Royal Plantation 12/26/04 – 01/02/05

We arrived in Montego Bay around 10:00 AM. A slight delay out of Atlanta, waiting for bags to clear through TSA. We breezed through customs in about 10 minutes, and headed for the transfer desk. There was some confusion between the transfer company and the Sandals desk as to who was responsible to get us to Royal Plantation, so we were delayed for an hour waiting for a shuttle. We finally jumped in a van and were on our way. The driver asked if we would want to make any stops along the way. We said we just wanted to get to the resort. He made it there in 1 hour, 40 minutes.

Upon arrival, we were pleasantly surprised to find out we had been upgraded to the Honeymoon Plantation Oceanfront one-bedroom Suite. (We booked the luxury with king bed suite category. We were feeling pretty special, sending mental praises to our travel agent for “getting” us the upgrade. These special feelings were squashed later in the week in a conversation with Suzanne (front desk manager) who told us that we just lucked out and that we were moved because all the luxury suites were taken at the time we arrived. But regardless of why, we were just excited to have the upgrade.). However, our room was not ready (Suite 106), so we were temporarily put in suite 356 (luxury with 2 beds). It was nice to see that room to compare. We would have been perfectly happy with the luxury category, but the Honeymoon suite was awesome. It really spoiled us.

We arrived on the last Sunday of the month, so were able to enjoy the awesome Sunday Brunch. There was every kind of seafood, beef tenderloin, lamb chops, tons of salads, and tons of desserts. All the food there is awesome. We ate dinner at all three restaurants. All were great. We always did lunch at the Royal Café. We used room service for most breakfasts and our last dinner. That really spoiled us too.

The sun was out and the weather was beautiful on Sunday. We were going to get our suits out of our suitcases and go to the beach, but decided to just walk around the resort and wait until our suite was ready. Big mistake. If only we knew that would be the last day we would see the sun.

The service and attention is unbelievable. I can’t even begin to try to describe it.

Some of the people who stand out are :

Andre, Suzanne, LaNesha, Sheree, Maurice, Barbara.

Mr Fraser is also awesome. Very friendly and took time to make sure everyone was taken care of. He was really stressing over the New Years Eve dinner/party as everything was planned for outside and the weather was not cooperating.

The dinner was magnificent and the party was a great time. By the end of the evening, Mr Fraser was grinning from ear to ear.

Speaking of weather – 12/27-12/31 everyday was cloudy/rainy/windy. It was really disappointing and frustrating. All red flag days except for 01/01. But, it sure beat being in Utah with cold and snow and having to go to work. We climbed Dunns River Falls. We shuttled over to Sandals Dunns River and Sandals Grande Ocho Rios to have a look around. We weren’t able to tour any of the rooms at Dunns since they were full. (Speaking of, Royal was full to, yet we never felt like it was).

We had a marvelous time and really felt like family there. It was sad to leave (especially since the sun was out and the weather was clearing up).

Our departure timing was also lucky, as we had no line at the Delta counter and were through immigration in about 15 minutes. USAir and NW lines were horribly long. We waited awhile in Atlanta for the bags to come, but customs there was quick and the lines to re-check bags went fairly quickly also.

So, we are back in Utah, just in time for snow storms. We can hardly wait to go to Whitehouse the end of March and have our fingers crossed for more sun.