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Jamaica
Good Value, Nice Wedding
This is a review of:

Sunset Jamaica Grande All Inclusive

Detailed Ratings
Accomodation Value:
4.0
Communication:
4.0
General Location:
4.0
Wedding Sites:
5.0
Wedding Value:
4.0
Tiffanya21

By Tiffanya21, · 846 Views · 1 Comment

Pros: Close to Dunns River Falls and Shopping. People are Friendly. Very accomodating and Helpful. Not overly crowded.
Cons: Far from the airport. Restuarants are hard to get into. Not much of a nightlife.

We were married at Sunset Jamaica Grande on 20 October 2011. Bare with me, I am going to try not to ramble, but give as much information on my experience as possible.

 

When we arrived, they immediately ushered us to the Guest Services desk to be checked in because we were the Bride and Groom. They were very friendly. The hotel lobby is outside, and was very clean. The guest services desk helped us multiple times throughout our stay. We even chose to order a pizza one night, and they delivered it to our room for us. I love that kind of service. Also, the value of the hotel is worth it. The Groom and I paid only $100 per person, per night, for the Cabana room which is their highest grade. For the food, and alcohol, and the few activities, it was worth it.

 

Food: The food was different but good. At the buffet there were plenty of options for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There was a constant pasta station just in case you didn't like anything else. At some meals there was a kids station, but I did notice it was not at every meal that was available in the buffet area. If you want an actual sit down dinner, they want you to make reservations 2 days in advance. We had our wedding dinner at the La Diva, Italian food. The food was delicious. The resturant seemed to be very popular. We also had a candle light dinner on the beach, and we chose to order from Ginger Lily, which is their Chinese resturant, and it was delicious too. It was a bit spicy though. I noticed that all of their resturants are not open every night for dinner. They alternate nights. The cons of their food was that they only had one place that was open a majority of the day for food and they serve hot dogs, hamburgers, grilled cheese, and fish sandwhiches (with fries). We stayed in the Cabanas and this station was so far from our room. It was really inconvenient to go get food when the buffet was closed. We also didn't like that lunch stopped at 2:30, yet dinner didn't start until 6:15. Some of the days we went out shopping and came back right at 3 or a little after and were starving. We quickly tired ourselves out on the hot dogs and hamburgers. If you are taking children with you, I advise that you watch the dessert tray. A lot of their jello, and cakes have rum in them and they are not marked. My aunt did a little taste test with everything that my 6 year old cousin ate because he grabbed some Jello and said it tasted funny, come to find out it had rum in it. Luckily he only had one small bite.

 

Drinks: They don't have any name brand liquor or beer. They have red stripe beer, a white wine, and a red wine. They don't serve Champagne (for Mimosas). You can buy it in the gift shop and they will make it for you though. They have white and spiced rum, tequila, and whiskey. They also have the normal frozen drinks, but you have to ask for the rum to be added. Their drinks are super strong. They come in smalls cups too, so its alot for one small cup. My advice would be to come up with an easy to make drink you like and stick to it. They made me something and I loved it, but when I went to a different bar and told them what I wanted, I got something else. I also ordered a sex on the beach and got a white russian instead. For non-alcoholic drinks, they serve Pepsi, but 9 out of 10 times it was flat or empty. They were also always out of ice and cups. Luckily, there is always a bar open, and worse case scenario we had to have the bartender pass us a few alcohol free beverages. If I were to go back, I would definitely bring a few drinks that I can pour over some ice to keep in our room (oh and a few snacks. I was missing my chocolate while I was there. lol).

 

Staff: I can't say enough good things about the staff there. Everyone was so friendly and helpful. We had a few issues with the rooms (which I will explain later), and they did everything they could to make it right. Bartenders, waiters, waitresses, bellhops, tour desk guides, and the wedding coordinator couldn't have been better! I even met the hotel manager and she was so sweet, and she really made things happen around there. My hats are off to their great attitudes.

 

Hotel Rooms: The rooms are kind of old fashioned and beachy. We got the Cabana and it was right on the beach. Beautiful view, and really close to the food, and lobby, which was helpful being that we had to meet with the coordinator, photographer, and tour desk multiple times. The beds were nice and clean, but kind of hard. The maid service was awesome for us. They went above and beyond to make our room tidy. A majority of our guests wanted standard rooms. The standard rooms are in the tower and the odd numbered rooms. I would recommend upgrading to an oceanview because the wind coming over the mountain hits those windows and doors just right to make a howling sound 24/7. About 5 rooms were upgraded once they were there due to the noise keeping people up at night. I slept in one of the rooms one night and we kept the door open about 2 inches just so it wouldn't make that noise. The oceanview rooms are the same rooms, but they face a different direction so you don't hear the wind. Definitely worth that extra money. The only other advice I have is rent their lock and key for the safe. The groom and I locked all our valueables up the first night there. Some of our guests didn't think it would be necessary, and they had money stolen from them. The money was in their wallets in their purses/bags, and the head maid went to their room while we were on an excursion for an unknown reason and stole about $80. On the lower floors, the doors use regular keys, not electronic, and some of the maids forgot to lock a few guests doors when leaving, which is another good reason to make sure all valuables are locked up. I brought all these issues up to the hotel manager, so hopefully they will be fixed shortly. Like I said, we can't complain about our maid services. She did amazing!

 

Activities: There are 2 beaches, one on the north side and one on the south side. The beaches are nice. The north one is semi-cleared, but there is some seaweed growing. The north is more cleared and deeper. There are plenty of chairs out to sit in. It seems we picked the perfect time of year because it wasn't overcrowded at all, and there was always room for us to plop down next to the pool or on the beach. You can kayak, sail, wind surf, or snorkle. Our guests did most, and said they were all great. They had a luau two nights that we were there, and it was pretty family oriented. Fun, and the food was really good. We enjoyed both of them. They have 2 water slides, which we considered age appropriate for almost everyone. The pools were spotless clean. There were pools everywhere. Some of the pools had swim up bars which we loved. They also had loungers in the water which my guests really enjoyed after a day of shopping. Everything during the day is great. At dark they did some shows. We didn't watch too many but they were definitely feeding off the crowd. About 10pm it seemed like the hotel was dead. There was no one in the clubs. We created our own party at the pool 3 or so nights.

 

Wedding: Our wedding coordinator was really helpful once we were there. She did everything in her power to make us happy. We had a small glitch with the music, but other than that, things went smoothly. We LOVED our officiant. He knew we were a humerous couple so he brought that into our ceremony which was completely us. We were pretty care free, so we just went with whatever music they had. If you want a specific type of ceremony, just tell her, and she can make it happen. We bought our wedding video and it was nicer than expected. Not to mention the videographer was awesome. He was great and knew what he was doing. The photographer on the other hand wasn't worth it in my opinion. I figured he had shots in mind, and he didn't. I had to tell him what to shoot, when, where, who....etc. The pictures were so so quality. Honestly, I got just as good of pictures as he did on my camera, by a friend of ours. Don't get me wrong, they were nice, just not what I expected. If your looking to book, I would do it as soon as you know your date. We were here for 8 days and saw 3 weddings besides our own. I would give the wedding a 7.5 out of 10. The places they have available for the weddings are beautiful, and I am so glad that I got married there.  

 

Overall, we had a really good time. Our guests really enjoyed themselves and want to go back. I would recommend it if you are looking for a average laid back resort. I hope this helps some brides make their decision.

 

1 Comment


HI i was just wondering who or which travel agency you booked through, also if you guys could send me an estimate of how much everything cost? for bride and groom or if you guys got a discount for more then if 10 people came

 

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