Sandals expands pickleball retreats with 64 courts across Caribbean resorts

The useful contradiction

Sandals’ pickleball pitch is real scale, not a token court tucked behind the spa: the brand says it has 64 courts across 14 all-inclusive resorts, and its biggest single complex, Sandals South Coast in Whitehouse, has 12 dedicated courts and can host up to 48 players at once. The catch is that South Coast is closed until November 18, 2026, while Sandals Montego Bay and Sandals Royal Caribbean reopen later, on December 18, 2026, after a US$200 million reimagination of the Jamaica trio. That is the contradiction travelers need to see before they book around the glossy photos.

What Sandals actually includes

The good news is that Sandals is not just selling court time and calling it a retreat. Its pickleball program includes no court or equipment rental fees, daily open pick-up play day and night, USA Pickleball-approved balls and paddles, a weekly introductory group session, and lighted courts for early-morning and evening play. Sandals also says group getaways are built for parties of five rooms or more, which is the kind of detail that matters if you are trying to keep a retreat from turning into a logistics exercise.

That setup is what makes the brand different from a resort that merely has a couple of painted lines and a borrowed net. With Sandals, the pickleball plan is baked into the stay, which means less scrambling for gear, fewer hidden fees, and a much better chance that a mixed-ability group can play every day without turning the trip into a schedule negotiation.

Where the best court access lives now

If court volume is the main goal, the strongest live options are the resorts with the deepest dedicated-court inventory. Sandals’ own listing shows Sandals Regency La Toc with 10 dedicated courts, Sandals Royal Curaçao with 8, and Sandals Saint Vincent, Sandals Royal Bahamian, and Sandals Ochi with 4 each. Those are the properties that give you the best odds of finding games without feeling like you need to hover at the fence at sunrise.

South Coast would normally sit at the top of that conversation, because 12 dedicated courts is the kind of number that can anchor a true retreat. But with the flagship closed until November 18, 2026, the smart booking move is to treat it as a future play, not a current one. For anyone booking right now, Royal Curaçao and Regency La Toc are the cleanest answers because they combine meaningful court counts with less of the renovation uncertainty that hangs over the Jamaica trio.

Where disappointment creeps in

The most likely letdown comes from the hybrid-court properties, not because they are bad resorts, but because they are easier to overestimate. Sandals Royal Plantation and Sandals Negril both list 2 hybrid courts, Sandals Halcyon Beach has 2 hybrid courts, and Sandals Grenada has 1 hybrid court. In practical terms, those setups are fine if you want a vacation with some pickleball in it, but they are the resorts most likely to disappoint if you expect a full-on play-all-day retreat.

That same logic applies to smaller dedicated-court footprints. Sandals Dunn’s River has 2 dedicated courts, and Sandals Royal Bahamian, Sandals Saint Vincent, and Sandals Ochi each sit at 4. Those properties can absolutely work for casual matches and social play, but if your group wants constant pickup games and a strong chance of rotating through opponents, the bigger dedicated-court resorts are the safer bet.

Sandals Grande St. Lucian is listed as coming soon on the pickleball page, which makes it a non-factor for this trip. That is exactly the sort of small-print detail resort marketing tends to blur over, and it is why the court map matters more than the brochure language.

Why this is more than a marketing push

The pickleball move is recent and intentional. Sandals and Beaches were named USA Pickleball’s Official All-Inclusive Resorts on April 28, 2025, with the partnership promising new programming, staff training, equipment standards, and upgraded courts and facilities. That matters because it shows the sport is being folded into the brand’s actual operating model, not just slapped onto a summer promo page.

The larger footprint is even bigger than the Sandals-only number. Sandals says the combined Sandals and Beaches network now reaches 72 courts across nine Caribbean islands, which tells you the company is building a regional pickleball platform rather than a single resort amenity. USA Pickleball’s 2026 Golden Ticket Sweepstakes with Sandals, which runs from February 18, 2026, through July 26, 2026, is another sign that the governing body sees the resorts as part of the sport’s travel ecosystem.

Melody Cargill, Sandals Resorts International’s senior manager of fitness, says the enthusiasm for pickleball has become palpable in the Caribbean, and that the region is the ultimate backdrop for play and pickleball travel. That is exactly the right way to read this category: the best resorts are no longer just offering a court, they are selling a setting where the sport can carry the whole trip.

How to book like a player, not a brochure reader

Book the court count first, the room category second. If you want the cleanest retreat-style experience, look first at Sandals Regency La Toc and Sandals Royal Curaçao, because those are the strongest currently bookable court-heavy options in the brand’s lineup. If your group wants lighter competition and a more social rhythm, the 4-court resorts can work well, but only if you are honest that pickleball is part of the vacation rather than the center of it.

If you are chasing the flagship experience, wait for Sandals South Coast to come back online on November 18, 2026, then expect the Jamaica pickleball story to tighten up again once Montego Bay and Royal Caribbean reopen on December 18, 2026. Until then, the safest move is to ignore the headline number and book the resort where the courts are actually open, actually dedicated, and actually easy to use. That is the difference between a retreat and a disappointment dressed up as one.