This resort seems to get a wide variety of ratings from guests, from 1 to 5 but it is a true 4.5.
I guess if you have experiences such as long waits at restaurants, attitude from hostesses and male staff hitting on female members it can affect your review. But I read a 1and 2 out of 5 before I flew out and wondered if I made a mistake. Some strange review said it was dangerous because their diabetic parents went to bed with no food because they coulnd't wait any longer for service. That is crazy talk, wait ir go to the buffet if food will save your life!
The odd staff member was a little cocky or had attitude but they ended up helping us the most when pressed. Most staff members were very friendly and helpful and said hello everytime you made eye contact.
I have been to the Caribbean about 40 times but it is my first to Jamaica. Lately I have been going to 5 star luxury resorts. This resort has a lot going for it and waht the difference is between this and a 5 star would be the quality of food, lack of room service and the dinner and breakfast buffet. The a la cartes had great presentation and pretty good service but the food quality and taste were good but not 5 star. The lunch buffet was my favourite meal and had excellent selection and taste everyday.We wanted jerk on our BBQ chicken so the cook went out and made one up on his own and dipped the chicken in it and grilled it some more and it was excellent, "not for babies" he said. It was hotter and better than the jerk hut that everyone raves about. Breakfast buffet had a nice location and view and although it had the basics it did not have the variety or quality of a 5 star. No big deal because I like a light breakfast. The omlette and melon had a weird taste like a cleaning agent of some type but whatever,, I just didn't eat it.
Bubba's had a long wait of over an hour and the steak and food was fatty and not worth the weight. But the Italian had a great steak, go figure. By the way, you don't need long pants at the Italian and Indian restaurant. They are at the breakfast buffet area overlooking the pool,ocean ( nice view )and both meals were as good as any if not better.

Highlights of this resort
1. Good location and half way between Mo Bay and Negril, about 50 minutes to each with traffic.
2.No peddlers or agressive dealers as it is a private beach
3. I loved the beach and there were 3 to choose from but all are on the Lady Hamilton side.
You can go into the water without water shoes but they do help as there are areas of rock you can only see on a calm day. The two coves are calm and warm and the other beach has a breaker. They are not long but walking miles on the beach is overrated in my opinion.
They had large bed mats and 5 are on a platfrom that is 20 feet high,,but not many used them so we had one everyday.
4. The one bedroom suite was clean and large. It has a separate door to close so it kept the crickets and loud guests in the hall from waking you up. The bathroom was excellent with a lrge shower and a large jet tub. We got a sewre back uo smell in our second room once or twice but it went away and we put a damp cloth over the shower drain if it happened.
5. The gym was very decent and there is a pool there for laps or lounging and it joins the spa.
6.Entetainmant was good. We don't do the shows but there was a live band every night in the bar lounge area above the pool.
7. The bonfire and live reggae band on the beach was great but not many people were there.
8. Lots of activities and games around the main pool and fun staff too if you are into that.
9.The adults only pool and beach were great. Nice lounge chairs and small pool with a great view
10.there were shuttle cars if your villa was too far away but I think you had to call ahead to the front for a pick up. We has an ocean front room near the looby so never needed this. The view was excellent.

what could be improved?
The buffet may be hectic at breakfast if the resort was ever full as it was small and crowded some days and the resort looked half empty. either it was empty or they have dozens of extra chairs around the pool and beach.
food quality could be better but was good overall with some very good and some not so good.

Other notes you may want to know
-they have decent change rooms in the lobby for those flying out late
-there are stores in the bottom of the lobby for different needs
-no room service
-put your name in for a certain room or building when you get there and they will change it for you.
gotta go but i hope this covers a few things

Stayed at the Grand Palladium Nov 23 to Nov 30th. We arrived late in the evening and had booked a one bedroom suite. They put us on the first floor and we went back to reception and they switched us to the second floor. Very beautiful room. The pool was incredible, the largest I have swam in. This was our second time in Jamaica and last time we did a series of day trips so there wasn't much new to do. We would have liked to zip line but it was very expensive. We only ate at the buffet one night and the restaurants very fab. We ate at the indian, jamaician, mexican, italian, seafood and steakhouse. The service was great in all the restaurants and there was no wait if you were there between 6:30 and 6:45pm. Internet was a bit sketchy at times but all I wanted was to email home occassionally. Resort is very large but it was great for me since I like to run in the mornings. Sunset cove beach was the best and the jerk chicken hut was a tasty bonus. All the staff were very friendly and helpful. Overall we thought it was a great resort and the food was exceptional.

Each year my family and friends of family take a vacation to a warmer climate. This year there was 13 of us, a smaller group than usual, that ventured south to the city of Lucea and we stayed at the Grand Palladium Jamaica. While Grand Palladium Jamaica is the largest resort on the island of Jamaica, it also has a large attitude problem. Don't get me wrong the grounds were absolutely gorgeous and there is a pool for everyone. The food at the buffets were amazing, while the A La Carte restaurants left much to be desired. Now maybe I should get to the Dangerous Service part of my review. It took three progressively worse run-ins with a particular hostess: 1. when we first arrived we went down to a lunch buffet and Cedalla, the hostess, gave us a lot of attitude before seating us. 2. At our first dinner at Bubba's A La Carte restaurant she took about 45 minutes to seat us, taking many others ahead of us. Now please understand waiting a long time to be seated is not a foreign concept for my family considering we live in heavily populated New York, USA. 3. Now this is where it get's dangerous. Our third run-in was at the Bhogali A La Carte restaurant. Let me paint the scene. One member in our group while on our vacation became a VIP member. VIP members can make reservations and then not have to wait to be seated at any of their restaurants. Also When we arrived there were pleanty of empty tables. However we still waited 50 minutes to be seated. As we stood by the door to the restaurant we watched many people from parties of 2 to 8 arrive after us but be seated before us. We watched the hostess, Cedalla, take about 15 minutes to set our table. Obviously she knew something was wrong because as we were going to our table she was saying to our waitor how it wasn't her fault that it took so long for us to be seated. From this point it still took another 2 hours before we got our main course of our meal, in fact the wait took so long that five out of our dinner party of ten left the resaurant, two of which being my father and my grandmother both DIABETICS. They both went to bed that night without eating. Thankfully they were both able to wake up the next morning, but that is a very dangerous risk that they had to take. Now for the most part the ladies at the front desk were polite and helpful, but there's always one. When my parents went to check out my mom realized that she left something in the room and asked the lady that was helping her to check out for a room key so she could return to the room and get what she left. The woman said that she would cut her a new key so she could. But another lady at the check out desk said not to cut her a new key. Have the bellboy take her up he has a master key. My father then stepped in and told the woman that the bellmen were very busy just make another key. The woman gave attitude and told the other woman it was ok to make another key. Also be careful if you are a woman either alone or with other women, no man present, walking around anywhere on the property. There were many times that my sister and I were cat called at by the male staff. Grand Palladium please train your staff better. They are extremely unprofessional and they made our stay extremely uncomfortable.

We stayed here for 10 days as a group of 5 and loved it.
It's a great resort and would give it a 4.5/5.

Facilities:
Huge! and very open. Everything is nicely spread out but the distances aren't as bad and I actually enjoyed the walking. Everything is clean and well taken care of. This was the week after Thanksgiving (US) and it wasn't busy at all. No wait at the bars at all.

Rooms:
Stayed in 2 rooms, one on the Jamaica side, and one on the Hamilton side (I switched to the Hamilton side to be closer to my friends). They were identical, but the location of the Hamilton one was closer to the Sunset Cove.
Rooms were very clean and nice but not 5-star quality. You could see they cut corners to get the job done quick, but it didn't bother me at all.

Food:
Food was very good overall. We ate at all the restaurants and only found the Asian and Jamiacan ones to be sub-par. Italian was really good, especially the lamb. The steakhouse is hard to get into, so be there before 6:30 or don't bother. The buffet was good and had themed nights, including a beach BBQ night.
For the restaurants, there are no reservations, so they put you on the waiting list and only tell you how many tables are ahead of you. The wait for ~10 tables was about an hour.
This was my only major issue with the resort: wasting hours a night on restaurants. I think I prefer the reservation method better.
The jerk-hut wasn't as great, especially after tasting some jerk outside of the resort.

Drinks:
Very good, quality stuff. Obviously the non-swimup/pool bars had the better drinks. Mojitos were very good as well as the Bloody Marys at the piano bar (which also had tasty pastries)

Service:
Excellent. After reading the reviews I was concerned that I wouldn't get good service unless I tipped. This was not the case. Once we got to the resort not a single employee even hinted at wanting a tip. As long as you have a smile on your face so will the service.

Tipping:
I tipped the maid $2US a night. $1-3 to the bartenders if I ordered multiple complicated drinks. $3-10 (for the group of 5) to the waiters who were excellent and really took good care of us. I took a $100-stack of singles, and had like $50 left after 10 full days.

Beach:
I loved all 3 of them. The big one had amazing rock formations and plenty of room, great to lay out and read. The 2 coves were better for swimming. We took a private tour-taxi (private driver for $120 total) to Negril for the day and I was not impressed with the 7-mile beach (but I might be spoiled after Zanzibar and Thailand). I would have rather stayed at the resort, but Ricks Cafe was cool to see.

Entertainment:
The activities crew was great. Very friendly and energetic. We hung out with Panther, Tugg-ras and Spoon the most, joking and giving each other a hard time everyday.
The night performances were nice, but the fun started after the show when everybody moved to the infinity bar upstairs where there was live music and dancing every night.

To sum it up, I probably wouldn't go back to Jamaica as I would like to visit other places, but if I did, I wouldn't hesitate to stay at the Palladium again.