I stayed at Sandals Whitehouse on 4/11 – 4/20/2008. We had our Sandals Group WeddingMoon at this resort and 25 of our closest friends and family joined us. I’ve been to Jamaica about three years ago but stayed at the Sunset Beach Resort & Spa. Our expectations of all-inclusive resorts in the Caribbean are pretty low. My husband and I are really easy going and when you’re on vacation…it’s all about having a good time. This resort exceeded our expectations. We will definitely vacation at this or another Sandals resort again. There were some blips along the way but it’s easy to overlook when the sun & sand are a few feet away. Below is a brief outline of the entire trip below.

Airport & Shuttle Bus:
MBJ has greatly improved since the last time we were in Jamaica. We didn’t have to get off the plane on the tarmac and there was some A/C inside. We arrived on Friday morning and we breezed through customs within 5 minutes. I suggest you arrive on a weekday morning because our friends arrived on Saturday afternoon and waited for an hour and a half to get through immigration. We took a direct flight from JFK on AirJamaica. Our luggage arrived and we hurried along into the Sandals waiting area. You can’t miss it and there are several people asking you which resort you are heading to. It was a bit of a mess to get everything sorted out with the Sandals lady giving us tags for our bags. Mainly because there was 12 of us and there were too many bags. We were afraid to leave our bags outside but all our bags were accounted for. We had to wait 25 minutes for the next shuttle bus and went inside to get some refreshments & restroom. Finally, we got on the shuttle bus (medium sized van with A/C) and they made sure to tell us to tip them $1 per bag. That seems reasonable since my suitcase alone weighed 50 lbs. The trip really does take 90 minutes but there was a lot to see along the way. I recommend you to take motion sickness pills beforehand because the drive through the mountains is bumpy. We stopped half way at a rest stop.

Arrival & Rooms:
We arrived at Sandals Whitehouse in good time, sorted out our luggage from the van, and were ushered into the lobby. They provided us with a wet towel and champagne to cool off. Since we had so many guests stay with us we were automatically upgraded to the Honeymoon Beachfront Penthouse Concierge Suite in the Dutch Village. All of our guests stayed in the Premium Beachfront Room in the French Village. We all booked 8 months ahead of time and received a decent rate of $380 per night. It’s still pretty pricey (compared to the resorts we’ve stayed at before in the Caribbean). We headed to the Concierge office to get our room. We had to wait about 20 minutes so we headed to lunch at Bayside (buffet style). The Concierge office has entire library of books so you can read while you’re on the beach or pool.

Our room was relatively clean but the whirlpool bath looked a bit dingy. We didn’t try it out since we had the pool, hot tub, and beach outside. We had a separate shower area and double vanity counter. We also had some extra shelves to put our luggage. Other than that, the rooms compared to our guests were the same. I thought our room was decent, spacious, and clean. We had a fully stocked bar (rum, scotch, red wine, and champagne) & fridge (at no additional cost and they refill every night). They cleaned our room (room 2409) by noon and all the rooms had turn-down service nightly (and they replaced all our towels). They say that all the rooms are beach front but some of the rooms are definitely blocked by trees or building structures. Our view was amazing. We sat out to see the sunset on several occasions. I couldn’t stay out for long because the mosquitoes kept biting me and they somehow ended up inside our room.

General:
The resort itself was large but not large enough that it required a shuttle (which Principe Bahia Principe did have in Dominican Republic). I welcomed the exercise; otherwise I would have gained 10 lbs. instead of 4 from all the food & booze. Entertainment was really lacking and since we stayed 9 days we realized they had the same entertainment repeated every week. You really can’t stay at this resort for more than 7 days. I think 4-5 is more than enough. We went to the disco a few of the nights but no one was really dancing except for my friends and me. One night was oldies, then 80’s, techno/dance, and the other night was reggae. Most of the guests at this resort are either coming for a wedding, renewal of vows, or middle-aged couples. This resort is not for Spring Break. It’s more for rest & relaxation. We had to wake up early to really enjoy the sun. The clouds & rain rolled in around 1-2 pm and didn’t clear up until 5-6 pm (dinner time). The sun was scorching by 9 am. We spent the majority of the day going napping on the hammocks, shooting pool or playing ping pong at their arcade, going snorkeling, sailing, and hanging out at the main pool or beach. We tried all their water sports activities (all included in the package). I’m prone to mosquito bites so it wasn’t a surprise when I was bitten in 20 different places. Luckily most of the bites were small and I armed myself with a ton of bug spray before leaving the room (day and night). There were sand fleas but I was able to get through the week… just remember to bring bug spray and Gold Bond to ease the itch.

Pools:
The Riviera Pool is their main pool and it’s huge. We mainly stayed at this pool. The pool by the Dutch Village is relatively small and it smelled like garbage at night (because it’s right next to the bar). We took midnight dips at the hot tub. I liked the pool by the French Village. It’s a decent size. There are a lot of people hanging out there during the day (younger crowd) and Bluefield’s restaurant is right beside it. We played volleyball there at night (whenever they left the net up). All the pools have a swim up bar.

Beach:
The beach was lovely with soft sand and the water was a clear blue green. We saw fishes and star fishes in the shallow waters. There’s a lot of seaweed and rocks (our friends got cut on their feet from the shells & rock), so be careful and bring water shoes. There’s an area between the Dutch and French Villages that does not have any seaweeds. The water was pretty wavy so we could not snorkel there. The beach chairs w/ umbrellas were usually taken by 9-10 am so you have to arrive early and place a beach towel there (available at the pools). Also, be careful if you’re going to get up on the floats they have in the ocean. My friend cut her knee pretty badly trying to get up on it. The bottom part scraped her up and she was bleeding all over the place.

Restaurants:
The resort did not seem to be full (it never seemed crowded) but there was always a 30-40 minute wait at the restaurants for dinner. For breakfast we ate at Eleanor’s (decent omelet) or Bayside’s (buffet style – their spicy pepper steak was delicious and you can have them make your omelets any way you want). The fruits were not in season because they were all tasteless (except for their mangoes and papayas). I love their coffee and Jasmine Green Tea. For lunch we ate at Bluefield’s (their jerk chicken, jerk sausage, Jamaican beef patty, and jerk calamari were awesome). We also tried Bayside (okay food, nothing spectacular) and their TexMex restaurant, Arizona’s. Our favorite places to go for dinner was Bayside’s (order the steak … medium rare… you won’t be sorry) and Arizona’s (the steak here was also pretty good). I’m a meat lover so I had steak 4 nights in a row! The food at Guiseppe’s (Italian restaurant) and Eleanor’s were alright but not great. You can’t really expect much from an all-inclusive resort (in terms of food) but I thought the food was okay. My favorite was Café de Paris (the French pastry shop). The pastry & ice cream was awesome. You don’t have to make a reservation for dinner but the wait can be up to 30 minutes (unless you go before 6:30 or after 8:30). Dinner can take up to 2 hours because they serve you extremely slow. This is probably why you have to wait for a table but oftentimes we saw a ton of empty tables that were “reserved” already. You can call ahead to reserve the table at the front desk. Definitely call ahead if you have 8 or more people in your party. Each restaurant can only fit 6-8 people at a table (and only a few of them are set up).

Here are a few drinks that we liked – Jamaican Smile, Dirty Banana, Purple Rain, BBC with Amaretto, & American Flag. The pina colada was pretty good.

Shops:
You will most likely get stopped by one of their photographers during your stay. They keep the pictures up to two weeks and you can receive it on a CD or printed (the cost is the same). It’s pretty pricey…it’s $15 per image, 10 images for $95, etc. We bought 11 images on a CD for $110 from their SnapShots store and we had a 10% discount coupon that was given to us by their gift shop. However, the lady ringing us up didn’t know how to use the coupon and there was no manager in the store. Instead of giving us the discount she gave us a free Sandals picture frame. I thought this was a very nice gesture from her. You’ll find most of their employees always have a welcoming smile on their face. Their gift shop was pretty pricey but we were able to find picture frames and key chains for our family & friends back home. We spent about $400 throughout our stay. The resort gives you a card that’s linked to your room so you can use it for all the shops. This is good because you don’t have to carry cash or your credit cards (and worry about losing it). Of course, you can overspend without knowing it!

Wedding Consultant / Experience:
Our wedding consultant was Rouchelle Harvey and she was very pleasant to deal with. We arrived Friday afternoon and our wedding was Sunday afternoon. No one contacted us on Friday and we were very concerned by Saturday. It turns out no one left the wedding book in our room (our appt was at 9 am on Saturday). Luckily, we headed to the wedding office after brunch. She apologized profusely. Then we realized the details she was giving us didn’t include what was in our contract. We soon realized she thought we were having a regular WeddingMoon package instead of the Group WeddingMoon package (which includes a free massage for the groom, mani/pedi for the bride, a free welcome cocktail reception and a private rehearsal dinner for our guests the night before). It turns out our Wedding Consultant in Florida never told her we had the group package. Luckily I printed out our contract and all the e-mail correspondence I had with the Sandals. She couldn’t do the rehearsal dinner because it takes a week beforehand to book the place & plan it out. Instead she offered the dinner after our cocktail reception in one of their banquet halls. It really worked out better for us because a few of our guests had trouble with their airlines on Saturday and did not arrive until late at night. The dinner at the banquet hall was amazing and private… our guests thought we spent a fortune to book it.

Overall my experience at Sandals Whitehouse has been wonderful. I plan to try out another Sandals resort (maybe the one in Antigua or Bahamas) but may come back to Whitehouse for our anniversaries.

My husband and I stayed at the SWH from April 5-April 12. We are both 40 and well travelled as far as the Caribbean goes, having been to a dozen all inclusives including 5 Sandals and 4 Excellence resorts (another adults only “luxury” chain of resorts).

Here’s the good and the bad about SWH...including experiences that are different from others posted on this site.

Getting there:
Expecting the worst from some reviews on this board, I was pleasantly surprised with the drive. Sure, it’s not a North American highway, but it’s not nearly as bumpy as some have said. The most hair-raising part of the drive was coming extremely close to oncoming traffic. Our driver was excellent, so I always felt safe. The drive took almost 2 hours as we stopped halfway for drinks, bathroom break, etc. for the convenience of our large bus load. I don’t think vans carrying just a few people from the airport generally make this stop.

Check-in:
A low point for a few reasons. First, there was a large banner outside the hotel to welcome a corporate group. This automatically got my spider senses tingling, you’ll know why later. Cold towels were given to everyone getting off the bus. Nice touch, but what I really wanted was the champagne which was not readily available.

Rather than checking us in on a “first come first served” basis, our entire bus load was told to sit in the lobby for what seemed like a very long time while nobody looked after us. This is not an enjoyable experience after having been travelling for many hours, and just wanting to check in quickly and hit the pool.

Paperwork was eventually distributed, including questions about whether we are celebrating a wedding, honeymoon or anniversary. I repeated on the form what I’d indicated at the time of booking, which was that our wedding anniversary was during our stay, and that our wedding had taken place on another Sandals property. Given Sandals’ emphasis of the “love is all you need” theme, and the fact they ask whether we are celebrating a special occasion, I had the expectation that they would recognize that event at some point.

We were all eventually checked in, given champagne (sweet, yuk) and shown to our rooms. Unlike other resorts (e.g. Excellence) which recognize special occasions with rose petals on the bed, chilled champagne and a fruit plate waiting for you in your room, SWH provided nothing of the sort. No big deal, I thought. They’ll acknowledge our anniversary some other way later in the week. As you’ll see later, that was not the case.

Crowd:
A few people in their 30s, with the majority being in their 40s to 60s. If you are in your 20s, this is not the place for you. Many Americans, but also a good number of Canadians, Brits and Germans. Most of the Germans were with a very large (approximately 100 people) corporate group that was there the whole week.

The fact that Sandals accepted this group was one of my biggest beefs with this resort because it is very contrary to how they market themselves (e.g. couples only, love is all you need etc…). We should not expect to see any corporate groups (or kids) at any Sandals resorts – particularly a group that size, and particularly when the group is offered privileges that are off limits to the other guests as you’ll see later.

Rooms:
We were upgraded from a “Deluxe” (i.e., cheapest) room to a “Grand Deluxe” room which is slightly larger. I suspect the upgrade was because it was our 5th Sandals stay, and not because it was our wedding anniversary. While the upgrade was appreciated, it seems that virtually everyone gets one, so it’s not particularly meaningful.

Our room was on the 3rd floor on the Dutch Village. Good location, nice room, good bed (if you like it hard), good shampoo, conditioner and hairdryer. No complaints.

Pools:
Great pool choices, should please all tastes. Never felt crowded, plenty of chairs and floaties, although towels were sometimes scarce late in the day. Perfect water temperature. There is no drink menu by the swim up bars (or any other bar) so research your drinks before you get there. Also, there isn’t any bottled water available from the bars, so keeping hydrated with non-alcoholic drinks can be a challenge.

Beach:
Large beach with nice sand and plenty of chairs for everybody. Beverage service on the beach (like they have at the Excellence resorts) would sure be nice though. Depending on where you’re sitting, the walk to the nearest bar can be quite far.

Activities:
We’re not big activities people so not a lot to offer here other than noting that the water aerobics are much better than other places we’ve been to in the Caribbean. Still, I could have done without the photographer taking pictures (for purchase) the entire duration of the class.

Restaurants:
Overall, all restaurants offered very good food (with normal portion sizes), although the beverage service was often slow, particularly in the daytime. The four house wines (2 reds, 2 white from Beringer) were all decent, although the Cabernet Sauvignon was sometimes unavailable. The Café de Paris is a great concept that more resorts should have, although its breakfast selections are somewhat thin considering it’s the only place that offers food before 7:30 am (for those with early morning flights). For those going to regular breakfast buffet, don’t be surprised if you find the lineup for the omelet station confusing, particularly on crowded days.

Three aspects of the restaurant experience left me more disappointed though. First, the corporate group was given preferential over the other guests on some occasions. For example, there were instances where *all* the outside seating was reserved for the group for the *entire* meal period (whether breakfast, lunch or dinner) leaving us with no choice but to sit inside. While I generally don’t mind waiting for a table outside, in this case, no amount of waiting would have made that possible. Those tables were simply off limits to the “regular” guests. I complained about this to various individuals and got responses ranging from dismissive (restaurant maitre d’) to very apologetic and accommodating (Philip Dawson, the Food and Beverage Manager).

Second, the evening restaurants really need pagers to let you know when your table is ready. The wait for a table can be quite long, and being “forced’ to wait in the Martini bar is confining (not to mention dark and cold) unless you want to take the chance of wandering outside and hope that they’ll find you. Also, it’s quite conceivable you could be sitting in the Martini Bar and miss your table announcement because the noise of the crowd.

Third, one of the restaurants (Eleanor’s) did nothing to acknowledge our wedding anniversary on the day of the occasion. Until that time, SHW hadn’t recognized the event other mentioning it in the daily newsletter on the wrong day with both our names misspelled. I therefore felt compelled to tell the maitre d’ about our anniversary when we asked for a table at the restaurant, secretly hoping that they’d do something about it in the spirit of “love is all you need”. We ended up waiting over one hour for our table (up from the 45 minute estimate) with no acknowledgement of anything during the meal. At a minimum, I think SWH should acknowledge special occasions by allowing people to make restaurant reservations, thus saving them a long wait.

Returnees Dinner:
A good event, well attended by 100 + returning guests and staff. It takes place in the ballroom, has open seating with a set menu, and best of all, is low on speeches. Every guest is given a sandals “necklace” and a bottle of rum.

Entertainment:
Pretty bad. SWH’s best entertainment effort is offering – and aggressively promoting (e.g. reminder calls and notices in your rooms) -- an art auction almost every night. I think there is something fishy about those auctions. Most people do not go to the Caribbean to buy art, and besides, getting the art home is a problem because of shipping, customs, duties etc…

The best entertainment was probably the magic show. Unfortunately, I had to enjoy it with the corporate group’s banner hanging above the magician’s head -- yet another reminder of the clientele Sandals was aiming to please.

What is Sandals?:
Without question, this is a nice resort from an amenities perspective. However, I was disappointed that SWH didn’t deliver on its promotional lines (e.g. couples only, “love is all you need etc..), first by accepting a corporate group (especially such a large one), and second by not acknowledging the special events (e.g. wedding anniversaries) of the couples who are their core target market.

I would not take any issue with these actions if the resort in question was any other than Sandals. However, their marketing efforts build up expectations about what the resort is – and isn’t -- all about, and every effort should be made to deliver on what they advertise. Our experience was not “as advertised”, and as a result, I don’t think our next trip will be to a Sandals. More likely to an Excellence resort.

I have read a few of the recent reviews and, whilst my review is not all positive, the things we found to be negative are different to those of others - which shows that everything is a matter of opinion.

We flew into Kingston via British Airways so made our own arrangements to Sandals Whitehouse with an overnight stay at The Hilton. Our taxi driver gave us the history of Jamaica during our 3 hour trip and we felt we had 'seen the island'.

On arriving at Sandals we were greeted with champagne and cloths and were checked in very quickly. We were unable to be offered an upgrade even though they knew we were on honeymoon as they were at capacity.

The porter informed us that it was our choice whether we gave a tip, so of course we did. I understood tips were 'prohibited'. I also noticed 'sly' tipping at bars.

Our room was clean and very comfortabIe, although I was disappointed with minor things such as lack of robes and slippers but our towels were changed twice a day, beds turned down etc. We did have the need to call reception a few times as milk, coffee etc had not been replenished but, although they promised immediate attention, new stocks did not arrive until the next day. I learnt to collect sugar and milk from the Partisserie and take it back with me!

Our first week was everything we had hoped. Quiet, romantic, friendly...perfect. During the second week, however, two large wedding parties turned up (approx 30 - 50 people in each party). One party was staying at our village with some of their guests next door. These people were noisy and rowdy and tarnished our visit. They completely took over the pool with their agressive volleyball - the net should have been removed but was left up all day. They did not change their dress in the evening so were wandering around in shorts with no shirts (men obviously) and trying to get into the restaurants when we were trying to have a 'romantic' meal. They were loud and obnoxious and people were trying to avoid walking through the middle of them. When we mentioned the problem to staff we were told that 'they are on holiday too so can do what they want'. I was very disappointed with this reponse as Sandals is sold mainly as a wedding/ honeymoon/ anniversay vacation and we specifically wanted somewhere romantic. The 5 star restaurant Eleanors actually made them a takeaway!

There were also those (and I have read this on another review) who felt that the whole pool/restaurant needed to hear their conversation and you did actually get sick of their voices. You may think much of this is beyond the control of Sandals but we felt that more security should have been in evidence in the evenings to remind people how to behave (especially when one of the party were being sick below our balcony or people were afraid to go in the French pool for fear of being hit with a ball!).

We loved the French pool during the first week but moved to the larger pool for the second, and we did have lots of reggae music.

The majority of staff were lovely: Christopher, Roary, Avril, Dian, Headley to name some. The worst I found were in the shops or the Red Lane Spa.

We found the food to be very good. The 'Tex Mex' was mainly french fries so we only went here once. Portion sizes we found ample and I never once finished a complete meal. We had to have a very small lunch in order to ensure we could finish dinner, so I guess this depends on the size of your appetite, but my husband is 13 stone so likes his food. The Jamaican restaurant at the French Village was lovely.

They had all the spirits as far as I could see except Bacardi - which is my drink - but nevermind, there were lots to choose from.

Did we have a great honeymoon? - yes, just about. Would we go here again? probably not, although had you asked during our first week we would have said definitely yes. But this is often the case when you go anywhere for 2 weeks. I think I would choose next time to do one week at one resort and then move to another for the 2nd week.

I really really loved this hotel. I thought it was gorgeous! I went there with my husband for our honeymoon and we were thrilled!! We stayed in the honeymoon concierge suite and it was really nice. We were greeted with drinks when we got to the hotel, which I loved! The room had an awesome view. We were on the 4th floor in the Italian village. The ride from the airport to the hotel was a little scary, but not too bad. The ride back was a lot better.

There were plenty of activities to do daily, but you didn't have to if you just want to chill out. The restaurants were great! I had a hard time getting used to the fact that I didn't have to pay for anything! We hung out in the main pool the whole time, but youhad a bunch of them to choose from. We really loved the martini bar and the Arizona bar had the best bartenders at night!

The night life wasn't too too great. We found that we were the only ones wandering around late nite, but that's OK with me because we didn't want to be around that type of crowd anyway for our honeymoon!

We did the candle light dinner on the beach and that was really nice too. Overall, I loved Sandals Whitehouse and really really want to go back there!!! The staff was awesome and super nice and really helped us out with any little issues that we had. Totally recommend this place!!!