Hideaway at Royalton Negril

We had a Swim-out room at the Diamond Club in Hideway for our honeymoon last week. The whole resort is HUGE so be prepared to walk everywhere! Overall we had a great time but there definitely was a few things that need improvement. --Pros- Let me start by saying the place is BEAUTIFUL. The hotel is new and very clean, the room was awesome and the bed was sooo comfy! They don't skimp out on the alcohol like a lot of other all inclusive places do. They always have some kind of entertainment each day & night. Scores bar stays open until 2am. (Even though it's great, it does get a little boring going to the same bar night after night.) The spa was awesome! We loved the sauna & hydro pool!! I think we used it every single day. Everyone is very friendly, we hungout and made friends with a few of the workers when they got off work and had so much fun. Our butlers Demari & Clinton were great, always there when you need them! Demari suprised us one day by decorating our room & tub with rose petals and pretty lighting for our honeymoon. We loved that! Having picker food in the diamond club lounge was a plus. Also the coffee shop was wonderful! And that view!! --Cons- Our rainshower was broken and never got fixed even after we kept asking. Someone is always trying to take professional photoshoot type pictures and then you come to find out that they are charging $20 a picture or $480 for all! Not worth it and you missed out on actually taking the pictures yourselves. The food was only ok. To others it was good but we are a little spoiled coming from NJ/NY area where we have amazing food. But the service at most of the restaurants really were very slow. Probably my biggest con would be that you can't sleep in from a late night because they stop serving breakfast by 10:30 and don't open for lunch until 12:30. Was not fun being hungover and trying to get some eggs at 1030 am and they tell you no. By the time we walked all the way back to our room and put in room service order it was 10:55. They called us to confirm at 11:02 and tell us room service stops at 11 and we were too late. We had an excursion planned for 1 that we wanted to eat first but couldn't. Very annoying! The pools are cold so you can't go night swimming in your swim-out room. There is no Jacuzzi in Hideway, only 1 at Royalton and it is not hot so the kids are playing in it. The Beaches are very small and very rocky. It hurts your feet to walk into the ocean. So I recommend checking out the beautiful 7 mile beach outside of the resort. I wish we had done that more. Also beach chairs fill up FAST, people wake up at 6am to put their towels down and leave them for later which is so annoying when you have to walk around the whole resort just to find something not reserved. We did have our butler able to save us 2 seats 1 day so that was good atleast. Even though hideaway is adults only, you have to walk to do anything and then you are around children. Wasn't a big deal for us but may be for others. Lastly, our honeymoon package included dinner on the beach. Now instead of setting it up for us in hideaway where we paid for, they put us in the Royalton section where kids were constantly running around and screaming while we were trying to have a romantic dinner. It was very pricey so we wanted to get as much out of the hotel for the money we spent but I definitely wish we ventured outside of the resort more than we did. The local food was much better than what we had at the restaurants in the resort. Same goes for the beach. Overall we had a good time. It's hard not to in Negril. Would I recommend this hotel to others? Yeah.. but I probably would try a different place next time.

First, as far as the resort goes, the rooms were large and comfortable with very comfortable mattresses. I don't know if they are finished decorating it yet, since Royalton just took it over, but the walls in the rooms and hallways was very cold and stark.....no pictures or decorations. I was a little disappointed in some of the facilities. There was only one tennis court in a building with a concrete surface covered in astroturf. There was a nice pool in the family resort, but only a small one in the adult resort, but it did have a swim up bar (nice). SCUBA diving and snorkeling was available by boat right from the beach, but the weather was not good for it during our stay. All of the logistics arranged for by CheapCaribbean (airport transfers, VIP lounge at airport, etc.) worked flawlessly.....no surprises or disappointments. My biggest issue with the trip was with CheapCaribbean. When deciding on which resort of the 3 offered [Grand Lido (clothing optional), family or Hideaway (adult only) ] we were told that if we stayed at Hideaway, we would have access to the other Royalton properties (they are all connected). This was not true. CheapCaribbean misrepresented this. We stayed at Hideaway and were not allowed access to Grand Lido or the Diamond Club area. If we had known this, we would have stayed at Grand Lido.

Beautiful resort with very friendly staff. The rooms are as advertised and the shower was amazing. The beaches were a little small in some areas. the grounds are very well laid out with the main open lobby/lounge area providing a great area to congregate at sunsets. A couple of negatives we encountered were room availability ( and the hotel was not at full capacity) so not sure if some floors are not finished or are shut off for some reason. And we were not the only guests to experience this. The staff is super friendly but there is definitely no sense of time. Be prepared to wait when in the restaurants. This was our first trip to Jamaica and we were not sure what to expect. If staying in the resort you are good but there is nothing to see when leaving the compounds unless on a tour to sightseeing destination.

Recommend spending the extra money for the Hideaway or Grand Lido! The service was outstanding and the experience was the best AI that I've had to date.