Beautiful resort in nature with some room for improvement
Apr 3, 2026 GinSpider Lancaster, United Kingdom
We stayed here with friends for ten days at the end of March and had a fabulous holiday in beautiful Jamaica. Firstly, I will say in our experience this is much more akin to a 3 star hotel than 4 star but we would still return, as the food and service were fantastic and the setting was peaceful and full of nature.
We paid quite a bit for this…
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We stayed here with friends for ten days at the end of March and had a fabulous holiday in beautiful Jamaica. Firstly, I will say in our experience this is much more akin to a 3 star hotel than 4 star but we would still return, as the food and service were fantastic and the setting was peaceful and full of nature.
We paid quite a bit for this holiday and could have stayed at other, 5 star hotels but chose SATP due to its location in nature and peaceful atmosphere. Having done some research we paid significantly more for deluxe rooms, on the advice these would be away from the traffic noise. On check in, we were in 701 which was right next to the road, had a horrible view of the back of the hotel next door and the traffic noise was awful. Thankfully we were moved straight away to 709 which was beautiful with a more peaceful location, surrounded by birds and trees.
Room: 7/10: our room was really natural and we enjoyed sitting on the balcony watching the very tame birds and sometimes the grazing goats. The room, as others have said is, albeit very clean and comfortable, in desperate need of renovation. The sockets were very loose, didn't all work, the bathroom door was broken, the shower rail kept falling off and the AC never seemed to work in the hottest part of the day. The fridge barely worked and made really loud banging noises often in the middle of the night. Most of our lights didn't work either. The rooms are more akin to camping/glamping as there is zero soundproofing. This isn't necessarily an issue with guests/music ect as it's really peaceful but the frogs do keep you up and the birds wake you up at 5am on the dot. That took a lot of getting used to. Despite the faults we really liked the rooms due to their back to nature feel. The bed was very comfy and there was plenty of space.
Housekeeping: 3/10- this for us was a real let down. The rooms were very clean however some things were so erratic. The timing of cleaning was very late and often not complete until late afternoon. When we arrived in the room it didn't look properly cleaned from the last occupants as there was a used dressing down hung up, a glass and spoon missing and these were never replaced. Quite often we wouldn't have towels replaced (just the old ones taken away) and we had an unfortunate incident when we returned to the room in the afternoon suffering from the heat and the cleaner was very rude to us. It made us feel very uncomfortable and was so out of keeping with the rest of the teams we encountered. The balcony wasn't cleaned the entire time we were there either. There seemed to be some kind of turn down service but this was also very inconsistent and didn't really see the point of it
Food: 9/10- If you are a picky eater you may struggle as it's a very limited buffet however we all absolutely loved the food. Very fresh, well prepared local stuff that clearly had love poured into it. We loved chatting to the chefs who clearly took huge pride in their work. We were booked in for 4 nights in the speciality restaurants however none of us enjoyed the Lotus Leaf so cancelled and always looked forward to the buffet. The one thing that could be improved was the food on the beach which was always cold and really lacked on comparison to the buffet. We decided to get patties from the shack on the beach next to Office of Nature for lunch as they were delicious.
Entertainment: 10/10- as others have said, it's a very quiet resort, just what we wanted but we couldn't get enough of the piano guy Paul. Brilliant pianist and entertainer. A real gem. There were odd bits on some nights that were chilled and enjoyable too. Shout out to chef Landle (apologies if the spelling is wrong) for his beach cooking lesson. We've already bought the ingredients to try and recreate the delicious fish curry he taught us.
Drinks: 9/10- certainly not watered down here! The drinks at the martini bar were fabulous. Cocktails on the beach and at the pool were hot and miss. The wine was very palatable for AI and the coffee bar was great too.
Beach: 9/10- Although across the road the beach was stunning and the guys who sort your sunbeds out were so great. We always got somewhere nice to lie in the shade. The water here is crystal clear and we say stingrays and eagle rays every day. It isn't very deep though, so you need to get a boat out to snorkel as the boat traffic outside the bouys is dangerous. They have beach service here from set times which is great. If you are sat at the front the beach hawkers are pretty relentless but we didn't really mind. They're just trying to earn a living and we found them to be polite if we were polite. We really loved the Office of Nature bar next door which had fab live music from the brilliant Donavan and we also had fabulous lobster which we picked live from the sea.
Pool: 5/10- Very cool water but with little shade so not really able to spend time there in the day. The pool lifeguard, as with the beach guys was great. The smoking area next to the pool was a great place to chat and meet people.
Customers: 9/10- a really great bunch of guests here. We met so many people from all over the world. Big contingent of Canadians and lots of repeat guests (with good recommendations) but in the whole a real friendly bunch. Just one nationality, that as usual, loves the sound of their own voice a bit much. I'll let you guess who they were.
Staff: 10/10- as others have mentioned the team here are wonderful. Almost every single person is friendly polite and extremely helpful. A big shout out to Clevan on the beach who made our day every day with a cheeky joke and went out of his way to help us. All the lads down there were so helpful and sorry we can't remember their names. Shout outs too to the two chefs we chatted to, Landle (Shane?) and the other guy with longer hair. Again apologies for not catching names. We had so many great servers at dinner/breakfast too. Linford the gardener is a legend. He talked us through all the wildlife and stopped to chat every day. The crossing guards were also fabulous, as was everyone else. One pretty grumpy guy on the beach bar but hey, he could have been having an off week. The team here are a real credit.
Wildlife/nature: 10/10- deserves it's own score as we saw so much whilst we were here. We had tens of different species of birds on our balcony. We saw 3 different types of hummingbird. We absolutely loved the lizards, 1 of which we names Harry as he lived on our balcony and reminded us of the one from Death in Paradise. As mentioned the rays were beautiful too and we saw different types of fish at the beach as well as crabs and hermit crabs. The vegetation was stunning too, with beautiful flowers and trees. It is worth mentioning though that the mosquitoes here are unbelievable. We have stayed all over the world, including the jungles of Asia and I have never suffered such incessant bites. We did every type of protection possible but nothing worked and biting occured during the day, so please make sure you bring antihistamines. Also worth noting although not on the beach itself, if you get a boat to the reef it is absolutely HEAVING with jellyfish. Both trips the captains lied and said they don't sting but I've ended up with two quite serious reactions that still haven't gone down.
All in all we absolutely loved the vibe of the resort and Jamaica is a beautiful country. We tools trips out to St Elizabeth where the hurricane hit worst and the damage was unbelievable. Everyone we spoke to said they needed tourists to help build back up again .I would 100% return to Jamaica for the wonderful people and delicious food and great music. Thank you to the team at SATP for their hard work and dedication
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