Hideaway at Royalton Negril

We had a great time on our girls trip. The resort has great pools & beaches. There needs to be more options for lunch, most of the restaurants are only open for dinner. The beds were very comfortable. The air in our room didn't keep it cold as the day went on. We had to have our ceiling fan replaced also. Room service was good & the coffee is yummy! The snorkeling at the resort beaches was amazing!!! Hunter, Ocean View, Armadillo and the "lunch" buffet were our favs. Staff were SO nice and eager to please.

Had a great time at the Hideaway overall. A few observations: The Hideaway side and Royalton side are very different. The former is quiet and has a laid-back, more mature vibe. The latter is busy, noisy and packed with kids. Beach areas on the Hideaway side are very limited, manmade and not so great (but they're quiet!) The beach on the Royalton side is much nicer (but also packed like sardines). Food was mixed. Some restaurants were excellent (Ocean Point, Dorado, and Calypso come to mind) while others were mediocre (Zen) and the Italian restaurant (Grazie) was not good at all. Service also was mixed. Some bartenders and restaurant staff were friendly, fun and attentive. Others not so much. Butler service was terrible (we didn't get things we asked for and were rarely checked on). We had a Presidential Penthouse Suite, which was outstanding - a huge living room area, a huge master bedroom, two full baths with showers, a spa tub in the master bath, a large balcony off the master bedroom, and a huge terrace (with large hydrotherapy pool). Loved the room!

The Royalton Hideaway was pretty average. We had asked for a place on a nice beach and if you are looking for that, book something ON 7 mile beach. The beach at Royalton Hideaway is super small, in a bay so the water is a bit stagnant. If you long to hear waves crashing on the beach this is not your spot. The service was overall pretty good. The workers were friendly enough. Of all of the all inclusive places I have stayed the Royalton had the most food choices but the worst food. I like a good diet coke in the morning and they were difficult for the workers to find. The only place you could get one until 10 am when the bar opened was the stuffy indoor cafeteria (which believe me, when you want to be in the sun is dingy). Our room was nice. The AC didnt work all that well so it was a bit damp. It was clean. I would say that the Royalton should consider non smoking buildings as we would try to enjoy some patio time in the morning and the people below were smoking on their patio most days.

I planned and booked Hideaway @ Royalton for a girls trip for 9 girls. I was so excited as the description of the resort really seemed like a perfect fit for me and my girls. I returned home last night and my one word of advice to future travelers to Negril: Don't do it. Definitely go to Negril, but do NOT stay here. To begin, the check in process was an absolute mess. It really set the tone for how the rest of the trip would be. After booking the resort 6 months in advance, and maintaining contact with resort staff regarding our needs/preferences, we were told we could only be given rooms with 1 king bed, instead of the double beds we requested. While this was a minor annoyance for some members of our group, for others, who were booked 3 to a room, this really was unacceptable. One of the girls was forced to spend our 4 night stay sleeping on a rollaway bed in the corner of her room. That's not my idea of a luxury all inclusive vacation, nor was it hers given the price we paid to stay at this resort. After 30 minutes of protest, we were told nothing would deb done to accommodate us and given our bracelets and room numbers. We weren't told until the night before check out that we could have used "resort credits" toward room upgrades. We were told we weren't provided with this information because: "We didn't ask." We weren't given a tour of the facility upon check in or at any point at all. In regards to the tour desk at the resort, ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE. We spent hours waiting at this desk for: corrected information, correcting mistakes on bookings, or traveling to the front desk so that the attendant could get enough wifi connectivity to process our payments. On two occasions we were told to "come back later" to see if our bookings had gone through. In addition, we were given the wrong pick up times for two of our excursions - which completely threw off our entire day on the resort. They need to invest in a router or some sort of Wifi fix, because we were forced to travel to the front desk (and wait literally hours) just to book services/excursions. The same holds true for the spa services. The spa itself was decent, although a lot of the jets in the hydrotherapy room and the steam room was out of order (this information should have been provided to us prior to us booking services in which use of these facilities was included). Furthermore, we were required to fill out our paperwork at the spa (standard) and then, once again, walk to the front desk and wait in line behind guests checking in/out to make payment for our spa services: so relaxing (NOT). It completely ate into our time at the spa and our overall day. The food at the resort was OK. The Jerk Hut and Dorado were delicious. Hunter and the buffet were not good at all. We attempted to visit Calypso on two occasions but were denied both times because of our group size (this is insane to me). Zen was good entertainment but the food left much to be desired. Each night we waited approximately 1-2 hours to be seated for dinner (despite seeing many empty tables inside). The dining efficiency seriously needs to be looked at. Finally, there were a few perks @ the resort I do want to rate positively: bartender Chickpea, pool staff Keane, fitness staff Kaffain, and restaurant staff Ricardo did go above and beyond to make our trip more memorable despite the many hiccups the resort presented us with. I certainly hope they get some recognition for being customer oriented and just friendly and attentive people! Overall, the resort is beautiful and has SO much potential to be amazing, but in its current state, I truly would not recommend any of my friends or family visiting. I hope necessary changes can be made so that other guests who have looked forward to their trip for months can enjoy it in the way we wanted to but couldn't.