How the Sandals Babymoon Package Transformed One Couple For Good

The way Richie Gomez and Miranda Roldan describe the pace of their life at this moment does not match their easy-going moods.

“It’s chaotic,” Richie says calmly.

“Everything … just … chaotic,” Miranda echoes with slightly more detail.

From their home in Tampa, Richie and Miranda sound more like they’re still melting in a garden tub at Sandals Royal Bahamian than drowning in disorder. Their minds are full of Caribbean influences that recently recalibrated their perspectives on life. So, when Richie talks about bouncing back and forth between work obligations in New York and Florida, he isn’t even sure if he’s back or forth right now — and he doesn’t seem to care. And Miranda is surprisingly serene for a self-described type-A entering her third trimester of pregnancy.

Listen closely. Are those the sounds of a home renovation project in the background?

“We’re changing our sunroom to a fun room,” Richie says with playful enthusiasm.
How could they be so content while their lives move at the speed of an F-1 race? Richie and Miranda say their mental conversions from “we’re late!” to “what’s the rush?” happened a few weeks ago. They were feeling the squeeze from work, travel, and approaching parenthood when the random idea of a Babymoon getaway to Sandals surfaced. At first, they brushed it away with predictable excuses. Too busy. Too tired. Too pregnant. Should we? Can we?

“No, we can’t,” Richie said.

“Wait a minute,” Miranda countered. “Let’s stop for a second.”

Stop the doubts. Stop the chaos. Stop everything.

Miranda had heard of a “babymoon package” at Sandals Royal Bahamian. She and Richie had also seen images of the powdery beach and soul-soothing ocean. It looked like a place where expectant parents might disappear into a lounger-for-two during the day and blend into a sandy dance floor at night, and where chaos is nonexistent.

“If we don’t go now, we won’t go at all,” Miranda said to Richie. “Let me make one phone call.”

She stepped away from the stacks of pregnancy books and the mess of a renovation project to make that call. The next sound she heard was the voice of a Caribbean angel.

“What would you like to do on your vacation?”

Miranda’s neck and shoulder muscles began to deflate. “Relax,” she said with a deep sigh. “We just want to relax.”

“Of course. Do you have any special requests?”

“If we come,” Miranda asked, “could I have a maternity pillow?”

“Most certainly.”

The promise of a maternity pillow completed the planning. Richie and Miranda would delete every event from a five-day block on their calendars and replace them with one: Escape to Sandals Royal Bahamian.

Excited as they were, Richie and Miranda did not realize the transformation that was about to happen.

One Responsibility: Show Up

Richie’s and Miranda’s scattered lives began to merge and settle at the Sandals Airport Lounge in Nassau, Bahamas. Miranda arrived from Florida and enjoyed immediate pampering. Richie arrived 30 minutes later from New York.

“They wanted to take care of me,” Miranda says of the Sandals welcome team. “Airports are supposed to be hectic, but they made me forget all my concerns.”

Richie released his tight grip on responsibilities when he saw the car that would take the two of them to the opulent all-inclusive resort.

“A Rolls Royce,” he says. “I’m wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and flip flops, totally in vacation mode, and I’m riding in a Rolls. But you know what? It didn’t feel wrong.”

He exemplified everything that’s right about the Sandals Babymoon escape. Casual and classy. Fun and five-star. Effortless and elegant. “All we had to do was show up,” Richie says. “The Sandals team did everything, I mean everything, and they genuinely enjoyed doing it.”

Richie and Miranda kept getting swept away. By the ocean views. By the happiness. And by another angelic voice. “My name is Shantell. Allow me to take you to your suite.” Shantell would be their butler by title and their best friend by choice. After the initial introduction, she led Richie and Miranda to a peaceful villa with a garden view and an outdoor soaking tub full of warm water and flower petals.

“For us?” Richie asked.

“Of course,” said Shantell. “You came to relax.”

Richie and Miranda got serious. They took two baths on that first day.
“The Sandals staff knew better than us what we wanted. We never asked for anything. They just made it all happen.”

One afternoon they walked into their villa and wondered how the chocolate-covered strawberries had appeared, or who left the bottle of Richie’s favorite whiskey. After another tranquil day at the quiet pool, they returned to a platter of cheese and crackers.

“Oh, the cheese,” Miranda says as if still floating on a heart-shaped cloud. “I love the cheese.”

Another time they came back to a beautiful spread of fresh tropical fruit.

“Oh, the fruit,” Miranda says. “I love the fruit, too. The Sandals staff must know what it’s like to be pregnant, and hungry.”

Whenever Richie and Miranda strolled out to the pool after sleeping in, they’d see chairs reserved for them, with an umbrella raised and fluffy towels positioned just right. Shantell would ask the mother-to-be simple questions, like, “Would you like fresh fruit juice at four o’clock?”

“Oh yes,” Miranda said. “I would love fresh fruit juice at four o’clock.”

The bartenders mixed up special mocktails. Mango and peach. Pineapple and ginger. Miranda sipped them at the pool bar, on the beach, and sometimes in the villa from the blessed comfort of her Sandals pregnancy pillow.

“Oh my gosh, the maternity pillow,” she says with her thoughts still resting peacefully. “Any pregnant woman will tell you how important a good maternity pillow is. I was never restless. I slept. And I woke up happy. I’m still happy.”

The happiness was like a free take-home souvenir from Red Lane Spa, too. Miranda’s prenatal massage therapist knew all about side-to-side positioning and finding the right pressure points for a woman in Miranda’s stage of pregnancy. But she also offered a type of comfort that does not fade.

“She talked with me, mother to mother, about hydration and napping. That’s one of my everyday changes now: I’m not too proud to stop everything and nap.”

Life Is Not the Same

Five days in a Caribbean paradise has a way of reminding us of what to let go and what to embrace — like a child in the womb, for example. “A blessing to celebrate,” Sandals staff members would say, and then they’d prove it. When Richie and Miranda approached their table at Butch’s Steakhouse one evening, they saw wine glasses, white napkins, and brilliant blue flower petals in honor of their little boy.

“Surprises like that would just appear,” Miranda says. “They made us feel special.”

And then on Sunday, Richie and Miranda took a five-minute boat ride to Sandals’ dreamy private island, where they snorkeled in the sea and dozed on the beach. When they returned to the villa, Richie walked into a flurry of balloons and a message on the bed spelled out with little candles: DAD.

“I’d forgotten it was Father’s Day,” he says. “The Sandals team gave my first-ever Father’s Day message.”

Before their Sandals Babymoon escape and the Babymoon package and the reminders of perspective, Richie and Miranda say they didn’t know the definition of relaxing.
“The trip changed us,” Richie casually says within earshot of the half-finished fun room.

“We’re still busy,” Miranda says, “but our experience at Sandals allowed us to put the chaos aside and focus on us. Now we have a new outlook on family and on life.”
And that is a priceless gift for all three of them.

Need more inspo for your own babymoon? Check out this spotlight on the Chen’s dream babymoon at Sandals Grande St. Lucian. After being married at the resort, they came back to celebrate becoming parents!