first off let me say Jamaica is a great place; but sandcastles... lol, don't bother, they present a bad representation of service in Jamaica.
first off me and my spouse had to wait about an hour for our room, when we finally got it the beds weren't made and there was no pillow cases on the pillows.
the staff was grossly inexperienced and de-motivated and didn't give a damn...

after an hour in the room we wished we could have gotten back our money...
TAKE OUR ADVICE AND GO TO RUI OR JAMAICA GRAND. we left the crap-chute of a hotel. Everyday someone would come banging on our room door asking if we are checking out... we found that grossly inappropriate as the hotel should have a record of the time and date each person should check out. when walking on the grounds of the hotel criminal looking figures were always lurking around and staring at us in a questionable manner. The Sandcastle website needs to remove the pictures it has posted of the rooms because they are fictitious and misleading, the rooms are not as elegant and well put together as they appear online, not unless we got the crappiest room on the hotel but it was a horrible and distasteful experience. we will never go back there even if its for free.

A group of us (15 to be exact) booked this holiday well over a year ago.
We were all laughing and singing on the morning to the airport, we were looking forward this vacation as one of the group would be celebrating his birthday and another couple would be celebrating their 25th Anniversary.
After waiting so long a Montego Bay airport we emerged 3 hours plus later having disembarked our plane sine 2pm, we surfaced at approximately 5:20pm.
Transport was waiting and the driver was very helpful in packing all our cases into the mini-bus.
On arrival at the hotel we met upon chaos in the reception, we were informed by other guests that the stafff at the hotel had taken the day off to attend the previous "Manager's" funeral who was stabbed to death on Montego Bay some weeks ago.
We booked in and was kept waiting for several hours, we were finally given rooms which was not we had previously ordered, but the majority of the group was given studio apartments for 1 person. The frontline staff promised that they would sort things out the very next day.
I was shown to my apartment, which lacked amenities and hot water was none-existant.
I went to the reception to inform them of this and was told that it would be rectified.
Monday morning still no one had contacted me regarding hot water and lack of amenieties. I again approached staff at front desk, who had a problem with manners or did not know whatthey were.
Tuesday I was still fuming and being a person with several health ailments I approached the reception yet again and asked when they were going to rectify the problems i had outlined from Sunday 25th July 2010, no-one seemed to know what I was talking about. I saw whom I thought was the hotel Manager and asked when it would be possible to get the things rectified, especially the hot water, he went into the back office and emerged and I was told to leave it with him. I walked away in disgust.
It was then that Ilearnt that "Thomas Cook had actually sent a representative (Karina) to see us as to how we were getting on.
The group had a meeting with her an outlined a whole array of faults. Karina in turn phoned her manager who stated that she was on the other side of Jamaica but would be available about 3pm at Sandcastles, we all agreed to meet in the reception at 2:45pm.
When several of the group arrived we were informed that they had only seen Karina's Manager scurrying away from the building from the back, she obviously did not stay to hear our concerns.
Later on Tuesday Glen (F&B and Entertainment Manager was actually showing one of the group to their apartment when I asked him about the hot water, I was then informed by the maid that I would be moving next door to the apartment as I had no hot water, my friend from the group stated thast she was waiting for an 1 bedroom studio and not a studio apartment, so Glen and myself decided that if we have what each other wants why dont we swap amongst ourselves, I went and had a look at the apartment and made sure that I had hot water, I agreed immediately.
I returned to my apartment and packed within minutes Glen arranged for a bell-boy to help me move my things. Both us was glad we had finally got what we paid for.
Some of the group still had not been issued with what they paid for after the first week.
The group decided to make the most of our holidays and take it up with Thomas Cook on arrival back to England.
A group of us frequented the bar in the evenings, where we entertained ourselves with a game of domino's.
Each time we ordered a round of drinks the price would change.
When a certain bar-man was on duty no matter how much the change was it was never forth coming, when approached several times regarding this issue the response was "its only $40/50 and you cant buy nothing with that, I informed the member of staff that it does not matter how much change it was I wanted my change and in England where I come from this amounted to "theft". Several of our group still has not received their change (this bald-head light skin bar-man name not known) should be relieved of his post immediately.
The night time entertainment is very limited. The bar shuts at 11pm unless you are happy to give away your hard earned cash to a theif of a bar-man.
In the end the group decided enough was enough and brought our own drinks to the bar as a few days after arriving the bar had run out of local rum redstripe beer and soft drink called "Ting", much to our disatisfaction I cant understand how any place can run out of local rum and beer!
I was glad when my time finally came to leave to come back to my basic home, with basic amenities where you can go and buy a drink at any pub and receive your change no matter how small it is.
I would like to thank "Glen" for stepping in resolve an issue which could have turned nast he did a lot to calm situations and make a lot of people feel at ease.
Its a shame as Sandcastles has a lot of potential given the right staff and Management.
I would not encourage any one to Holiday there or would I return there myself or the group I travelled with.

This place has cut corners in every possible way they can. I stayed here some years ago and was satisfied and decided to give another shot. We were provided a room that was leaking from the ceiling which flooded the bathroom and contacted the office to have someone fix it. We had no use of the bathroom the first 2 nights and had to use our travelling firends. The supervisor refused to changed rooms and their attitude about the issue was completely unprofessional. We came back after a day out to find towels missing from the rooms and again ask for towels and was told they do not have any. The staff began to quarrel over who was responsible for missing had towels. I could not believe it. I would not recommend anyone stay at this faciclity if you can call it that. I ran into a couple timeshare owners at the duty free shop up the street from the hotel and they were complaining the hotel was not paying them for days and weeks rented for them. They have been trying to sell out but no takers and don't even stay there at all. This hotel is an absolute embarrassment .....and that leaking bathroom was never fixed!!

I worked in the travel industry for over 12 years and have stayed in everything from a hostel – 5* accommodation and I am certainly not one to moan unnecessarily.

Firstly some of Jamaica is lovely, we did a week in La Coco Palm in Negril for our first week and it was absolutely lovely. (see review)

Sandcastles is however another story. Where to start with this hotel, it is absolutely no joke when I say this property is horrendous. We moved to this property after booking something that was too far out of the resort, so it was the first hotel we came across in Ocho Rios. Well what a mistake,

• The staff not particularly friendly or helpful
• Within an hour of checking in a maintenance man, the manager and a female member of staff were attempting to go into a room on our floor, although we didn’t think anything of it at the time. The maintenance man was acting as look out, in retrospect it was probably our room because we had just checked in. During our stay we kept receiving strange telephone calls and visits, which was evidently seeing if we were in
• The pool was dirty, murky it had broken tiles and was mouldy (very unhealthy), there was a scruffy piece of rope separating the adult and kid’s section with a very quick drop into the deep end (very dangerous). The waterslide never had the water on and the railing were all rusty
• The lifeguard constantly shouted at the kids, and at one point actually manhandled somebody’s children
• The pool shut midway through the day so the lifeguard could have lunch, have you ever heard anything so ridiculous a pool closing for lunch??
• The pool area in total had approximately 15 sun loungers which were all broken and chairs around the hotel were all missing cushions
• During the day the lifeguard set up a stereo and played booming music like it was a disco around the pool
• The hotel restaurant was dirty and food on the menu was not available
• The bar in the reception area was never stocked up with drinks and staff constantly just helped themselves to drinks
• The poolside bar/snack bar was shut down

We were allocated room A30 which was absolutely disgusting and we were then moved to C22 which was slightly better although not by much. These rooms had evidently not been touched since the place was built. They were dirty, shabby and unkempt, the door frames were broken, doors were peeling, flimsy locks, noisy and leaking air conditioning. A30 had a ceiling fan with propellers missing. The bathrooms were dirty and mouldy with disgusting shower curtains.
Both of these rooms need refurbishing urgently. But this is the funny thing which is not made apparent all the rooms (apartments) at this hotel are privately owned. Some of the owners rent their apartments privately and the others via a rental pool. So some owners have nice apartments however they tend to be the ones which are rented out privately. The others are disgusting and the owners don’t want to spend any money on them to maintain them.

A good source told us the previous manager apparently ran this place to the ground and was stealing money from guests he was stabbed to death in Montego Bay and the new manager they have brought in seems to be doing the same. It is very corrupt and there is evidently a conspiracy going on checking if guests have safety deposit boxes, stealing their belongings etc. In addition the owners of these apartments that are in the rental pool are not being paid the rent and are therefore pulling them out of the rental pool. Apartment owners pay a monthly maintenance fee, however no maintenance takes place around the property.

Please whatever you do, do not stay at this property, you will simply regret it, even if you were lucky to get a nicely maintained apartment it is the rest of the place, staff and security which is the problem. The nice reviews on the internet are from the apartment owners in a bid to try and make this place sound alright!!! We were just lucky not to have anything stolen and this was simply due to my partner staying in the room.