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Sargassum is a genus of brown macroalgae (seaweed) that has been giving problems to lots of Caribbean islands and resorts. It comes from the Sargasso Sea.

One resort presently having a problem with it is Sandals Royal Barbados. The beach and water are covered with Sargassum.

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If you don’t know, we live in New England in the US. From here, it’s not real easy to get to the Caribbean.  There just aren’t many direct flights to any of the islands and it’s even difficult to get a connection that gets to an island the same day that you start your journey.  One of the easiest to get to is Jamaica simply because there are a lot of flights to it.

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Well, Sandals has been reminding us that we need to have our old car wrap removed because its time was up, not to mention that they changed the font used for Sandals and Beaches and the old wrap had the old font.

So we finally picked a new wrap and had the car re-wrapped. The old wrap didn’t cover as much of the car as the new one, including some of the “plastic” parts of the car.  We’re hoping that it doesn’t cause a problem when we have to get it removed, but that’s a few years down the road (no pun intended).

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There are a lot of questions that come up when discussing the weekly 777 sale that Sandals and Beaches has.  So here are a few of those questions:

What time does the 777 update?  Ideally the update is posted weekly at midnight Tuesday night.  In reality, they get posted early Wednesday morning. 

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Have you ever gone to a Sandals resort during their Reunion Week (now called “Welcome Home Week”)? We never used to, but then we tried it once — and now we try to go back every year.  The dates change each year, but it always starts on Easter Monday.

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We’ve been going to Sandals resorts for about 20 years, and this is our first trip to Sandals Dunn’s River.

Sandals Dunn’s River (SDR) was a hit from the moment it opened in the early 90s on the site of the Arawak Hotel, but Sandals didn’t own the property

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Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, sometimes known simply as Saint Vincent or SVG, is an island country in the eastern Caribbean. It is located in the southeast Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles.  Most of its territory consists of the northernmost island of Saint Vincent, which includes the capital and largest city, Kingstown. To the south lie the Grenadines, a chain of 32 smaller islands.

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Grenada is a Caribbean country comprising a main island, also called Grenada, and two smaller islands, Carriacou and Petite Martinique. Dubbed the “Spice Isle,” the hilly main island is home to numerous nutmeg plantations.

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As you probably know, Jamaica got hit by Hurricane Melissa last fall, and while 5 of the Sandals resorts in Jamaica reopened within about a month or two.  But 3 iconic Jamaica resorts, Sandals South Coast, Sandals Montego Bay, and Sandals Royal Caribbean, all remained closed for repairs.  In addition to the repairs needed after the hurricane, Sandals decided to use this rare opportunity to fully reimagine these 3 resorts.  Sandals is investing $200 million to transform these resorts as part of the next chapter of the Sandals 2.0 experience.

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Barbados is an eastern Caribbean island and an independent British Commonwealth nation. It is part of the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies and the easternmost island of the Caribbean region.  Around the island are beaches, botanical gardens, the Harrison’s Cave formation, and 17th-century plantation houses like St. Nicholas Abbey.

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Turks and Caicos is an archipelago of 40 low-lying coral islands in the Atlantic Ocean, a British Overseas Territory. The gateway island of Providenciales is known as Provo.

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St. Lucia is part of the Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles. It covers a land area of 617 km2 (238 square miles), and its capital and largest city is Castries. On 22 February 1979, Saint Lucia became an independent state, while remaining as a Commonwealth realm.

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The Bahamas country is made up of more than 3,000 islands, cays and islets.  It’s located in the Atlantic Ocean north of Cuba and north-west of the island of Hispaniola.  Its official name is the Commonwealth of the Bahamas.

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Curacao is in the Leeward Antilles and is part of the ABC islands, i.e., Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao.  It is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of The Netherlands and is only about 40 miles north of Venezuela.  The image above is an outline of the island with the 3 colors of the flag of Curacao.

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Antigua was the second island to have a Sandals resort, named Sandals Grande Antigua, and it opened in 1991.  The resort is only about 20 minutes or about 7 miles from the V.C. Bird International Airport, ANU.

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Well, this is our first island spotlight post and I thought it only fitting to do Jamaica since it’s where Sandals and Beaches were conceived by Gordon “Butch” Stewart.

Jamaica is the third largest island in the Caribbean, after Cuba and Hispaniola (home to Haiti and the Dominican Republic).

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Do you keep up with your flight status, or do you just assume everything is OK because you haven’t heard differently?  The airlines don’t always notify you of changes.

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So, you’re going on vacation to the Caribbean and you want / expect to have lobster while you’re there.  Not unusual.  A lot of people like the Caribbean lobster and want some while there.  Especially if they’re going to an all-inclusive resort and expect to get a LOT of it for “FREE”.

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It’s nice to go away on vacation, but you don’t want it ruined if something unexpected comes up.  Try to plan ahead.

What if you can’t return when you expected to?  Just a little while ago, the US Military went into Venezuela, which shut down airspace all over the Caribbean.  It took some people days to get another flight out.

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