences between our trip to Jamaica with a Sandals resort and a trip we took to the Dominican Republic with a lesser known all-inclusive company called Lifestyle Holidays. Resort facts: Most people know Sandals. If you don't, they are a large resort company that caters to the all-inclusive vacation style with resorts strung throughout the Caribbean. With the combination of Sandals and their partner, Beaches, they have close to 20 all-inclusive resorts in 7 different countries. When it comes to the Caribbean, Sandals certainly has a monopoly on some of the best beaches around. Lifestyle Holidays was unknown to us. We found an amazing deal for Presidential Suites Resort in Punta Cana and couldn't pass up a long weekend away. We later found out that it was an all-inclusive resort company specific to the Dominican Republic with 8 resorts throughout the country. Still all-inclusive, Lifestyle Holidays seemed to be much smaller scale in its entirety. Pro's and Con's: Getting to the Resort - In the Dominican Republic, we arrived on the island and were greeted by a taxi outside of baggage claim. Twenty minutes later, we were at Presidential Suites. At check in, we were given a yellow bracelet and told that if we lost it, we'd have to pay to replace it. So, we made sure they were on tight and didn't worry about removing them until we left for the airport. Sandals catered to us as soon as we stepped into the terminal. They retrieved our bags and then escorted us to the Sandals lounge just past baggage claim where we enjoyed private bathrooms as well as snacks and beer while we waited for a few more guests to arrive. Luckily for us, the wait was about 10 minutes and then they loaded the van with our luggage and off we went to the other side of the island. Once at Sandals, we were taken to the club level check-in house were we were given rum punches and more snacks while they set up our key cards and explained the property. Everything was at our disposal, no wristbands required... Chase appreciated that! Sandals: 1, DR: 0 Food Options - Sandals is clearly a much larger company than Lifestyle Holidays. With that, comes more pools, perks, and of course food options (it is an all-inclusive, after all !) In fact, so many food options that we didn't get to eat at all of them! They had beach bars, pool bars, even a martini bar that turns into a Piano bar in the late evenings. Whitehouse had 7 restaurants spread throughout the property as well as room service. Everything was available to us, as long as we were dress appropriately... More on that in a bit. Lifestyle Holidays had two dinner restaurants, meaning they were ONLY open for dinner, one buffet (open all day) for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and a beach snack shack. The only bar was at the beach shack, but because the property was small, it wasn't a chore to walk the 20 feet and grab a beer or Rita (honestly, Presidential Suites had waiters that were great at checking on us every so often so we didn't walk much!). With the limited variety of dining options at Lifestyle Holidays, we're giving Sandals the edge. Sandals: 2, the DR: 0 Entertainment - Sandals had several entertainment options during the day and after the sun set. Standup paddle boarding, kayaks, sail boats, speed-boat tubing, reef snorkeling, pool tables, Harry Potter sized chess, to name a few, were available to us daily. Sandals also had a piano bar that allowed for crowd requests and sing-a-longs. The night before the wedding, there was a large band playing music in the main courtyard. Sandals had set up a dessert buffet and a dance floor for the guests to mingle and dance after dinner. And the night of the wedding, we went to see a steel drum ensemble perform in Sandals large auditorium. That was amazing! At Presidential Suites, everything revolved around the beach! Not only did we have amazing beach beds to enjoy throughout the day, we also had beach entertainment through hourly aerobics, volleyball tourneys, beach/relay games, and some dj's spinning some dance music. After dinner, the resort set up for large scale shows. The night we stayed to partake in the events, they had fire dancers and some group dance numbers in between the fire shows. After the 90 minute entertainment, they kept the music going to allow everyone to dance on the beach. Depending on what you want to do on vacation and how long you'll be at the resort, both islands had a lot of great options. Sandals: 3, the DR: 1 Overall Service - Ok, this is quite a story so just hang in there! We had read reviews of Presidential Suites before going and learned that we would have to attend a "time-share" meeting. It was not part of the deal we purchased and we later learned that Groupon does not require anyone to attend time-share meeting. We had the right to refuse but the way they hounded people, we knew they wouldn't leave us alone if we didn't attend. So we decided to go and get it over with the first time they asked. We were gifted a mamajuana kit and some rum punches when we got to the office. We made a game plan to only be there 20-30 minutes and then flat out tell them we weren't interested. We met with one man at a table and listened as he shared the possibility of travel and sharing time in countries all over the world. He refused to answer my questions about price and when we said we wanted to think about it, he said it could only be done here in the DR. It wasn't possible to make the transaction back in the states... That was the final straw and we said we just could not afford it (we later found out that they wanted $15,000 to sign up... Yeah, right. Let me just get my check book). Finally after about 35 minutes, they allowed us to leave and never bothered us about it again. The rest of the time there was amazing and our service was awesome! We also read that if you tip the waiters, they would always come back to make sure you were doing ok so we played into that and never had to worry about a thing! At Sandals, we felt like the staff was highly aware that it was an all-inclusive and catering to us was really not something they cared to do. Everyone seemed to have the same enthusiasm as Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. Even though we had to deal with a time-share spiel in the DR, the staff and security was so much more friendly. We also learned (from some Americans in the airport) that having an entire staff of English speakers was really rare for Dominican resorts so we were very grateful for that! Sandals: 3, the DR: 2 Our Heavy Hitter Con's: At Presidential Suites - Everything was first come, first serve. Every morning around 7am, I'd walk down to the main office (again, not a large property so that wasn't a big deal) to stand in line to get reservations for dinner. If you didn't do this, you'd end up eating at the buffet because there were only so many seats available at each restaurant per night. We also learned that you had to go down to the beach to claim a shaded day bed. They were usually all claimed by 8am. It's pretty standard that while on vacation, sleeping in is a must... But we made the most of it. Our resort had a prime location for viewing the sunrise so instead of being grumpy about getting up early, we made an effort to wake up, walk down to the beach to take in the sunrise and then head up to the main desk to make dinner reservations. That way we claimed a bed, got dinner booked and enjoyed the gorgeous sunrise. At Sandals - Our con was a little less of a glass-half-full kind of situation. We had read that Sandals has a dress code so we did our best to insure that we brought clothes that worked. It basically only effected Chase in that men were REQUIRED to wear a collared shirt and closed-toed shoes. On an island. During vacation. I'm sorry but Chase and I just don't operate like that! We had paid for this vacation just like everyone else there. And considering we were club level guests, our stay was slightly more expensive than the entry level rate. Yet, we were refused service inside one of the restaurants because Chase was wearing a henley instead of a collared shirt. He had collared shirts in the room, he just decided because it was 98 degrees and about 100% humidity, he didn't want to wear a longer sleeved shirt. They were "kind" enough to seat us outside on their patio were it was "less formal". We understand they have an archaic, stuffy dress code and we now know Sandals is not for us based on that! We'd rather stand in line at 7am then be told to dress a certain way. This could be Chase's old high school uniform days flashing back and tormenting him, but regardless, I assure you we looked way better in our "beach" ware than the patrons dressed in their uniforms they had happily seated. To summarize, Sandals had everything you could have asked for from an all inclusive. It really did. But being refused service at a resort that we prepaid for could be added as the 8th deadly sin. As for us, we'll take our exposed necks and visible toes elsewhere!
Until next time, C + D
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