Royal Caribbean Group is buying a 50% stake in Sandals and Beaches Resorts for roughly $3 billion, the two companies have announced. The deal values the Caribbean all-inclusive specialist at around 10 times forward EBITDA, is being funded through debt financing from Morgan Stanley, and is expected to close in early 2027, pending the usual regulatory sign-offs.
The logic on both sides is straightforward. Royal Caribbean, which already runs Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Silversea, gets a foothold in land-based all-inclusive holidays — an adjacent category it has never owned — and a bigger slice of a global vacation market it pegs at around $2 trillion. Sandals, founded by the late Gordon 'Butch' Stewart, gets capital and a distribution machine to speed up resort expansion at a time when demand for its properties keeps outstripping supply.
Governance will be shared: a joint board under Royal Caribbean CEO Jason Liberty and Sandals Executive Chairman Adam Stewart, with Stewart staying on to steer long-term strategy. Both executives framed the deal as a continuation of family legacy rather than a takeover — Liberty calling Sandals and Beaches 'one of the most admired resort portfolios in the world', and Stewart saying his father, who believed a Caribbean-built company could stand alongside the biggest names in hospitality, would have been proud of the moment.
What does it mean if you have a Sandals holiday booked, or a stack of loyalty points with either brand? Nothing changes for now. Existing reservations, loyalty programmes, resort operations and cruise operations all continue as normal, according to the announcement. The near-term effects should show up elsewhere: faster openings of new Sandals and Beaches properties, better cross-selling between cruise and resort holidays, and — in theory — easier ways to bundle or combine the two. Whether prices stay friendly once the island's biggest all-inclusive operator has a cruise giant's backing is the open question travellers will be watching.
The deal is expected to add to Royal Caribbean's earnings the year after closing, so don't expect a quick reversal. For fans of either brand, the practical takeaway is simple: book with confidence today, and keep an eye on where new resorts appear over the next few years. For cruise loyalists who have never tried a week at an all-inclusive, the walls between the two holiday styles just got a lot thinner — and combining a sailing with a resort stay may soon be marketed as one seamless trip.
