Sandals Montego Bay

We were there for a friend’s destination wedding. I had a great time. The accommodations & food were great. Very well kept & friendly, courteous staff, except in the gift shop. They are not very friendly in there 😼. Took an excursion to Dunns River falls. 100% recommend it. As an animal lover, it is a bit disturbing to see so many feral cats on the property not being taken care of properly. An organization like Sandals can surely afford to get involved in a TNR program at least. I looked it up & they claim to do TNR as well as get them medical care. Other than them being fed well, by the guest, I don’t think they are taken care of. I saw a pregnant one & all the males I saw are definitely intact & look sickly 😢😿. Also, there is a tropical bird, a macaw maybe, in a cage on the property. Why?? Some people in our party had a room close to the bird & it squawked all night. This is not fair to the bird or the guest.

This is my first time staying at a Sandals resort however I have stayed a multiple resorts in Jamaica before. I will start by saying of all the Jamaican resorts I’ve been to, this is the friendliest staff we have encountered. We are used to staff looking for tips whenever they help you however here there is no tipping and the staff are always willing to help. Location: The location of the hotel is a very short drive from the airport which is awesome compared to a long drive to Ocho Rios or Negril. The downside (for some) however means that it is on the flight path so you can hear planes landing and taking off. The reason I say downside for some is because my husband and I didn’t mind the plane noise and enjoyed watching the planes emerge above the resort. Beach: The beach is beautiful and is broken up into around 3/4 beaches. The water is clear and you can walk right in without needing water shoes. There are some coral spots so you can snorkel without having to get on a boat. If however you want to go out further to snorkel, the resort does offer hourly snorkel trips that are included as part of the all inclusive. Also, if snorkeling isn’t your thing then at 11:30 you can do the glass bottom boat trip that takes you out to the reef and you see the fish through the bottom of the boat. The guide for that trip was very formative and kept the boat ride fun and interactive. Pool: The swimming pools were a bit of a let down for us, they are very small with very limited sunbeds that get snapped up early in the morning and the sit with towels on them all day but no people. If swimming or lounging around the pool is your preference then this wouldn’t be the resort for you. On the topic of sun beds, around the pool wasn’t the only issue. The beds on the beach also had a similar issue with towels. There were limited beds that had shade from the very hot sun and the ones that did were taken early in the morning. Again, you would walk past at various parts of the day and the same sunbeds would be empty. Also the sunbeds in the shade were all reserved by butler rooms, so I’m not sure if it’s the butler reserving the beds or the individuals, but they would all have a towel and the blue cooler at the bed but no people. Food: There are a lot of restaurants to choose from, with the steak being the only place you need to reserve. We did try to reserve at the club desk and was told it is fully booked for our stay but they would try find something and to come back the next day to check. We did however book the Thai restaurant at the other sandals resort in Montego Bay. The next day my husband called to ask if we got a steak reservation and was told yes it’s 5pm on Friday. Meanwhile we already had the Thai booked for 6pm Friday. My husband pointed this out to them and they said o yes which one do you want to cancel. I’m not sure why they would think we would want 2 restaurants booked within an hour of each other for dinner. We did over hear other people have issues booking reservations with the club staff too. The food itself was average, my steak was over cooked at the steak house however my lobster was good. The noodles at Joes smelt good but we were underwhelmed by the taste. The pizza was not good! The fish in foil at jerk shack was the star of the show. Other things to note: - There is an app that tells you what is happening around the resort. We did notice that things would be advertised but not happen. - the airport shuttle is convenient however the last one to the airport is 1:15. Therefore if you have a late flight you will be waiting at the airport a long time. We ended up taking a taxi for $20, given our flight was not till 5:30 and the ride is only 5 minutes and we didn’t want to sit at the airport for 4 hours.

Our experience was two fold. Our butler's were wonderful, Sean and Navaldo. They were very attentive, friendly and helpful. The entertainment staff was amazing. They really get the audience involved and hyped up! They are all very talented and we looked forward to all the activities they would put on. Now as for the negative experience, which put a large damper on the vacation. We had a very significant problem with one of our excursions. I am almost 100% positive it was a Sandals error. We would never know though, because we asked for a manager on 2 different days, and no one would actually meet with us. They went through the butlers which is extremely unprofessional. Then the compensation was only going to be 25%off the excursion, which definitely did not meet the problem/experience we had. We finally got 50% off, but again, not enough for what happened and also with no manager actually meeting with us. There were also some issues with charges on our account that we had to deal with so unfortunately, all of this took up time away from the wonderful experience we were having on our vacation. But thank you to our butler's and the entertainment staff for making the rest of our vacation wonderful.

We have become avid Sandals travelers over the years! It is our home away from home. We love the peace & joy it brings into our lives. Our latest stay was at Montego Bay the flagship resort that started it all. It was our 2nd time. We enjoyed our room, beach, pools, drinks, food, hospitality, fun & level of attention that we received. Joel the MGR of Soy the sushi restaurant was an absolute gem, so welcoming & so professional. Christoper Grant the Hosptality MGR was out of this world, friendly, helpful, kind and caring, Stephen the Bartender by Butches/Soy has the best attitude & service of any bartender there. Phillip the waiter at Butches was so thorough and polite. Darren at Island Routes was on top of his game, caring and so friendly & together. These people mentioned are some of the best of the best and made our vacation this year one of the most fun and enjoyable.

This experience was awful. We just got back from 9 days there for our honeymoon and we will NEVER go back. With the amount of money we spent and this being our once and a lifetime honeymoon we expected so much especially after reviews from friends and family that have been to other sandals locations- however off the bat, the butler service was LESS than mediocre. The entire time we were there, getting a hold of the butlers was near impossible. Between the lack of service in the area and the lack of communication on their end- we were left doing all of the things that we were promised to receive from our butlers on our own. We would go hours without hearing from them, and god forbid we asked them for lunch- it would take hours on end. Then let’s get to the fact that we had 3 cockroaches in our room on 3 different occasions. Um EW ?!?! For what you spend at a sandals, one would expect not to have to be disgusted and scared to stay in their own expensive hotel room. Lastly- every single night at 2 am we were woken up to the sound of the kitchen staff putting plates away for 30+ minutes which we then could not go back to sleep. Talk about ridiculous I am truly disgusted and disappointed that our honeymoon was ruined by a sandals resort being so gross. I am equally as frustrated that we’re being told that we can’t get any type of refund or comp for at least a few nights of our stay for our awful experience. That’s not a good look for any sandals. Would not recommend / I will never be going to a sandals again.