Royal Caribbean Buys Half of Sandals Resorts for $3 Billion

Royal Caribbean Group is buying half of Sandals Resorts. The cruise company announced Wednesday that it will acquire a 50 percent stake in Sandals Resorts International for about $3 billion, a joint venture that brings one of the Caribbean's best-known all-inclusive brands under the same ownership as Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Silversea.

The agreement, announced September 23 at Royal Caribbean Group's Miami headquarters, values Sandals at roughly $6 billion, or about ten times its forward earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. The Stewart family, which founded Sandals in 1981 and has kept it privately held ever since, will retain the other half of the business.

In a statement, Royal Caribbean chairman and chief executive Jason Liberty called the partnership "an important next step" in the company's effort to build a vacation platform that keeps guests traveling with it for years. Sandals and Beaches Resorts executive chairman Adam Stewart said the agreement showed how far his father Gordon "Butch" Stewart's vision had carried the brand, recalling that Sandals was founded on the belief that a company built in the Caribbean could compete with the most respected names in hospitality. Stewart keeps a leadership role alongside Liberty in the joint venture's governance.

Why a cruise line wants resorts on land

Royal Caribbean already owns private island destinations and beach clubs and is developing a river cruise line. Cruises are only part of how its customers vacation, and the company has spent years trying to capture more of their spending beyond the seven days on a ship. Buying into Sandals gives it a foothold in the $2 trillion global land-based resort market in a single move.

The price says something about what investors believe vacations are worth. A valuation at roughly ten times forward earnings is a premium for a resort operator, but Sandals and Beaches run twenty resorts across Jamaica, Antigua, Saint Lucia, The Bahamas, Grenada, Barbados, Curaçao, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, with four decades of operating history behind them.

The transaction is expected to close in early 2027, subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions. Royal Caribbean said it expects the deal to add to its earnings in its first year.

What guests can expect

Both companies say it is business as usual for now. Existing reservations, resort operations and cruise sailings continue unchanged, and Sandals' loyalty program stays in place. The longer-term pitch is cross-selling: a shared booking relationship that lets a Royal Caribbean cruiser move to a Sandals property and back, with the companies exploring joint marketing and loyalty platform integrations.

The land grab behind the deal has been years in the making. Cruise lines have been buying and building private destinations, and those stops have become some of the most valuable real estate in cruising. Royal Caribbean recently altered its plans for Perfect Day Mexico after its second quarter, a reminder that expansion on land carries real execution risk. Sandals, meanwhile, is spending two hundred million dollars renovating three Jamaica resorts damaged by last year's hurricane, according to TravelPulse.

BofA Securities and PJT Partners advised Sandals Group, with Latham and Watkins and Jones Day as legal counsel; Perella Weinberg Partners and Morgan Stanley advised Royal Caribbean Group, with Kirkland and Ellis as legal advisor. Morgan Stanley is also backing the investment with committed debt financing, according to reporting by Reuters and cruise publication CruiseHive.

A lifetime of vacations under one roof

The Stewart family built Sandals from a single Jamaican property into the best-known all-inclusive brand in the Caribbean over four decades. It sold half the company to a cruise line rather than take it public or hand it to a hotel chain, keeping a stake in the joint venture and a role for Adam Stewart in guiding the resorts' long-term strategy.

Royal Caribbean now operates three cruise lines plus a growing network of private destinations, and adding Sandals and Beaches moves it toward owning the ship, the island and the resort under one company. Whether that keeps customers inside its ecosystem for a lifetime of trips is the bet the Stewart family and Royal Caribbean just made together.