Sandals Grande Ocho Rios |
Address: P.O. Box 771
St. Ann, Jamaica
Tel: (876) 974-5691
Fax: (876) 974-5700
Email: info@sandals.com
URL: Sandals Grande Ocho Rios
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Type of Property: All Inclusive
Beach Location: Beach Front (Directly on Beach/Water Front)
Island: Jamaica
No. of Rooms/Units: 529
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 CheapCaribbean.com Reservations - Jamaica Resort Deals
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| **Sandals Grande Ocho Rios
Summary of All Property Reviews for: Sandals Grande Ocho Rios
Ratings based on answers from a total of 4 reviews
10 is best 1 is worst |
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| Feature |
Ranking |
Feature |
Ranking |
| Cleanliness of Property |
6.50 |
Quality of Property |
7.25 |
| Privacy & Quietness |
3.00 |
Quality of Service |
9.00 |
| Courtesy & Hospitality of Staff |
9.50 |
Accuracy of Website (marketing hype) VS. Actual Experience |
4.75 |
| Food and Dining Experience |
6.50 |
Price/Value of Property |
5.75 |
| Safety Factor (Did you feel safe at property) |
9.50 |
Quality of Beach (ranked closest beach if property is located off the beach) |
7.00 |
| Total Property Score: 6.88 out of 10 | Average Star Rating: 3.50 out of 5 |
- 50% (2 visitors of 4) said they would go back to Sandals Grande Ocho Rios again.
- 50% (2 visitors of 4) said they would recommend Sandals Grande Ocho Rios to friends.
Start of Individual Reviews: Receive Review Updates Via Email
Butler service comes to Sandals Ocho Rios
By: jamaicabusiness / jamaicabusiness from Santa Barbara
Date of Visit: May 2007
By Herb Rubinstein
This fabulous and famous resort known as a top wedding spot now has a new feature: a unique Butler Service that is being offered in their Concierge Suites.
I recently had an opportunity to experience first hand this new service. Arriving at Sandals, Ocho Rios one is immediately taken by the lush vegetation and the manicured grounds…this fine property goes from white sand ocean front to hills overlooking the coastline, a rise of over 600’.
Upon checking in, my butler, Franklyn, met me at reception, streamlined the checking in process, and had my bags delivered to my rooms. Upon my arrival I discovered that all my clothes had been expertly put away. Franklyn then sat down with me and explained the many options I had for my stay. Then I was handed a cell phone with a direct connection to him, so I could call whenever he was needed “I will make your dinner reservations for you and escort you to dinner to make sure all is in order, I will take your drink or wine order and get you settled in, if you ever need me, just call on the cell”.
This Butler program has been in effect for a year now and it is very successful. Each candidate is trained by The Guild of Professional English Butlers of London, England. David Roper, General Manager, told me “The success of our program is proven by how many butlers get hired away by guests, it shows how well we train them”. So successful that Sandals is now implementing this service in other properties.
Since weddings are one of the main attractions at Sandals Ocho Rios, the butler service has become very much in demand. Anyone who has been thru planning a wedding knows that there are a multitude of last minute things to do and decide. Having someone right by your side that knows everything and everyone at the resort can greatly help all go smoothly.
I came in before sunset from sailing only to discover that the slacks that I had planned on wearing for dinner were wrinkled, now where is that cell phone? Called Franklyn, he came up, took my pants and shirt away and returned 15 minutes later with them pressed to perfection.
Having someone to arrange all your activities, making sure you get to them on time, press your clothes, serve you coffee or meals in your room and then the absolute best, having Franklyn pack my bags. I am the world’s worst packer, so I just let Franklyn do it all and guess what? I had space left over in the same suitcase that I brought in stuffed. Have to learn to fold like that.
Franklyn was also very familiar with Ocho Rios and was able to supply me with tourist tips and little known facts. During my stay, the service, the assistance and the insider information that Franklyn provided transformed my vacation experience.
I felt as if I had been transported to a magical realm of luxury and opulence, where kind and courteous service had been developed into an art.
Ahhhhh, thank you, Franklyn, for providing for me a taste of the good life.
Sandals Ocho Rios has always been famous for its' service but this new butler service takes it to GREATER heights.
Herb Rubinstein is the Editor in Chief of Government Travel Directory as well as an established Travel Writer.
Webiste: http://www.JamaicaBusinessTravel.com
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Fantastic Vacation
By: Anonymous from Ohio
Date of Visit: December 2006
We traveled to wonderful JA in December 06. The trip to the resort is long, about 2 1/2 hours. The roads are bumpy but you stop half way for a rest. You have the option to purchase food and drink but I recommend bringing some with you because this could be expensive. Check in was a breeze. We stayed in the St. Ann suite so we have special check in. I recommend staying on the Manor side because of the updating and more quite. The Rivera side (the beach) is noisey at night due to discos and such. The resort itself is huge. You need to take a small golf cart from the Manor side to the Rivera side, but no problem mon, they come every 5-10 min. Remember you are on JA time not your time. Relax because you are on vacation! The food is wonderful. Service can be so, but again, relax on vacation remember? Where do you have to be? There are eight places to dine and you can also go to the Dunn's property and dine there also. Yes the beach is a bit small, but we are not beach people so it didn't bother us. We came for the experiance. There are too many activities to mention but all were great! I did not find any problems with the resort or the staff. Everyone was friendly and really wanted you to have a great time. Your vacation is what you make of it. Don't come in with too high expectations because nothing is ever perfect, but you are in a different country/culture and you have to adapt to their lifestyle. You will have a great time! I want to go back already!
This reviewer did not enter property or destination rankings.
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This is a beautiful resort
By: Donna Desmarais from Massachusetts
Date of Visit: August 2006
This is a beautiful resort. The people who serve you are very friendly and welcoming. they try to go out of thier way to please you. A very clean and well kept grounds. Food is excellent. There is plenty of activites that come with this resort, sailing bycicle peddal boats, snorkeling to name a few. They also have other activities that they have planned. We didn't get to do to many of the activities because of a few incidents that happened with myself, no fault of the resort, as they were exstremely helpful to try and make our stay as pleasurable as could possibly be. We do plan to return to this island in this same resort hopefully very soon.
This reviewer did not enter property or destination rankings.
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Great staff, best dive. Bad food. Room has ants, too noisy.
By: Joey from San Francisco
Date of Visit: January 2006
When reading this review, please take into consideration that
1. We stayed at the Oceanfront rooms on the Riviera side
2. I am rather spoiled and have high expectations of food and services.
Bottom line:
Sandals Ocho Rios is not worth the money you’d have to pay, for the same price we pay for each Ocean View Suite for 12 days with all the airfare from California, we could have each bought a 20 day balcony room on most cruise lines and drink as much alcohol as one can reasonably consume – 4 drinks a day each, for two.
Pros:
Extremely personable and friendly staff (Best of housekeeping: Hamulia).
Patient and professional diving instructors (Best Instructor: Trusty).
Bird songs between sunrise and sunset.
Cons:
Shady with bills.
Entire resort has a run down feel to it, nothing is ever quite clean.
Bad food, very little options as to what you can eat. Restaurants and bars are always closed.
Tries to “upgrade” guests into villas without ocean view.
Rooms have rats, bugs of various types (including a very tenacious ant colony), and the furniture is old and smells of mildew.
Dive Shop
My fiancé and I both got certified in the dive shop. The staff was friendly and helpful. Our instructor Trusty was an extremely good teacher, very patient, knowledgeable, and professional. He was goofy and friendly when we were out of lessons, but very serious during. There was no faulty equipment during our total of 12 dives - staff check and double and triple check all equipment before renting them out. We were extremely impressed!
The SCUBA was the best part of this entire experiences, reef was interesting, full of lives and colourful fishes, huge variety of hard and soft corals, a wrack-dive site near the resort, it was wonderful!
The Resort Itself
The resort is separated into a Riviera side and a Manor side by the main street of the Island. To go from one side to the other, wait for the bus. If you do not see yourself doing so, please expect only half as much amenities as promised.
How we got there:
Reception in airport was wonderful, staff members from both resort and airport are extremely personable and friendly.
Bus ride to the resort (approximately 2 hour 15 minutes) was good, roomy and comfortable even on the dirt road. However, the ride back from the resort to the airport was HORRID: cramped, dirty, bumpy, luggage insecurely piled [see photo #1].
Reception/reservations at the resort: Shady!
They made mistakes in our room reservations, claimed that the room we paid for (Ocean View Suites with balconies) were no longer available, as well as any ocean view rooms, so they would “upgrade” us to one of the villas that were situated right by busy paths, and couldn’t see the ocean at all. Upon our refusal, there were suddenly 3 ocean view rooms without balcony available, and we were to check the availabilities of balcony rooms the next day... shady. So it went. At the end, we moved into what we paid for—we paid for 12 days, and stayed in the ocean-view w/balconies for 10 days, after 1-2 moves.
Noise
The Oceanfront rooms we had were situated 2 and 3 floors above the Bayside restaurant—which had a large outdoor under-our-balcony eating veranda—the Riviera bar which had another huge drinking veranda with drunken people at any given time. Do not delude yourselves that 3 floors would mask the noise, because it didn’t: live music until either 9pm or 10pm, bar open until midnight, drunken guests having fun until whenever they wish (we called management at 4am to asked them to please request the guests to quiet down a little since we had to fly home the next day, and the noise subsided for 10 minutes and returned until sunrise.)
Pests
We had to battle with ants (because one of us is allergic to ant bites) through out our 12-day stay, and 2 of the nights we had rat visits—that guy was approximately... big. We spoke with management, and guess what? They “granted” us a free breakfast in this all-inclusive resort! Sigh... haven’t we already paid for all-inclusive vacation already?
General room conditions
Entire room smelled of mildew. Walls were dirty, carpet sticky. Furniture was old and made of some kind of resin that was then spray-painted to look like stone (the attempt failed miserably); insides of drawers were just raw wood that splinters, and smelled of mildew. Décor was of poor taste. Air conditioning didn’t work reliably, and remote control didn’t work at all, and apparently no one knew how to fix it... Maid cleaned randomly throughout our stay.
Food
There were close to no options: please choose amongst this extremely-greasy-but-taste-like-cardboard-food and that extremely-fatty-food-that-taste-like-cardboard. Diet was unbalanced, you’d feel like crap if you are used to paying attention to what you stuff yourselves with. When I got home, I put on 8 lbs and felt like I had been eating fast food for 5 weeks.
There was pepper in every entrée, side dishes, and even in my freaking desert once. Sigh... Those who have hypersensitive bitterness receptors please be warned. There was usually the option between pasta with pepper, rice with pepper, meat with pepper, all with 3 times more grease than necessary to unleash the lipo-soluble tastes. All vegetables except peppers were wilted and unappetizing. All beef entrées were tough with no moisture at all. All pork smelled of goat (!?). 3 out of the 6 of us got mild food-poisoning, 1 of us got it bad.
Restaurants and Bars
There were 8 restaurants and some 10 bars in the entire resort, but for most time of day, most days of the week only 2 out of the 8 restaurants and 2 out of the 10 bars were open at a time—1 in the Manor, 1 in the Riviera . If your sleeping and eating schedule does not happen to fall in the same schedule as the restaurants, then you are SOL—you can choose from French fries and hotdogs (maybe) or starve until the restaurants open again. It was not unusual to see guests walking all over the resort grounds trying to find a bar that was open. To give a better idea of their service schedule: it was a BIG deal that FIVE of their restaurants would be open at the same time in the celebration of the Christmas!!!
Tip: All dinner restaurants were too dark for any one to read a menu, bring your own key chain flashlights.
New Year Celebration
On New Year’s Eve, they had the guts to close EVERY SINGLE ONE of their restaurants so the guests who wished to eat at all had to go to the Manor and eat on the lawn... Dress code was formal, so it was really fun to watch ladies in their best dresses, and their high-heel shoes digging deep into the lawn as they walked; not so fun when I had to do so myself and made the bottom of my white dress a fresh grass juice colour.
Shady Billing
30 minutes before we left the resort, as we checked out, they told us that we still had some $200 credit amongst us. So we shopped the gift shop and used up the money on stupid frivolous but fun things we never would have otherwise bought. Then they delayed the bus from driving away by saying, “oops, never mind that, there is no credit.” So if we didn’t want everyone on the bus to wait for us digging out the items that we picked out and already tucked away into the luggage pile, we had to pay for them, and we did.
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never again
By: Anonymous from Michigan
Date of Visit: January 2004
the date we were there was january 24 thru the 31 of 2005 BUT there was no 2005 for me to select.
Ok, shall I start with false advertizing and misrepresentation? The sheet and information we were given to select our room is false. we selected a villa with private pool and jacuzzi, including stocked mini bar. The mini bar consisted of one coke, the jacuzzi did not exist and the pool was to be shared by 4 couples. Sandals insisted that we did not book that room even though we had the same sheet that matched up with the room name.
No free room service actually no room service. You can pay for a butler service if you want service.
Since they joined the two resorts just before we stayed there no where does it state that all activities are down the cliff. You must take a shuttle bus. I took the 3 hour ride from the airport and had no desire to ride round and round on a bus the rest of my vacation.
The beach what beach. You might get a few chairs. there.
Anyway no We will NEVER go there again and I do not recommend it. BUT I must say the food was good and lots of booze. Although on an island like that I was very surprised that they never had bananas they rand out on tuesday and we never saw them again. So no creme de banana liquor either.
Go figure.
Our room was NEVER vacummed it alwasy had sand on it and we never went to the beach.
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Great Experience
By: Eric from Houston, TX
Date of Visit: September 2003
Let me start off by saying that if you have never done all inclusive, and are debating on whether or not to do that, just do it, especially for a honeymoon. Here at Ocho Rios, they have everything you need. I never picked up my wallet the entire stay.
As for the resort itself, it was wonderful. The weather was great and the staff is just absolutely excellent. Honeymoon or no honeymoon, go and give yourself time to enjoy the pre-made activities they have set up everyday. The people working there are truly geniune, wonderful people and they have a lot of fun, so have fun with them.
The food was pretty good, but definitely plentiful. Snacks, two lunches, whatever you want, it was there, no matter the time. Free room service if needed and everything else. What a great time.
Now for the realities. The beach is pathetic in terms of those used to huge beaches. The distance at one point from the bar to the beach is about four feet. Now, there is room, but very little. This is not just a huge beach front Sandals, you will have to try a different one for that. With that being said, if you happen to get a Sandals brochure and you will if you are going, or have contacted them, dont believe the pictures. Look at them closely and you will notice they are digitally enhanced with pictures cut and pasted. Also, do not expect a night life. But this is not a night party place, but dont think that is bad. The days are great and packed with fun, and at night, everyone is doing their own thing.
Now you might think all of that is negative, but really, they didnt need to do all that fake picture stuff, the place is great. As far as I was concerned, the price was fantastic I just wish we would have stayed a few more days. Make sure you stay for at least one weekend. There are great activities to do with other people and you will have a great time with other couples. The place is just small enough to always see some of the same people and it makes it fun.
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