Hideaway at Royalton Negril Adults Only, An Autograph Collection - All Inclusive

Customer Ratings & Reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

7605 reviews

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  Four stars for the staff, deduct one point for the Royalton

  The Royalton Negril is located on a beautifully calm beach on a massive property with lots to do, or not do. Overall, this was a very good stay. We were fortunate to have friends with us, so we enjoyed almost everything with a great deal of optimism. Firstly, it's important to recognize the staff at this hotel, the most commendable being Natasha in Guest Services. Thanks to Natasha for being our inside girl, who helped with everything both before and during our trip, however minor. Other honorable mentions: Michelle and Danielle at the buffet, Dimitri the photographer, Denise at the spa (thank you for the most remarkable massage!), Andre at the gym (knowledgeable, helpful, friendly), Charmaine at the tex-mex specialty restaurant, Horace at the martini bar, and Melissa the room attendant who kept our room as close to pristine as it could be, as we are absolutely slovenly on vacation. Shout out to the DJ at the white party who threw it down for the Caribbean delegation; thank you! The buffet is delicious and frankly, the specialty restaurants pale in comparison. The options are plentiful and consistently delicious. We appreciated that there was local fare to be had at any seating, as well as a Kid Corner, pizza, pasta, a carving station, a grilling station, salads, breads, drinks, and multiple dessert options. Bravo to all the staff who maintain these numerous options and special compliments to the chefs who make it all happen! It was concerning to see only one person at the dessert station, single-handedly managing making crepes, scooping ice cream, and serving desserts from the cold display. The hotel and grounds are immaculate. Cleanliness is not remotely an issue. We noticed that the people above our swim-out suite kept throwing food onto our balcony and into our pool. Natasha took care of it and it was cleaned up immediately. The landscapers are clearly always busy. We noticed several times that people were still working after dark (even with the sun setting late!), but their equipment isn't up to par. The staff had to use small flashlights to replace light fixtures or scrub the pool deck. The food at the pool is pretty impressive for resort food. The jerk chicken is nice to have, but they will not serve when it rains. The rain pelts into the jerk hut, making it difficult to do so. The food truck also has nice patties, but they run out of food pretty regularly (at least, that was the case during our stay). The staff at these 2 stations plus the bar are extremely busy at all times, making it difficult to get service. This isn't the fault of the staff, who are constantly on their toes. Service on the beach is very spotty though, so we regularly had to leave the beach to get our own drinks (not a bad problem to have, but would have been great to have more consistent service). Our room was beautiful, though difficult to navigate with a large jacuzzi tub situated awkwardly in the bathroom area. The swim out pool is great to have; we used it even in the rain. However, many tiles were missing and that certainly took away from the luxury of the pool. In addition, there were other issues with the room: the facing on the door lock kept popping off, the air conditioning did not work and the room was much warmer than desirable, the drain in the shower smelled terrible and the room subsequently was smelly throughout our stay, the bathroom door jamb was hastily repaired (probably due to an incoming check-in and not necessarily a staff problem but a management problem), and there was a hole around the sprinkler head in the room. We hesitated to complain during our stay as we were in and out of the room constantly and did not wish to be disturbed at any point. Also, I should point out that using the app is far more effective than calling (the phone in our room didn't really work anyway!). I called for a couple of housekeeping requests but it was only a couple of hours later, when my husband put the same request in the app, that it was fulfilled. The entertainment at night is honestly incredible. One of the shows sort of felt like those fake luau's on Hawaiian properties that are done for the tourists; great fun, if not a little cheesy. But the entertainers are truly talented people and they are worth cheering for as loudly as you can! All in all, if the people at this resort worked anywhere else, that place would shine just as bright as the Royalton. It's the people that really were the best part of this stay. The facilities can be found in any other Caribbean country. The spa is gorgeous, the pool is lovely, the food is delicious. Of course the beach is divine, thanks to Mother Nature. The hotel is beautiful, thanks to the attentive people who take care of it. Largely, our problems were due to processes and/or resources given to the staff: check-in is a bit of a nightmare and took probably 40 minutes even though we arrived after check-in time. Having one person manage a large dessert station at the peak of dinnertime is frankly deplorable. Providing staff with little to no light to work after dark is equally deplorable. A front desk at a property this large should be staffed by a minimum of 3 people at all times; there were maybe 2 at any given time. This made it difficult to get any attention at the front desk and when we did at one point, the computer didn't work! Management should review the jerk hut's policy of not serving during rain; staff must take the brunt of sunburned, hungry tourists when rain is falling and the hut must close. A renovation might be in order - to avoid rain being an issue during service. All of these problems happened because of either a resource issue or a process issue. Don't blame the middle managers or the staff; Royalton should pay and treat employees well and provide working, useful resources and tools to ensure a job is done well and completely. This is how you retain a consistent, dedicated staff. People can't be expected to cobble together a fix and have it work well. Hospitality workers everywhere are unbelievably overworked, though not one single person complained. In fact everyone here was smiling consistently which is a testament to their patience with both the management company and the guests. I hope that these lovely ladies and gentlemen get the recognition (and pay, frankly) that they deserve. Thank you Natasha and the staff at the Royalton. With your help, everything turned out to be, indeed, irie.

  Jun 28, 2025
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  A resort in distress?

  Beautiful beach, nice pools, some of the evening entertainment was fun. The resort itself had many obvious issues. It's easy to blame the staff, but the problems seem to originate at the management, corporate and operations levels. Biggest example: there was no hot water in showers for 3 days (and some rooms had no shower water at all), yet this was not mentioned to guests upon check-in. The hotel's strategy was to wait for guests to realize the issue and then staff were left to handle their concerns. There were many alcohol and food items that kept running out. They would be inconsistently restocked at some bars but not others, and bartenders and wait staff were not made aware when or where these items were available again on the property. Food on site was often repurposed (usually pulled from the buffet) and did not always match menu descriptions. You order tater tots in the sports bar, you get breakfast hash browns from the buffet. You order a garden salad with mustard dressing from room service, you get some lettuce and bell peppers with actual yellow mustard. It had the feel of a hotel trying to cut costs. And this extended to the staff: we did not get the feeling they were well-supported or set up for success by management. So no surprise that wait staff service was inconsistent and varied person to person. Some were wonderful, others were checked out. Was not surprised to learn there had been a staff walk-out recently over wages. If you can go with the flow and keep expectations in check while you enjoy the beautiful surroundings, you might be happy. If you are expecting a five-star experience for the money you're spending, you may be disappointed.

  Jun 27, 2025
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  Failed to meet expectations - largely due to poor service

  We were booked into a 3 star, but found out the pool was closed. We changed the day before travel, to this resort, very consciously knowing it would not be an authentic Jamaican experience. Rather, a 5 star, big scale, all inclusive resort you could get anywhere, but that was the choice we made. We were right - big scale, not authentic, but... wrong in thinking it something you could get anywhere. For the price, this place failed on so many levels. Not one big thing, but lots of little things. For starters, the service is beyond poor. While there are a "FEW" friendly people, generally, you get the feeling that they all hate the place and the customers even more. There is a major workplace culture problem here. Consistently poor. If we were paying the 3 star price, it still could not be overlooked... we would have still been made feel unwelcome. Won't go into detail, as it was just so consistently bad, but wanted anyone coming here to know of this issue. The friendly staff that we talked to (and there were some), knew about the issue and told us to report it to management. They could clearly see something was wrong, but did not feel they could do anything about it. When we checked in we were told there was no hot water!! They were digging around the resort, and we had no line of sight as to when that would be resolved. They kept staying "tomorrow". It was three days without hot water in a 5 star resort. We get it, things like that can happen, but not an ideal way to start. We checked into the Ocean View, Butler Suite, Diamond Club room, and quickly upgraded the next day to the Swim Out. That was pleasant. We did hear other guests complaining about smells in their room, but we did not have that problem. Our family had the Ocean view, and they did not either, but be ware - some did! The only thing the butler system brought us was some flexibility with dinner reservations, although had to plan well in advance. We met others who were not in Diamond Club and basically said they could not get reservations. Strange as most of the restaurants were half empty (at least at earlier dining times). Otherwise we did not really use the butlers and saw little value in it. The kids club was simply unusable. We had our young nieces (6 and 4) and when we entered the kids club, the environment was poor - like a dungeon. Very dark, no windows, poor standard. We maybe "could" have turned a blind eye to that, but it was the staff that put us off. There were a few kids playing by themselves, and a staff member slouched in the corner on her phone. She was a few feet away from us, and did not acknowledge us at all. She yelled out to someone, no one came. We could not leave the kids with someone like that. She was not engaged with the kids in the club, nor us, as visitors. Eventually said, you have to register online. We reported her and hope that they move her to either a behind the scenes role, where she does not have to interact with the public (no less kids). This was probably one of the biggest hits to the value equation - we expected FAR more. Had not planned to use it a lot, but would have been a nice option for the kids. The food was OK. Nothing amazing. Always could not provide at least one menu item. No matter where we went. Example. No pizza at Italian restaurant. Ran out of certain drinks everyday. No big deal, just consistently out of stuff. The beach area in front of Diamond Club is nice. The pool nice. The towel situation horrible!! You are made to feel like a criminal when asking for towels. We learnt, that if you do not collect in the morning - you will NOT have towels in the afternoon. Told to use your bathroom towels. They simply ran out every day. The room service would not do gluten free so no use for my wife and daughter. Otherwise they did an OK job of catering to gluten free. We did hire a beach cabana one day. Added little value. So in summary - we would not stay here again. For the price, it is NOT value for money. Being our first Royalton experience and having stayed in a variety of true 5 star resorts - we would hesitate to stay in any Royalton, despite being with Marriott Bonvoy, now, in case of similar experience. We could have paid a fifth of the price and stayed in the original 3 star, and had better service. The facilities in the resort make it a 5 star supposedly, and again, nothing majorly wrong with any one thing - but collectively, this is not a 5 star standard at all. No where near. At a 3 star, it could be considered value for money, if you don't mind being resented by the staff and generally made to feel like your a nuisance. We did not let it ruin our time, we enjoyed it, but be ware.

  Jun 27, 2025
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  Would love it to be 5 ⭐️

  I would love to give this hotel 5* but it’s definitely not 5, but it could be! We was booked in the Diamond Club in building 2 Which was perfect for us.just next to the pool bar and beach. People came out before 6 and put towels by the pool side then disappeared for 4 hours, but the beach beds was fine.The butler came first night but we was tired so took us a couple of days to figure how the butler thing works. But the butler was fantastic. The diamond club staff was amazing and 90% of the staff was amazing, and the rest was rude, but maybe there not being treated right. There’s a security woman on the hide away section which was really nasty I think she should be fired! As she forgot herself a few times. When we went to the buffet the food was amazing but they found it a problem to seat you on the diamond club area because about 8 of the tables was dirty, they didn’t have a structure to clear the table and re set the table. There was no structure in the whole hotel no info given out, you had to figure things out yourself. The Italian restaurant didn’t bring meals and waited anges and the zen one was too hot, I would give the restaurants amiss. The beach was really good and the room was nice apart from on Wednesday we had no water at all then the next 4 days just freezing cold water till the Sunday? No communication or updates and TUI Reps just offered a voucher to book again? Bit ironic when you paid a lot of money and couldn’t wash for 5 days. They ran out of a lot of things and the buggy’s was a waste of time there was only 2 quicker to walk and Royalton receptionist said you can’t get one when raining but you can walk in the rain. The staff need structure and the diamond club restaurant need a good clean. I would go back if they resolved these issues, but right now it’s a 3.5 ⭐

  Jun 26, 2025
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  Amazing holiday, perfect wedding

  We had the most fantastic holiday and a really special wedding day here. We spent 2 weeks at the resort with over 50 of our family and friends It was a fantastic experience. The staff were amazing, we especially appreciated the service we received from Lorna Clarke, she made us feel so welcome. The vibes team were brilliant, kept us entertained all day and night. Our wedding was perfect, thanks to Thalia and Lexi our wedding coordinators who made sure we had everything we needed. Our wedding Dj was DJ smart, he was fantastic on the day and throughout the holiday. We enjoyed the food and drinks, plenty of variety. Our room was large and clean, no issues. Overall we had a wonderful time and wish we didnt have to leave. Highly recommend for a great holiday and perfect wedding venue.

  Jun 26, 2025