TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

It was an amazing trip, from the beach to the pools all the way to the staff, all around amazing. Oh, and I cannot forget the food! AMAZING! These few staff really stood out to us though, there names are Delly, who is amazing with the kids and super funny. Dursha, awesome with her shows and really funny. Shanaynay, who is awesome at doing her pool games and is really fun. And last, but not least, Mario, he is the funniest and nicest bartender one could ever meet. It was a great trip all around and thank you to everyone!

Made to change rooms 5 times since they overbooked , spent most of day checking in and out and staff even lost a bag of my personal items and nothing was done ,and forced to loss my cool which isnt how i like to present myslef , very extremely disappointing

I will do the pros first. Unfortunately there are many more cons than pros. Pros: 1. The majority of the staff were amazing! Janice (server on the beach), Orlando and Dwayne (photographer) were all so nice. 2. The food was delicious, for the most part! I loved the frozen yogurt shop & the coffee shop. The sushi restaurant was also delicious. The hibachi restaurant was not good & extremely loud. Loud like front row at a concert. It was miserable. And the steak they served looked like the lowest grade you could possibly find. 3. The beach is absolutely gorgeous. In my opinion, it is comparable to Eagle beach in Aruba, which is ranked the 2nd best in the world. The water is so warm and clear and the sand is so soft & white. The downfall of the beach is the locals will harass you all day long about buying things from them. There is security on the beach but they do not handle it very well. Also, people go down to the beach early in the morning to claim all the good/shaded huts. They leave towels on them and then leave. I rarely saw people using these spots, which is not fair. We have a 6 month old baby and could rarely get a shaded spot. Cons: 1. The room was absolutely terrible! My husband & I joked that we were staying in the section 8 housing. We have a 6 month old baby and a stroller and they gave us a 3rd floor room. There are NO elevators. I thought they were joking at checkin when they told us this. They were not. We constantly had to lug the baby, stroller and all of our beach stuff, up and down three flights of stairs. 2. It seemed like the section we stayed in was under construction. We heard traffic, power tools and other noises all night long. Old AC unit laying around outside the rooms, old pool noodles and a bunch of other junk. 3. Neither the TV nor phone in our room worked. 4. The bathtub had a huge crack in the middle of it. When you stood in this porcelain tub, it felt squishy. I honestly felt like I was going to fall through. There had to be a ton of water under this crack, which also means mold! We had to put a towel down in the tub to give our baby a bath because the bottom was so rough. 5. The beds were awful. It felt like there was no padding in between my body and the springs in the mattress. 6. The lazy river was soooo dirty. The water almost looked yellow. The wooden stairs around the water slide/ lazy river area are going to break any day now. The boards bend when you step on them. Super unsafe. We had such high hopes for this trip and unfortunately we were so disappointed. Sandals is supposed to be top of the line, 5 star treatment, and this resort could not be further from it. Save your money and stay somewhere else.

We had decided to try Sandals Negril for the first time but an online travel representative recommended that BEACHES Negril was the more appropriate of the two resorts for my wife and I to take our 24 year old daughter. I trusted the travel rep’s advice without investigating That advice turned out to be negligent, careless and irresponsible. We quickly learned that Beaches Negril is highly focused on infants, toddlers, young children and their parents (and grandparents). Our daughter met no young adults in the 18-26 age bracket at Beaches Negril (unless they were with their own children). Not one person. There were just so many Sesame Street parades, Simon says, musical chairs and children games that we could watch before coming to the realization that we did not belong at Beaches Negril. I will say that most kids were happy, friendly and absolutely thrilled to be there. So were most parents. To them, the cries of babies and the shrieks of toddlers were just background noise. There were strollers at every turn (outside room doors, in the hallways or parked in the bushes). There were miniature picnic tables, high chairs, a large childcare centre and cartoons. Every day, we witnessed several parent-child negotiation sessions with the purpose of seeking better behaviour. Beaches Negril felt like a childcare centre. The maximum depth of the swimming area at the beach is about 18 inches! You would have to step over the knee-deep floating rope if you wanted to swim in the ocean. Beyond the rope, speed boats slowly circled, offering parasailing, banana boat rides and more. On some afternoons, the water smelled like petrol. The act of swimming in the ocean was rendered joyless (and dangerous) by such a set up, unless you were two feet tall. Our room was poorly situated across from the kitchen of the main buffet. It was loud, particularly at around 6am. The bathroom was old. We showered in the bathtub sporting an old shower head and a sagging shower curtain. The bed was creaky. We had a pull out chair that converted into a 50 inch bed for our daughter who is 72 inches tall! After requests, hotel management changed to bring a a bed adequate for an adult who paid $4,167 to stay at Beaches for a week!! What’s worse than having a crummy accommodation and feeling like we did not belong was that we were made to feel like second class guests with fewer privileges than many larger groups who paid a fraction of what we paid. We were twice asked to move from beach chairs and umbrellas. We were relegated to sit behind two large family groups who had rented seating on the beach for US$190 per day. With the coolers, inordinate quantity of food, ball games and wifi speakers, we felt as though we were at a family camp ground. We were turned away from a dinner on the beach because we were not “loyalty customers”. We didn't know better! At the resort shop, we paid full price while other guests claimed 15% loyalty discounts and redeemed US$50 coupons. In talking to one parent, we realized that we paid more for three adults than did families of four and more!! This information made us feel taken by Sandals/Beaches and this made other issues and observations more offputting. The food was average. Unlike the advertising, there are NOT 11 “restaurants” at Beaches. We ate two meals at Sandals which were superior because the focus at Sandals is not child-centric. We enjoyed a couple of good coffees at Sandals that were not served in paper cups. The beach at Sandals was inferior and the availability of seating even worse. When we visited Sandals, 100% of the beach seating was taken with only about 33% utilized. We sat on the sand for part of the afternoon while 67% of occupied chairs were vacant! The 7 mile stretch of beach is hardly “pristine” which generally implies untouched. The stretch is FULLY commercialized and developed. Security guards flank the extremities of small resort property after resort property. We were warned not to walk outside of the Beaches Negril boundary by night security. In daytime, vendors sold bracelets, braiding, and drugs. Vendors remained close to the water’s edge (by law) but sought to catch your eye and engage multiple times each day. On arrival, my wife went to the washroom at a makeshift front desk area (construction or renovation of the front desk area was taking place while we were there). Two toilet stalls were backed up with toilet pape, human waste and urine. I went to the men’s washroom. The urinal was out of order. This was our first impression upon arrival but we did not despair. The Beaches staff member who sat us down in the area to check us in, just disappeared. We managed to find someone else after a 30 minute wait. Beaches has its loyal repeat customer base of young parents who bring their families and enjoy an affordable vacation (booked well in advance) with a dedicated and super friendly staff to look after their kids. That’s the jam at Beaches Negril and they should cease to represent that the resort is an appropriate destination for young adult families! This is what the online travel rep represented which made me choose the destination. But it is also what hotel management repeated to me despite our experience which was completely contrary. With a cost of over $12,000 for three people, there needs to be something that knocks your socks off. Nothing did at Beaches (though most of the staff were super nice). There are so many better travel options available for much less money for adult families.

This resort is good for young families. Has a lovely safe beach with soft sand, fun water activities, nice food. Rooms are nice. People overall are nice. Check in was terrible. Lots of excuses. Our son's room smelled of cigar smoke. Our room was not the room we paid for upfront. We paid for an beachfront family concierge room. They put us in a garden view room with no view of the ocean at all. Looked into other hotel rooms. I spent hours trying to get a refund to no avail. They wanted me to sign a legal document I would have had my attorney at home review. Gave away all, and I mean all my rights as a customer! And, this is for a refund! This was their mistake. Totally mishandled. We were treated horribly and disrespectfully. We would never stay there, again.Hopefully, all Sandals/Beaches Resorts are not like this.