His Hers Money

We stayed at the Sandals Royal Caribbean in Montego Bay, Jamaica and it was really nice. The rooms were excellent and came with a jetted tub (which we didn’t utilize), four poster beds and a balcony that looked right out over the ocean. A few little things that we appreciated with the rooms is that there was a little mini fridge in the room with bottled water and a variety of sodas in it which where included in the all inclusive and they replenished them every day. Also, the staff came and serviced your room twice a day. First in the morning for the standard daily service and then again while you were at dinner to pick up and turn down the beds. Since everyone came back to their rooms to shower from being at the pool and ocean all the day to prepare for dinner it was nice that they went in and straightened everything up.

The staff was absolutely wonderful and really made our stay super enjoyable. They did a great job in getting people involved in the activities and just making the days and nights fun. It was great to basically see the same people everyday working around the property and they do an amazing job of actually remembering everyone’s names.

The only thing we can’t really rave about was the dining. Breakfast we ordered in to our room each morning which was great. Coffee, fruit, omelets, any breakfast thing you could really want. Lunch we usually grabbed from the beach side grill and it was fine. Burgers, chicken sandwiches, chicken caesar wraps, etc. Nothing fancy but it was fine.

Dinner was the one thing we wished was just a little better. FOr one thing, I would have like some air conditioning. Later on at night it cooled off and was plenty cool outside but at dinner time it was usually just a little on the warm side. The rooms all had air conditioning in them but the dining rooms didn’t. The food was … ok…. Nothing great, but you could usually find something to eat that was ok.

So, all in all, as I sit at home drinking a Jamaican rum and coke, writing this post I can say we had a great time. We met some great people, a couple of which we exchanged email addresses with, and look back on it as a great trip. We would definitely consider going back to that or another Sandals Jamaica property.

So as you may have read previously in this space, Hers and I will be heading to Jamaica in less than two weeks for a much-needed vacation. Neither of us has been there before and we are very much looking forward to. In order to be able to relax more we decided to go the all-inclusive route and will be staying at Sandals.

The price is most definitely not cheap. However, if we do it right and do not go adding on extras once we are there then I think it is reasonable. We get 3 meals a day and all drinks included while at the resort. Our plan is to mostly just relax on the beach or by the pool for the majority of our time there. This is not one of those vacations where we have a strict schedule of things to see. We just want to sit and enjoy each others’ company.

Now about those extras. Sandals offers everything from guided island tours, horseback riding, dinner ON the beach, and in-room massages. These are all great and obviously we would love to do them all. However, that is where most people make the mistake. They think “We’re on vacation, we should enjoy ourselves and do whatever we want!” The problem is that usually this is where they will pull out the plastic to pay for it as these were unplanned expenses on the trip. If you have things that you absolutely MUST do while on vacation make sure to budget for those expenses so that the month after you get back there is not a huge charge on your credit card that you can’t remember what it was for.

Once we return from our trip I’ll share with everybody how well we were able to limit our expenses.