Sugar Bay Resort & Spa — Hotel in Saint Thomas

We just got back from a 7 day trip in St Thomas. We stayed at this hotel and had the worst customer service. Feb 13- Feb 20. As we pulled up they stood around talking and no one took our bags we did it ourselves. The front desk was kind of snooty and no one ever smiled. They put my wrist band on too loose and when I went to the front desk to get another one they said it would cost me $85. (These are your room keys). I had only been there about 15 mins when they put it on and it is a typical plastic club band. We had ordered champagne to be in our room when we arrived. (It is all inclusive) it never arrived. We were celebrating Valentines and my boyfriend birthday. Our room was nice and clean. As soon as we got to our room the A/C wasn't working and the smoke detector was going off. We addressed it immediately with front desk and left the room for a few hours came back that evening and it still was not fixed. We called and asked for service again and waters, diet coke and rum for our frig. They brought 2 bottles when we asked for 6. They told us we had to call food and beverage, we did no one very brought them. It took 3 days to get water for our frig. Restaurant was a complete joke. Every night we went to dinner there was a huge wait, food was over cooked, cold, horrible service and we had to go to bar to get a drink. Prime rib night, we were the 2nd people to be sat down so we knew we could get a hot meal and not be out of food, WRONG! Other tables got food before us. We waited over and hour for our steaks, our salads came AFTER desert and when we went to management they apologized and said they sent our food to another table. We asked for a bottle of champagne to our table and the waiter would only bring us a glass. After my boyfriend raised hell we got a bottle and when it came to dessert I asked for the ice cream and they said they were out but another waiter walked by with it 10 mins later for another table. They brought us out stale desert that was wedding cake from the night before. Breakfast is always the exact same buffet, Lots of carbs, fat and greasy foods. When we ordered egg whites omelets we get attitude and they toss a ton of oil and butter on it after we specify no oil butter or cheese. Coffee at the cafe ($4) is not included in your all-inclusive and it was cold and the same coffee you get in the restaurant. (Really!!!) ALCOHOL- wow this one was a hard pill to swallow for us. This is all inclusive, top shelf vodka (Absolute, Titos or Grey Goose) you have to pay for but crap is free. We tried for 7 days to get Vodka and Rum in our frig so we could have drinks in our room or to take to beaches with us, It NEVER happened. We sat on our beach one day, all day; NEVER did a waitress come over and ask for drinks. We had to walk into the bar all day. We asked to fill plastic bottle water with rum and vodka so we could have it in our room. You have to stand there and order 10 shots of each to fill the bottle yourself. They can't do that. THEN GIVE US A BOTTLE for Petes sake. We had 1 bartender that smiled every day. Anissa I think it is how it was spelled. She wore beautiful purple lipstick and always smiled was friendly and very accommodating. She is the ONLY person in this entire hotel that was friendly, helpful and accommodating. She was amazing. For my boyfriend birthday (Feb 19) and ordered a bottle of champagne and chocolate covered strawberry’s to be in our room at 4:30. This was not free I had to pay almost $100 for. It never came... I personally went to the front desk and ordered it and they wrote it down in front of me and I read it with a note to say Happy Birthday sweetheart. NEVER got it. Next day did it again, never got it. We asked for a wake-up call one morning since we were going on an excursion at 5:30 am. They called at 6:34 am. Thank god we had our own alarms. We met a few people at dinner in Shima and they were all having the same horrible experience. DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY THIS WAS THE WORST HOTEL, FOOD, SERVICE EVER AND THE STAFF HATES THEIR JOBS AND TAKES...

Amazing place for the price. Don't let the negative reviews keep you from experiencing this place. The new owners have been upgrading and repairing the stuff that Dreams Resorts (the previous owners) let fall into disrepair. Most of the negative reviews you see now will be about the food. I challenge you to find an all-inclusive resort for less than $1,000 per night that doesn't have negative reviews about their food. There are 3 things that make Sugar Bay more affordable than most...

The food is not great... it's OK and there is a lot of variety. Take advantage of the carving stations at the buffets. Also utilize the a-la-carte restaurants (Asian and Italian), the breakfast chef (eggs and omelettes), and the pool side snack bar (burgers, dogs, chicken). All of those choices make your food to order. When you go all-inclusive at Sugar Bay, they include ALL dining and bar options. If you want to sit at a hibachi table in the Japanese restaurant, you need to make a reservation. Everything else is first come, first serve. You will not go hungry, the menus change daily, and there is something for everyone. We ate way too much each time we went. I know what to expect at a resort that is about half the price of most resorts.

The beach is small and every large storm removes more sand from the beach under the water line all around the small bay. This exposes the flat rocks under the water which make up the island. That being said, the views from the beach are stunning, and it sits next to the cliffs the resort sits on (one of the reasons it's somewhat small). It is not usually busy, so you feel like you're the only people on that side of the island. It cuts into the mountain, so you can't see the beaches in either direction. If you want a big beach, there is a public beach to the right of Sugar Bay's beach and cliffs... about a half mile down. There is always Coki Point Beach on the other side of the peninsula that forms the bay. It is VERY busy there, but it is beautiful. I prefer the seclusion and beauty of nature. The resort cleans the seaweed off the beach by hand every morning. I will try to post a picture of the view from the beach. I was in the ocean every day... swimming, snorkeling, kayaking, and paddle boarding (all included). There is also a jet ski rental place in this small bay just before Coki Point Beach ($65/half hour or $100/hr) with no guide. You just take the jet skis out. Day cruises to private beaches, other islands and snorkeling spots pick up on the beach, as well as parasailing, which I recommend.

The stairs from the rooms and lobby to the pool/beach area. 99 Steps to be exact. I have a bad back and as a result... weak legs. I still prefer this walk over the optional golf cart ride they will give you down. The views are wonderful and it is a grand, tropical walk over the pool's grotto and waterfall onto the wooden suspension bridge over the pool. The pool area is designed to look and feel like a tropical lagoon, and personally (aside from the views from the room's balconies), this is my favorite part of the resort... including that walk down the stairs, which aren't steep and have several platforms if you need a rest or want to admire one of the amazing views. I will also try to post a picture of this walkway. Again though... they will happily drive you to the pool or beach in a golf cart. They run all day and night.

All rooms have a balcony here. I prefer the standard ocean or bay view rooms. All rooms except mountain view face the ocean, cays and islands (even the bay view rooms). I had a hard time figuring the difference the first time I booked here. Trust me... you don't need to pay for the Premium ocean view (this is the same view, but you are in the outer rim of buildings, so NOBODY can see your balcony. Unless you plan on hanging out nude (which I still do in the standard room's balcony), it is an amazing view. Again, I'll try to post a picture of the standard ocean view room, which I had for the last stay. My first stay was a bay view, and it was...

My wife and I are not sure why Sugar Bay has such bad reviews. We both feel it's a solid 4 Stars. We stayed there for a week celebrating our anniversary. We stayed in a Preferred Club Deluxe Ocean View Room. The room had a fantastic view. We enjoyed great sunrises every morning from our balcony. The room itself was very nice and comfortable. The cons of the room I see in other reviews. The door to the bathroom is a slatted door so it is less than private. The air conditioning is "adequate." We did have to leave it on high with the thermostat turned all the way down. I believe they are using water instead of freon in their air conditioners. They are not as efficient but there is no loud noisy compressor outside. When you are on the balcony all you hear is the ocean. A little "give and take" there. We found the majority of staff members to be fantastic. There were a few bad apples but they were counted by exceptional staff members. The exceptional staff members really set the tone for the resort. If you are lucky enough to meet Prissy at the pool, latch on to her. She will always make sure you are happy and your needs are taken care of. She is so great, I felt the need to go out of my way to make sure the Resort manager knows just what kind of employee he has. Overall I'd give the staff an 8 out of 10. The bad aren't that bad and the great are really great. They have a wonderful pool area at Sugar Bay. The pool itself was clean and a good temperature. The swim up bar is very convenient and the bar tenders are very friendly. The restaurants around the pool are very good and also very convenient. There were activities at the pool during the day such as bingo. At night the had parties at the pool that were a lot of fun. The beach could be improved. It's not very big and it is a little rocky. They do offer snorkeling gear and kayaks at no extra charge. They have scuba activities that are an extra charge. The resort has a number of restaurants. We found them all to be very good and the servers to be very pleasant as well. The restaurants in the main building have great views of the oceans. The room service needs improvement too. There menu is split up into times that you can only order certain foods. It seems to me, if the kitchen is open you should be able to order anything on the menu. If I want a burger at 2:00pm I should be able to get it, not have to wait till 10:30pm to order it. It also takes a very long time to get your food. My wife unfortunately became ill one night and she wanted some ginger ale and chicken soup. I was told they were out of ginger ale, which surprised me. I told them sprite instead. They said to allow them 45 minutes to deliver to our room. After an hour and half room service finally came with cold soup and no sprite. I had to call back and ask for the sprite again. It took another 15 minutes to get the sprite. I talked to other guests that had similar complaints about room service. I talked to the manager about this and he was very apologetic. He seemed to take my complaints very seriously and didn't blow me off. He assured me they would be taking steps to improve the room service. I'd also like to comment the general appearance of the resort. The exterior of the building needs work. There are a lot of cracks and even some missing pieces of walls. I understand Dreams has only owned this resort since November 2014. They have a lot of repairs and remodeling to do. I watched for a week the repairs they were doing to a balcony that was falling apart in the building next to us. I watched as they removed all the old rotten wood and replaced it all with aluminum beams. I was glad to see they were not just putting a bandaid on the problem and were actually improving the structure. I feel this resort is exactly what you pay for. We felt that for the money we paid, we were very happy. Overall it was a great experience. We would come back again and would recommend to a friend. I might suggest waiting a few months for the improvement to...