After anxiously awaiting our long overdue vacation, I am disappointed that I even have to write a review like this. I rarely give negative reviews but this one I feel will hopefully help other families when spending their hard earned money in planning their next vacation. Please do your research and strongly consider staying somewhere else.
Let’s start with check in. Upon arriving, we waited in line at the front desk to only be sent to a separate table in another conference type room to begin check in. A greeter or some sort would’ve been nice to direct us from the beginning on where to check in. After completing paperwork in that room, we were sent back to the front desk. This agent then sent us to another desk across the property because we were “upgraded” to the adults only side while the rest of my family was on the “basic” side - as what it felt like. If I had known the trouble this would cause throughout our stay, I never would’ve accepted this “upgrade.” I say “upgrade” because the rooms are exactly the same, service is still lacking, and attention to detail on cleanliness still seemed to be missing. The only thing this caused us was constantly being questioned on what side we belonged on when we tried to visit with our family throughout our stay. Anyways, back to check in. After visiting the 3rd desk, we were escorted to our room which isn’t really a short walk only to realize that we never received our wristbands. Back to the desk we go considering without those bands you literally can’t do anything.
Let’s touch on food quality next. If you are a foodie, this should be enough to make you forget about booking at this resort. After our long day of traveling and the whole checking in circus, we decided to just stay in and order room service for dinner which by the way is only offered on the adults only side which is odd considering the only options are microwave quality burgers and what seemed to be Tyson frozen chicken nuggets. The Caesar salad was equally awful. Staying at a resort in Jamaica you’d think room service would offer some sort of Jamaican dish but unfortunately, jerk chicken was not something we were able to enjoy our first night. The buffet on the family side was terrible. Food constantly running out, super dry and offered the same terrible selections every night throughout our week long stay. We felt bad leaving our family so that we could enjoy the slightest bit more quality on the “luxury” side but the guilt of leaving them behind as second class citizens didn’t make it any easier.
The majority with the exception of only a handful of the host/wait staff at these restaurants made me feel as if I was on a prank tv show. I’ve worked in hospitality for the past 10 years and can’t even begin to imagine treating guests the way we were treated at some moments. Empty restaurants are still a hassle to be seated if you’re with a large party. Tables at the buffet are never set with silverware and asking for a fork seemed to be a huge sacrifice to the staff that are literally wandering around at turtle speed setting tables with zero sense of urgency. One morning, I asked for spinach in my omelette and was told there was no more. The omelette station next to the one I was at literally 5 feet away was stocked with spinach but it wasn’t even worth arguing. The laziness we experienced was frustrating and unbearable. At the poolside bar at 11am we were told we couldn’t have what we ordered (dirty monkey, a frozen drink) because they didn’t have bananas. We asked if they were out for the whole day and they said yes. This was just laughable at this point. Low and behold, they eventually got bananas that day. What!! Going above and beyond for the customer just doesn’t exist here. We were apparently late to dinner for the Italian restaurant Dolce Vita. The concierge/guest service rep (also in a miserable mood) failed to mention our party was split into two different dinner reservations 30 minutes apart again in a COMPLETELY EMPTY restaurant. They cancelled our reservation and still had the audacity to argue with us about not being on time instead of just politely seating us at one of the dozens of empty tables. Mind you, it was 9:30 at night. That was apparently the earliest they could’ve accommodated us even though we were the only guests dining there. Then again, at this point I sort of started to expect this kind of treatment when they can’t even take the time to straighten the art work on the walls at this restaurant. However, our waiter really did a great job trying to turn our experience around after hearing about how awful management was. Service was just a complete hit or miss.
Growing up, I always judged the cleanliness of resorts by how they kept the carpets. Well let me tell you, the carpets were atrocious. We would see the same mess spilled on the floor for days until someone eventually cleaned it up. The stains were gross. On the topic of maintenance, I’ll also mention our room and balcony had some gross brown splatter on the walls, a leaky sink and lights not working. But this was our upgrade after all, remember? We asked a housekeeper outside our room for hand soap because we’ve been washing our hands with shower gel. We were told they don’t have soap. Housekeeping doesn’t have soap!! At this point all you can do is laugh. Oh, they also barged in our room during our nap when a do not disturb sign was on the door. That was pleasant.
Other misc cons: Pools close at 6, there aren’t any sort of wait staff around the pool taking pool orders so if you’re hungry, you have to get out of the pool, get dressed, and walk miles to the newest buffet. The “disco” smells like vomit and the evening shows are mediocre at best. The only enjoyable nightlife we experienced was the beach party on the last night. Being in Jamaica I was really looking forward to some poolside steel drums but that only happened one day for only a couple hours. Lastly, the people on the beach trying to sell you weed was starting to be bothersome. At first it was funny but after 7 days it takes a lot to just not tell them off. We started calling them weed gophers because all of a sudden you just see their heads pop up from the bushes while they’re on the prowl to sell to you. Also, almost the entire resort is open so if you’re sensitive to heat then you’ll probably pass out here. Luckily we are from Florida and used to the climate.
If this is the only vacation you can afford to take and spend months looking forward to, please take these points into consideration. We had the most fun outside of the resort at a variety of excursions. The luminous lagoon was fun, blue hole was the best with Romaine as our guide, calypso tubing also a blast and our day trip to Negril was amazing. We literally took every opportunity to leave this resort. However, do not book these activities through the resort unless you want to pay double or triple price. Find a local cab or tour company to take you to the locations.