My husband and I decided at the last minute to go on a mini-honeymoon after our wedding in March. Since we had only 4 days we wanted to make sure that it would be somewhere with a touch of elegance and luxury. So we decided to stick with Sandals Vacations having heard that they have a good reputation for luxury all-inclusive vacations.

Well the problems started with the online booking! If you book through Sandals.com you will be asked to choose the room pkg and then the flight that works best for you. Well when we did this we were presented with the message "Ooops! Your flight is no longer available. Please call...." So we called the number and after being put on hold for about 20 min the rep tells us that the only flight available costs an extra $400 per person! When we asked her to cancel the online booking, we find out that it has already been charged to our credit card! Since when are companies allowed to charge clients without confirming a change in price?!

So naturally we asked for a refund but we are told that refunds will take 4-6 weeks to be processed. Well our honeymoon was supposed to be in 2 weeks! After about an hour on the phone and speaking to a manager, they finally agreed to expedite the refund so that we can have our money back in 10-13 days.

We ended up booking through AirCanada instead which also worked out to be cheaper!

Now anyone who chooses this resort should know that it is actually 2 resorts that joined together a few years ago. There are 2 main parts to the resort and they are divided by the main road. The building closer to the beach is called the 'Greathouse' and the rest of the resort is made up of small 'villas.' Two get from one side of the resort to the other you have to take one of the shuttle buses. This is not so bad. They come every 10 minutes.

We stayed in one of the villa rooms. It was small and a bit rundown but clean overall. Still not at all what we expected for a Sandals resort. The bathrooms were kept visibly clean but the bathtub floor was discoloured and the sink was clogged when we first arrived. We complained twice but no one came to fix it until late the next day. The private swimming pools in each villa, were a nice touch but they were a bit run down and I did not see anyone swimming in them. So don't let that be a selling point!

If you are looking for a long stretch of white sandy beach, don't go to Ocho Rios! If that's what you want then go to Negril. The beach here was nice but the swimming area is so small. Most of the beach is taken up by a long boardwalk that extends out into the water and circles back onto the beach. This was very pretty but I would have preferred this area to be used for swimming.

Checking out prooved to be another challenge. We found out the night before we left that the hotel had mixed up our dates and thought we were leaving 2 days later. So they had not booked a bus to the airport for us. So we did not know until about 2 hours before we left whether we had a ride to the airport. Also, they asked us to leave our bags outside our room for pick-up around 10 am but no one picked up our bags until the bus arrived at 1pm! We asked the front desk staff 3 times to send someone to pick up our unattended bags, but no one came. The lobby is about a 15 min walk from our room and we noticed that other guests had their bags delivered on a golfcart about 3 hours before the bus arrived.

Well it doesn't end there......when our bags finally did come, in the midst of the commotion (our bus was waiting for us!) the staff member sat our bags infront of another bus and while he was laughing and joking around with the driver of this other bus, the driver started to leave driving right over our bags!!! OUR LUGGAGE GOT RUN OVER BY A BUS!!!

Needless to say, we were furious and to this day all we ever got was a verbal apology by the manager at the front desk. We have complained to Sandals but to no avail. If you are planning a trip to this resort beware. Expect everything to function on 'Caribbean Time' and don't bother complaining 'cause no body cares. All you'll ever get back is "No Problem, Mon!"

My wife and I visited the Sandals Grande in Ocho Rios and stayed seven nights (7/4/08-7/10/08). This was our second stay at a Sandals resort, but our first at this one. We stayed at the Sandals Grande St. Lucian in December of 2007 for our honeymoon, and we liked it so much that we wanted to stay at a Sandals Property again.
Hotel-The property is really divided into two parts: the Riviera, which is on or very near the beach, and the Manor, which is behind the Riviera and set back on the side of a forrested hill. Both the Riviera and the Manor have regular hotel rooms, and also small villas that are nearby and associated with each. We stayed in a one-bedroom villa on the Manor side, and could not have been more pleased. The buildings are not new, but have a great king-sized bed, a large living room, a small kitchen, and best of all, a sense of privacy. The foliage around the villas amounts to a hugh and very well-kept botanical garden. We had banana, orange, and mango trees just outside our villa. It was very beautiful, very tropical.
In order for guests to get to the Manor House, the large hotel with restaurants (and pools, swim-up bars, etc) from their villas, there is a shuttle service that picks you up and takes you back. These are actually golf-cart-like vehicles known locally as 'jitneys'. Our villa was so close to the Manor House that we almost always walked. Our butler, Glenroy, did come to pick us up for dinner each night in a small jitney, but otherwise we walked to the Manor. Our villa had its own small pool, but we really liked going to the main pool at the Manor. We also visited another smaller pool at the manor that featured, among other things, a tiled water slide to a lower pool. This is also where the snack bar is located.
The Riviera section, the one near the beach, also had a large pool., swim up bars, and restaurants. It seemed to be a busier, more bustling section than the Manor. We were glad we had chosen to stay on the Manor side.
Restaurants- Our favorite was probably Arizona's, which features grilled steaks, chicken, chops, etc. Directly on the beach in front of the Riviera Building, it is a beautiful spot for dinner, and the food was great.
We ate at Orchid's one night , which features Asian menu selections. Service was great, food was good. Proper attire required here...check your brochure.
Valentinos is Italian and also featured excellent service and good food. It is located at the Riviera and is not an open-air dining room. It was air-conditioned, but still a bit stuffy.
SanGennaro's was also Italian. It was open-air, and quite good.
The only restaurant that we did not try was the Manor Restaurant, which features a Caribbean menu. We just didn't have enough time.
Service-Is excellent. Not as polished as the Grande St. Lucian, but everyone was very nice, very helpful, and professional. The bartenders are quite busy, but they really know what they are doing and nobody has to wait too long. Our butler Glenroy was really great. He booked our excursions, dinner, spa visits, and check us out. A most excellent guy! Do not forget to tip your butler!
Transportation-very good. A shuttle bus is required to go from the Manor to the Riviera and back, but it runs very frequently and the trip takes about three minutes.
Excursions-we went on the Bob Marley Jeep Safari, the Blue Mountain Bicycle Tour, and the river tubing excursions. Do not miss the Bob Marley Jeep Safari if you like Reggea or are at all interested in Rastafari. Our driver was great!! Our tour guide, a Rasta Mon who was very nice and very knowlegable was also excellent. Its a long trip, but worth it.
Ditto for the Blue Mountain Bike Tour. If you love Blue Mountain coffee like we do, you gotta go!
All in all, a wonderful trip. Beautiful place, great people, great villa, good food (it was good, not great, but interesting, different, and plentiful), and fabulous Sandals service. Don't miss it.

Wow! I have only great things to say about Jamaica. Beautiful country with beautiful people. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Sandals Grande Ocho Rios. The staff were friendly and helpful, the grounds are beautiful and lush, the food is good and there are 7 restaurants and 3 grills to eat at, the selection of beverages was excellent and they don't skimp on alcohol like some all inclusives, there is a variety of activities on site to choose from. Excellent facilities. Some may complain that the grounds are too big but I thought it was perfect. There are jitneys that transport you from the hotel lobby/restaurants/pools to your rooms and shuttles that transport you to the other side of the property where the beach and more restaurants are located. We however walked everywhere on the property. We were located on the manor side of the hotel and walked everyday from our hotel room to the lobby, to the beach, to dinner and it was no problem. Manor side of the resort is all hills but when you're indulging that much you need to exercise! I would give this resort a 9/10 and am planning on going back next year.

ROOM:

I absolutly loved staying here. We upgraded our room to the Grade Luxe Oceanfront Veiw room and it was the greatest view I have ever seen. There was a Plasma TV and mini fridge with soda, juice, and water that was stocked every day and a king sized bed wtih turn down service every night. Everyone one there was so warm and inviting. They really do make you feel like you could stay forever. Sandals Ocho Rios was a pretty big resort. There were two beautiful sides: The Manor Side and the Riveria Side. There is a little bus that shuttles you to each side that I thought was going to be a hassle at first. You know how those go...waiting for a bus forever, the long ride over, ect., but it wasn't like that at all. They say a bus comes every 15 minutes but it was really more like every 5 minutes. It was also air conditioned and the ride over only took a minute or two. The Riveria Side has the ocean and the Manor Side has the beautiful pools that you see on the Sandals website. We took a swim over on the Manor Side at night and it was gorgeous and very relaxing.

FOOD:

The food seemed to take a long time, whether you was the first or only person, or if you were the last person in a crowded room. I think this was just the calm manner of the Jamaician atmosphere. A lot of places has a salad bar or would bring your appitizer to you pretty soon so it really wasn't that bad. The food wasn't bad but I am also a vegitarian so there wasn't as many choices for me to pick from as there were for the meat eaters. There was, at least, one thing that I could pick off the menu in every restaurant I went to but, as stated before, there wasn't near as many choices to pick from as there were for meat eaters. I am also a huge fan of midnight snacks and I would go down to the grill, which I think was open all night, and get a vege burger and fries. Those were really good. I was never disappointed when I got one of those.

ACTIVITIES:

The activities were great! They put on a show everynight and the water activities were so fun. They take you way out on the Hobie Cats, I learned how to wind surf, and you can go forever down the beach on the kyaks. The glass bottom boat ride was so cool and the snorkling was fantastic. We purchased some floaties in the gift shop to lay in the ocean with but they were a little expensive so, if you would like to relax in the ocean on an air bed I would get a cheap on and bring it with you. I wish I had. They also had other things like a casino night or a crafts session. There was so much to do. IT REALLY IS LUXURY ALL-INCLUSIVE.

SAFTY:

I also felt VERY safe the entire time I was there. There were supposed to be two couples all together that were going to Ocho Rios (me and my boyfriend and my best friend and her boyfriend) but they got called out on a job so rather than cancelling our trip my friend and I invited two other of girl friends and just had an awesome vacation with us girls! So it was very important to us that we felt safe and, if I ever take a vaction with a bunch of girls again it will be to a Sandals Resort rather than some singles resort. I take a vacation to relax not to party and I feel like I got everything I wanted.

SPA:

I even got 50 minute sampler massage at the Red Lane Spa and Salon. I have had many massages but, and this is no lie, this was the best massage I have ever had. I wish I had purchased a longer one, they are pricey, but it was well worth it.

I have no complaints and I will be going back. I plan to put up a video in the near future, either tonight or tomorrow, on youtube of what our room looked like. It was taken with a camera phone so its not the best but you can get the idea. Just keep checking at youtube.com/user/aGirl789 to see it.