Dreams Sapphire Resort & Spa

We had a great week at Dreams Sapphire. We stayed in the Indigo section which I will go into more below. We overall had a great time. The staff were generally friendly and attentive, but we tip well and often and I suspect that goes a long ways in the level of service you are provided. Pros: Big room and awesome view. Our butlers Ross and Eric were very responsive. They made dinner reservation for us every night. This is huge for me, as I do not go on vacation to wait in lines. They had cookies, M&Ms, and even chocolate covered strawberries for our kids. They had our favorite drinks and even had sliced limes in the room at my request. They decorated the room for my birthday and helped my wife have a cake made for me as well. Housekeeping always did a great job, and there was never any grace of sand after they had cleaned. Turn down service in the evenings was a nice touch as well, with chocolates on the pillows. The breakfast area for the Indigo section was very nice. Waiters were attentive and food was very good. Our kids, age 12 and 14 liked the preferred club lounge chocolate chip cookies and in the late morning fresh pretzels were put out around 1100. The main pool never felt crowded when you were in the water. I liked volleyball and water polo which was tourist vs staff (got rough!) and my wife liked water aerobics. The spa was nice, we had a couples massage and hydrotherapy was also very enjoyable. I enjoyed using the Hobie Cat most days we were there. I already knew how to sail, but if you didn’t the worker would take you out and teach you. You have to buy a $6 wrist band, buts it’s good the duration of your stay. The specialty restaurants are all fine. Bordeaux and the teppanyaki were the best, I particularly liked the fried rice and the sushi rolls. They will make you a custom roll or sashimi if you just ask. I also tipped the sushi chef. Our son liked the saxophone player that was in the outdoor lounge area one evening. My son and I went down the slide countless times. The steep one is fun, but my back told me about it the next day. We also did putt putt golf, archery, and batting cage. Both kids enjoyed the teen area, but they do not enforce age what so ever, so at a minimum there should be a staff member present at all times. We went to part of the fire show and rock shows. The shows start late (9:30ish) so after a long day in the sun we were all ready for bed. The Indigo, adult only pool is nice. I had read there was minimal shade, but there were several Bali beds and numerous umbrellas available the two times my wife and I went up there. We all enjoyed seeing the wildlife, especially the coatis. Cons: The Indigo section is very nice, and I would probably do it again just so I have a nice room with a great view and a reservation every night at specialty restaurant. With that being said if you are traveling with children under 18 yo, your actual access to Indigo/preferred sections are limited. Kids are not allowed in the rooftop Indigo pool, or in the preferred pool which is also adults only. The Indigo did not have any beach service, umbrellas or Bala beds in the actual beach! There should at least be a beach bar for this area. The main pool has one BIG issue! The reserving of the chairs c/ towels is out of control. If you don’t play the game, good luck finding even one chair after 0800. I got up early to fish one morning, like 0410 early and I would say 1/3 of the chairs already had towels on them. If you want any shade you have to get up early, there is no other option. I think the resort could deal with this in a few ways. Maybe rope off the main pool area until a certain time or remove towels after a chair was left vacant for let’s say 2 hours. Also providing more umbrellas would help. The ocean has a ton of seaweed. Very few people used the beach or swam in the ocean. They were out with their tractor at 0600 every morning, working to clean it up, but it’s impossible to keep up with. This was a long review, but an honest reflection of our families experience. We had a great time, and the pros easily outweigh the cons. The staff were overall very friendly, weather was great, and we had a relaxing vacation. This was our fifth family vacation to an all inclusive and we have learned to ignore the requests that are 100% positive or 100% negative as we have always had a great time on our trips. Being friendly and kind to the staff and tipping them for good service goes a long ways. Read less

I could write a review about the whole resort… but I want to write a review about our restaurant experience at Bordeaux. The food was the best we’ve had all week and Eleuterio our waiter was the best. Attentive, kind, perceptive. Awesome guy. Deserves a raise. I will say that this resort must do a great job at making sure the staff are taken care of, because everyone seems very happy. 😃 Read less