SANDALS NEGRIL – RESORT REVIEW

When planning our honeymoon, we knew we wanted to focus on one thing: relaxation. After planning our wedding for a year, the last thing we wanted to do was have an over-planned honeymoon. We absolutely didn’t want to feel like we had to sightsee and do all.the.things. Early on, we decided that traveling to an island was a must. From there, we decided to splurge on an all-inclusive trip, because…well, it was our honeymoon! After tons of research, we decided on Jamaica – more specifically, Sandals Negril – and we were thrilled with our choice!

TRANSPORTATION TO SANDALS NEGRIL

To make the logistics worry-free, before we left we arranged transportation to and from the airport in Jamaica. We also decided to utilize Club Mobay. Club Mobay is an airport concierge service that provides you with a representative who is assigned to you. As soon as we stepped off the plane, we were led to the lounge where we enjoyed cocktails and snacks. We relaxed and chatted with a few other couples and Sandals employees while they prepared our ride to the resort. Once our driver picked us up, we enjoyed our complimentary drinks to officially kick off our honeymoon!

ARRIVAL AT SANDALS NEGRIL

After a little over an hour, we arrived at the resort and made our way to our suite. We went with the Honeymoon Beachfront Two Story Butler Villa Suite…and we were totally blown away by how beautiful it was!

We were most excited, however, about our two(!) balconies. Since we had a two-story suite, each floor had a balcony with a gorgeous view. The upstairs balcony even had a soaking tub. We loved having coffee and the continental breakfast/snack that was delivered to our room each day out on the balcony. It was such a relaxing way to start the day!

DINING AT SANDALS NEGRIL

There are seven restaurants at Sandals Negril, and we ate at each of them during our stay. We enjoyed all of our meals, and were very happy with the quality of the food. We do recommend making reservations for dinner each night (this is even easier to do when you have a butler – more on this soon!) as we witnessed some couples being turned away due to full capacity.

SUNDOWNER

We loved this restaurant so much that we ate there twice during our stay. Sundowner serves authentic West Indian dishes and has dining options both inside and outside. I didn’t snap any pictures of our meals, but we enjoyed every last bite of both dinners we enjoyed here. Barry is West Indian, so he was very happy with this restaurant! 🙂

KIMONOS

Kimonos is a hibachi restaurant, so be prepared to mingle with other guests (if you’re not already traveling with a group) during your meal. We had a few minutes to kill before our reservation, so our butler got us set up with some drinks by the bar while we waited.

During this meal we met some great couples of all ages, and it was fun to laugh with them while being entertained by our chef. We were pretty full, but dessert was included and we couldn’t say no. 🙂

CUCINA ROMANA

Cucina Romana was one of our favorite meals during our stay at Sandals Negril. After eating so much West Indian food while at the beach each day and at most of the restaurants…sometimes you need a little Italian food to change it up. 😉 We are both pretty picky about our Italian food, and we agreed the that food at Cucina Romana was excellent! I had pasta with grilled chicken and Barry had pasta with seafood.

One of the our favorite features of the restaurant, however, was the gorgeous view! It’s set up pretty close to the beach, and you can see the ocean and sunset as you enjoy your meal. Heaven!

BAYSIDE

Bayside offers both breakfast and lunch, but we only ate breakfast there during our stay. Each morning starting at 7 A.M., there is a huge breakfast buffet with all the works – omelette station, meat section, yogurt, pancakes, waffles, fruit, etc. – and we really enjoyed eating here each day. Additionally, the resort has a peacock on premises that hung out at the buffet each morning to keep us all company. 🙂

BAREFOOT BY THE SEA, BEACH BISTRO, AND BELLA NAPOLI

We dined at Barefoot by the Sea and ate our meals with our toes in the sand. We thought the food here was the least impressive of all the dining options on the resort – there was nothing wrong with our food, but it was just so-so for us. It rained the night we ate here, which was unfortunate due to the fact that it’s on-the-beach dining. Due to the weather, there were tarps up to protect us from the rain, and it definitely took away from the ambiance (I know this is out of Sandals’ control…but it was just unfortunate for us).

We ate the food from Beach Bistro and Bella Napoli while relaxing on the beach each day. Our Butler, Mark, brought us all different types of foods – pizza, jerk chicken, quesadillas, panini – and all of them were delicious.

BUTLER SERVICE

We both agree that splurging on having a Butler totally made the trip for us. We didn’t get a picture with our Butler Mark, but he was excellent and truly tended to our every need. Sandals gives you a cell phone when you check in that you can use to call your Butler when you need them. While we did make use of this a couple of times during our trip, we found that Mark took it upon himself to do most things before we even thought of them, which was really nice!

Here are some of the things that your Butler can/will do for you at Sandals Negril:

1. Reserve beach chairs and an umbrella on the beach for you each morning
2. Wait on you while you’re on the beach – cocktails, snacks, food – anything you’d like!
3. Draw a bath for you, complete with rose petals, in your soaking tub when you’re out for the day
4. Make all of your dining reservations for your meals
5. Personally escort you from your room to each of your meals
6. Book and escort you to your excursions (we didn’t take part in any since we truly just wanted to relax each day, but Mark offered several times just in case we changed our mind)

Having a Butler is also great because they get preference over guests for things like securing meal reservations and snagging spots for excursions with limited capacity.

While we certainly could have done almost everything Mark did for us on our own, the point was that…we didn’t have to! And that in and of itself made it totally worth it!

ACTIVITIES/RELAXATION AT SANDALS NEGRIL

There are many different activities included with your stay at Sandals Negril, such as scuba diving, a variety of water sports, theme nights, and land activities such as basketball, beach volleyball, and many others.

As I mentioned, we didn’t partake in these activities, but there certainly wasn’t a shortage of things to do! However, we chose to spend 99% of our time doing this:

Under one of these:

While looking at this (Negril’s Seven Mile Beach):

And drinking these:

And we couldn’t have asked for a better honeymoon!

FINAL THOUGHTS

Save a sub-par meal at Barefoot by the Sea, we have no complaints about Sandals Negril. We found the staff to be extremely attentive and easy to find if needed, always going that one extra step to make our stay special. The food was delicious and the drinks were strong, and the grounds of the resort were immaculate and beautiful. We did have an issue with one of the air conditioning units in our villa during our stay, but a quick call to our Butler started the very quick process of getting it repaired in no time.

Truly, Sandals Negril was everything we hoped it’d be…and more! We would definitely recommend this resort to anyone who is looking for a stress free, relaxing all-inclusive vacation with great service. We are already talking about returning…perhaps for our ten year wedding anniversary? 🙂

Do you have any questions about Sandals Negril? What is the best trip you’ve ever taken?