Wyndham Grand Barbados Sam Lords Castle All-inclusive Resort

Can’t even express how much we enjoyed this resort. Please ignore the negative reviews. We are well traveled and had an amazing time. The entire staff was amazing! Brandon and Elroy at the castle restaurant you two are the epitome of class and excellent customer service. Kelia, Alicia, the bar crew at Lantern pool bar the staff in the Mediterranean restaurant all amazing! Welcoming and just all around pleasant to meet. Latifah at the front office welcomed us with smiles and made us feel great about staying here. We were at the Hilton resort for two days and needless to say, it was outdated and dirty. Even being Hilton diamond members we interrupted our plans to move to this resort. It was all the best and we are so happy we did. Please enjoy Barbados! It’s safe and the people of the island are amazing. Although it’s an all inclusive we are tippers. People work hard and they are happy to do so. We appreciated everyone here and was happy to tip all we could We will be repeat guest and already booked for March 25! Read less

It touts itself as a luxury, 5-star, all-inclusive hotel located on the southeast side of the island with a private beach for swimming and snorkeling costing over $500 US, per day. The following are my observations. At first glance of the reception area the hotel is of beautiful marble construction. The receptionist was nice but not very informative. We were escorted to our room. The room is large and very attractive with a king size bed, air conditioning, a very large balcony and a stocked mini bar. There is a large flat screen TV a good sized desk area and a safe in a closet. The hotel boasts a large dining area (buffet), a specialty restaurant, an outside bar and grill, a pool side bar, a bar near the reception area, and a rum specialty bar 8not in the all-inclusive program. There is also a gym and spa. They also offer conference rooms. Evaluations: The room is nice and comfortable; however, room services are lacking. Room cleaning is hit and miss. We were told we could schedule when our room would be cleaned. We set a schedule, and it never happened. One day they had ‘forgot’ us and after several phone calls it was cleaned around 5:00 PM. The use of the word ‘cleaned’ is relative. The mirrors were never cleaned and there are two large ones and two in the bath area. The floors were mopped down with only a wet mop. Things such as used glasses and empty water bottle (not put near the trash can) remained where they were at. Buffet restaurant. The food offered was for the most part very good and the personnel are friendly and nice but not very pro-active or attentive. Salt and pepper shakers are not on all tables, you have to get them yourself if not on your table. And then more often than not, they are empty. I once had to go to four other tables to find a full pepper shaker. If they were to use glass shakers instead of ceramic, it would be easier to identify the empty ones. But first they must buy some. Specialty restaurant: Excellent on all counts. They specialize in fish and steak dishes. Well worth the visit. Bar & Grill: The food there was good, the personnel friendly. Being from Arizona, I do take exception of their style of Mexican food. But that is a matter of taste. Pool side bar: Did not use Gym & Spa: Did not use Beach: This is not a swimming beach. In fact, it is a Red flagged beach with very rough waters. It is always windy (strong winds). It is relatively clean and would be good for sunbathing and beach sports. Hotel Grounds: Absolutely gorgeous. Kudos to the grounds keeper(s). General comments: Cleanliness: We were in building 3, the main building. The hallways on the upper floors have a lot of floor-to-ceiling glass. They were never cleaned and have dried sand on them as well as dead insects laying on the frames. In the hallway across from our room was a French fry laying on the floor. Not a big deal but was laying there unmoved, for five days. On the sixth day, it was moved about 3 feet. This indicates that the hallways were never cleaned. The elevators are filthy, not cleaned the entire time we were there. In the buffet restaurant is a coffee bar. In the bar there are two glass display cases holding desserts. The glass was smeared and dirty our entire stay. Personnel use: The room cleaners do not have assigned areas. Instead, (after speaking to three of these personnel) they are given a list by room and building number to clean. They will do one or two rooms on a floor, go to another floor (and in some cases another building, there are five), and go on from there. One employee showed me her list and she was moved between three different buildings and one or two rooms on different floors. It is like a shotgun effect. Some personnel would be working in the same area at the same time. Due to the work management, the rooms are not fully cleaned as the employees do not have enough time to cover all of their assigned rooms in the allotted work time. Alarm system: The emergency alarm system went off three days in a row. There was no clarification other than to instruct people to leave their rooms and not to use the stairwells. I asked reception the status during the 2nd alarm and the reply was “it is another false alarm”. I asked if there would be an announcement clarifying that as there were still elderly people trying to negotiate the stairwells. The receptionist said they would, but it never happened. This was also the case on the third day which was at 22:45 at night. Pools: In general, very good. However, the towel shelves (self-serve) were often empty, and there could be more umbrellas. The pools were cleaned daily. Room balconies: Very large, but it would be nice if they had deck chairs (lounges) instead of the two small chairs. Summary: This hotel may tick all the boxes for a 5-star rating, but it is definitely not the case. They could make use of an Organizational Effectiveness manager. The House Cleaning Manager needs to be replaced or schooled in resource management. In general, with effective attention to detail and a better organizational effectiveness program, this hotel could live up to its advertised level of quality. Advertising of this hotel needs to be more accurate, especially the advert that says swimming and snorkeling can be done there. I would not recommend this hotel who are expect a 5-star experience. Read less

I first stayed at this hotel back in October 2023 for a one night business stay. It was just open with a soft opening. The hotel was brand new and everything was clean and new. The food (dinner) was okay that evening but, because of it being brand new I thought that was the reason. Also there were a lot of Local People at the hotel eating and I thought that was strange at a resort of this high level. Again, I thought because of it being brand new and just opened maybe these Local folks are here as basically filler so that the hotel looks busy. My wife and I went on a Cruise this month (December 2024) out of Barbados and I said let’s try this resort again for 3 days before we go on our 12 day West Indies cruise. I am sure they have the food and hotel up and running much better now since they had a year to get their act together. Well, the resort was so dirty and un-clean it seems that it has not been cleaned including the rooms since it was open back in October of 2023. I mean the whole resort had mold and needed a good pressure cleaner washing and some bleach to clean the bathrooms in the rooms as well as in the bath rooms in the hotel. The food was TERRIBLE and was INEDIBLE! The entire resorts was Dirty and Nasty. The Front Desk folks had no idea what they were doing. Customers waited 4-6 hours to get checked in when we arrived. The Resort was basically empty with 450 rooms but customers had to wait for half a day basically to get to a clean room ?? The Bars had NO BOOZE available. Just RUM and almost empty bottles of Smirnoff Vodka with a lot of extra Plastic Jugs of Vodka that I never heard of. Gin names on bottle that I never heard of including Scotch. Very cheap alcohol and again the bars at the resorts were all dirty and in disarray. The room had a moldy smell to it and after I found out that China Built the Resort with a very low 2% loan to the Barbados Government. Maybe, “CHINESE DRYWALL” moldy dry wall that produces black mold and is a major health issue. This was a huge issue in new construction in Florida and in the USA a decade ago and had to be all taken out and replaced in new construction back then. The hotel room that we were in had that distinctive smell and we were coughing for over a week after 3 days in the resort hotel room. My wife and I travel world wide for over 40 years and this Resort was the worst ! For $900 a night for two this resort was a real DUMP! And how come there are a lot of local folks here at the hotel again? Possibly a nice low local rate so the Locals can use the resort at a discounted rate?? I am sure they are not paying $900 a night for the resort ! Read less

Every day of our 7 night stay was another problem. Day 1- extra long time to check in. Day 2- ran out of toilet paper. Went to front desk to ask for some. Was informed that housekeeping would bring it. 3 1/2 hours later returned to front desk was informed housekeeping didn’t show anyone in that room. I told them I am obviously in the room if I was out of toilet paper. She said my room showed I was a no show for check in. Day3- policy was stated on tag on towel bar if towels were good to reuse leave them hanging, Which I did. I came to the room to shower and had no towels at all in the room. They took the clean and hanging towels and replaced none. Day 4- I just got out of the shower, was in my underwear and a supposed maintenance person came barging into my room, broke the flip lock-ripped it right out of the wall and damaged the door. After that felt unsafe leaving any valuables in my room. Day 5 went to beach on resort- it was covered in seaweed had to unstack our own chairs and there was nowhere to get a drink or water at the beach. Day 6 went to see travel person to see when we needed to get our ride to the airport time. There was nowhere time set up had to wait around a long time to get that set up. Only 3 restaurants on the resort. All food on the buffet was cold. The only hot food we had all week was if we got an omelet from the egg station in the buffet. A meal at the grill restaurant was not hot also. The reservation restaurant had lukewarm warm dinner two nights and did get a hot meal served one night. We got our own drinks 90% of the time. Staff stood around visiting with each other. Read less

Beautiful location but it is definitely lacking staff. Check in was a gong show, it took an hour to get our room. Lots of airline staff checking in which took precedence over all other patrons. I don’t know where to begin with housekeeping, we got a note saying no sheets , hand towels and washcloths in stock. One day we didn’t even get any towels so we had to go get pool towels to shower. Coffee pods and mugs were not restocked after day two even though we asked numerous times at the front desk. Our friends rooms didn’t even get serviced one of the days. My girlfriend’s sheets were used and dirty the day they checked in and the bed was just remade. So I think they definitely need more cleaning staff. The food and wait staff were excellent. Very friendly and attentive. Even the food at the buffet was attractive and tasty. We would definitely go back if they got the housekeeping sorted out. Read less