Destination Brides Beware

My husband and I flew down to a 5 star (ehem) hotel in Montego Bay in order to see how many things we could check off the to do list with one swing of a stick. The primary objectives were: relax fully somehow while eating and drinking til I merrily came home, spend quality time with one another (way overdue), and really approach the resort as a reasonable option for destination brides, looking for a great place to host their wedding festivities.

I can tell you that I succeeded in relaxing, spending quality time with my main squeeze, and I did investigate the feasibility of a destination wedding. I'm sorry to say, that it didn't cut the mustard with me, and I would not, would never, could not recommend it even if they paid me a million dollars, in it's current state.

I went all out for this trip - booking a 5 star was a pretty big draw for me, as I'd hoped to see that their wedding set up would be secluded, romantic and well worth the investment. I expected 5 star ammenities, and overall quality. I have to tell you, that I think it would be a stretch to label it as a 3 star resort. Moreover, this was a real shock given that I selected a property owned by a very well regarded internationally recognized chain of resorts. We stayed at the Riu in Montego Bay, Jamaica.

Pros:

• My husband and I had a great time in spite of all the cons
• Staff was generally courteous and pleasant
• It wasn't Toronto, Ontario in the cold
• It was 34 degrees celcius or better every single day
• There's a great beach within a 10 minute drive which is just a block away from a great bar!! But you have to pay to get in, and you have to pay for your meal/drinks at the bar...but let me tell you - worth every penny.
• Very few kids were in tow at this resort, and the ones that were, were very well behaved.
• The flowers that were ordered in for the 1 wedding I saw being prepped for, were very nice.

Cons:

• Food was terrible. The only food edible was the bread, the cheese, the burgers, fries, pasta and breakfast fare. Everything else pretty much made you ill, or wasn't even chewable.
• Lettuce was finally available more than half way through the vacation - no hot green vegetables (okra excepted) were made available at any time.
• You couldn't get coffee if you were an early riser. Coffee hunters had to wait until the main buffet opened at 7am.
• Alcoholic beverages were watered down with very sugary mixes - the best margarita I had all week was at Margaritaville on the hip strip off property.
• The beach and the water was stalked all day by men and women trying to sell beads and ehem, illegal drugs.
• The beach sand was hard as a rock
• The water was mucky
• The floor of the swimming area of the ocean was muddy, slick and generally gross.
• The gazebo reserved for weddings was smack dab in the middle of the beach, but there was no aisle way marked off, and no where for guests chairs to be set up with a view of both the gazebo and the ocean. And the area was completely littered with topless sunbathers, huddling close to the gazebo for the bit of shade it offered.
• I splurged on an ocean front room, and while the room was nice, and I loved that it was parked basically right on top of the beach, it also meant we were more proned to getting bugs - and because of the climate - they were big bugs. My husband's new nickname is the Great White Bug Hunter!
• The bar fridge was broken, and their one attempt to fix it failed.
• There were no bars on the beach, so you had to walk quite a ways to get a drink.
• Excursions were incredibly expensive, but wound up being worth it, because it was off resort.
• The restaurants that required a reservation were still buffet style service - in all restaurants, even drinks were self service.
• The restaurants weren't all open all week long, and when we wanted to book a reservation, we were out of luck - they were already all booked up - everyone flew to the other restaurants when they found out how terrible the main buffet was.
• The rehearsal dinner for the wedding was held in the main buffet which detracted service for most other resort patrons with shared wait staff.
• The wedding reception was hosted in one of their other buffet restaurants (no dance floor or dj as far as I could see), and it would have been buffet style as well.
• I expected to hear plenty of Raggae music during my stay - I finally heard it off resort on one of our excursions. The resort played 1980's pop and country, all tripped up with dance versions all week long. Lest I forget the terrible sing along that the resort staff gave us during the aqua aerobics session each morning. I mean they even tortured an old Kenny Rogers song this way.
• I didn't see it myself, but heard from other guests, that the spa's hot tub was only about 2 feet deep and layered with scum - jets were very clogged with this build up, and it seems obvious that it needed a really deep cleaning and disinfecting.
• I requested a king size bed (as would most newly married couples), and what we got was two double beds, pushed together with their own sets of sheets, and were basically hard as concrete...hmmm...made things interesting, but less romantic than it should have been. And I spent most of the week walking around hunched over like an 85 year old because I couldn't straighten out...and believe me, I'm not that old.

Really, there's just no way this is a 5 star resort, and even for a 3 star it was way over priced for the quality of food and ammenities we received. I didn't even inquire about the pricing for the average wedding at the resort, because there's simply no way I'd ever take one of my bride's here for their biggest day.

Anyway, as a vacation, I feel very relaxed now that I'm home in my own bed. And I'm pleased that this dirty work is now done, and I can save future travellers the heartache of a really difficult destination adventure.

Thanks for reading!