This vacation was a long time coming, and Kristy and I were ticking off the days waiting for our departure date to arrive. We were originally scheduled to visit the "Plantation" for our anniversary, but some things came up and we had to cancel. At the time, the "Plantation" was under the Beaches name, however, for our trip, they had moved the resort under the "Sandals" name. Hard to tell, since all the linens and chairs were labeled with the beaches logo, but I know of which I speak. Trust me, It's a Sandals, but a step better.

I had the surprice pleasure of flying to Montego Bay, seated next to a Mr. Vincent Tullock, who turned out to be the Bar Manager for Sandals Ochos Rios (SOR). I was wearing my Sandals Negril shirt, and he had a Sandals notebook, and we both caught each other's "logos", and struck up a conversation, and talked the entire flight to MoBay. Vincent confirmed the rumours I heard of a "special" transportation service just for the "Plantation" folks. (Notice the word "rumour" in the preceding sentence) B/c that's exactly what it was. A Rumour. We were greeted by a beat up , worn out Jamaican equivalent of a Nissan Sentra, that had it's moments that I wasn't sure it was going to make it to the resort. It even had cow print seat covers. And that seemed to be the "norm", all the couples I spoke to had arrived in a comparable cow-print sedan. (This was one of my only complaints)

Now, onto the photos......

Our flight left charlotte at 11:00 am We had time for a snack then hopped aboard. With all the fliying time, and the two hour drive to the resort, we got there about 5:00 pm. We arrived in time for the Returning Guests Dinner. We were the odd-man-out, in that this was our first time at the Plantation. The other couples were on their fourth visit, and they hadn't been anywhere else but the "Plantation". We took a few pictures, and headed off to bed.

With this particula booking, if we stayed 5 nights, we got the sixth night free, and a $350.00 credit at the spa. So we did a few things, we go the Couple's Massage for 180.00, (This picture is a good representation of what happens when you take a camera out of air conditioning, and into the humid air) a pedicure for my wife and I (sorry, no pixs), a manicure for the wife, and a brow wax for me. Here's a before, as well as a during. We would highly recommend the couples massage. It's on the beach, and VERY relaxing. But I don't know if we would do it it we had to PAY for it......?

There is one included "tour" when you book at the Royal Plantation, Sandals Dunn's River (SDR), or Sandals Ochos Rios (SOR)...the famous Dunns' River Falls. We booked our tour, and hoped on the bus with one other couple from our resort. The Falls is a National Park, and they won't let you tour it on your own. You must have a guide, and the guide wants to get paid at the end of the tour. We also got hooked up with a videographer, who wants to sell you a video @ the end. Just take your own camera, and take pictures of the shots he sets up...just don't give your camera to him. We "switched" cameras the the other couple, and gave each other free creative license to take whatever pictures they wanted. You end up w/ some interesting shots. Here's a picture at the very beginning, before I got too wet. I only had to rescue my wife once. At the end of the tour, we had our pictures taken with a local's donkey, named Bunny. Bunny wasn't real happy about Kristy being on her, and tried to bolt when Kristy hopped on. I gave the guy a $10.00 and made his day. Also, it was noted it's best to go on the weekends, b/c the cruise ships come in and flock the place during the week.

Our room was the GREATEST!!!! Although we just paid for the base-level room, the "Deluxe" level, we were upgraded three levels to the "Honeymoon Grande Lux Oceanfront" room. It was great, not only because we had an in-room jacuzzi, but because of the views. We had a view of the beach out of our front door, and the ocean out the side windows. I can only thank ONE person for that room and SHE knows who she is. (THANK YOU!!!) We had great moonlight view of the water. Our Room from the water. Alot of the room can be seen in the Pre-dinner photographs, but here's one of me on laying on the bed, in my room supplied robe. I attempted to take some "fine art photography", here's one , and another.

Kristy and I attempted a few activities. My main attempt was tennis, but the weather didn't want any part of it. I was scheduled for two matches on Thursday & Friday, but rain cancelled those. I did get to play w/ the Environmental Manager, Derrick, once. We scheduled to play the day of my departure, but he showed up and claimed he pulled a filling out the night before and was drugged up to deal w/ the pain. I truley believe he was just scared, after my beating him the first time we played. Anyway, we spent some time kayaking and snorkeling. I would highly recommend buying your own snorkel mask and snorkel. The quality of the Sandals/Beaches snorkeling equiptment continues to go downhill, even though I mention it consistantly on the guest questionaire. ( page 2 of questionaire). For my favorite activity, volleyball, we had to visit SOR (not my favorite resort) and SDR (a must-go-to-resort if/when I come back to jamaica). 'Course there were lots of hammock breaks, and drink breaks.

The beach @ "The P" (Royal Plantation) was laid out well. It had a nice beach area, near the beach bar, that provided lots of nice vistas. When the sun got too much, there was a shaded "connector" beach, that connected the East and West beaches. And of course, they had the gazebo that entended over the water. We took a few shots of the gazebo.

All Righty, lets talk about FOOD!!!! The food here was wonderful!!!!!! They lobster on the ROOM SERVICE menu!!!!! Our first day on the beach, I ordered a Lobster BLT. (For those kinda freaky people, the four people in the background of that shot, were also the people at the SSG Dinner). At that point, I vowed to have lobster every day, and I succeded!! Our first full-day-dinner was at La Pappilion.(sp?) Where I had........ lobster. Kristy was looking "fine" in her red dress, so I took alot of photos. For our second dinner, we wanted Italian, so we ventured out to SOR @ Valentinos. It's really great drinking and entire bottle of wine, and NOT having to drive home!!!!
For our third evening of fine dinning, we returned to La Pappillion. We were looking "hot" so we took some extra photos. I can't remeber what all we had these nights @ dinner. I can tell you that most nights, I returned home and ordered lobster , and it was GOOD. I guess I can be honest, .......I did that about every night after dinner. The room service people knew my order when the phone rang, and they saw it was room #161.
We ate outside under the stars, for our fourth dinner @ the Bayside. We also posed for a picture in our room. This was the restaurant that hosted the Returning Guests dinner. I found it odd that the Chef prepared fried chicken for the Returning Guests dinner, which was good, don't get me wrong. But other patrons NOT included in the SSG dinner were ordering steak and lobster off the menu. (Did I mention that I was served Fried Chicken???, granted, the Fried Chicken wasn't available to non-SSG patrons)
Our final dinner was supposed to be nice, and we wanted to go back to La Pappiliion, but we found out that all the restaurants are closed on Mondays (Make a NOTE). And you have a beach party on the beach. Here's shots of our outfits for the beach party.

A Few more extraneous pictures....
Main Entry
Exploring our first night.,br> Our daily trip to the spa, we always passed our spa greeter
A careless fling while on vacation.
Waiting for Kristy.....
Wifey in the water.
View from the room.
Wife in shades.
Me in the water.
Me kayaking.

Our morning of departure breakfast. Last couple-time before returning to our room to checkout. Did I mention that the lock broke on our door, and we were locked in our room, and they hhad to hold our departure bus? Luckily, Kristy whacked the door w/ her hip, and reset the tumblers. But we were locked in our room!!!!!!

Kristy and I would HIGHLY recommend this resort to anybody. The food was great, the staff was outstanding, and did I mention that the food was Great? IF/When Kristy and I do return to Jamaica, we will stay here, and eat here for Breakfast and Dinner. But we will spend our days @ SDR, laying on the Sandals floats in their huge pool, and playing volleyball. There was just something about SDR that I liked immediatley. However, our next voyage is tentatively a Windjammer cruise around the Grenadines. Sandals will welcome us "Home Again" when we return to our Honeymoon resort, The Royal Bahamian for my birthday in 2004.