Royalton Negril Trip Report

We arrived at check-in at Royalton Negril on December 8 and were told that we had to check in at another building. On the way there, our host informed us that we were “Diamond Class.” What a pleasant surprise! The best description is “solicitous pampering.”

It meant that:
1. We had full access to all levels of service — family areas, Diamond beach/pools, Hideaway beach/pool, Grand Ludo beach/pools .
2. We had a suite. The bedroom was bigger than ours at home.
3. We had TWO! Butlers to assist our stay, including beach chair arrangement restaurant accommodations, etc.
4. They gave us a pager to call for anything, including getting our safe to work when we input the wrong codes

Our butlers, Averden and ShayShay were tall, lean, handsome, very personable and VERY professional. Linda says, “They were BABES!” Averden reminded us of Will Smith, but he said that he didn’t make the kind of money Will Smith makes.

All the employees we encountered undergo a 6-month training/vetting process — some candidates decide not to stay. Everyone we encountered was talented, hard-working and dedicated to being excellent hosts/hostesses:
Shakedie (sp?), Angel and Super Mario come to mind. Then there’s the Spa’s beautician Lexi, another interesting & very capable employee, who braided Linda’s hair, and yes, it’s still in braids!

One evening we attended a dinner party for Diamond Class and were seated with a group of Millennials and thought: “What are we in for?” It turned out that we all got along famously and had the most fun of all the tables there.
Our room was drawn to receive a special, 7-course dinner at the “Culinary Experience,” a $150 value, which we attended the next night and sampled Jamaican cuisine. VERY nice!

The food was very good/excellent, but beware that the jerk spices can affect your GI tract.

Breakfast always included an assortment of freshly-baked pastries, including (still warm) croissants (YUM!), fresh, ripe mangos and papayas and several blender juices, in addition to omelets-to-order and the usual breakfast meats.

For our palates, the desserts were a bit odd, but their ice cream & gelato were excellent. Upstairs in the main Lobby, there was a Coffee Shop with espresso (including decaf and Frappucino), pastries, and that wonderful gelato, so be sure to check it out.

The main buffet had three grilles: one serving meat, one serving fresh fish (tuna, swordfish, snapper, sea bass) and one pasta station. In addition, there were restaurants serving steak, seafood, Italian, Teppan and Tex-Mex.

There are four main pools, plus plunge pools on ground-floor units. Most plunge pools are infinity type, as are two of the main pools. The beach in the Diamond area was the largest & best; the others were quite a bit smaller and somewhat rocky.

The only negatives we encountered were electrical in nature in the room. In keeping with Jamaica’s British heritage, the electrical design for the room HAD to be a Lucas product! If you turned the lights on the you entered the suite and turned them off in the bedroom, you could not turn them back on if you went back to the living room (migrating master switch syndrome).
Also, the air conditioning appeared to have a placebo thermostat — one in the living room and one in the bedroom — neither of which appeared to control the temperature.

Perhaps Lucas (“The Prince of Darkness”) was at it again.

One day our butler told us that the General manager (Stephan) wanted to see us. We thought, “Now comes the sales pitch for a vacation club!”, but we met with Stephan in the lobby. It turned out that there was no sales pitch, but that he just wanted feedback, since the resort is a work-in-process, and he was seeking constructive ideas. He agreed that the (Lucas) electrical design drove him nuts, too and thanked us for our input.

As part of our Diamond Class, we requested access to the Grand Lido clothing optional beach and bar. That was where we spent our days, but the beach/ocean access left a lot to be desired. You have to climb down a ladder to get into the ocean, into a small cove shared with Point Village, where you could snorkel. We did not do this, because of some of my disabilities.
The bar & grille served good food and drink. The lower rooms in GL have nice plunge pools and pleasant clients.

One day they had a foam party, where I introduced the idea of “foam bikinis,” which was met with with mirth and laughter.

In conversation with Stephan the GM, he told us that others have repeated our comments the the CO Side could use some major improvements. Our recommendation is that the Hideaway side be made Co and separated from the rest of the resort, with a privacy fence. That would be an easy thing to do, while retaining the ambiance of the resort as a whole.

Would we return? In a heartbeat! We look upon Royalton Negril as a work-in-progress and look forward to returning.

Clarification from DennyP: Royalton/Hideway Diamond Club guests do NOT normally get access to the Grand Lido Negril area. This was a corporate request.

Orval & Linda