Honeymoon Discussions

Sandals Grand Riveria and Royal Plantation

We just returned from a great Jamaican get-away!

Essentially my husband and I - and friends- wanted to have a few fun days together and a few fun days as couples.  So, we enlisted our travel agent and she recommended that we start the week at Grande Riveria with our friends and once that was over, head over to Royal Plantation (which is right around the corner) for a little alone time.

Grande Riveria:
I actually liked it better than Whitehouse (which I know, everyone loves) because there were so many restaurants outside.  I don't like eating indoors when I'm in the Caribbean!
We stayed on the Manor side- which was fine, but THERE IS A MAJOR ROAD RUNNING BETWEEN THE MANOR AND THE RIVERIA.  We knew it going in to it, but we wanted a villa with a private pool for our group of friends (yup, we went in that pool exactly 0 times!).  The shuttles were really quick and run nonstop.
The pool on the Manor side is the party pool- typical Sandals "let's have fun" pool.  The beach rocks!  The area to the left just opened a few weeks ago- it is much quieter and posh, then the middle is more shallow and right in front of a bar, and then there is the water sports area. 
The service at this resort was the beach (outside of RP) that we have ever had at a Sandals.  It rained one afternoon and we sat under our hut on the beach and the waitress kept coming over (in the rain to see if we needed anything).

Our villa was updated and pretty nice.  Nothing over the top luxurious, but spacious.  The resort had a "fun vibe" but wasn't crazy party. 

Royal Plantation:
I was really looking forward to it- and it was awesome- but it is a totally different Sandals vibe.  It is very small (I think only 75 rooms and only 20some were full).  Very quiet, crowd was in their 40s and up with a few honeymooners.  I thought the rooms needed a little updating, but the view was spectacular. 
Coming from Grand Riveria, I did notice there weren't as many "private spots"--- all of the outdoor areas were table areas instead of swings or lounge chairs. 
But all in all, very very nice.  Food was outstanding- comparable to El Dorado food.

We had gone back and forth with these or Negril/Royal Caribbean combo and our TA really thought we'd like what we did more.  We definitely had a great time and I would return to both. 

Sorry, I'm not the best with descriptive reviews.  I'm going to post to Tripadvisor as well.  Hope this review helps anyone thinking of going.  My PM doesn't work, but shoot me a message on here and I can give you my email if you have any questions. 
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