We travelled to Beaches Negril from May 3rd-17th. Our party consisted of 4 adults and 2 babies. 13 & 18 months.

We arrived at Mo'Bay airport around 1:30pm (the airports busiest time of day) and took roughly an hour to clear customes. We then headed straight to the Sandals lounge. This was so busy you couldn't even get in the door, after a while, checking in luggage we were able to go inside and help ourself to a redstripe. The atmosphere was extremely busy and nothing at this stage felt personal. Our bus was called out and we were loaded onto an air con'd bus and taken to the the resort. Our driver was excellent, telling us all about Jamaica and pointing things out as we passed, a good tour to start off the holiday. We arrived at Beaches after 1:30hr and we were greeted with rum punch, the whole proccess to check in and be taken to our room was within 15 minutes.

Our room was the honeymoon deluxe seaside double (one up from the lowest grade room) and we found this to be more than adiquate. It was just me and my husband and our 18 month old, we had 2 large beds and a crib. The room was clean and tidy.
We were placed in the Montpelier block and I would strongly reccommend that if you have a baby or small kids or go to bed before 11pm then this is a bad loaction as the resort next door is EXTREMELY noisy after about 8pm. Sounds like they have great entertainment but it is as if it is in your room. The santa cruz or savannah blocks would be much better suited.

Our first impressions on the resort when we went for a walk round were really positive, the resort is very well kept, sure its a bit tired in places and needs a lick of paint, but I didnt see one bit of litter.

The beach is stunning, the sand is white and the see is aqua. the tide is very calm and its very safe for little babies. I would actually say the beach is the best part of the resort and the part I will miss the most.

The food is fine... its not fine dining, its just good. It does get a bit boring if you are there for 14 days. We always managed to find something good to eat though.
The Mill. This was good for feeding our babies as we could always find some fresh veg and pasta. They change the food daily but on a weekly basis you end up finding the same food several times.
The Last Chance Saloon. This was probably our favorite restaurant, it was just good honest food, plus we love stakes!
The Saville. Its good for a visit but its not amazing, nice to have an adult only restaurant though.
Kimonoes, this was very entertaining, and great family night out, the food was good but didnt blow our minds.

The staff were amazing, so hospitable, I truely believe they are the nicest nation. We had a few requirements due to having a baby but nothing was too much trouble for them, they accomodated all our needs. I really don't understand why others have complained about the staff on their reviews as I didn't whitness a member of staff talking badly to anyone in the whole 14 nights we were there!! We felt like royalty and by day 3 they knew all our names and made an effort to come and speak to us and remember our favorite drinks, pretty amazing when you think about all the guests they serve every day.

The pools were fine, each having a swim up bar. The lazy river was fun, and the water slides were great fun. Always plenty of life gaurds.

We tried putting our son in nursery but he didnt like it and freaked out a bit, however the other baby in our party loved it.
I was allowed to stay with my son in the nursery and use all the facilities and toys, was great to get out of the hot mid afternoon sun and play in an air con'd room! This was definately a plus in my opinion, the nursery was safe, had age appropriate toys and the girls made a real effort to make my son feel at ease. We had a baby sitter on a couple of nights when the babies were asleep and this worked out great, $10 an hour, but we always gave a $10 tip as the babysitter didnt get the money direct so I can only imagin the hardly saw any of it.

The seseame street breakfast and stage shows are fantastic to little ones, they all loved it.

I dont have anything bad to say about the resort we will definately go back when harry is a bit older, its perfect for familes with kids aged 2-12 any older the kids may be bored,

Its not 5 star luxury, but then this is a family resort geared up to make it FUN. Someone show me a fun family resort that is 5 star and maybe I wont be happy with beaches but as far as I am concerned this was a pretty good resort with high standards.
We will definately return.

We stayed at Beaches Negril over two months ago, but the reason this review took so long is that I have given Beaches every chance to explain their poor service. They have not, so I've decided to share it here and hopefully save someone else a bad experience!

As a family resort, we booked a room for four. Be WARNED - their room for four is simply a reasonable sized bedroom with a small couch. The couch could sleep two small children, but not our 11 and 13 year olds (yes, they knew the ages). So, they rolled in a cot. See the picture I've attached- the only way the cot fits in the room it to wedge it between the bed and the bureau. Therefore, you need to climb over it (no, it didn't fold) to get from one side of the room to the other!

During the busy Spring Break season I can assure you that the people who worked there were anything but pleasant. They were clearly tired with their jobs and let you know it. Ex: The young man hosting our snorkel boat let us know that the group before ours did not give him enough respect and we had better if we wanted any help from him.

Food was reasonably good, but service was awful. At the buffet restaurant, the drink you ordered never came...

Finally, don't pay extra for concierge service, you get nothing except a pretty room to sit in while they check you in. I tried calling the concierge during our trip to get us reservations at one of the restaurants, but he said they were booked and couldn't help on any of the 3 days left in our stay!

Last year we visited Beaches Boscobell and were super impressed. Though the hotel is not a 5 star by any means, we had such a good experience and dealt with the nicest staff ever which prompted us to "brag" a lot about the place. URL for that review below:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g147312-d148874-r7567679-Beaches_Boscobel_Resort_Golf_Club-Ocho_Rios_Jamaica.html

This time around (maybe due to our previous Beaches experience) we were a litle dissapointed. We expected the same service as in Boscobel and it was nowhere near.

1. Resort Location- the most amaising beach I have ever seen. Read other reviews and people complained about bug bites. Did not experience any, however, we were not on the beach at night either. I did notice some red ants on the property every now and then but otherwise, your typical mosquito is your primary enemy.

2. Resort Grounds - i found this place to bee too "packed". buildings seemed to bee too much of one into another with not enough breathing space. Also, there are a lot of steps everywhere which means that strollers become a work out. Not terrible, but not baby friendly (while this is what this resort is supposed to be all about). Pools seem larger in pictures and were not that well maintained. At night, if you looked at the pool lights, you could see that the water was a litle murky.

3. Resort Food - I was dissapointed with this especially since I was expecting the same or better than Boscobel. The Last Chance Saloon had decent not great food. The Seville - we never visited (16 and older only), the beach grill is the beach grill (hot dogs, fries and burgers for the most part), and the International buffet I found to be very limited on options and very repetitious. This place had about half the options that were available in Boscobel with very litle different things from one night to another. Otherwise the food was decent.

4. Resort Drinks - I found them to be good enough and not watered down. Besides, if you want something with double shots of liqeur, just ask and they would be more than glad to provide. Also Black label, Chivas, Jack, California red wine, etc are the type of drinks available. Not bad at all.

5. Resort service - i found this part very dissapointing. For example, a dinner at the Last Chance Saloon would take a litle over two hours. We ate there twice and it was the same both times. The japanese restaurant the same - we waited 35 minutes to receive a boul of soup and salad. Everything in this resort was in slow mode (nothing like this experienced @ Boscobel). Staff very not interested for the most part and very forgetfull. We would ask for a glass of wine and another drink and only one would be delivered. We would order two dinners (mom and dad) plus a small dish of pasta with red sauce for the baby (21 months old) and they would forget to bring the pasta (after a 30 - 40 minute wait when the first item would be brought to the table). I would group the staff as follows - about 10% very nice and helpfull (above and beyond), about 15% just good enough, 25% just doing their job, 50% careless and taking their time.

6. Resort Spa - this was pretty nice and the service was very good as well. Worth every penny. Got a total relaxing massage and was excellent.

7. Hotel Room - we had the honeymoon deluxe room booked.. Upon arrival, we got bumped up to honeymoon ocean front suite. The room overall was nice, still a 3 star. Things that were broken were fixed in "jamaican" style. A pin on the AC vents must have broke and they put in a drywall screw to hold it in place. that screw kept falling everyday (not good when you have an infant aroud the room that puts everything in the mouth). A piece of the counter from the bathroom must have broken and the piece of marble was replaced with a piece of plywood and painted green to "match" the marble... LOL. Water pressure at the sink and bath tub was a joke. It would take my wife about 10 minutes to rinse her hair. with maximum pressure on, it would take a 6 oz glass about 10 seconds to fill. Small water leak from the ceiling in the sink area ( I think it was from AC condensation and not water from outside as we had it all the time. Leak was very slow - it would drop a drip every now and then / not enough to create a puddle. The view was OK not great as too many trees were in the way of the beach view and you could hardly see it throguh them. This was room 921 the Monteplier Building (#7) the one on the extreme exterior of the resort. Also, this building was located right next the the Couples Resort's. At night, between the hours of 9:30 and 11:30 the music is terrebly loud from the resort next door so don't plan on falling asleep prior to that if you are a soft sleeper. $10 left on the pillow the first morning after the arrival ensured the room was always cleaned promptly and propperly. We did notice that room was cleaned really late and towels were missed one day and it turns out the maid that normally cleans our room was out sick that day ( i met her and she offered that information to me without a question ) I guess she knew that the room would not be taken care just as well by someone else. It was wierd to hear her tell us that when she saw us walk out to the beach in the am...

Overall take - this is a 3 star resort (though they don't like to be rated) and the service is not as good as in the Boscobel one. Drinks are good, food is average at best, and service needs improvment. The grounds are too packed while the beach is very large and one of the nicest you will ever see. Cristal clear waters with no sea weeds and the perfect sand. The pictures on their website tend to make the resort look more "aired out and larger" than it actually is. Though I relaly liked the beach, I would probabbly not return to this resort in the future but rather try another one in Negril.

Last but not least and not directly related to Beaches - don't ever fly Air Jamaica. They are terrible. We were late 4 hrs getting in ( that put us at the resort check in @ 11 pm at night). This was due to a late arrival of the incoming plane (while the weather was not a factor that day anywhere on the east coast). On departure, we were about 5 hrs late and didn't get home until 2:30 am which made the trip with an impatient infant a nightmare. A lot or people on the plane were agravated and served with a terrible attitude when they asked for flight status, reason for delays, pillows and blankets that they didn't have enough of. I am a big guy and get hot pretty quick. So when Air jamaica didin't have blankets for the passagers and about half were complaining of being cold, they decided to raise the temperature in the cabin. This was great, except for the fact that I spent almost 4 hrs on a plane sweating... Also, check in is terrible especially in Monego Bay. If you are unlucky to fly air jamaica, keep in mind that they have about 10 counters that check in about 9 flights that take off within a few hours. When we got there ( and this was the same last year - though last year we did american) the air jamaica counter had a line of about 1000 people. If you already got air jamaica tickets listen to this: YOU WILL NOTICE (MOST LIKELY A YOUNG GUY) AN AIR JAMAICA BADGED EMPLOYEE THAT COMES AROUND THE TREMENDOUS LINE LOOKING FOR PEOPLE WHO'S PATIENCE SEEMS TO RUN OUT. TAKE $10, PULL HIM ON THE SIDE - BE DISCRETE - AND HE WILL PUSH YOU THROUGH THE BUSINESS CLASS CHECK IN LINE. YOU WILL SKIP ABOUT 2 HRS OF WAITING ON LINE! I saw him do this about 3 times while on line for about 10 minutes. With a screaming and unpatient baby, I quickly learned the trick.... I am eastern european and very familiar with this kind of things. Picked up on it and got myself checked in faster than you can immagine.

I hope this review helps all travelers. Overall, it's not a bad place, but we expected much better due to our very good previous experience with them. We might try Turks and Caicos with them and move on to other resorts...

Good luck and have a great vacation!

The Beaches property definitely has the best beach in Negril. Alot of the other resorts including, Sandals suffered from beach errosion since I've been there 10 years ago. The beach is narrow near Sandals, Sandy Bay ect. but you get a good ocean view room. Beaches you can barely see the ocean in an ocean view room but you have a spectacular beach.

Beaches is not at the same level as the two Sandals properties we stayed out or the Grand Lido. Service was good, not exceptional. We remembered everyone being friendly, happy, and helpful. It was mixed here. Perhaps it's the new generation of workers.

The food was average. I actual got sick from the food, vomited and had to miss more than a day of vacation. My son also got sick and missed a day but, didn't vomit. My husband had GI distress. I think the oil in my veggie wrap or the salad was to blame. My son says it was bad ceaser dressing. After reading the previous review and their experience with food poisioning, we are now sure it was the salad we had in the same restaurant. We had a bad dessert and bottle of wine in the Seville (white glove dining). The cream was bad, I'm not sure what happened to the wine, but it was great the day before and the day after. We never experienced that before in Jamaicia. Enough staff asked us how we were doing, so we were able to address our concerns. I though they responded well but didn't offer anything. I did ask for mango and it appeared for breakfast the next day.

The kids loved the property and the beach but got tired of the food by the last day. Kids camp was okay, again mixed staff. Entertainment was good but we were so tired from the day, we were not really looking for night life.

Scuba and snorkeling were okay. The reef they take you to is pretty dead.

Overall, I would rate the vacation a 4 out of 5. We had good weather, loved the beach and ocean. The resort and grounds are beautiful. Enjoyed all the watersports. We had our room upgraded, which we loved! The food was average and we spent way to much time at the nurses office. We would go back, ya mon it's Jamacia, but I think I would try the Turks property first.

By the way, if anyone wants to barter for crafts, they love U.S. candy, jeans, Nike, Reebok, perfume. We tipped the maids candy and they were thrilled!