Sandals Negril Jamaica, Day 4 2025

 Day 4 was Wednesday, Oct 15. 

The morning started with the same breakfast entertainment. This was not adding to the relaxed, upscale ambience we thought we'd have here. 

We finally got to take the garden tour. We'd tried one day but I think we slept in, the day before there was some rain, so we were excited to do it finally. One reason we chose  this resort is because of the mature landscaping. We looked at newer resorts and they felt so bare, too much concrete, not enough shade. The grounds were one of the things we really did enjoy here. 

The tour guide was the gardener, Simone. There was just us, and another lady who turned out to live about 30 minutes from us! 

I really liked these corkscrew plants! They're crotons, which you can have as indoor plants here. I have one, but it's not a corkscrew. The more sunlight they get, the more red they get.

This is a Peregrina, or Spicy Jatropha, according to Google. I wish I had taken notes, or filmed the guide. It was sometimes hard to understand--between the accent and the plant names I don't know, my memory was not working.

This is a Heliconia plant, commonly known as a false bird-of-paradise, or lobster claw. I don't know what makes it different from a real bird-of-paradise.

This is a caladium plant. They were quite large, and a great example of how you can fill a garden with non-flowering plants to fill spaces, and it not be boring.

This is a white wax begonia. While the flowers weren't much bigger than begonias at home, the leaves and plants were huge. 

This is a mulberry! You know the nursery rhyme/song, "Here we go Round the Mulberry Bush." It was cool to see. I believe this was between the water sports centre and the building towards the road.

This is a Monstera deliciosa, also known as Swiss Cheese Plant! There are several types of Monstera here. Another great filler plant!

This is a purple heart plant. The orange flowers behind it are lantana--a common summer annual here.

This is a Giant Taro, also known as Elephant Ear plant.

Madagascar periwinkle, also known as annual vinca. I believe this was next to the Sundowner restaurant.

This is Simone, the gardener that did the tour. I believe she said she's been working there for 7 years. At the end of the tour, she took us to the fish pond/gazebo behind the Paradise building. The property has a lot of almond trees, and she was able to crack one open so we could sample a raw almond. I had been wondering what the fruit was that was dropping from trees all along the beach. The trees are very different from the almond tree that we had in our backyard when I was young. Simone also sang us a song, 

After the tour, Rob went back to the room to recuperate from the heat.  It had been fine when we started the tour, but then the humidity and temperature went up significantly. I went back outside to take more photos. I really admired this tree. The one on the right is a Traveler's Palm, which is not a true palm, but related to the bird-of-paradise plant and bananas. It's located behind the Paradise building, in the "indent" (if you look at the map, you'll understand). It doesn't look all that impressive here, but it was huge.

This is a vine that reaches higher than the third floor of the Paradise building (back side). It was amazing. I believe she called it a "chicken leg" or "drumstick" vine. I can't find any info though. Most of what Google gives me is for a small water fine, or squash plants. This was neither. It was massive! It was cool to see the backside of the vine as we walk along the corridor. We were surprised though that there weren't birds nesting in it.

This is unfortunately, what I kept facing when I tried to take pictures! It's so humid that the camera fogs up when you go from inside to outside.

What I didn't realize about this tree is that the pink leaves are not the flower. Sort of like poinsettias. The flower is actually the yellow part!

I always thought the placement of this bush was odd. It was all alone, on the lawn in front of the Bamboo Grove building, near the wedding gazebo next to the beach. 

What did we do after this? I don't have many photos. I do have this one:

Using our complimentary bottle of red wine (anniversary gift) and juice from the mini bar, we made hotel room sangria. It was ....okay. I think it poured rain this afternoon. Perhaps this was the day we tried to do the water bikes but there was a few thunder rumbles in the mountains so the water staff said no.

Simone picked a few flowers for us during the tour. This is a swamp lily. Google's not being helpful, but I'm pretty sure that's what I found out.

This is a plumeria, also known as frangipani. They were quite common. I like how the petals overlap.

This is a hibiscus. I hadn't realized just how long the stamen (?) was. Look at the very end of it, it looks like a multi eyed snail LOL. 

This is me in my Vera dress, with hibiscus print. To read the saga of the dress, check out my blog. 

For dinner, we went to Barefoot by the Sea. The staff were wonderful!

This is the Blackened Blue Marlin. The menu says rice and broccoli. I asked for no rice, but I'm not sure what happened with the vegetables. I can't remember the appetizers we had. Probably the coconut shrimp.

I can't see what Rob has, I think it was the Seafood Your Way. 

Ackee and white chocolate cheesecake. It was nice. I loved the smaller size.

The Paradise building at night. I can't imagine what it was like before they put the roof over the balconies. It must have been so sunny in the afternoon, and terrible during the rain!

The evening entertainment was a white party on the beach. 

Here's that traveler's palm again. This is taken from the third floor corridor, so it gives a better idea of the size. 

It might seem crazy that I can't remember exactly what we did, or what we ate. Our goal for the trip was to rest, relax, reconnect. We find that on cruises we tend to be so busy, going to all the activities. Not this time. Also, I hadn't plan to take this long to blog the whole trip!! I've just been so busy.

Jamaica Sandals Negril Day 3 2025

Day 3 was Tuesday morning. We headed to the buffet and the hostess sat us near the outside patio. Big mistake.

When I mentioned in yesterday's post about the morning entertainment, this is what I meant. These birds come right into the dining room, and land on the tables. They will take right off your plate if you're not looking. Rob got up to go get something and the birds tried to take his breakfast. A man at the next table said to wave the napkin at it. Perhaps they think it's a competing bird. 

It was really annoying and disgusting. We tried to make sure we ate as close to the main entrance as possible after that.

Some shots of the view from our third floor room. That's the top floor of this building. Originally the building did not have balcony roofs on the top floor and I can't imagine how hot they would be in the afternoon. 
Something interesting is that on Google Maps, you can't see the buoys around each swim area.

Looking towards north-west, that island would be close to where we went snorkeling. On the land just before it, just beyond Sandals' border is Hedonism II, a clothing optional resort.

You can see the light and dark patches. The light patches are clear sand, the dark is sea grass--where the little critters live. It's harder to see the difference when you're actually in the water (especially when you're short!)

I had read that sea grass and urchins were an issue and that water shoes with rigid soles were a necessity.

We also spotted him, spot treating crabgrass and weeds. The grass is really cool--it's very short and almost mossy. They said they had to mow and dethatch a lot.

We went to the water sports again to sign up for snorkeling and glass bottom boat ride. We were able to do the 10AM (?) snorkel. 

It was a great snorkel trip, not very far and we didn't see a whole lot, but yet it was still really good. However, just before we came to Sandals, our daughter was at Couples Tower Island on the Jamaican north shore (Ochos Rios), and had done a night snorkel. Her group was swarmed by jellyfish and everyone was stung. She got it on her arm, her thigh, and her ankle.  

 

We were snorkeling in the day, but guess what was the first creature I saw? A jellyfish! I think this was the first time I've seen one. It was not small by any means, but not huge either. Big enough to freak me out!!

We didn't see a whole lot.

That island I showed before....Booby Cay. We couldn't snorkel near it but you can take a boat ride out to the beach, and a little snack stand, I think.

Pretty typical shots. We DID see fish, but my camera work really sucked this time. Rob swam over to where the reef broke, and saw a lot more over there (I joined him). The boat crew was great though and we quite enjoyed the trip. I had hoped we'd go snorkeling more, but somehow we kept busy even though we weren't "doing anything".  I did manage to bring my knee up on the underside of the ladder getting back on the boat LOL.

We went out on the glass bottom boat ride around noon. We were worried about it being hot and sunny but it was totally fine. 

Fish. LOL. So this was the opposite direction of the snorkeling; that's Booby Cay is the distance.

The windows in the glass bottom boat don't give you a wide viewing angle. The windows are small, and the boat is usually moving. The angle of them means you're looking pretty much just below the boat.

This is the Azul Beach Resort.

I had seen these advertised online. It's a sportscar "body" on what I guess is a jet ski or jet boat. We saw it in action a few times, going up and down the beach. Such a gimmick, but someone was being really creative when they came up with it!

Here is Barefoot on the Beach, with its sides down. Behind it is the Palm Grove building. It's about two years old, but the balcony pools on the 3rd floor (and roof top?) started leaking and they were working on repairs. All week. There were people in the rooms on the main floor, but I heard from some people in the FB group that there was debris in and around the pool, and it was hard to get staff to clean it up.

It was great getting to see the resort from the water. It's probably one of the longest stretches on 7 Mile Beach. The highway is fairly close to the beach here, so it's a long and narrow resort. Which makes for great long walks on the beach.

I have no photos of the afternoon. It was probably spent going pool to pool, and on the beach. 

Oh, I remember now. We had been fighting with Sandals to get the booking credit for the spa and an excursion that was the promotion when we booked in July. We had booked on the phone, and specifically asked if we get the free night for our anniversary, would we still get the booking credits. We were told yes. With our confirmation, there was no mention of the credits though. It took several days before this got sorted out. At first, no one knew anything. Concierge said they'd look into it, they couldn't find any info and just sort of stopped doing anything. We kept going back and then got told they could offer us "some credit, but not what was the offer when we booked." That made Rob very mad, and we spent some time going through emails to find the actual sale offers from Sandals from when we booked. 

Finally, Romaine was brought into the picture. He's head of something in hospitality, and said he's called "The Fixer." He said it was sorted out and should be in the computer system the next morning (today). So after lunch, we stopped at the Island Routes desk to inquire about excursions. 

I was really interested in touring Appleton Rum's estate. The woman said there were no spots available and went into quite an appealing spiel about why we should take the bigger package rather than just the tour. It was so expensive though! We mentioned our excursion credit, so she looked it up. And couldn't find it. She asked if it was for a resort based excursion or an Island Routes excursion. Never had there been any sort of distinction made. It was always just "excursion credit".  She called Romaine and finally it was sorted out. We opted to book the snorkel trip to Rick's Cafe on Friday.

We had decided to go to Beaches the next day, Thursday, and stopped at the "Dining Concierge" desk. We had thought that as Concierge Club level, restaurant bookings were done through them (they did a couple when we checked in, but hadn't even put the time on the slips they gave us). Apparently everyone must use the Dining Concierge. She got us booked into Yaku at Beaches the next day, and restaurants for the other nights. The weird thing was we got 5:30 bookings, but had overheard others say they had tried for 5:30 but couldn't get anything.

 

We had an early dinner at Sundowner and got to sit on the veranda, since we were the second people in line.

What an amazing sunset we were able to watch. We timed it perfectly--time of day, and weather.

This is the grilled pineapple ginger martini. I had heard it was amazing. It was, but a bit spicy for me and I got heartburn :(

While waiting for dinner, I had fun with the different settings on my camera. This is not how intense the sunset is in real life, but it's actually close. 

This is the charbroiled beef tenderloin with a side of Caribbean lobster tail.

This is the coconut truffle cake. It was fine, but too much cake (even though it's a small piece). We appreciated the smaller size portions, though we see many people online complaining. It's definitely not 2007 main dining room cruise food!

Despite growing up with cats, I'm not a big cat person. I get congested. And again, with these cuties, I felt it quickly.

There was a bigger cat that quickly claimed the little piece that 'fell' from my side. Rob distracted it while I made sure this fellow got a piece. 

On the schedule was "Love and Fire" at the pool. No real description. I asked, I think at the front desk, and got a lame, non-descriptive answer. I had heard that there was a show one night with a fantastic singer who floats around the pool. I assumed it would be this show.

On cruise ships, the entertainment staff (singers, dancers etc) don't do much outside of the shows (maybe when they do dance class, or maybe fitness classes). However, here, the entertainment crew does it all. The daytime bingo, the evening acrobatics in the pool. 

It was a cool show, very different than the AquaTheater shows on Oasis class ships. Some talented staff! The star of the show though was a woman who sang while standing on the floating lilypad (a decommissioned float bed from the beach, covered in material). She was pushed around by a couple of the staff. She also lounged in a kayak while singing and being pushed around. She was an amazing singer, however, her name was no where to be found. Not on the app, the schedule, the website, or at the show. It was hard to understand much that was announced due to the loud volume. 

I did a search on YouTube, but I can't find a video. I did film little clips but they're not great quality so I'm not going to post them.

I don't think we did anything after this show.  It was a tiring day though.