SANDALS SAPPHIRE MEMBERS

(DON’T TELL ANYBODY)

Since December 2018 we have traveled to four Sandals resorts and we have now stayed with a Sandals resort for 28 days. We are now “Sapphire” members. Why am I telling you this? Because, THEY keep track.

If you intend to travel more than once to a Sandals, (or shudder a Beaches) resort, make a point of signing up for their Select Rewards Program. With each visit Loyalty Points are earned which can be applied to future savings, among other benefits. We are mainly interested in the “Returning Guests Appreciation Dinner,” where you get a “free” bottle of rum to take home.

The more you stay (and spend) the more you rise in their tier structure. We’re at Sapphire. The next is Emerald which weighs in as 45 nights at a resort. It rises all the way to 400 nights and the “Ambassador” level. We, say “whatever” as long as we get our bottle of rum.

SANDALS SELECT REWARDS

FREE WEEK!

Now what makes this little chase for nights interesting is Sandals rewards your loyalty with a free week if you stay 70 nights. That’s right…7 days free. That’s a new wrinkle we learned about just on our last trip. We enjoy coming to Sandals enough that this is just an added plus for us.

Also, if you book a future trip with Sandals while still at the resort, you get discounts on the future trip, plus you lock in today’s prices. Once you depart though, the discounts go away. We’ve taken advantage of this perk every time we’ve traveled to Sandals, so we are always booking next year’s trip.

Next year we are booked … twice!

Sapphire 

SPENDING MONEY TO SAVE

We started traveling to Sandals in early December. The prices are cheaper between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We went to Antigua and then the Royal Bahamian, but our third trip to Jamaica South Coast was delayed because of COVID.

Sandals was very helpful throughout the whole process of rebooking, for no extra fees, and setting up testing and contingency plans. For no extra cost our December trip was pushed to April. We’ve just completed Grenada this month of May and we booked Curaçao for 8 days next year at the same time. The eighth day will give us an extra day to explore / dive.

Wanting to get back into the (cheaper) December travel schedule though we then booked another 8-day trip to Barbados. Both Janet and I have been to Barbados, but that was a lifetime ago, before we met each other.

DON’T TELL ANYONE                         

Obviously, we enjoy the Sandals experience and I guess we’re regular customers now. We enjoy it all, the amenities, the food, the service, the diving and, not to mention, the free bottle of rum. As a Sapphire tier member there are all these little perks, but we basically just like to go to the Appreciation Dinner. Sometimes these events include live music, but it is always a great meal and a great way to meet new friends.

The thing is you’re supposed to “sign-in” before this dinner and mid-way through the event get called up and accept a token of Sandals’ appreciation.

It’s that bit we don’t like. We’d rather slip in and out the back door unnoticed with our free bottle of rum, so don’t tell them we’re here.

But, they know!

Thanks for reading (and keeping our secret)

Love Janet and greg

© 2022 by Gregory Dunaj

2021 RECAP

INTREPID TRAVELERS

Despite the promises made by the government to defeat this COVID pandemic it has raged on for yet another year, quelling much of our hope for distant shores. With variants of this deadly disease cropping up it was no wonder our travel was largely domestic, though we did manage a trip to Jamaica and then Janet traveled to England in October. The rest of our travels were in the United States. Ours is a vast country and we saw just a bit of it. 

Arizona

We drove down the Delmarva Peninsula to stay in Virginia Beach for a week. We drove to the New Jersey beach town of Sea Isle City to vacation for a week with our extended family. And, we flew to the Red Rock Country of Sedona, Arizona, taking a side trip out to the Grand Canyon one day.  

We wanted to do more and had planned to do more, and Lord knows we did our part to keep healthy; getting vaccinated as soon as possible and boosters as soon as they were available. Difficulty in traveling won out though and it was so much easier to stay in the United States. 

PROTOCOL SPEED BUMPS

Our lone international trip to Jamaica was relatively easy because of the Sandals Resort staff. This was our third time staying at a Sandals and we value the attention to detail they give their guests, which in this particular case was providing free COVID testing for the return and promising to put us up free of charge if we had to quarantine first. They even contacted us to ensure the paperwork required by Jamaica was properly filled out.

Seals Memorial,
Virginia Beach

A LONG AND WINDING ROAD.

Negotiating COVID protocol rules that have been changing weekly by oneself is a difficult task. We had wanted to travel to Malta and then to England, but discovered quickly the headaches of testing and quarantining for two separate countries. Plus, the normal flight that we take from Philadelphia to Manchester England had been cancelled by American Airlines forcing us to fly in and out of London, which was another whole set of logistical problems. So, we decided instead of Malta and England together, Janet was off to see the grandkids on her own. That way if she had to quarantine she had a place to stay for free. And, even traveling to England by herself was quite difficult because of the testing England required of her before and after her arrival. Without help from the English family members finding tests for her it would have been extremely difficult. 

Sandals Jamaica South Coast

YOU CAN'T GET THERE FROM HERE

There's nothing more discouraging than finding a great deal and not being able to take advantage of it. We had found a half-price sail from Variety Cruises though the Seychelles, but then the Omicron variant from South Africa broke out. We had sailed with Variety in Costa Rica and Panama and knew it would have been a great experience, but that outbreak stopped us in our tracks. 

REBOUND YEAR?

So, 2021 was a long malingering crapshoot and there's no guarantee '22 will be any different. But, fingers crossed, we are planning plenty of international trips this year. We are traveling to the Canary Islands in April, Barbados in May, and Fiji in September. We'll keep you posted! 

Thanks for reading

love Janet and greg

© 2022 by Greg Dunaj