My husband & I just got back from an amazing 2 week stay at the Iberostar Grand (10/25/12 - 11/8/12). We arrived a day after Hurricane Sandy hit Jamaica although the hotel was not really affected rather the city of Kingston, which was very sad to hear of the very bad damage they sustained :( :( It just made us appreciate our fortunate experience that much more. I will give my 100% honest and accurate review of the resort (my opinions of course) but I feel they are pretty spot on, so:
Check-In: easy and great. The ride to the resort from the airport is about 20 minutes so that was great. I might suggest looking into a private transport rather than waiting around for everyone who's supposed to be on your shuttle from the airport to the resort as sometimes the wait can be a little longer than you may want and you may have to stop at multiple resorts before getting to yours. Upon arrival, same as everyone else said, welcome drink, cold towel, etc. The front desk staff are great and if they are able, they will accomodate upgrade requests upon arrival. The lobby is completely stunning in architecture design.
Room: we were fortunate to have been upgraded from an oceanview jr. suite to an oceanfront suite. We had a room on the 4th floor or room #6418. All I can say is that the room was amazing and had everything you could want...very beautiful! You won't be disappointed.
Butler Service: we had the most awesome butler during our entire stay at the resort. His name was Raynard Frater. Raynard had a wonderful personality and really made our stay that much more great. Any special requests my husband or I had he would always make happen. Never was he overbearing, just always around when we needed him. If you have the luck of being on the fourth floor like we were, you will have the pleasure of meeting him - great guy who does his job really well!!!!
Food: ALL AMAZING. This resort really excels in this department over others we have stayed throughout Jamaica & Dominican Republic. This resort really had it down not only at the buffet but at all 4 a la cartes (Japanese, Italian, Gourmet & Surf & Turf). We dined at all of the restaurants including the buffet and I can't say I had one bad meal...everything was delicious. Actually the only thing not so great and it was really kind of comical at how bad it was, was the welcome appetizer at the Italian restaurant...I might suggest either tweaking it for better taste or getting rid of it all together. Lobster and jerk chicken were among our favorites throughout our stay!
Alcohol: The inclusive wines weren't bad...but our favorite which was really good was a red pinotage called Two Oceans...check it out. The lobby bar & cigar bar had the top shelf alcohol (name brands). The pool bar was fine...usually got a margarita or tequila and lime juice or a dirty banana....anyhow, all drinks were great so you shouldn't have any issues here. Also, we had the pleasure of meeting a guy named Morris-Day whose job was to offer guests (if they so desired) a wine menu featuring higher class wines that were not part of the all inclusive package (meaning you could purchase a finer bottle of wine for perhaps an extra special occasion...) We bought a couple of bottles from him. Morris was super friendly and funny and definitely made our stay that much better!!! Check him out :)
Pools - there are 3 of them and all are very nice. The zero edge or no reveal (not sure of the correct term) pool was so beautiful which was the one with the pool bar. When at the pool area we spent most of our time in the middle pool where the volleyball net was - awesome and a lot of fun!!! The pool area had a ton of chairs/beds although a bunch were in shaded areas which is not our style but we found that we ended up waking up early every day so we'd just go down and throw a towel on the bed we wanted to reserve in the sun and had no problem. To the bartenders at the pool bar - great job! A special shout out to O-neil at the pool bar - great service and awesome personality! Also Dwayne & Jerry did a great job.
Beach - beautiful! I guess if I could think of only one thing that would have made this resort just a tiny bit better it would have been to have a longer stretch of beach. The beach was beautiful don't get me wrong but because it was more a private beach with only the Grand and it's two sister resorts on it, it wasn't as long as some of the other properties we have been at. Again not a big deal, it just meant we couldn't walk for miles in either direction ;) The water was beautiful and a great temperature with very clear water. A few pebbles but nothing worth mentioning as a deterrant. Not really any small seashells but the day after the hurricane, there was a guy who found about 8 huge shells right at the shorelilne and he gave us one to take home! I almost forgot, they do have drink service or staff walking the beach to make sure you have any drinks you may want. A very special thank you to a wonderful girl named Kanesha who truly made our experience wonderful. She took drink orders on the beach and was just such an awesome person...very genuine. The beach chairs would have been nicer if they all had cushions on them and unfortunately there were only about 5 beach beds but again same as the pool...we made sure to put a towel on one of the 5 beach beds early so we were always comfortable :)
Entertainment - let me first start by saying that the resort has a group of people called the Star Friends whose job is to try and drum up different activities throughout the day for the guests to participate in to break up the monotony of drinking, beach and pooltime (of course I am joking...I could do that all day long!!! ;) Anyhow, I give these guys so much credit as they have A LOT of talent (especially in the dancing department...they are fantastic!!) They work very long hours: from 10am to about 5, they try to get guests involved in activities (they are by no means overbearing though just extremely friendly and if you're interested great if not no big deal). Then they work the nightly entertainment shows so I think all in all they work about 12 hour days with a 2 hour break each day and one day off per week....that's a lot of hours!!! I'd specifically like to mention the following Star Friends as having the most impact on our particular stay: Short Cake, Sammy, Bubbles, Ki-Ki, Brandon, Andre, Lady Stingray & Diva. Regarding the nightly shows, they do not start until 10 pm so for me I was a little bummed as I guess I'm a 31 year old grandma as I could never seem to stay up too late...we did catch 3 of the shows Disco, Big Band & Reggae night. All in all, the shows are pretty darn good. They also featured some very talented singers and dancers. My favorite entertainment of the trip was the Beach Party that they held either on a Wednesday or Thursday that featured some very impressive acts!!!!! A must see if visiting this hotel! They also had a variety of games/activities and a beautiful beach dinner. Well done to everyone!! Oh yeah, also in the lobby bar (nightly around 8:30pm) they had some very talented musicians, most notable the flute player!!!!!! (and a pianist, sax player, violinist, etc.). Quick shout out to a wonderful lobby bar hostess: Racquel - she was awesome!!!!!!!!!! and a great lobby bartender - O'Neil.
Shops - we went into town once and checked out the Montego Bay hip strip. I really wish someone could give some friendly advice to the locals trying to sell there products as they are just way too aggressive to get you into their stores. I am confident there sales would skyrocket if they just backed off people genuinely already interested in shopping. I believe they just feel that they have to be aggressive in order to get a sale which is very sad as in fact they are deterring people from even wanting to venture into town to shop as they do not want to feel pressured. That being said, I did purchase some nice items (most notably some amazing wooden sculptures which is in my opinion the best thing the Jamaicans have to offer, in addition to some nice baskets, handbags, spices, etc.). You of course should bargain as they will always start high but you can most times get the price down. My only other thought is that some of the stuff they claim to be authentically Jamaican does not seem to be (for ex., one of the handbags I bought, which was a beautiful coconut shell bag, had a made in Jamaica tag strapped to it but when I looked inside the bag, it said made in Indonesia...it was beautiful nonetheless so I bought it anyhow :)
GYM - surprisingly, my husband & I made it to the gym almost every single day of our 2 week stay. In fact we opened it up every day. We were slightly bummed that it didn't open at 6am instead of the daily 7am but it is what it is. It is VERY humid in the fitness center but hey it made us feel like we were working that much harder when we were dripping sweat every time we left ;) The center had 3 ellipticals, 4 treadmills, 3 bikes, 2 steppers and an assortment of weights/other strength training equipment. It met our needs but we did on occasion find the center packed with people with some who left because they didn't want to wait.
Wi-Fi - only available in the lobby and you have to acquire a password from the lobby desk to access. We wished it would have been available in the rooms but again not really a big deal.
Weather: Out of our 2 week stay, we had about 3 days that were straight rain but only starting in the afternoon around 1pm (ish) and those days were more in our first week closer to the end of the hurricane. Our second week was perfect - straight sun. Temps for the stay were anywhere from low to high 80's I would say...awesome :)
Spa - very nice with an assortment of hot tubs/pools to enjoy before your service. My husband got a massage everyday whereas I enjoyed 2. If interested in someone who is strong and knows what they are doing (not saying they all don't but I had the pleasure of having one great girl give me a massage) and her name was Tracey.
Think that's it....any questions, feel free to contact me at fjr@rochester.rr.com! (Teresa)