Ok, it’s not my intention to criticise the hotel resort on a personal level as it is what it is, horses for courses as they say. This is more of a damming review of our tour operator Tui in promoting this resort as a 5* or 5T holiday for UK travellers. I know it’s conjecture and personal opinion but I wish people would have been totally honest in writing previous reviews and I could have saved ourselves a lot of money. So, if you’re from the UK and thinking of booking this resort read on…. I cannot describe how bad for a British mature couple this hotel is.
Firstly, I don’t know what the official criteria is for grading hotels but I’ve stayed in plenty around the world and at best, this is no more than 3*. It is an alternative Cancun for American/Canadian guests who make up roughly 95% of clientele. Again not a personal slur as we spoke to quite a few and whom were very nice and chatty, but the majority are big, loud and gregarious…I’ll clarify.
Make no mistake, this is a long and tiring trip from the UK. A 9.5 hour flight into Montego Bay (for Tui) and as the promo says, there are no Tui reps at hand so stumble around until you come across the ‘Couples’ resort waiting area where your details will be taken and a nice cold drink offered. Our 20 min wait for transport slowly morphed into 40 minutes, waiting for other guests to arrive and it was then onto a small mini bus. If you have hand luggage like a small case then consider asking the driver to put it in with your luggage as other than on your lap, there’s no place inside the mini bus to put it…and it’s a long transfer! It’s over 2 hours and an eye opener. Sadly, Jamaica is a poor country and struggling more so after the devastating hurricane of 2025. The journey to Negril is long, uncomfortable and sad.
Our eventual arrival at the resort was promising with a nice glass of champagne (it’s not, it’s Prosecco but let’s not get too picky). The checking in procedure is exactly what you don’t want after being up and about for 18 hours. You’ll need, your passports (understandably), personal emails, telephone, UK address, credit card and exact return flight details, form filling and be given your room key bracelet which is actually a very good idea. You’ll also be given a head full of information that at this stage makes absolutely no sense whatsoever about restaurants, bookings and activities etc. Then it’s off to your room you go. Your luggage gets a buggy but it’s Shanks’s Pony for you. The resort is roughly a North - South orientation with reception being at the north end. We were in a Beachfront verandah room 3324 at the southern end.
So, if you’re still daft enough to pay and go, opt for a Beachfront Verandah Suite with Balcony. The view, beach and sea are lovely. Our room was very comfortable indeed. Spacious, the bed was comfy, pillows and bedding lovely and a great balcony but hang on… the decor is tired, the bathroom wasn’t finished well and had some strange pebble stone effect flooring in the shower that over time is very difficult to clean and was therefore grubby. It has also been laid poorly with insufficient drop so when you have a shower the water floods the bathroom floor and we had to create little towel dams to stop this happening. Soaking towels every day. The room air conditioning is effective and quiet but, the condensate on ours ran down the inside of the room wall and onto the bedroom floor (another towel).
Now the bad bits….Tui sell this holiday as a relaxing, couples only luxury resort with 7 restaurants 8 bars etc. Poetic license or misleading advertising? It has 4 restaurants; 2 of which are the large municipal eating halls you would expect and get on your weekend away in Benidorm the other 2 are the very nice Lemongrass restaurant and the flagship Feather’s restaurant (more to come on these). The other 3 so called restaurants are snack or coffee bars. Never are there more than 3 open at the same time. Do not expect 8 bars. They’ve included beach bars and bars attached or associated with the restaurants. There is only one dedicated bar per se and that’s the one colloquially known as the Piano Bar that stays open after 10. ‘Sounds nice’ you say? It’s not, we tried to get in on two occasions but there’s very limited seating and it is no more than an American Karaoke bar…it was chaos, it reminded me of a bad Blink 182 concert. As I’ve already alluded to, this place is perfectly located and an ideal alternative to Cancun for American/Canadian guests the majority of whom are classed as ‘Returning Guests’ and take priority on the hotel’s ridiculous restaurant booking system. We arrived on the Wednesday and it wasn’t until the following Monday we were able to get into one of the 2 restaurants that you need to book (Lemongrass or Feathers) and that was because we kicked and screamed! Approximately 1200 guests potentially wanting to book maybe 60 covers. My wife tried to book a reservation prior to us arriving through Tui and the hotel but was told, without a room number it wasn’t possible…wait for it, it now transpires, if you’re a returning guest you can. We opted for and thought we were privileged to get into the special, flagship gourmet restaurant Feathers. A chance to dress up perhaps as it does have a dress code and a large chunk of my baggage allowance had been taken up with long trousers, shoes and shirts etc. The table was booked for 8.30 so, with another couple we thought we’d go for 7.30 drinks beforehand at the Patrois bar which is attached to the large Patrois eating venue (I’m reluctant to call it a restaurant). It was all unexpectedly closed. The ‘Piano’ bar doesn’t open until later so the other option would have been a hot, humid 10 walk to the bar attached to the Palms buffet ‘restaurant’ at the north end. Not a popular option for the ladies in high heels but we had an hour to kill. I thought I’d pop into Feathers to say we might be a few minutes late as we were going to the other place for a drink and by the time we’d walked back it might be just after 8.30. The lady at the door was nice and said we could come in and just sit at restaurant bar (who knew) or sit at our table now. We opted to sit at the bar and stick to the plan or so we tried. We kept being asked by several different staff if we’d like to sit at our table as it was ready. We felt so pressured we reluctantly gave in and sat down about 40 mins early. Now, the Feather’s restaurant is advertised as gourmet with an elegant dress code. Credit to the staff having to turn away difficult customers turning up in shorts and T-shirts but men can still get in wearing polo type shirts and ladies pretty much anything. The place was like Denny’s Diner on a Friday night. Tables of American/Canadians who had clearly been drinking all day and you couldn’t hear yourself think. The food was at best, ok. Veg was cold and raw and my wife found a large piece of string in her food. It was all marginally better than the other eating places except, Lemongrass where we found the food very nice but like everywhere else, repetitive. We were never even asked if we’d like wine, we had to ask and then got the usual ‘white, rose, merlot or cabinet sav. In a glass, no wine list, no option. This was the same all over the resort. It was shocking.
The other places to eat are too bad to even start to describe, maybe not if you’ve not paid a lot but if you’re from the UK for 2 weeks you have. An American I spoke to couldn’t believe how much we’d paid. We used to laugh to ourselves when we went to the Patois Patio Mediterranean à la carte restaurant as for the 2 weeks, Fish of the Day was always Red Snapper and a change of menu was a different soup or something different in the potato. On the last night, the menu did actually change but all 4 of our meals were totally wrong and when it did arrive, my wife’s grilled cheese was in actual fact normal feta and my meal lacked the mixed greens. We didn’t say anything because after 2 hours waiting we just wanted to get out of there.
This is an All Inclusive resort which means you can drink as much as you want or can all day and believe me some people do. It’s a very popular venue for weddings, nice for them but possibly not for you. If you’re expecting couples then think 50 guests from the US attending a wedding where everyone pretty much knows each other and for a week it’s one huge party. I’m talking loud, all day drinking, smoking in swimming pools and restaurants , their own music playing on the beach, swearing and generally selfish drunken behaviour in the evenings. This is no exaggeration and it’s on going, we may have had 2 days when it was relatively relaxed. I’ve been to Ayia Napa in Cyprus, Benidorm and Cleethorpes and it’s not too dissimilar.
The beach is lovely, there are plenty of sun beds but very limited shade. The hotel has a few parasols around the pool areas and maybe 10 cabana type sun shades along the beach. Therefore, securing sun beds in the shade starts every day at 4-30 to 5am. The earliest we ventured out was 6.15am and every bed under the shade was reserved with towels. For 2 weeks it was a case of finding a tree or bush and anticipating the moving shade around it. Synonymous with Jamaica, cannabis (marijuana) is rife and the air is full of the smell of it. Despite it actually being illegal (believe it or not) the locals constantly walk up and down the beach trying to sell you some, some of the hotel staff are also branching out and selling the stuff. A polite no is all that’s needed and they move on. The annoying venders are the musicians (of varying abilities) singing or playing in front of you and waiting for their money. Strangely enough, walk up the beach to the 2 very nice hotels up there and you’ll realise the venders have honed their trade and know who’s going to pay them and it’s not the Sandals guests.
We brought our disapproval to both Tui and senior hotel management early on and to the credit of the hotel they listened and tried to make things better for us including a very nice gesture for my wife’s 60th birthday. However, as I said at the start, it is what it is and whilst it’s still receiving returning American/Canadian guests with lower expectations it’ll not change.
I would like to ask Tui, apart from the flights (obviously) what did we actually get for approximately £10,000? The resort should be re-name ‘Couple Stay Away’.
