We stayed for 8 days in mid October, which is the rainy season, but even a few showers didn't spoil our time at this great vacation hotel.

We had booked a Garden room but on arrival were upgraded to a Beach Suite - number 21, which overlooks the beach and has a fabulous verandah. Ask for it! You get a roomy lounge and a fully equipped kitchen as well as a good sized bedroom and ok bathroom.

One of the best features of the Sandpiper is that room service is complimentary, so you can choose to have breakfast (or supper) on your verandah and they don't charge you extra. The staff are delightful and take real care in laying up the full breakfast works (fruit plates, eggs and bacon, waffles, pastries, toast - all great).

We also took advantage of the free 2 hour tennis coaching sessions each evening. The coaches are great are making it fun and cope very well with the wide range of abilities and ages. And it helps you get to meet some of the other guests, many of whom are regulars.

The beach is great with a small floating platform you can easily swim out to (20 yds out), over some tiny coral reefs packed with fish. There are plenty of watersports toys that you can use without charge and the hotel has two motorboats to offer water-sking and for towing floats etc. It wasn't too obvious how you took advantage though, so stop by the watersports kiosk on the decking on your first day and get them to talk through the options.

We found the dining room quite hot as it is open sided with no air-conditioning and quite expensive (min you will get away with is £50 a head). The food is excellent and it's great for the ocassional meal, but not for every night - you'd explode!

Local places we enjoyed in Holetown (5 minute stroll down the road) were Olives, Angry Annies and thebest was The Mews - try the local catch served blackened, delicious!

It is small (45 rooms) so you tend to be on at least nodding terms with most people after a couple of days and the managers will introduce themselves to you. After that it's up to you whether you just want to chill by yourselves or socialise more.

Most of the staff are delightful and genuinely serve you with a smile and care. We loved the way they will sort out sun loungers, spread towels, bring you iced water and the 11.30am sorbet.

Yes, you will get pestered from time to time by the beach salesmen selling boat trips, goes on their wave riders and offering massages, but will accept a firm "no" as many others have commented. Don't let it rile you and you'll chill all day on the beach or on the decking.

All in all, this was a high class, caribbean beach-based hotel with all the trimmings. Nice and quiet and set in beautiful gardens.

My Wife & I stayed at the Sandpiper in October this year. If fact, we arrived the day it opened after the annual 6 week shut down.

First Impressions
On arrival we were greeted by a very friendly receptionist who welcomed us to the hotel and within a minute the hotel Manager (Russell) came out to greet us and show us to our room. After being in our room for just a few minutes a waiter arrived with complimentary rum punch cocktails. It was all a very personal and welcoming service.

Our Room
Clean, comfortable room with a great bed. No TV, but who needs a TV while at the Sandpiper. Read on!

The Food
Breakfast was great with a wide choice, all freshly cooked although they have a few issues when it comes to cooking runny eggs!
Lunch at Harolds Bar was great with a great chioce of tasty snacks and larger meals.
Dinner at the Sandpiper was excellent, can not falt it it any way. Well presented and tasted fantastic.

The Service
The staff at the Sandpiper are amongst some of the best we have ever met, from the Manager to the Housekeeping staff. All the waiting staff knew our names and were happy to engage in conversation and some of them even started the conversations with us rather than just nodding and smiling.
A special mention has to go to the Watersports Team who were really good guys.

The Beach
Eleven steps from our room to the decking which is right on the beach. What more can I say! We were lucky, our room was right on the beach but the hotel is so small it is less than 90 seconds from reception to the beach.
Yes there are beach sales people (Fernando Olson being a personal favourite) but they are friendly and polite so be polite back and they will leave you alone (until the next day) but they are just doing their job so give them some slack.
The beach itself is rather small inkeeping with the size of the hotel.

Overall
This hotel is really, really good. No we don't work for the Sandpiper!!
We would recommend this hotel every time someone asks where to stay on Barbados.

My Wife and I planned a one week holiday in the Sandpiper after reading the reviews on Trip Advisor, the reviews were spot on.
The Hotel was a nice size with very good amenities and well landscaped grounds, the service was excellent and the food was outstanding. There was a relaxed “English” atmosphere about the place, all the guests seemed to know each other and it felt sometimes that you were gate crashing a private party! It seemed that at the time of the year we were there – Easter, that the same families had being returning for years.
The rooms were well decorated, clean and spacious. There was no TV in the room and it’s not a necessity but we could have done with one for an hour or two a day as it rained for the whole week we were there. There was a TV room in the hotel but it was always busy the week we stayed because of the bad weather. The beach just about fitted all the guests as it was a little on the small size. The free supervised water sports service was very good and the water sport staff were very helpful and friendly. We had a very good experience the week we stayed at this resort apart from the freak bad weather which was disappointing after travelling halfway across the World, but the Hotel has no control over that!

It says something about a place that you can still enjoy the time you spend there even though it rains all week, I would love to return when it’s warm and sunny!

We chose Barbados as our honey moon locatation and was recommended to stay on the west coast of the island by friends. The Sandpiper was mentioned in the same breath as Sandy Lane as one of the best spots and I can see why.

The sandpiper has all the positives of a top quality five star hotel however it also has the personal touches usually only found in smaller niche hotel chains. The staff and friendliness of service really made the stay worthwhile. Dave and Harold really gave us service excellence!! Both made mean cocktails and both left no stone unturned in terms of client service or hospitality.

The beach and accomodation were excellent, only slight gripe being the CONSTANT flow of beach sales people flogging their wares. This is just me nit picking as once you get familiar with the flow you soon take these things in your stride.

Would highly recommend to anyone, and will most definately stay there again should I revisit the stunning island.