My wife and I visited Sandals Jan 29 - Feb 5th and had a wonderful stay. I really don't know where those bad reviews were coming from or if they were even at the same resort.
We were in the Riviera building on the 5th floor with a garden view of the mountains, and a top of part of the building below us. This was expected as it was what we paid for. The room was great. Huge 4 poster bed (though about 6 inches higher off the floor than need be), a couple different dressers, mini fridge (fully stocked with water, sodas, and beers), and a nice bathroom. Really, just look at the pics on the web site of the bedrooms, it's exactly what we had! Someone could try to find fault, like there were some scratches on the dresser or table, (of course with all the tourists visiting!) but they were very minor and didn't take away from the whole experience in any way. We were 100% happy with the room. The only way they could have possibly improved it is to have had a little bit wider closet. They were slightly narrow but you could still hang all your clothes in there.
The restaurants were mostly all great, with the Manor Restaurant being probably our favorite. We found out way too late that you could get a great steak there. Was the best tasting steak I've had in a long while. We also liked Valentinos (Though plan on up to 2 hours to eat there, and get there early to get a seat), and Orchids. We also ate breakfast and lunch at the Bayside restaurant, which was buffet style for those meals. Great salads, great omelets in the morning, (never had to wait in line for omelets, possibly because we were there early), and often they did some sort of stir fry or made to order type order for lunch as well. The only restaurant we didn't care for as much was Arizonas. The service was a bit slow and the food was cold when we got it. (I ordered the fajitas, they came on a plate and NOT on a sizzling platter) The flavor of the food was ok, I just don't like cold fajitas. I could have ordered something else, but at that point it was a bit late and we were just starving and wanted some food.
One thing is in any restaurant if you couldn't figure out what you wanted, you could order multiple things. You wanted a steak AND the Pork? No problem. They'd bend over backwards to give you whatever you wanted. So don't worry about making those hard decisions on what to eat, just get both! :) In the restaurants, or the property in general, the staff would bend over backwards to try to make it right for you. We only had good experiences with the staff we dealt with.
So in general, the resort itself and staff were fantastic, and that's what I based my Excellent review on. But there were a few areas for improvement at Sandals, and that was probably in the bus rides to and from the airport, and the fitness room, and the dive shop. I'll focus more on those below.
The bus ride we were on we did not have anyone giving us information about the country. The bus ride (with mandatory stop on the way) took at least 2.5 hours to the resort, and about an hour and 40-45 minutes to the airport. Also, on the way to the resort the bus was also filled with loud, obnoxious, drunks, talking loud/yelling, and carrying on, when we just wanted to relax. (Why can't others be respectful of those around them?!?!?) Then when we got to check in, there seemed to be some issue with our reservation, and we had to wait more than 30 minutes before they figured it out and finally got our "concierge" to come and get us and take us to our rooms. Not a fun wait after a long flight, and bus ride. Also, the bus stopped the Manor side of the resort first, so make sure you know if you are on the Manor side or the Riviera side. Nobody really makes it clear where you are, or what you're supposed to do when you get to the resort. The bus kind of stops and people were all wondering who was supposed to get out. Nobody really got on and explained what was going on. Oh, as far as the airport, you could tell them you would take your own bags to the bus and they would let you, or you could pay the red hats $1 or $2 a bag. But the person who really needed was a tip was the one guy who was loading EVERY bag onto the bottom of the bus. Please tip that guy. He was the hardest working guy I saw the whole trip. You can put your money away for the rest of the trip, as you are not to tip the Sandals employees.
The exercise room actually was pretty good. There was plenty of equipment, both cardio and weights, just that the downside was that it was often very warm and uncomfortable in there. One of the A/C units didn't work, and often the others weren't turned on, with no way to turn them on.
As far as the Scuba Diving operation at this Sandals, it was somewhat disappointing. It was one of the main reasons we came to the Sandals as opposed to going to some other all-inclusive, as the scuba diving at Sandals is included. As someone who makes several trips a year to go scuba diving, and having been to the Sandals Halcyon in St. Lucia, I was expecting much more. The policy of the dive shop was to limit dives to when the first person in the group had 1000 psi left, or 30 minutes, whichever was FIRST. So there was one dive I only had less than a 30 minute dive time, and that was only in 30 feet of water! (Normal time would be well over an hour everywhere else) At most commercial operations, you come up at 750psi left, or even 500psi, depending on where you go. Or they would send people with less air left up to the surface, and let the remaining people stay down. And also most operations let you dive your computer, these guys did not. So over the course of the week, I probably lost at least 3 hours of underwater time by these bad policies. Also, since the dive staff do not work for tips, they don't focus on service as much as other dive operations. (Even other Sandals) For example, they don't help you on with your equipment when you're on the dive boat. They also don't check to ensure your air is on. Yes, this is all supposed to be things you're capable of doing yourself, but this is the first dive operation I've been to where they would not offer to help you on/off with your gear, or even help you to your seat after you got back onto the boat. Also, some of the dive masters thought the idea was to cover as much territory as possible (hence many people would use air much faster), so if you had a camera you didn't have as much time to take pictures, and you also would miss some of the things you could have seen if you were moving slower. Some divemasters were also more taskmasters than dive masters. Where you are supposed to go diving to be relaxed, they were regimented and sometimes bossy instead of being more relaxed. There was one divemaster that did stand out as better than the others though, that was Kevin Johnson. (There are 2 Kevins). Another downfall to the diving here was that most of the dives were set up as a 1 tank in the morning, and 1 tank in the afternoon, which would you mean that if you wanted to dive, you had to choose diving over taking any tours. Where If they would offer 2 tanks in the morning, you could have the afternoon to go visit the countryside and do some tours. Also, there was one dive that was about an hour boat ride away to see some airplane wrecks and a VERY Beautiful wall, that they did as "private" dive of 5 or 6 divers, that they charged $100 for. While the other Sandals I stayed at did NOT charge extra money for dives that were further away.
As far as the dives themselves, though most sites weren't "world class" dive sites by any means, they did offer things for most to see. Though you won't see a ton of fish, you'll still see Crabs, Lobster, Lionfish, wrecks, some great sponges, fans, brain corals, eels, Flamingo Tongues, etc. There were a few small schools of fish as well, but not the numbers you'd see in the pacific or some other areas of the Caribbean. Other than the Airplane Wreck and wall, my favorite sites were Dickey's and the Sandals Wreck.
And yes, before you are allowed to dive, you have to do an afternoon shallow dive, or the Sunday morning not quite deep dive. This is required at all Sandals resorts.
I had talked with numerous people in the dive operation and given some suggestions and have been told that they were going to try to make more 2 tank type dives in the morning. Also, they may work more towards allowing people with more air to stay down longer. But only time will tell. Just don't have your hopes up for long and relaxing dives if you're a regular diver. Very casual divers might have a fine time and not know the difference.
So overall, we loved the resort, the food, the grounds,and the people. With a few little tweaks in the bus ride to the resort, workout room and the Dive shop, they could make the experience even more wonderful. So don't be worried about going.. Go and enjoy yourself!
I've got tons of pictures of the resort and the scuba diving that I'd be happy to share links with anyone that drops me a private message.
- Sandals Grande Ocho Rios
- Sandals Ocho Rios
- Ciboney Ocho Rios
