Old run down buildings. The food was gross. Way over priced. Small crowded beach. Tacky, gimmicky, over-rated. Over priced excusions. Will not go back.

It's early morning and the sky, still streaked with pink, is reflected in the crystal clear waters of Half Moon Bay Resort. This famous resort, favorite of royalty and presidents, sits on 400 acres of the most beautiful beachfront in Jamaica, perhaps the Caribbean. Luxury villas line the beach, each with its own private bay. Here you can ride horses right out into the ocean and swim with them, you can play golf on their championship course and you can interact with Dolphins. That is what I am off to do this beautiful morning. As I arrive at the lagoon where the Dolphins live, I can hear them clicking. They have swum up to the beach and are clicking for food. What a cool sound, Dolphins make over 200 distinct sounds, all out of their blow holes. I am enthusiastically greeted by Oneil. He is an enthusiastic young man who openly shares his story with me. He tells me that when he was a little boy, he lived in a middle class neighborhood of Montego Bay. His aunt, on his 4th birthday gave him a stuffed animal, later in life Oneil would look back at that moment as a turning point in his life. Oneil studied hard and took his classes seriously but he excelled at soccer. He was on his high schools’ winning team and later went on to play professional soccer with a major Jamaican club. However 25 is a little old in the soccer world and Oneil was looking for something else that would perhaps have a more promising future. He heard about a company that was looking for people to learn to train Dolphins. He couldn’t believe his good fortune, he had read everything he could find and had studied these noble creatures for years. He applied and was immediately hired. He started his studies at the Educational Center for the Marine and Terrestrial Wild Life Animals in Kingston and then went on to work at Dolphin Cove at Ocho Rios and then eventually here at Half Moon Bay Resort. Jamaica law is very strict concerning the keeping of Dolphins. They have adopted the USA laws concerning their care and handling. He is the one who now greets me and begins the orientation. The two Dolphins are Bruno, 8 years old and Miguel 7 years old. Both came from Cuba and Oneil makes the highly questionable statement that they only understand Spanish, right. Other interesting Dolphin facts are: they can go 3 days out of water (of course they need to be regularly hosed down, this is how they transport them), they can live up to 3 times longer in captivity 50 – 60 years! They nurse their young for 18 months and they can glide thru the turquoise waters of the Caribbean at 22 miles per hour. Not only do tourists and nature lovers enjoy these Dolphins, Bruno and Miguel have played host to children from the Make A Wish Foundation who come to frolic with the boys. They have also interacted with Autistic children and children with special needs who all seem to create a special bond with these majestic creatures. The trainers tell me that the Dolphins seem to sense when there is a child with special needs and they seem to make an extra effort to communicate. Then we gather our group of 10 (never more) and float out into the lagoon. We swim out and line up and the dolphins shoot by and jump up, what power, how graceful they are…and these guys weigh in at around 500 pounds. Now they do their tricks. Miguel swims up and lays his cute Dolphin head against my cheek; he lets me run my hand down him…so smooth. Then I am positioned in the middle of the lagoon and Bruno and Miguel swim up on either side of me and I am instructed to hold on to their fins…wow what a ride, they pull me for about 50 feet and really fast.. I felt like Poseidon being pulled by his band of sea horses. Well the boys were getting tired and so was I. We headed in to shore and out of the hot sun that was reminding me I was in the tropics. I had one more chance to thank Oneil and all the guys. Oneil, “I asked”, “so what was the toy your aunt gave you back then”? “Oh yeah, mon, it was a Dolphin. Now I am the Dolphin Master of Half Moon Bay”. Somehow I knew that was coming but it still gave me a chill. His aunt had given him a gift that opened up his world. Now Oneil gives that gift to others as he has given it to me. Tonight I will sleep peacefully in my bed while I dream of Dolphins.

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.

When reading this review, please take into consideration that 1. We stayed at the Oceanfront rooms on the Riviera side 2. I have been travelling all over Asia with my self-proclaimed food critic of a father since I could walk. From age 22, I have been cruising with my very generous in-laws twice a year. So at age 26, 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. Our rooms: Our family of 3 couples stayed in a total of 8 different rooms, of 3 different floors, with or without balconies, all are Grande Luxe Oceanfront (code: GO), and all had ocean views and ants, and the most expensive ones had no privacy and a lot of noises. 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.