Couples Swept Away: Great getaway for couples

Beautiful property with lush mature tropical trees, nice rooms and huge deck (terrible road traffic noise in gardenview verandah suites). Fantastic beach and great security staff to discourage harrassment from beach peddlers. Good food. Friendly staff. Quick check in and check out but reception staff needs to brush up on making guests feel welcome. They were generally aloof and impatient.

Riu Montego Bay: Relaxing Time

Just came back from a week stay at the Rui. The hotel room was clean. The mattress was hard but I liked it that way. We had an old tube tv in the room that had a snowy picture for the whole stay. Not impressed. We did have free drinks in the room. Nice touch! The staff and service was great. The food was good. Lots of selection in the buffet and they have an Italian and Japanese restaurant which are fantastic! The beach was nice but the water had seaweed all over the place. You're near t [... read more]he airport so you do get planes over head every 5 to 10 minutes. It's loud enough that you have to stop your conversation and wait for it to pass by. The pool was fantastic! Very large. The entertainment was good but the stage was too small and if you don't get there early enough for the seating, you get stuck in the back where you can't see a thing. Over all, I did have a good time.

Jewel Runaway Bay Resort: Great Resort

Overall we had a great time at Jewel Runaway Bay. The food, beaches, staff, Kids club and golf coarse were top notch. The rooms can use some updating, but still good enough for the stay. Sounds like this resort is going to get some renovations in the next year or so. It switched from Breezes to Jewel overnight with limited renos so far.

Grand Palladium Jamaica: Had time of our life.

Our families have been to at least 6 resorts and we feel this has been the place. What made it so special: - service was fantastic, friendly, caring with a great sense of humour - spacious rooms with great ocean view - food was fantastic - many great restaurants to choose from every evening Beach is small but nice. Nothing like the great Cuban beaches.

Dreams Rose Hall: Great resort!

The hotel was beautiful and well maintained as well as the ground, the food was excellent. The entertainmemt was fun and the water park was perfect for the kids and older kids as well ;) The staff was very friendly and really good.

Jewel Runaway Bay Resort: Jewel Runaway Bay Resort, Jamaica

We enjoyed our family stay at Runaway Bay. This resort was great for family holiday, grandparents, children and grandchildren. Staff very friendly and the food was excellent. They went above board to make New Years Eve special, even though some of the festivities got rained out. The only complaint my family had, was our rooms were next to the disco. The disco opened at 11 p.m. and went to the last person left. It made getting to sleep difficult.

Riu Ocho Rios: Rui Ocho Rios - a great resort!

Very good resort. Stayed first week of January 2017. Lots of activities. Food was very good. Great buffet meal choices, sit down restaurants were also very good. Lot's of places to get drinks. Pool areas and beach were outstanding. Check-in process experience not the greatest.

Riu Montego Bay: Fun Fun Fun

The staff make the difference at this resort! Seems with 3 Riu's side by side this is the lower ***star with a five ***** price (but all the resorts prices have increased).So everything you read is true but the Jamaican people stand above any rating system with genuine love for one people. What no beach bar?? how is this possible!! The staff run up and down the beach slugging drinks, but not the same. No room service?? New Years Eve was the way the resort should be run everyday. Smoothies for br [... read more]eakfast should use real fruit NOT SYRUP!!! Management needs to spend the money if they are going to charge the guests top prices for family trips.Clean the seaweed from the beach and put in some sand.Does management care ?enough reviews have mentioned it !! Hope they get their act together , has potential.

JOIA Rose Hall by Iberostar: Brilliant!

My wife and I stayed for 4 nights from January 1st, 2017 and we had a superb time. We took the room on the ocean front which was just awesome. Waking to the sound of the ocean was just surreal. The room was better than expected. Extremely comfortable jumbo sized bed was an added bonus. Better than our own. Do yourself a favour and get the ocean front room. Breakfast buffet was excellent, vast array of food on offer to satisfy all wants. Evening meals were also very good however the entert [... read more]ainment in the evenings was a little dissappointing but not a detraction. Beautiful beach, warm water and fantastic snorkelling along a small reef just 30m off the beach to the right. Spectacular array of marine life without having to pay for a guided snorkelling tour. So cool. Beautiful pool area with infinity pools. We lived on the beach however. Super friendly and helpful staff who went above and beyond for my wife's birthday. Very attentive but not over bearing. Late checkout until 3pm (complimentary) was great. We ended up paying $10 for an additional hour so we could leave the beach at 3.30pm, shower and meet the airport bus by 4.30pm. This place was so quiet (kid free) but still lots of fun if you want to engage in the activities during the day on the beach. We will be back. A great first experience of Jamaica.

Riu Palace Jamaica: Amazing 5 star resort

Everything was perfect - the beach was 2 star compared to Cuba. Room very clean - services all 5 star. Can't go wrong as you can access the adjust hotels for free if you get bored. However no need as this hotel is far superior and you will not have to lineup. Can't go wrong - enjoy your vacation

Bahia Principe Explore Jamaica: Clean and very well maintained but...

I went to the Grand Bahia Principe in Jamaica with my 18 year old son. Overall we had a great trip, and enjoyed our stay. Pros: The al a carte restaurants were all good, I particularly enjoyed the Gourmet, my son the Japanese, and the buffet was fine. The place was very clean and clearly well maintained, and the staff all very courteous and kind. The free catamaran was awesome, my son learned how to sail and loved it. Neither of us are beach bunnies so I can't speak to the quality of the  [... read more]beach or swimming, but we both enjoyed beach volleyball in an area not by the water. The mini-casino has 2 very nice Black Jack machines which seat multiple players and actually seemed to play legit. My son really enjoyed learning how to play Black Jack - properly! Lastly, like all resorts in Jamaica (at least all those on the national water supply), you CAN drink the water no need to brush your teeth using bottled water and no more concerns about the fruits and veggie or cocktails. The resort wasn't responsible for it but they recommended and booked for us, and we very much enjoyed a half-day trip on the party catamaran which takes you to Dunns Falls where you can climb up the falls (more like rapids to be honest but lovely just the same), have a jerk chicken lunch at Margaretville, and then sail back with dancing and drinks. Great value at $103 USd each. Cons: The buffet hours were not particularly accommodating - closing at 10AM and not opening until 1PM for lunch meant if we wanted to enjoy a nice breakfast we would have to get up "early". We're on vacation MON!!! There is another Bar & Grill style place that opens at 11AM but it is not a breakfast place. As my son pointed out there is actually 1 hour when you can't get food anywhere. Our package also included free room service which I thought was awesome until I read the Room Service Menu - forget it. If you decide to try your luck in the mini-casino count your cash when you turn in your receipt from the Black Jack machine. The morning after I collected my money I noticed I seemed to be short $20 but I wasn't %100 sure. The 2nd night I cashed out I counted it in front of her and sure enough I was $20 short!! Another complaint would be the scarcity of bars, especially with the central bar poolside (including the swim up bar) closing at 5:30. What's up with that? In short, being an all-inclusive loses a lot of its lustre if you have to work around their hours, and plan when to grab drinks in order not to have to walk for 5 min each way to get another round. Lastly, our package was supposed to include 4 al a carte restaurants. Despite the hotel pre-booking the gourmet and Japanese, and going on-line as soon as I got in our room, I was unable to book a night at the Italian restaurant. Despite calling and asking for assistance not once but twice over our stay and being told they would look into it and call me back, neither time did we get a call back. We were supposed to get 4 al la carte dinner nights and we only got 3 and nobody we spoke to gave a damn - very very poor customer service!! We had a look in the Italian place a couple of times and they were never full - I don't get it.

Bahia Principe Explore Jamaica: Fabulous vacation!!

This resort is the best out of 3 trips I have made. Very luxurious, very well maintained, beautiful pools and beach!! Food was excellent and varied. The service was very good as were all the people we met!! We will for sure book this resort again!!! 😎🌴🇯🇲

Riu Reggae: 5 star not, maybe a 3?

Upon arriving at the Rui Reggae we were all underwhelmed. I understand that this is a brand new property, time will not help this place! I also understand this resort was built using Riu's new "plan". Not sure who they hired for this, but obviously someone who doesn't travel much, and if they do, not at 5 star resorts. To jam this resort into such a small plot of land was their first mistake. There are so many chairs around the pool and on the beach, it is uncomfortable. A great number o [... read more]f rooms either have views of drainage areas, or a massive white wall from the Rui Palace which is right next door. They placed what must be a sewer drain right between one bar and the entertainment area. I assume a sewer drain, as every time you went near it, it smelled like raw waste. This resort has two other Rui properties right beside it. The Rui Palace and the Rui Montego Bay. Because we were so disappointed in the Reggae, we walked up the beach to view the other places. Our thoughts were to possibly change to one of these others. These other properties look identical and after speaking to guests at each of these resorts we decided to stay. The comments on the other properties were not good either. They did do a few things right! The staff at the hotel were all exceptional! The food in the buffet was also exceptional! Only got into the steak restaurant because of the line ups. It was just okay. Good luck Rui, but I can only imagine this property being deserted at some point.

Riu Ocho Rios: Good experience

Good experience, excellent food, ok service, ok room, excellent beach, excellent grounds, excellent corridors/lobby, excellent terraces for eating areas, excellent restaurants. There was a continue buzzing on the VIP beach -like a noise coming from a big vacuum. There were not enough seats in the theatre during the shows. Poor quality shows. The TV in the room was to small and we had no internet access in the room. It was hard to exchange the big dollar bills to 1 dollar bill (for tips)-no [... read more]t available at front desk. Sunwing experience was bad -the flight was delayed for too long and we arrived at the hotel at 1am. We were very scared on the bus drive from the airport to the hotel. Nothing happened but Jamaica is a dangerous place and we should not travel during the night time.

Bahia Principe Escape Runaway Bay: New Years at Luxury Bahia Principe Runaway Bay

Stayed at the Luxury Bahia Principe Runaway Bay from December 26th, 2016 - January 2nd, 2017. Check-In & Porter Services - No issues, friendly, proficient and up to our room within minutes. Room - As expected, spacious, cleaned early and daily, mini-bar stocked daily, no shortage on bottled water, towels replenished twice a day...great job. Property - Gorgeous. The landscaping staff is constantly manicuring the property. The beaches were beautiful, clean and enjoyable to walk. Ba [... read more]r - The bar service was good, we never waited long for a drink however we are active tippers and became familiar with the bar staff. While the service was good we have two complaints regarding the bar service. One, the Luxury Bahia promotes that they have premium "top shelf" products. Finlandia, Absolute, Bombay and Smirnoff are not "top shelf" premium brands. It was nice to have access to specialty liqueurs for special coffees. Two, you cannot locate a single fresh lemon or lime on the resort. The majority of the time drinks were not garnished which you should expect at a self claimed "5-STAR" property. If you want lemon or lime for your drinks, do yourself a favor and find them outside of the resort or ask someone to purchase them for you (like we did with one of the bartenders.) Tip for the F&B Manager: If you can offer citrus on the buffets with the fruit, certainly you can source lemons and limes for the bar. This should be a standard at a "5-STAR" property. Dinner Reservations -I was skeptical from reading other reviews how securing a la carte dinners would go. We arrived late in the day Monday so we went to secure our a la carte meals first thing Tuesday morning. The day that we were most interested in was for New Years Eve. There was no line up so we were able to sit down quickly however we were told instantly that there were no restaurants available and that the new schedule was released on Friday. When I asked if I had to wait until Friday to book for NYE we were told that we would have to book with another group for the NYE dinner and showed us where to do that. I was frustrated with the lack of a la carte availability however then that suddenly changed. Ten minutes later we had booked into 4 restaurants, including the one I had asked for originally. A $5.00 tip actually gained us a smile, this after the fact. We were told to come back on Friday to book for Sunday evening, which is what we did. We discovered that NYE was going to take place at the Jasmin, the Luxury Bahia Adults-Only Buffet restaurant. We had our choice of times and booked for 9:00 pm. We asked multiple times over the course of the week what the menu would be for NYE and no one could tell us anything, other than it was Buffet and had a nice table set up. I will elaborate more on this later. Restaurants - We ate at the Italian, Brazilian, and the Don Pablo a la carte restaurants. The Italian was mediocre at best, the Brazilian was neat experience, the Don Pablo was the best of the three. We enjoyed the Chateaubriand. We ate Breakfast at the Jasmine everyday. The food for breakfast does not change. The fruit is not ripe and lacked flavor. My bf enjoyed the freshly made omelettes while I stuck mostly with the hard boiled eggs. The coffee, mimosas and service was very good. We ate Lunch every day at the Beach Restaurant where they were smoking the Jerk Chicken. The rest of the meal was buffet and did not change at all. We only ate the Jerk and salad here. The service was good however you often have to wait for the chicken to be ready. We sat and waited over an hour one day to have it, not for a lack of chicken on the smoker, rather the fact that they were holding it back. Pre-cooked chicken doesn't take another hour to smoke up to be done. Tipping to get chicken shouldn't be an expectation either. Thankfully the taste makes up for the annoyance of the situation. Tip for the Hotel F&B Manager: If you know that the Jerk has a high demand, prepare for it to rank a higher customer satisfaction score. New Years Eve - Our NYE reservation was hosted our of the Adults-Only Buffet, the Jasmine. Everyone was rushed in and then rushed out. The food did not differ much from what was offered the rest of the week with the exception of dried out lobster tail and perhaps some meat. My NYE dinner consisted of the same salad I ate all week, dried out lobster tail and deep fried mozzarella sticks. The desserts were the same, the drinks were the same, there was nothing special about this meal. Following dinner there was supposed to be a NYE gala out on the beach however rain took over and there was no communication on how plans for the evening had been altered. The lobby bar closed at 11:00 pm per their normal hours. If there was a "plan B" to account for weather this was never communicated. As a result, the rest of our evening was spent in our room. We were expected to dress up for a buffet dinner, which took less than an hour, and then spent the remainder without a plan. This was a tremendous disappointment considering the increased costs with being there for the holiday. Tip of the Hotel F&B Manager: It's NYE, let your guests eat where they want to. Post the menu's so that your guests know what to expect and can make alternative plans if what is being offered doesn't appeal to the over paying customer. Bulter Service - What is this? Does this come standard if you are a guest staying on the Luxury side or as a guest are you paying additional fees for this service (outside of tipping). This was never introduced to us. Gym - The gym is dated however it is functional and offers a selection of equipment, free weights and cardio machines. We didn't spend a lot of time here as it is hot and lacking air circulation (and quite frankly, we were on vacation). In conclusion, our vacation was what we made of it. We enjoyed the sun while we could, the drinks were ok, the food was ok, the staff was amazing, we enjoyed our time together. Would we return? No. There are far too many other properties to explore and for the money spent, the value was not there. We would rate this property a 4 Star at best.

Sandals Dunn's River: Excellent resort!!

This former Sandals property is a winner in every way. It isn't brand new, but still offers a clean environment and an excellent variety of food, drinks and activities that are sure to please... The beach is clean and well maintained. It isn't a very long beach, but it is convenient and close and is very user friendly. Our room was clean and spacious and we enjoyed a beautiful view from our balcony. Staff was very friendly and helpful for the most part, but we did experience a few bad attitudes [... read more] in the gift shop and one of the bars. Nothing serious and no big deal. Restaurants were EXCELLENT. Reservations were required at only 1 and they were easy to make. The property is very compact and easy to get around. Nothing is very far from you no matter where you are. We would recommend it and we would definitely consider returning.

Bahia Principe Explore Jamaica: fell short of expectations

I have stayed at less "Gran" resorts for a lot less money and been far more impressed. The situation of the resort, the grounds, the view from the rooms were all stunning. However, the condition of the rooms and the halls was considerably run-down. We had trouble with the safe, the tv and the sliding door to the balcony did not lock properly. We spent a considerable amount of time and frustration getting these problems dealt with. I did find the staff responded to my concerns professionally, I j [... read more]ust think that when you are spending thousands for two rooms (my husband and I had my elderly father with us) you shouldn't have to deal with these kinds of hassles. I found the quality of the food and the selection great but the only time you got hot food was when you were lucky enough to be standing by when something was brought out of the kitchen. The servers varied widely in their abilities and also in their attitude. Some were lovely and really on top of things. Others, not so much. All in all, we still had a lovely time but as I say, in my opinion, this resort is over-rated and over-priced.

Royalton Hideaway Blue Waters: GREAT FAMILY RESORT!

We, decided to choose this resort based on recommendations from other families who have stayed here. Prior to our departure date I was worried about the reviews left by people on trip advisor about the lack of hot water at the resort. I was so worried that I sent many emails to my travel agent Sandra Gallaugher. Sandra re-assured me that was not the case and if I had any issues while there to call or text their customer service dept. Well we went the Royalton White Sands and had a fabulous ti [... read more]me. It was our first family trip with our two little ones aged 3 1/2 and 6 years old. * The food was good, sometimes repetitive but other wise it was always hot and a good variety * The butler service was amazing and I highly recommend purchasing this upgrade if you can. Our butler Nick and Rushane always made sure we were looked after. They brought hot lunch (pizza, wings, fries, jerk chicken) to the pool for us and the kids so we never had to leave. * The pool and kids area were fantastic and I can't say enough about the Kids Club which my children loved. It's a place where the kids can do art, play video games and hang out at the park * The resort it self is not very big and that is a plus because you know where everything is. Very quaint with a great family vibe. * The entertainment at night was great and we listened to amazing music on our balcony every night. * I can't say enough about the staff at this resort, top notch, very friendly and helpful. Would I go back? Yes A great family vacation with no issues with hot water! ;0) .

Riu Reggae: Loved the Riu Reggae!

We stayed at Riu Reggae Dec 26-Jan 2nd. What a great resort! The staff are so incredibly warm, friendly and welcoming. The resort is brand new, and they do an amazing job of keeping it clean. The restaurants offer a great selection of meals/themes. Try the drink of the day, you'll love it1

Riu Palace Tropical Bay: Riu Palace Negril

One of the nicest beaches I have seen, warm water and sandy beaches. Pools were a lot smaller than they appeared in pictures on line. Rooms were average but my biggest complaint would be the 2 beds pushed together to form one large bed. Food was average, but their system of having to stand in line to make a dinner reservation was frustrating. Staff was friendly and accommodating.