You’re on vacation at a Sandals resort. You’ve waited so long for this, but something isn’t quite right. Now what?

No, Sandals is NOT perfect. Something isn’t what you expected it to be, or something happens, or an activity or event gets canceled, and you aren’t pleased. It could ruin your whole vacation. Not because it’s a catastrophic thing, but it’s a nuisance and you can’t get it off your mind. You try to forget about it and enjoy your time there, or you find a workaround, but you shouldn’t have to do that. What should you do about it?

What you shouldn’t do is plaster it all over social media without even mentioning it to the resort management. The other thing you should never do is just pretend it’s not a problem, and then when you get home, you complain, either to your travel agent or to Sandals directly. This doesn’t resolve the problem while you’re there and it makes it less likely that it will never happen in the future.

If you aren’t already a member of Sandals’ Island Insider Club (formerly known as Sandals Select Guest or SSG), make sure you join before you go. As long as you’ve been to Sandals before or have a room booked, you can join.  It’s free and there are perks. We’ve already had 4 free weeks through it. So, assuming you’re a member of the club, you need to download their app onto your phone before your trip.

Once on property, within the app itself, they have “Connect with Gina”. It is available from 9 AM on check-in day until 3 PM on the day that you check out. It’s their automated chat that is based on WhatsApp. You can go into Gina and send a message, good or bad. If something’s not right, use Gina, speak to a manager, tell your butler (if you are staying in a butler room), and call, message, or email your travel agent (if you booked through one). Let them ALL know that something is wrong as soon as it goes wrong! By pursuing all three paths, management is almost guaranteed to hear about your displeasure.

Don’t keep it a secret till you get home, don’t ignore it, or let it fester and degrade or even ruin your vacation. Sandals isn’t cheap and you deserve the vacation of a lifetime every time you go. Do something immediately so it can be corrected. If it can’t be corrected, Sandals might be able to do something else, like reschedule your activity, or offer a substitute activity that may be even better than the one that got messed up. But all these things are much less likely to happen if you don’t speak up while you’re still there.