Jamaica, Sandals Whitehouse

My husband and I chose this place as our honeymoon destination and had a wonderful time. The Rooms were adorable and very clean. We had a fantastic view over the ocean and loved the little day trips offered for a little extra fee. We plan on visiting other Sandal resorts in the future.

We had an excellent time and plan on going back

Overall,the experience was incredible.We think and talk about it often and can't wait to go back.I would recommend it for a honeymoon or if you just want time to relax.There were plenty of activities and excursions available,but i liked that it was secluded away from the towns for peace and quiet and privacy.

The ride from the Montego Bay airport was approximately 1.5 hours. We were picked up in a Toyota van. The ride wasn't too bad, but the roads are awful. Potholes everywhere. We checked into Sandals Whitehouse June 25, 2007 for our Honeymoon. That day also happened to be my birthday, but no one there noticed. When we first arrived, we were greeted outside with cool towels. We went inside and were given champagne followed by a form to fill out. I figured all paperwork had already been taken care of and was anxious to get to my room because I was tired from a 3 hour plane ride and a 1.5 hour van ride. I did not want to fill out paperwork. They also requested a credit card to keep on file so they could issue purchase cards. No cash is accepted on the resort (only at the front desk). All purchases had to be made using the purchase card. After filling out paperwork and giving a credit card, my wife asked the front desk clerk where she could find out about a candlelight dinner she had scheduled for my birthday. The woman at the desk was very short with her and impatiently told her that she has to check with the people in the sales office across the room. (Like we were supposed to know that.)

We were then taken to our rooms. The head bellman took us and two other couples up to our rooms. We were in the French Village which was near the French Pool and Bluefield's, but a good 5-minute walk to everything else. He exited at the second floor with one couple and told us and another couple that our rooms were on the fourth floor and he would be up to familiarize us with our rooms. He also mentioned that our bags would be brought up. We found the room on our own and let ourselves in. By the way, the head bellman never showed.

The rooms were nice, but nothing spectacular. With a name like the "Grande Lux Honeymoon Room," we expected to be blown away. The room had a king size bed, loveseat, armoire that held the TV and mini fridge, a nightstand and a desk. The bath had a standard sized tub (we were hoping for something a bit larger.) Our travel agent had told us that the room was oceanfront, but it was more like poolfront/oceanview. The balcony was very small with a small table, two chairs and a bar to hang your swimsuits.

After about 5 minutes, one of the bellboys brought our bags up and asked us if the bellman had shown us the room. He had not (and never came) so the bellboy gave us a quick once-over. We unpacked our things, a bit disappointed with the room. For spending over $5,000 US, we feel that we could have got a better room elsewhere for much less.

After unpacking, we went looking for something to eat. It was about 5:00 and the only thing open was "Caf de Paris." Being unfamiliar with the resort, it would have been nice to be pointed in the right direction because pastries were the last things that I wanted. We got some anyway and returned to our room.

That night, we enjoyed our candlelight dinner on the beach. We selected the menu with the lobster tail and changed the desert to a chocolate cake. This meal, by far, was the best we had on the resort. It was the best lobster I ever had and it was nice having a personal waitress to take care of you. The cost for this dinner was $120 and we tipped the waitress $20. There is no tipping at the resort, but this being something, "extra," I felt that a tip was acceptable.

The next morning, we were able to peruse over the pamphlet and guide and felt a little bit better about knowing where to go and eat. We saw that "Orientation" was scheduled for 5PM and planned to attend. We ate breakfast at the Bayside buffet which was delicious and spent most of the day walking around and hanging out by the French Pool. At 4PM, we came inside and changed and walked 5 minutes to the front desk for out orientation. We arrived on time and I inquired about orientation. The clerk said that someone would be with us shortly. I waited 10 minutes, inquired again, and received the same response, this time with him making a phone call. We waited another 20 minutes, and figured no one was coming. We never received an orientation and wasted 30 minutes sitting in the lobby.

Below, I will outline each restaurant:

Jasmine's: We ate dinner at Jasmine's the second night which was somewhat of a disappointment. You could defiantly tell that a Jamaican was making the Asian cuisine. Other than the sushi, the meal was not very good. The miso soup tasted like it was instant from a box and the entrees were sub-par.

Eleanor's: Good meal overall. My steak was a bit charred, but everything else was satisfactory for our friends and my wife. Great a-la-carte breakfast.

Bayside: Buffet is great. Dinner was a hit or miss. The first time we ate dinner there it was incredible. The lobster bisque was excellent and the fish was great. The second time we ate, the lobster in the bisque was hard. I mentioned this to the waitress and she acknowledged that the soup had been burned/overcooked when reheating it. (Why serve it then?)

Guiseppie's: Great meal. The antipasti bar is OK, I wish they had more appetizer choices, but the roast beef short rib was amazing. For lunch, however, the service was extremely slow. I waited over a half hour for a pizza. My wife thought I stopped at the bar and got drunk because it took so long.

Caf de Paris: Good pastries and ice cream. Good coffee selection as well.

Arizona's: We went here twice. Once for a late-night snack and once for the "Pirate's Dinner." The Pirate's Dinner was a lot of fun and was served family-style. The waiters/waitresses served you from skewers and they had a steel drum band playing. The late-night snack was OK, the cheese is defiantly not cheez whiz!

Bluefield's: We went here for lunch the most. Friendly staff and nice lunch selection. There's these little black birds that are annoying, but no where near annoying as a sea gull.

Other interesting points:

The Mayfield River Walk was a lot of fun. They offer you pictures and video at the end for $65. Seems like a great idea at the time, but I'll never watch it again. The guy filming makes you say, "Yeah Mon, No Problem, and Yo-Yo" way too much. I would defiantly go again. Bring your aqua socks!

Try to stay in the Italian Village. That is the closest to all the action. I felt like I was walking a mile every time I had to go out. Our friends stayed there and said it was very convenient.

The smoke-alarm malfunctioned and went off at 3AM jolting us from our sleep. Maintenance did fix it the next day.

We stayed toward the end of June into July. It rained around 4PM almost everyday for about an hour which wasn't bad at all.

Water skiing is a joke. They make you swim out to the middle of the ocean and then ask you to hang on and try to stand.

Snorkeling is fun, although most of the people got seasick and one not-so-smart lady decided to get stuck on the reef and held everyone up.

Bottom Line:

Nice resort that looked awesome on paper and pictures. After arriving we were extremely disappointed with our room, especially it being our honeymoon and after spending $5,000. The restaurants overall were good and offered you different choices. The staff was always nice and accommodating with the exception of the lady we met at the front desk when we first arrived. The activities/games offered all occurred at the main pool, which was a hike from the French Village. That's why volleyball was the game I played the entire time. If spending $5,000 again, I would not stay here. The money could defiantly be spent somewhere comparable and you'd get a lot more bang for your buck.

We visited Sandals Whitehouse in Jamaica from the 16th to the 23rd of August 2006 from (just outside) London UK.

One of our favourite drinks is a French spirit called Pernod, and we like it mixed with blackcurrant cordial. Having picked up the e-mail address from this site, I dropped SWH a line asking if they stocked Pernod. They didn't, but they said they'd try and locate some for us. Sure enough, some time later I got an email telling me that they had some Pernod in stock now. The slight problem was the blackcurrant cordial which they could not locate for us on the island. "No probs" we said, "we can bring some of that from home"! So far so good, and excellent service we felt. A week or so before we were due to arrive I mailed them again. We particularly wanted to see the ocean and sunsets from our room. I was concerned since I understood that as we had booked the lowest room category our view may be obscured by the trees/bushes or whatever. Within a few hours I had received a reply saying that an upper floor in the Dutch area would give us the best sunset views, and that they would see if they could accommodate our wishes. Great, even better - superb service!

Our flight from London was long but fine. We waited about 30 minutes for immigration and went to collect our bags, no real hassle. From there we go to the Sandals lounge and get a drink and give them our bags. Drive to SWH from Montego Bay airport, which lasted about 2 hours of winding narrow roads, but in England our roads can be worse, so no worries for us. There were three other couples on the bus journey.

On arrival we were greeted by all the staff, and after identifying our bags we all relaxed with cold towels and champagne - mmmm nice! All four couples received upgrades. We went from Deluxe to Grand something or other (I think the check in guy said we had upgraded 5 levels)! We ended up in room 2327, third floor Dutch, one room from the end (near the French area). Room was spotlessly clean, large and well equipped. Stocked fridge (soft drinks and water etc), TV and DVD (we didn't use the TV or DVD), CD player (we brought a selection of our CD's having read this site so often), alarm clock, everything you'd need. Nice balcony, perfect view of the pool, ocean and sunset. One thing, if you like to use shower gel as opposed to soap - bring your own. As an extra bonus (for which we were really grateful and impressed) there was a huge bottle of Pernod for us in our room. I can't tell you how impressed we were (and still are) with the service we have received from Sandals WH management and staff.

Housekeeping was fine if a little erratic in the time they turned up, and turndown service was good also. We left small gifts for the housekeeping, with a signed note so they could prove that they were gifts when they left to go home with them as tipping is a big NO NO here.

Food - well, you won't go hungry, as the restaurant selection is truly excellent. We tried all of them. On our first morning we went to breakfast at Bayside. As we walked in we were greeted and offered a Mimosa, and we had to ask what a Mimosa was, but we were converted once we tried them, and we had them with breakfast every morning - yum yum. All food we had was of top quality. There was no waiting to be seated (appears to be a quiet time to visit SWH). The service was top class and friendly too, and nothing is too much trouble for them. And, you'll never go thirsty for water, rum and cocktails, you name it! The restaurants also maintain a dress code. I have to applaud this, it made it all the more special that virtually everyone dressed well for dinner each night. For guys smart trousers (pants for you US readers), closed toe shoes and shirts with collars are required. In the most part, the ladies were all wearing very smart dresses and heels. But the ladies can also get away with skirts and tops and trousers and tops. No flip flops. If you really don't want to dress for dinner there are a couple of casual restaurants, but personally for us, dressing for dinner makes the holiday that bit more special. Be aware that not every restaurant is open every night, but maybe that does not apply in peak periods. January and November are the peaks according to the bar staff. A nice touch is that the bar tenders will remember your drinks, if you ever have the same round twice that is. It's so nice to have that personal touch.

There are several bars. Our fave was at Arizona's on the large patio areas by the sand. We consumed many cocktails such as:

Dirty Bananas

Humming Birds

Jamaican Smiles

Brain Haemorrhage (yes, I had to check the spelling too!)

Harvey Wallbangers

Royal Flushes

Smirnoff Screwdrivers (that blow your head off)

Woo Woos

Ewart Rum Specials (no two ever the same!)

Hmmmmm - can't remember some of the ones we had later... Not sure why!

Ask for a Londoner's Secret (remind the barman it's made with Pernod), you'll

love it !

All the pools are fantastic, although we preferred the Dutch. We were told the Dutch was for the 'newly wed and nearly dead,' neither of which describes us! The French has a good swim up bar and water volleyball (every muscle I have ached after playing just one game) twice a day, which is a bit more lively. The Italian only has a hot tub, and when we went there it was deserted, but it is right next to the main pool. This pool is beautiful, and there are quite a few activities taking place there every day. Since we were after a "relaxing couples chill out" type of holiday, this pool didn't appeal to us, but it was nice to look at, and we did see other people enjoying it when we did pass by.

Water sports - I wimped out half way through the Scuba diving course (US$70.00 each). I hated not being able to gulp fresh air and decided to drop out. Sue was fine with it and went on to complete the course and do the 34 feet deep ocean dive the next day. Well done Sue. Other then that we tried - water skiing, hobbie cat sailing, kayaking and snorkeling. All water sports were easily available at any time due to the fact the place was not packed out - a good time of year to go to SWH. There is a young girl who takes the bookings in the watersports building who is full of energy and smiles, and will never fail to brighten your day - I wish I could remember her name, but I just can't.

We took lots of pictures, which I will be posting up on Snapfish shortly, so look out for them. There are photographers all over the place who can take pictures of you as a couple. Nice sunset pics and all over the place. In fact, once we were lying in a hammock and said wouldn't it be great if we could get a picture of us in this. Within about two minutes a photographer called out asking if we wanted some nice pics taken - wow, what service! One tip with the photographs, the photo shop will put your selected pictures onto a CD for you if you don't want to have them printed there. They charge US$5.00 per picture, and on your last day you have them loaded to a CD to bring home and enhance/print them at your leisure. They do not advertise this service, you need to ask if you want to do this.

The beaches are fantastic, and get raked every morning (I want that job please!). One day we walked way beyond the security hut, perhaps a mile and half of untouched beach. We were like cast aways and completely alone. Now, that night Sue noticed that my back had been bitten by something around 20 times. Luckily the bites did not hurt and went down, although they are a little itchy now. Lucky Sue, they didn't like her as she didn't get bitten once.

On our 4th day, there was a lot of condensation on the underside of the air conditioning unit. This sits right above where you hang all your clothes. As a consequence, all our good clothes felt damp and my shoes had little puddles in them. A quick call brought the duty manager to our room. Within minutes all our clothes were whisked away for full laundry service, and later that day the duty manager brought some help, and we moved up to room 2427, directly above our first room. This one was on the concierge floor and had the benefit of bottles of Rum, Gin, Whisky, Vodka, red and white wine, red stripe beer, champagne and all the mixers and soft drinks. Other than that the rooms are all exactly the same, apart from the butler suites I think. Obviously I'd rather not have had to change rooms, but it did go to prove the high standards of service that the Sandals team deliver. And to reinforce this standard of service, whenever we saw the duty manager after this, he always came over to us to check that we were happy and that everything was fine with the room and service etc - well done.

To sum up, this was the best holiday we have ever taken, and we have travelled quite extensively and have stayed in some super luxury hotels before, so we know how good service feels. We felt we were treated like royalty at SWH. We met some nice people, we drank some (OK, OK - lots of) cocktails, we sunbathed, we swam, we ate, we...

Sadly all good things must come to an end, and our week was up far too quickly. We intend to go back to SWH next year (would go next week if we could), and we can't wait. The pictures in the brochure and on the website cannot do this place justice; you have to see it for yourself. There is an army of behind the scenes workers who are continuously tending the gardens and carrying out general maintenance to keep up the high standards. The service is excellent and the people are so friendly. If you are thinking of going I'd say go for it! You won't be disappointed. I'd defy anyone to not have a great holiday here. If you want night time fun, it's there. If you prefer quiet you can have quiet. Day time poolside fun and activities - go to the main pool or the French area. Relaxing quiet times - go to the Dutch area or the beach. I'd be happy to answer any questions should you have any, so just leave a comment.

SWH has it all - and we want some more of it!

Sandals Whitehouse - See you next year...