I have been to the Royal Bahamian and the included diving is an attraction in terms of money. The Royal Bahamian property is small(er) but nice and well kept. Our balcony had a limited view of the ocean and an apartment building and parking lot. There are better rooms.
You will find the dive operations to be professional, safe, to have new(er) ~50 ft Newton diesel boats, to have maintained gear, with clockwork diving. They will have DMs leading groups of 6 but unfortunately when the first person in the group reaches 1000 psi, the entire group of 6 has to come up. I have seen up to three groups on the boat but we still had decent room to work. Additionally, it's pretty much follow the leader diving and you may find yourself herded. We have tried to get them to accomodate experienced divers by separating them but that can be difficult since their program is based on honeymoon divers i.e. one diver is certified and experienced and the other is not or both are new to diving. Those outnumber the experienced divers. It's my experience that it is the boat captain that cracks the whip. They did run am trips for "experienced" divers and an afternoon trip for newer/certifying divers.
I have had to ask for a camera bucket to be put on board. You will find other divers putting their masks into it.
Their dives are generally shorter. I have had 25 minutes dives with alot of 35-40 min dives but a few longer. I don't think it was ever more than 50 minutes even at the shallow sites. In contrast, my dives in Cozumel almost always are a minimum of 60 minutes (some pushing 80) and those I did with an outside dive op in Exuma were around 60 min as well.
I have met and dove with a few experienced divers when I wasn't diving with my wife in New Providence (Nassau) and they all seemed confident/competant though there was an English guy (buddy on that dive) who was a newer diver who hung a foot off my left shoulder the entire dive.
The dives I have found are to less challenging sites in general but occasionally they do more challenging sites. I found the diving around New Providence was not that inspiring however we dived a couple that were good. We were there in January and there was a weather front the entire week so it was cold and very windy. November might have some weather as well (and colder water temps). The weather then did dictate the dive sites.
The Bond wrecks that we did, in my opinion, are broken down and not impressive. We did a wall, whose name I cannot remember offhand, that was good. On the North end if I recall.
I did write a trip report for Exuma diving. Again with Sandals. See the link which has comments about Sandals diving.
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/bahamas/343141-exuma-trip-report-long.html
I have come to the conclusion that with the diving I want to do, that I am disappointed in Sandals diving. Their operation is fine just "restrictive". If I can find the money to dive with an outside operation, I do it. There is nothing operationally wrong with Sandals diving.
If you think that this sort of diving suits you then by all means, do it - it's free (well, built into everyones cost). You might consider diving with Sandals and taking a day or two with an outside operation if you find a site or experience you want that Sandals doesn't offer. Definitely spend time talking to the DMs.
Lastly we have found they are very strict on their medical questionaire. I believe you can find that information on theire website. If you need to mark yes on
ANY question, then you had better have a doctor write a letter per Sandals requirements. I can see this for any kind of health problem/illness however if for example, you get athletes foot, your doctor prescribes an antifungal (i.e. prescription vs OTC med) , and you mark yes to using a prescription, then you had better have a note. It's a bit much if you ask me (excepting contra-indicated issues).
