We previously stayed at Sandals Montego Bay three years ago, and were excited to try Sandals Negril. We were not disappointed! The resort had everything you could want. The beach area was spread out across several swimming areas. There is a good variety of food and restaurants, and going all-inclusive is the perfect way to go! The tour office had a lot of excursions to offer, which we took advantage of. We also had several relaxing days, when the most we did was go snorkeling. The spa facility is a great addition, with lots of treatments available. We had a great time and will be returning to Sandals in the future!

This trip was our Fourth to Jamaica. We had always stayed at Couples Negril but wanted to try a Sandals. Negril is where we prefer to go so Sandals Negril was our choice. We had a Honeymoon Concierge Beachfront Walkout room in the Paradise Building. Nothing can beat the ground floor. You are steps from the beach. We spent lots of time on our patio watching people walk by. Our room was very nice. Clean and had no musty smell that we find in some tropical climates.

People do get up early to set up their chairs with a towel and a personal item so if we wanted chairs out in front of our room, we did the same. Never had a problem getting chairs tho, even later in the day. Floaties are hard to come by tho. Sandals needs to invest in more of them.

Loved the room service. We usually went to the buffet for breakfast and about 3:00 in the afternoon, we ordered room service. Wonderful food. Our neighbors did not have the concierge service so they did not have mini bar or room service. They wished they had. We did have the plasma TV also and they did not. Concierge service is very much worth the extra cost.

Food was very good at all restaurants. We ate at every one of them. Did not have a bad meal.

I will agree with one of the previous posts about the staff. Most were very accomadating. The help at the buffet restaurant need to be more helpful. There was never water, salt and pepper, sometimes silverware on the tables. It took asking a few times before we got what we needed. That is a minor complaint but we were comparing this resort to Couples Negril the entire time we were there. Employee standards is where Couples win hands down. That is what keeps people going back there. They are happy to serve you. At Sandals it is their job.

We will go back to Sandals Negril because we loved the loation of the room. We don't go on vacation for the water sports, or the night life, we just want to relax. sit in the sun or on our patio and watch the water, eat and drink. Sandals Negril had that for us and it was wonderful.

We stayed from the 13th to 22nd June arriving late at night after an epic 5 hour transfer from Kingston to Negril by taxi.

When we arrived, we were given an older room near the dive shack, only to be awoken at 8 am the next morning by the noise of a very loud jack hammers! So, rooms 2100 and above beware. We were NOT told on arrival or during booking about the building works.

Food at Sandals Negril was non-stop and excellent. We enjoyed the Sundowner Restaurant the most. The Kimonos Restaurant was very over rated and disappointing.

The resort is basically a semi luxury version of Club 18-30 with 90% of the crowd being American, very young, honeymooners and most of the time drunk. (my wife and I are 40-45 years old range.)

Diving was really disappointing as the area is very overfished and the dive center does not cater for any dive tours over Open Water. Most of the dive buddies I had (I am a Padi Rescue Diver) were either beginners or Open Water. So no wreck diving or anything exciting. The Dive center does NOT cater for Nitrox either.

Overall, would we return to this resort?....NO.

Regards
Madamelux

Before I even review Sandals Negril - only the resort is no-tipping. Make sure to bring small bills - the skycaps at the airport will grab your bags before you realize it and you are REQUIRED to pay them ($1 per bag I believe). Bad for me since I just hit the ATM before we left town and had nothing but 20s. Oh well, my mistake (which bit me at arrival and departure, since I quickly forgot to get change once I was sitting at the bar at the resort).

Outside the resort make sure to pay attention - we went on the Rick's Catamaran cruise and upon arriving where the boat was docked, we were informed that it was not ready yet, so have a drink from the bar. Well, it's a booze cruise, and pretty expensive, but includes your drinks. The bar - not included (didn't expect it to be). And of course they don't have change - nobody does! So, our 2 beers came to $6, and I had a $5 and some 20s - my lack of change was proving costly. Then I barely have a sip of my beer and they're rushing us to get on the boat - yep, I fell into the tourist trap.

This was our 3rd trip to Jamaica (maybe the 4th time I'll remember to bring some dollar bills). We really enjoyed it. We have been twice to Sandals Ocho Rios and this was our first trip to Negril. I like Negril a lot better - smaller and more personal, while Ocho Rios (in the newer areas) seems to be what a lot of people are looking for - bigger rooms, newer everything, etc - at the expense of being a LOT farther away from food, bars, etc.

I booked a concierge beach-front walkout room, mainly because we really missed not having a stocked bar and room service in Ocho Rios. But, everything is so close at Sandals Negril, that there was really no point. Same with room service, although we did take advantage of it a couple of times.

Beach is wonderful there, most of the staff is great, with some exceptions, just like anywhere else. Viv at the grill was great, several other waiters and bartenders knew us by name in just a few days and made sure to stop by and say hello every day. I felt the staff here was MUCH more friendly than at Ocho Rios.

Slow service - you better believe it. I found this out the first time we went to Jamaica and learned to relax and not be in such a hurry (very hard for me). Once you get on "island time" and relax, this won't bother you any more and actually helps you slow down and enjoy your vacation. Still, there were a couple of instances where I had to ask for a drink more than twice.

The nightly disco party/piano bar was pretty good at Negril - seemed pretty dead in Ocho Rios, but that's really more of a reflection on the attitude/age/number of guests at the resort and probably the time of year that we went to Ocho Rios (fall both times). One of our biggest problems with Ocho Rios was no "nightlife", which for me is defined as some place to hang out until I'm ready to go to bed at 1AM - not partying till 5AM. Negril had us covered.

I'd definitely go back, probably not for a full 7 days as that was expensive and I gained 10lbs from eating and drinking. Food and drink were both great, but understand that you are in Jamaica, and it is a poor country. Many luxury items Americans are used must be imported or they're just not available - I like tequila, but there was no patron or don julio, etc. I doubt there's a huge market for ultra premium liquor outside the resorts. I noticed at the bars that the premium liquor was "hidden" behind the cheap house liquor. But ask for a crown and coke, and they'll make you one. Ask for bourbon and coke and you'll get house bourbon.

Food was excellent - I have no complaints about any of it. The Bayside buffet had so much variety that I never ran out of foods to try. The other restaurants were great too.

All in all - we had a great time and will definitely be going back. I highly recommend it.