The New Jamaica Sandals Is Now Open for Booking

Sandals Dunn’s River, the new Sandals resort on Jamaica’s north coast set to open in May 2023, is now open for booking.

The highly anticipated resort, which Sandals first announced in May 2021, is currently in the midst of a top-to-bottom restoration that will make it one of Sandals’ premier properties and sit just a short distance from the Dunn’s River Falls Ocho Rios.

Plans right now call for 260 rooms, including new suite concepts such as the Tuff SkyPool Butler Suites that feature glass panels spanning the length of an oceanfront balcony and the Coyaba Swim-Up Rondoval Butler Suites with Private Pools, Sandals’ iconic standalone villas featuring private soaking tubs, sun-longing areas, and views of the surrounding flora.

Sandals is also planning 12 total restaurants on-site, including 10 new concepts entirely new to the company. New offerings include L’Amanda, a French and Jamaican eatery; Edessa, a Greek restaurant; and Banyu, an Asian-fusion eatery. Those will debut alongside two of Sandals’ previous concepts—Zuka, which first opened at Sandals Royal Curacao, and Jerk Shack.

Dunn’s River will also include nine bars, including a swim-up bar, five pools, and two river pools, along with the Red Land Spa, which Sandals says will be “one of the most luxurious for the brand.”

Reservations open on a special occasion, the same day as Sandals’ late founder Gordon “Butch” Stewart’s birthday. Adam Stewart, the current executive chairman of Sandals, called the news “just a small homage to him that we know will make him smile.”

“This was an extraordinary project and the last I worked on with him as his final masterpiece. He handpicked this location more than three decades ago for its white-sand coastline, cool breeze, azure waters and its close proximity to the destination’s archetypical falls. It will not only serve to breathe new excitement into a corner of Jamaica loved and cherished by so many, but it will set a new standard of luxury for tourism right here in our backyard with a next-generation resort worthy of its nostalgic past.”

The news comes just after the opening of Sandals Royal Curaçao, the first Dutch Caribbean resort in the Sandals portfolio, one of the openings that Stewart said will elevate the brand to “Sandals 2.0.”

“We’re going to take this brand to the moon,” he said last month. “Every single element of hospitality, starting with the locations, the designs, the services … we’re [going to do] things that have never quite been done in hospitality before.”