Sandals has an opening date for its highly-anticipated new resort in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, Caribbean Journal has learned. 

The new Sandals Dunn’s River is officially opening its doors on May 24, 2023, Sandals Resorts International confirmed. 

The resort will be a dramatic reimagining of the former Jewel Dunn’s River resort, a property that was actually in the Sandals portfolio three decades ago. 

The new Sandals will include unlimited dining at 12 different eateries; nine bars, including a swim-up bar, a PADI=certified dive operation, five pools and even two “lengthy” river pools. 

It will also be home to the company’s popular Beachfront Skypool Suites, which first made their debut at the Sandals Grenada. 

The Skypool Suites will be the first of their kind in Jamaica, with private pools stretching across the length of the room’s balcony.

In another first, Sandals will be debuting “Coyaba Sky Rondoval Villas,” with their own “oversized” swim-up pools and open-air rooftop terraces. 

“This was an extraordinary project and the last I worked on with our founder and my late father, Gordon “Butch” Stewart’, as his final masterpiece,” Sandals Resorts International Executive Chairman Adam Stewart told Caribbean Journal. “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.”

Sandals acquired the property in 2020, and plans a total of three new resorts in the Dunns River area.

It will be the centerpiece of what Jamaica Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett calls a “great comeback year” in 2023 for the island’s tourism sector, with both earnings and arrivals projected to surpass pre-pandemic levels. 

More importantly, the new resort will be a significant addition to the tourism product in Ocho Rios, a destination that will be getting new nonstop service next year from Miami on American Airlines. 

“Ocho Rios is the place where my father grew up, where he first learned to fish and felt the breeze blow along the West-facing beach and where he first saw the pure joy of the island on the faces of visitors,” Stewart said. “Here along Jamaica’s North Coast, he witnessed a blossoming tourism industry and became aware of how to please and serve a new Caribbean customer. Every touchpoint at the new Sandals Dunn’s River is designed to do that and more.”

For more, visit the Sandals Dunn’s River.