Beaches Ocho Rios Resort & Golf Club - Luxury Included Vacation, Ocho Rios

This resort is built on a hillside. There is a lot of stairs to climb from the beach, which is a nuisance. They do have one elevator. One major thing to know if you are planning to go is to take a credit card with you. The hotel is trying to be a cashless resrot and you cannot even use money at the gift shop. I only had cash with me. Big mistake. Trying to book a tour was a nightmare with cash at the resort. Thankfully we were with a group and I gave someone else the money and they put it on their credit card. Conceirage service is a rip off. It was not worth the extra money I paid. Food was excellent. The fruit was AWESOME and they had platters of it at all times. We ate mainly at the Bayside, which is buffet for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We thought it was excellent. The beach was a huge disappointment as it is very small with lots of seagrass growing in it. The beach has a lot of debri wash up, which they do try to rake up and dispose of twice a day. Not the big beautiful beach you would expect, but still a beach. We never had a problem getting a beach chair as the beach was not busy at all. Everyone seemed to stay at the pool. Towels are well stocked at the pool, but never any at the beach. If you are looking at the beaches brochure you should be aware they no longer have the petting zoo or the water trampoline. As a matter of fact the employees when asked knew nothing about either of these things. Point to realize if traveling with kids is that a lot of french people who come here to vacation too and they come with their thong swimwear. The resort is not well lit at night. If I was out alone after dark (even 9 p.m.) I was afraid. The walkways are not lit (only the main areas once you get there). We did have a problem with a few male employees following us at night. Take the tours!!! They are well worth it. Remember to take lots of dollar bills with you as you are expected to tip the porter at the airport $1 per suitcase. You then tip your bus driver to the resort and all taxis or buses you take to get to your tours. You then are to tip your tour guides as this is their income. The resort goes around and take pictures. You are under no obligation to buy them. You just go to the photo shop and look at them and if you want them fine and if you don't that is fine too. You can even schedule your own family photo session right on the beach for free. Every night there was some sort of activity going on at the main stage. Talent shows, line dancing, Sesame Street charachter parades, etc. This is really the only entertainment you can attend with the kids as the piano bars and discos are for adults only. There was not a lot to do in the evenings after dinner. All entertainment was done by 10 p.m. The ride from the airport through the traffic with the road being worked on was supposed to be 2 hours, but took us 3 long miserable hours. They have you check out of the resort 5 hours before your flight. That gives the bus driver 3 hours to get you back to the airport and then the 2 hours you need to get through customs, etc, and have your luggage hand-inspected. All in all I thought we overpaid for this resort, but we still had a good time. I probably would not go back to this particular resort, but would give another Beaches a try.