Beaches Ocho Rios Resort & Golf Club, Ocho Rios

No hot water in the rooms? NO hot water in the rooms...for the entire week, any time of day. This isn't going to be a negative rant on the resort...it has some redeeming qualities. However, it is FAR from 5 star...or even 4 star! It would certainly be worth it if it was less money. positives: 1. Buffet breakfast was good but the same each day. Peter the omelette chef was great. 2. All service staff at the restaurants were attentive 3. A la carte restaurants were very nice and tasty. Special shout-outs to Eleanors staff. 4. Excellent drinks...not skimpy on the alcohol. Used brand names too. 5. Friendly staff. Concierge was very helpful. 6. Snorkel excursions were fantastic and free. 7. Xbox room had the latest and greatest games. 8. Waterslides were a blast! Negatives: 1. Did I mention no hot water? Not just in our rooms...but everywhere. They said they would be fixing it in the middle of the night...never did. Just a bunch of lies. The concierge even confirmed that it was not fixable. Makes you wonder about the sanitation of the food products in the kitchen. 2. Bees. You could not even get a drink or an ice cream without being swarmed. They are not as rampant across the rest of the resort. However, the bars and ice cream/ popcorn/ pop machine were covered in them. Kids cannot help themselves without being stung. 3. The arts and crafts is NOT all inclusive. You pay an exorbanent fee! 4. Frequently ran out out plates at the buffet - for 20 minutes! 5. If you want to sit at the pool, wake up early. People put out towels everywhere and never show up. The seats are taken all day long 6. Main pool is FREEZING. Many kids had blue lips in 5 minutes 7. I wouldn't enter the hot tubs. They were cloudy the entire time...and not white cloudy, but black cloudy! Think about the bacteria in there 8. Saw a rat, yes a rat, outside Arizona's restaurant. Not exaggerating! It was bigger than a football. . 9. You pay $16 a shot, just for the "file" on a cd. Yikes! 10. The BBQ park restaurant constantly ran out of certain food. They had burgers and fries all the time. However, many other items on the menu were"all out" by 2:00pm. So was the nachos...so were the onion rings...The 10:00 pm - midnight had nothing except burgers. 11. Glass bottom boat ride...don't blink. Otherwise it will be over. They go about two minutes off shore from their resort. 12. Beggars in the swimming area on the beach. These people wanted to barter with you for alcohol. They beg and bug you. They want you to buy things 13. The waterfront staff were really not interested in making sure that the resort guests enjoyed themselves. They hung out together. The banana boat rides are given only for two hours in the afternoon. Why? The line up was massive. Same for the hydrabike and the kayaks. Why shouldn't you be able to use these features all day long? Because it would interfere with their social schedule. 14. Checking out from the resort in the afternoon? You will pay extra. No courtesy room either. Cash grab. 15. Entertainment in the evenings...not entertaining. Tips If you have booked this vacation spot...don't worry. It will be adequate...you will feel ripped off, but it will be enjoyable as long as you don't think about whether you are getting your moneys worth. 1. Don't complain to any management - they don't give a crap! Look at all the negative reviews, They should care....but they don't even respond to queries. 2. Concierge service....not necessary. 3. Wifi...save your money. It doesn't work. 4. Bring money to tip the transfer driver to and from the resort and another person who carries your bags five feet in the airport out to the bus. 5. Book somewhere else!. 6. Bring your own towels. That way you can save your seats at the pool. 7. Save your money and book club med for this cost! As a seasoned traveler, I was very disappointed. Unfortunately, this place lacks the "luxury" that Beaches is supposed to be.

I attended a wedding at this resort and was unpleasantly surprised!!! My room was filthy and the bed frame was broken. To sum it up, I had to change rooms twice due to filth. I requested an upgrade due to the inconvenience, but they refused. The resort is in desperate need of a MAJOR renovation!! I felt like I was staying at a cheap motel!!

We Hated This Vacation! This was the most overrated and overpaid vacation we've taken. Upon arrival my mother was greeted with a dirty towel and our room was literally disgusting. On our first day we were so disappointed that we attempted to leave the resort and return home but the front desk manager refused to refund any of our money. We then attempted to be moved to a different resort, but according to the manager we couldn’t do that either. I would think that managers would rather lose a guest than make them endure a miserable vacation. We felt like we were trapped and once they got our money we were screwed. The managers are not customer service oriented and are unwilling to provide good service; even after I showed the pictures of our dirty room taken upon our arrival all she did was to move us to another inadequate room. This is a rundown, old, bit up resort that felt very comparable to a cheap cruise ship going on its last trip. The food is gross (Vegas fast food buffet style), the resort is dirty and bit up, and the beach is lame. I personally saw a rat in the buffet restaurant behind the Kids buffet kitchen. When I addressed it with one of the staff members they didn’t seem surprised at all. There were other guests that also saw it . I have pictures of our dirty room and the biggest prize of then all... the largest centipede that we found in our room rapped in our shower towel. When I brought it up with guest service manager she replied that we were at a tropical country and bugs will happen! To my surprise she had an excuse for everything. Interestingly enough I am originally from a tropical country and I never had rats in my kitchen nor centipedes in my bathroom towels. I give two thumbs down to Sandals and Beaches and for binding customers to a bad experience. When I booked our vacation all I had to go by where some photo enhanced pictures that were not at all true to the property condition and a unnacurate 4 star rating from Delta Vacations and once I got there I was much disappointed from the start.

Here is an unbiased summary, just the facts: Food: Buffet was excellent, changed daily and had good quality food although not as much variety as we were used to from other resorts... Beach: Non-existent ... very small (100 feed of usable space literally!), dirty sand, mirky water, no activities, plain awful!!!. Do not be mislead by the pictures as we were ... the beach is small but in addition 1/2 is blocked to launch the boats, the other half is full of chars ... there is literraly no sand to walk on! And in the water they block the simming area about 50 feet into the water .. you only get to the waist so no swimming in the ocean ! If you like to spend time on the beach do not go! And this reasort is called "Beaches" ;-) Restaurants: The Italian had very good food, so so service, and very noisy The Mexican we did not go to since we heard from several people that it takes a very long time and the food is very bad The Jamaican was just for Adults and we did not go but we heard the food was good there Pool: Entertainment was ok mostly for kids, the water was not as clean as other resorts ... you could not see through clearly, and the pool was very small ! Since very few people went to the beach most people spent their time at the pool and you had to get up early put put a towel and some personal things on the chairs if you wanted to be by the pool ! Hot tub water: This was a nice addition comnpared to other resorts BUT they only changed the water once in 6 days ... you could not see your feet when you sat in it which makes one believe there may have been a lot of body waste in there ! In a nutshell ... very dirty !!! Night Entertainment: Average, in six days only a couple of days had some interestinig shows.. the rest were low budget fillers ... Room: ok, except the pull down sofa was horrible, very old, broken springs, will break your back if you sleep on it all night ... assuming you can sleep Room Service: good Water Park: Good for kids ... Adults can use a couple of slides too ... the slides would pinch your back tough at the junctions ... everyone complained about that. We've been to many water parks and this never happend ... Overall Service: Excellent overall for food, room, and any other things we needed help with Cleaneness: dirty bathrooms, the rest was mostly clean Kids clubs: not what they are described as ... we did not use them after we visited them were not impressed Hot Spot: most of the time did not work ... and when it worked you had to be in the lobby in a very small area to use it ... Location: 2 and 1/2 hours from the airport and can be more based on trafic. Will not do this again ... very tough when you have kids :-) Tipping: it was very confusing as we were told they are not allowed to accept tips .. but then it seemed that some were expecting it ... Overall, while we had a good time overall it is not worth the money for what we got .... We would not go back or recommend this to anyone else ...

We got married at Beaches Boscobel 2 weeks ago. This was our first (and the 12 we traveled withs) time to JA or an all-inclusive. Boscobel is one of the lower-end Beaches properties, but still wonderful. You cannot beat it if you have small kids. We all got a thrill out of drinking and eating all day and not paying a bill, lol. The food was fabulous, everywhere, everytime. no complaints from all 12 of us. Yes, the room furnishings and corridors are a little run-down but they try hard to keep them clean. Can you imagine how hard it is to keep everything sparkling when about 75% of the clientel are small children? To be honest, the adult guests don't help much, we saw both kids and adults wasting tons of food, leaving disgusting messes, dirty towels on chairs all day (this is why there was not many clean ones) and these poor jamaicans have no choice but to scurry after them and clean up with a smile. I would not be surprised if they all think americans are fat lazy slobs, considering most of the guests behavior I witnessed all week. All the employees are very sweet and accomodating, everything was always "no problem, mon". My mom paid about $120.00 per night for 6 nights. With all the ammenities, food drinks, ect included, you can't beat that! The wedding coodinator, Kamesha was a doll and made sure my wedding was beautiful and run perfectly. What a job considering they have up to 5 weddings a day! We cannot wait to do another big family trip to Beaches and already priced out the one in Negril, it came in at a whopping double the cost of what we paid at Boscobel. So like I said, if you are budget consious and have realistic expectations, then this resort is perfect. Thanks to the Beaches staff for making my wedding amazing and family happy. Yah, mon!!

We have been to a few of the Sandals and Beaches resorts - The last one being the Sandal's Negril (which we really enjoyed). We picked the resort because of the low cost, how it had the best water slides (aside from Turks), and the proximity to the Dolphin Cove (be warned to spend a lot of money there for a extremely limited amount of activities - about two hours worth). Our eight year old did like the water slides but our teenager had a less then stellar time due to the lack of activity/participation of teenagers. Major complaint by them was that there was no swim up sundae bar with a large ice cream variety while this resort had minimal selection which closed promptly at 6 p.m. The rooms (not next to the beach) were very spacious. The overall atmosphere was a lack of attention to detail (e.g. The water sports had the wrong phone number - and still even after correcting them!). Scheduling scuba, snorkel, and glass bottom boats was extremely cumbersome since you could only book 24 hours in advance. Of course, these fill up quickly so my suggestion would be rushing to the water sports before opening just to sign up if you are an avid diver/snorkeler. The beach front is very small. If you like the "long walks on the beach", this is not the place for you. Also, prepared to be heckled by the 'vendors' whenever going on the dock to one of the boats for your water activities. The Xbox 360 cove, I found to be disappointing as the hours were 10 a.m. - 10 p.m. The display screen were worn and the games were fairly old (including a lot of freezing or erring that the disc was unable to be read). I personally would not go back to this place and would chance on going to Negril. The plus is that Ocho Rios has a lot to offer if you want to go into the town to tour around.

Stayed from July14, 2009 to July 19, 2009. 2 hour ride to the hotel from the airport. Main pool not very clean. Small beach but not bad for just sitting. Water venders block your view of the ocean from the beach though. Very annoying. Hotel won't do anything about it. Very little entertainment for adults. Golf course does'nt get watered so it's like playing golf on pavement. Food was good. No compliants there. Plenty of good drinks. Good place for people with kids under 11 that want the kids kept busy and entertained while the adults sit at the pool bar all day. If that's all your looking for in a vacation, this place is for you. Plenty of better places to go that cost less!! Wont go back.

We had family and friends go to Jamaica (Beaches Boscobel) for our wedding (June 2,'08) As soon as we arrived they wisked my family and gave us at no-extra-cost upgrade!! we could not have had a better room. My daughter at the time was 5 and we never had a problem with her getting bored. The staff was AMAZING with her and just all around. with then 20 min. they knew her name who her parents were and what room she belonged to. i have never felt more safe on a vacation. Our wedding was great, it was in the middle of a storm so we didnt get the wedding on the beach but the hotel staff did everything in thier power to make me happy. My husband and i had so much fun just because there was so much to do at the resort and off the resort property. The food was great. so many restaurants to choose from we had to think of what sounded better and they were all good. We plan on going back for our second anniversary (8 months pregnant for first anniversary) and taking more friends and family. JAMAICA IS MY NEW GET-A-WAY!!!!! The only thing i do advice is the locals will pressure you into buying what they have and they dont take no for an answer, but if you walk away they stop. The locals also hand out at the dock on the resrt where you rent (at no cost) the swimming gear but just ignore them they are harmless

Just returned from a week at Beaches Boscobel and had a wonderful time. It is hard to express the great time we had while there. We arrived on a Monday for a wedding that took place on Saturday. The bus ride from the airport was approximately one and a half hours, but the scenery was beautiful and our driver was so informative that the time went by quickly. From the time we got off the bus the first day to getting back on the bus the last day life was soooo relaxing. The people at this resort were the most friendly people you could ever want to meet. Check in took us maybe a total of 10 minutes and we were escorted to our room and everything about the resort was explained to us. After a quick snack at the BBQ bar place (did learn that their idea of a crispy fish sandwich and my idea of one was not the same, but that was ok, the buffet at the Bayside opened in only a couple hours) we just walked around the resort. The flowers and trees were amazing!! Everything was so nicely manicured and clean. The second day there was beautiful weather, was laying in the sun at 8:30 a.m.!!! What paradise!! Water in the pool was a little too cold for me, did manage to tolorate it enough to float on a raft for a while, but couldn't handle it enough to sit at the pool bar. We ate at the Bayside buffet most of the time, I didn't like everything they served, but there was such a variety of things to choose from I definately did not go hungry. We ate lunch at the Arizona a couple of times, amazing nacho's. The drinks were very good. I mostly stuck to Pina Colada's, Bahama Mama's, and Light Beer. The Bob Marley's definately kicked a few butts in our group. Although we did not have any children with us, I did see lots of activities going on with the children that were there. Seen Sesame Street characters everyday, boy that Cookie Monster sure can dance!!! The entertainment at the stage was really good. A lot of crowd involvement. We did the Chukka Zip Line tour and the Dunns Rivers Falls tour. The Zip Line was the most outrageous thing I have ever done in my almost 50 years of life. It poured down rain the whole time but it was still just amazing. The Dunns River Falls was a lot of fun as well, a little on the difficult side at times but was definitely and experience. The weather was a little crappy at times, but we still made the best of the vacation. There was a lot of wind which made the waves come in along with a lot of trash. The wedding we attended was simply beautiful. It was held on the beach, and the resort crew did a fantastic job of cleaning the beach of all the debris that had washed ashore. This resort was definately a family place, a place for children. If I had small children I would definately return to this resort, but since I don't have any small one, I would love to try another Jamaican all-inclusive resort that was more for adults. BUT I would totally recommend Beaches to anyone with children. Thanks to everyone there so made our vacation truely memorable!!!

I was completed surprised at the resort and lack of attention to visitors and detials. Our family, and most others we talked to were not happy with the hotel. A few of the items: 1)no clean towels on the day we arrived and one day during our trip 2)food: no sterno was used and most buffet food was cold 3)general cleanliness of hotel: I am not one to complain but paint droppings, trash left in hall ways for two days, public bath rooms (either flooded by the pool, dirt on the walls near the Arizona restaraunt) were not well liked. They made very little effort unless conforted to solve any problems but instead told you "yes man" and waited for you to return to ask for help again. The workout room equipment is dated, the open area bar tv's were old and small. One of the things that continued to happen was the warm drinks at diner (wine and beer). So the food was fairly cold and the drinks were warm. The open areas were not well kept and it didn't seem like much was being done to correct the problems. I can say that the next time I hear a resort by the name of Beaches, my responce will be "no way".