Buyer beware! That’s the best advice I can give about this hotel. I read numerous reviews about how good the food was; but my wife and I, along with two wonderful friends, sure felt differently. Making reservations is a hassle for specialty restaurants, story to follow. Upon arrival we were greeted warmly, but told that our rooms which were to have a king bed in each only had two twins that they could throw together for us. Not a great start, but we were in Jamaica so overlooked that. We arrived on a Friday and tried to make restaurant reservations for the week, but we’re told we couldn’t until Sunday. We understood this policy in order to give all customers a fair shake. We were told to come back on Sunday after 4 pm. When we arrived on Sunday at 4 pm, we were not able to get a reservation at any specialty restaurant until 9 pm. That made no sense to us, and we’re pretty upset. In addition, that booked us at a sister hotel for one dinner because they had nothing available for that night. We didn’t pay all this money to eat at a lesser priced hotel and restaurant; which by the way, was pretty bland and uninspired. As was all of their food, every night, with the exception of one. The Italian restaurant was wonderful and service awesome, but the rest were just purely bland and tasteless. The buffet, which we went to on our first night because no reservations were available was just horrendous. Japanese pretty much the same, as was surf and turf and so-called gourmet restaurant. We had an awful experience at the Jamaican restaurant one night because our concierge made us a reservation for 7:30pm, or so we thought. We always meet at the bar about a half hour before dinner for drinks and did so that night at 6:45. We actually tried to kill time by waiting until 7:25 to walk to the restaurant. When we arrived, the hostess said our reservation was for 7pm, and that she could not seat us. That’s pretty much where we lost it. After much discussion, she did seat us in a half empty restaurant and said that service was probably going to be slow because we were late. We were not! Breakfast each day was the same offerings and very uninspired compared to past places we’ve stayed, and the grille on the beach served the same food everyday. Our feeling is that they are way understaffed, chefs are uninspired, service is just ok, and willingness to go out of their way for customers (which one would expect from a so-called 5 star hotel) was non-existent. We have travelled with our friends to numerous places in January and February over the years, and our friends are world travelers. We all agreed that this stay was extremely disappointing, and we couldn’t understand all of the good reviews. I hope this honest review helps others who are contemplating staying here.

Upscale all inclusive, "you get what you paid for"!

Staff is all friendly - Jamaicans always are, smiles and greetings, hotel is kept immaculate and food is great. Variety of a la carte restaurants for evening dining.
Judy, Beverley and Sherian made eating experiences extra good, always helpful, friendly and attentive! Kudos to them!

Will definitely come back for more!!

I hate giving 5* reviews because personally, I usually skip over all the 5-star reviews because too many of the people giving them either don't have a lot of travel experience, or are too swept up in the experience to be objective.

Having said that, there is no way I can give this resort anything other than a 5-star rating (unless I could find way to give it 6-stars). Everything about the Grand was perfect: short ride from the airport, which is a huge advantage over a lot of resorts in Mexico, Negril or the Dominican. The food was as good and probably better than you'll find at most resorts. The rooms were big, clean and comfortable. The staff was really friendly without being fake. The pool and the beach were seamlessly connected. Just a terrific place.

The only thing I would request would be to expand the selection of select spirits. Like most resorts, the Grand still hasn't caught on to the bourbon craze taking over the US. Not a lot of choices in American Whiskey. I was also hoping to drink some higher end tequilas, but the choices were severely limited. There was a ton of high end vodka on-hand, and plenty of scotch & cognac.

Last note, this resort is really as big or small as you want it to be. If you stick to the adults-only "Grand" section, it's a pretty small place. And even thought it was at capacity, it never felt crowded (although we were stuck with pretty late dinner reservations most nights because we had a big group). But if you want to go explore the "sister" resorts next door the place really opens up and is comparable to some of the bigger resorts I have stayed at.