Just when you thought Royal Caribbean had enough going on with enormous cruise ships, private islands, and beach clubs, apparently it might now fancy owning a rather large chunk of Sandals Resorts too.
According to a report from the Financial Times, Royal Caribbean Group is nearing a deal to acquire a majority stake in Sandals Resorts International, in a transaction that could value the Caribbean all-inclusive resort company at more than $6 billion.
The story appeared on Reddit on 22 September, but the original reporting comes from the Financial Times, with Cruise Industry News and others subsequently picking it up. So this is not simply a Reddit rumour that has escaped containment.
At the time of writing, however, nothing has officially been announced by Royal Caribbean Group or Sandals Resorts International, which means the champagne cork should probably stay firmly in the bottle for now.
What is Royal Caribbean reportedly buying?
The proposed deal would reportedly see Royal Caribbean Group take a controlling stake in Sandals Resorts International. The Stewart family, which has controlled Sandals since founder Gordon “Butch” Stewart launched the company in 1981, would reportedly retain an ownership interest.
Royal Caribbean could also receive an option to acquire the remainder of the company in future. The reported valuation is more than $6 billion, which would make this an extraordinarily significant move for Royal Caribbean.
Cruise Industry News says the deal would give the group control of around 20 Sandals properties across the Caribbean. Sandals Resorts International operates the adults-focused Sandals brand alongside the family-orientated Beaches Resorts, with properties across Jamaica, The Bahamas, Saint Lucia, Antigua, Grenada, Barbados, Curaçao, Turks and Caicos, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
In other words, Royal Caribbean would suddenly have considerably more places to put you once you get off one of its ships. Convenient, that.
Why would Royal Caribbean want Sandals?
This actually makes considerably more sense than it might initially sound. Royal Caribbean Group has spent the last few years making it increasingly clear that it no longer views itself as simply a cruise company.
It has openly talked about turning a cruise company into a vacation company, and its land-based portfolio has been expanding rapidly through destinations including Perfect Day at CocoCay and its growing collection of Royal Beach Clubs.
The group has also said it expects its private destination portfolio to grow from two locations to eight by 2028. Then there is Celebrity River Cruises, launching in Europe in 2027, plus pre- and post-cruise hotel stays being developed around those itineraries.
The direction of travel is fairly obvious. Royal Caribbean wants to sell you the holiday, rather than simply the bit where you happen to be standing on a ship.
Owning a major Caribbean resort company fits rather neatly into that strategy.
Cruise. Resort. Cruise again.
This is where things could get particularly interesting for cruisers. To be clear, none of the following has been announced, but if Royal Caribbean did own Sandals, there would be some fairly obvious possibilities.
Cruise-and-stay packages suddenly become much easier. Imagine spending a week at a Sandals resort in Jamaica before boarding a Royal Caribbean cruise from the region, or Royal Caribbean offering its own resort stays before and after Caribbean sailings.
There could potentially be loyalty tie-ins too. Royal Caribbean Group has been pushing the idea of a connected holiday ecosystem, encouraging passengers to move between different brands and experiences rather than disappearing to a competitor when their cruise ends.
Whether Sandals’ own Island Insiders loyalty programme would ever interact with Royal Caribbean’s programmes is complete speculation at this point, but you can see why cruisers are already asking the question.
One Reddit commenter summed up the thinking neatly by asking whether the move could eventually expand into the companies’ loyalty programmes.
And then there are shore excursions
There is another possibility worth considering. Sandals owns resorts in several places regularly visited by Royal Caribbean ships, while Royal Caribbean has already demonstrated that it likes controlling more of the destination experience through places such as Perfect Day at CocoCay and its Royal Beach Clubs.
So could Sandals resorts eventually become Royal Caribbean shore-excursion destinations?
Again, there is absolutely no suggestion yet that this is happening, but it is not difficult to imagine a Royal Caribbean passenger in Jamaica being offered a day pass to a Sandals property as an official excursion.
That would allow Royal Caribbean to capture considerably more of the money passengers currently spend independently ashore, while giving Sandals a steady stream of day visitors from ships sailing around the Caribbean.
Given Royal Caribbean’s recent enthusiasm for all-inclusive beach clubs, the concept hardly feels alien.
Sandals itself is in the middle of a huge investment programme
The timing is interesting too. Sandals is currently spending heavily on several of its resorts.
Earlier in 2026, the company announced a $200 million redevelopment of three Jamaican properties, including Sandals Montego Bay, Sandals South Coast and what was formerly Sandals Royal Caribbean.
Yes, there genuinely used to be a hotel called Sandals Royal Caribbean. No relation to Royal Caribbean International, although if this takeover happens, explaining that one will become even more confusing.
Thankfully Sandals has recently renamed that particular property Sandals Caribbean Cay, ahead of its reopening in December 2026.
Possibly excellent timing.
Would Sandals become a Royal Caribbean brand?
We do not know, and this is probably the biggest thing worth remembering while this story circulates.
A majority investment does not automatically mean Sandals signs disappear overnight and every resort gets renamed Perfect Day at Sandals Cay.
Royal Caribbean Group already operates several very different travel brands. Royal Caribbean itself targets the mass-market family and adventure crowd, Celebrity sits further towards premium travel, Silversea covers luxury and expedition cruising, and the group also owns 50% of the joint venture behind TUI Cruises and Hapag-Lloyd Cruises.
Sandals already has an extremely recognisable identity of its own, so keeping that identity while plugging the company into Royal Caribbean Group’s booking, technology, loyalty and distribution ecosystem could potentially make more sense than completely reinventing it.
But until the deal is actually announced, that remains speculation.
This could be Royal Caribbean’s biggest move off the water yet
Royal Caribbean buying Sandals would be a pretty big deal, not necessarily because cruise passengers suddenly need to care about who owns their hotel in Saint Lucia, but because it would underline just how dramatically Royal Caribbean Group’s ambitions have expanded.
Ships are still at the centre of the business, but increasingly, the company wants your airport transfer, your pre-cruise hotel, your cruise, your private-island day and perhaps eventually your week in an all-inclusive resort too.
The company’s own language has increasingly focused on building an entire vacation ecosystem, rather than simply selling cruises. Sandals would take that idea to an entirely different level.
For now, though, this remains a reported deal rather than a completed one. The Financial Times says an announcement could come within days, so this might move from “interesting cruise industry rumour” to “one of the biggest travel acquisitions of the year” rather quickly.
And if Royal Caribbean does eventually start offering Crown & Anchor members discounted butler suites at Sandals, well, we’ll revisit this conversation.