Royal Caribbean Group s officially getting into the all-inclusive business. The cruise operator said Wednesday it will pay roughly $3 billion for a 50% stake in Sandals Resorts International, the Caribbean chain behind the Sandals and Beaches brands, in a joint venture that puts the world’s largest cruise company on dry land for the first time at scale.
The announcement lands after the Financial Times first reported the two sides were close to an agreement, and the final terms track what CNBC reported later Tuesday: a partnership for half the company and an implied valuation near $6 billion. The deal is slated to close in early 2027, pending regulatory sign-off.
The Stewart family will remain in the picture. Adam Stewart keeps his title as executive chairman of Sandals and Beaches and will share leadership of the new venture’s board with Royal Caribbean chairman and CEO Jason Liberty. The agreement was signed at Royal Caribbean’s new Miami headquarters.
For advisors, existing reservations, loyalty programs, and resort and cruise operations carry on as they are. That means Sandals Select Rewards and Crown & Anchor stay separate for now, and nobody’s honeymoon booking is going anywhere. The companies said they would look at ways to broaden distribution and make it easier for travelers to find products across both portfolios.
Stewart went out of his way to name the trade.
“As we continue to grow, we will remain true to what has always defined us: delivering authentic vacations that exceed expectations while creating opportunities for our team members, travel advisor partners and the communities we call home,” he said in the release.
That reassurance matters, as Sandals and Royal Caribbean are two of the most agency-dependent suppliers in the Caribbean, from the Certified Sandals Specialist program to a cruise line that still routes most of its bookings through advisors.
The deal is the biggest in Royal Caribbean’s history and extends a strategy Liberty has been building since the pandemic: keep guests inside the company’s ecosystem even after they leave the ship. Perfect Day at CocoCay, the Royal Beach Club on Paradise Island, a new river cruise product, and a group-wide loyalty program were all steps in that direction. The last comparable move was 2018, when Royal Caribbean took a majority stake in Silversea for about $1 billion and later absorbed the rest.
Sandals, meanwhile, finally gets the transaction it has chased for the better part of a decade. Founder Gordon “Butch” Stewart tried to sell in 2019 to simplify his estate, and the pandemic shut that down. His death in January 2021 set off a legal fight among family members over the trusts holding much of the company, and bankers were brought back in last year to run a process that drew strategic and private equity bidders, according to the FT.
Liberty framed the partnership as a way to grow a resort portfolio he called one of the most admired in the world. Stewart put it more personally, saying the moment would have made his father proud.
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