Jamaica March 2012

We visited Negril, Jamaica in March 2012.  We went with a group of friends, so we were looking into accomodations that would fit every budget, yet still all inclusive, and nice.  We decided on the resort of:  RIU Negril.  This was a wonderful fit financially and location wise too.  We all had a fabulous time!!!  Our good friends even got engaged there :)  Congrats to you Brent and Ann!!!

Here is my trip report about the RIU Negril:

ROOMS:  The rooms were actually a little larger than I was expecting.  We had a standard room with ocean view.  I was expecting a typical standard hotel room, but I liked how roomy our room felt.  The entrance area by the door was wide, the liquor dispensor and the minifridge were plentiful.  Our bed however was a little disappointing.  You can see from the picture below in the slideshow that our KING sized bed was indeed 2 double beds pushed together.  Yep.  I wasn't expecting that, and was not super happy about it, but it is what it is, right?  Our balcony was small but sufficient.  Air conditioning worked just fine, can't complain.  The bathroom was small, you can see in the picture just how small that shower was.  It was fine, but not spacious by any means.

BEACH:  The beach outfront of our resort was nice.  I like in Negril how you can wade out into the water and go quite a ways before it gets over your head.  It's nice to just get a little wet, and no crashing waves, no undertow.  I do like that!  On the far end of our resort, the weeds and debris did wash up quite a bit, but the RIU did a nice job of keeping most of it clear most of the time.  There were plenty of little shells to collect in the area (not that you can take them home...but some do try)  Towards the South side of our beach, in between the two RIU resorts, there are some beach vendors.  This area is nice to do a little shopping, without having to be hassled all the time just relaxing on your beach chair.

WAKE UP TIME:  I do not like that you have to wake up at 6:00am just to get a chair on the beach.  People wake up very early just to reserve a chair.  It is a problem, I did not like it, but by the time we finally would get our butts down to the beach, people were getting out of their chairs, so it wasn't a huge issue.  But this could be a problem for some...  You also need to get up very early to make a dining reservation at the restaurants.  You can make a reservation 2 days in advance only.  This is never a problem, but you need to know the system.  Get up early, make a reservation and you're good to go.

DINING:  We dined in the buffet restaurant a few times, and the choices were plenty.  I did feel a little like a herd of cattle when it was dinner time though.  It's not super fancy, and very laid back.  Wonderful for those that like it to be very casual, and don't want to dress up.  It's a great fit for that.  I, on the other hand, do like to get dressed up for dinner, and make it nice.  We did that 2 times in our 4 night stay.  We did the steakhouse 'Shadows', and we also did the fancy 'Sir Andrews' one night.  Shadows was impressive, my expectations were low, but was pleasantly surprised, food was great, service was good.  Sir Andrews was also good, food was much better at Sir Andrews, but the service was a little slow.  It surprised me that there was only seating for approx 30 people max, at a resort that holds 420 guest rooms.  Seems like it would make more sense to make some of these restaurants a little bigger.  BUT there was always the buffet option as well, which always had many choices.

BARS/DRINKS:  I had a personal favorite of a 'Dirty Banana' the last time we were in Jamaica, and the RIU's version of this drink was not the same, and not as good.  So I found a drink I did like, it was called a 'Miami Vice'.  This was a red, white and blue drink, yummy!!!  The bartenders were good, I can't say that we had any one that was a stand out.  The swim up bar was always hopping and busy, the first time I went over to the swim up bar to get a drink, I stood there for 10 minutes before the bartender even looked at me, and it took another 10-15 minutes to actually get a drink.  That was about it for me.  I prefer the quiet pool anyways, so that was fine.  They were serving the rowdy ones, and that was good!!!!

OVERALL IMPRESSION:  OK, so I've traveled a lot, and I do take my trips with a grain of salt most days.  Things will go wrong, things will go right, and it's all good.  My overall impression of this resort was that it's a 3-4 star and that's exactly where it should be.  Everything was good, but not great.  I would absolutely stay here again, without a doubt.  It's all about expectations.  It's not a luxury resort, but sometimes that isn't what you're willing to pay for when you just want to have fun and be safe.

Here are a few of my pictures from the trip:

On this same trip, I had the opportunity to visit a couple other resorts as well.
Here are my trip reports for them...

Couples Negril was a beautiful resort.  This resort reminded me a lot of Sandals Negril.  They cater to adult only couples, and upscale service.  The overall feel of this resort was much smaller, there are 234 rooms.  Each of the beach and pool chairs have a floatie.  You can take your floatie in the pool or into the ocean, and it's fabulous.  There are more than enough chairs for the entire resort, so you never have to race to get a chair.  I love that.

We were given a walking tour of the resort, and the overall feel of the place is that it's very relaxed and quiet, no kids, so that in itself is a nice feature.  I really loved this resort, with all the inclusions, even though the price point is higher up front, your experience when you are there is so much better!!!!

Here are a few of my pictures from Couples Negril:

RIU Palace Tropical Bay was a lot like RIU Negril.  The layout, the look and feel is so similar, it's a little hard to know where you are at times.  But the rooms, the rooms were much nicer.  The beach out front was a little less crowded, and not quite as weedy.

Here are a few of my pictures from RIU Palace Tropical Bay:

I visited Jamaica for the first time!

We had a wonderful trip to Jamaica....

Traveled August 2010

. . .

Overall impression was great!

We could not have asked for a better trip for our anniversary!!

Sandals Negril was wonderful!

Jeffrey the manager made sure we had a great time.

We were upgraded at check in to a

One Bedroom Penthouse Suite with Butler.

Boy, were we spoiled!

. . .

Here are my notes on Sandals Negril:

. . .

THE ROOM: At Sandals Negril, we had the pleasure of staying in a One Bedroom Penthouse Suite with butler. We had 2 butlers. The four poster bed, with white duvet cover, and pillows you could sink your head into for the night, was awesome. There was a plasma flat screen tv facing the bed, and another plasma slat screen tv in the living room area. The living room area had a couch and chair, coffee table and a table with chairs in the corner. The bathroom had a double sink, jacuzzi tub, walk in shower, and small separate toilet area. Huge bathroom area, plenty of room to move about. Our balcony was also very large, another couch out there, and table and chairs, and a nice drying rack for our wet clothes. Another drying rack inside. The view from our balcony was picture perfect.

I also had the opportunity to see two other room types at Sandals, the Millionaire Honeymoon Penthouse One Bedroom Suite with Whirlpool, and the Honeymoon Concierge Beachfront Walk-out room.

The Millionaire suite was almost identical to our room. It overlooked the gardens area, and was not as quiet as our room. The main road was not that far away, so I'm guessing at times, this room could be a bit noisy from the traffic.

The Honeymoon walk out was exactly what I would expect from a Sandals. Furnishings very nice, direct access to the beach from the little patio, fridge in room, and flat screen tv.

FOOD: We tried most of the restaurants. They all had very good food. Our first night was the main buffet area, and we watched the entertainment, and ate dinner. On your first night in a new resort, it's always hard to know what to do, and what to eat first. But the buffet was good.

We ate at the Beach Grill the next day, ordered some of the more casual food, quesadillas, fish, fries, burgers, etc. All of this was good, hard to mess that up.

We dined at Barefoot by the Sea the next night. The service was S-L-O-W, the food was good, fancy, but really good. But it took a long time to dine.... And although the service was great, it was just slow....this took some getting used to, to vacation on Jamaican time...

The next night we ate at Sundowners. Again, very good food. Service was much quicker here, so we enjoyed that.

The next night we ate at Kimono's, this was our favorite. It's dining teppanyaki style, where they cook the food in front of you. It was nice, because everything they cooked, we all got to eat, we didn't have to choose which meat we wanted. Food was great, service was perfect.

The last night we dined at the regular buffet, we didn't want to race to a dinner reservation or anything, and even the buffet was great. Some of the food was cooked to order, and we had tons of choices.

We did not try the 4C's italian restaurant, heard good things, but it just didn't fit into our schedule.

BUTLER SERVICE: For those that have never had a butler before (myself included) this service was so much more than I had anticipated. Our butlers made it clear that if there was anything at all that we wanted or needed, to just call them, and they could make it happen. They gave us our own cell phone to ring them anytime. We had breakfast out on the beach, lots of room service, they helped us order up a cab, and take a little shopping trip. They even went as far as let us use their own personal cell phones to call home, that is amazing!!!

Every time they made a dinner reservation for us, we had our own reserved table, always decorated with flower petals, and our name on it. And always the best table in the room. Even when we went to the buffet and no reservations could be made, our butler told us to call him, and he made sure we got a sunset view table.

OVERALL IMPRESSION OF JAMAICA: OK, so we didn't leave the resort too much. Why would you, when you are staying at a Sandals and have butlers waiting on your every need? No big reasons, in my mind....ha ha ha. We went down to Beaches Negril, and walked down to the Grand Pineapple. This area of the Negril beach has a much wider beach, and much busier than our little area of Negril. More beach vendors, more people, more action.

This area of Negril reminded me a lot of Cancun actually. Busy, lots and lots of resorts, and not a ton of security. I was able to walk by and in any of these resorts I wanted. The all inclusive resorts had wristbands, but the little mom and pop type resorts didn't. I am sure that some of the resorts in this area of Negril attract people that want the smaller-feel resorts, but it was not what we liked.

We did go down to Rick's Cafe. It's pretty fun to watch the cliff divers jumping. We did not jump. I can see that this would be a lively place to party when the sun went down. There is even a pool you can swim here. Music is great, crowd is fun!

Beaches Negril

I also had the opportunity to see the two Beaches properties in Negril. Beaches Sandy Bay was right next door, and Beaches Negril was a short 5 minute cab ride away.

Beaches Negril was impressive, the beach was wide, and there were lots of activities going on around the resort. The water park and pool are very nice here.

Beaches Sandy Bay was very family friendly, I felt the beach was much smaller and more secure than that of Beaches Negril. The resort itself was quite small, no water park, and the pool was small too. The nice part though, you could take a free shuttle over to Beaches Negril if you wanted to use the water slides, and join more activities during the day. Full exchange privileges.

Beaches Sandy Bay

Sandals Negril

Has anyone ever been to Sandals Negril?
Would love to hear your comments or feedback, I will be traveling there this fall, and would love YOUR tips and tricks!!!