My wife and i went to sandals whitehouse the week of dec 10th to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. I was looking for a resort that would be relaxing and laid back and the whitehouse sure fit the bill. Yes the ride to the resort is bumpy and narrow and about a hour and a half, but you also got to see a lot more of jamaica and learn more about the people. We stayed on the third floor of the italian village. The room was nice with all the amenities. The bed was firm, but we got used to it after a couple of nights. the main pool was excellent and we could always find a chair or a float. Christopher at the main pool bar kept the drinks coming. The food was excellent at all of the restaurants. The calamari at Giuseppe's was the best i have ever tasted. The employees were always smiling and happy to help with anything that we needed. The bar between arizonas and bayside restaurant was our favorite spot. We got to know some of the bartenders and they kept us laughing for hours. Andre (Dr. dre)they also call him (farm boy) you have to ask him, Deijon, Pamela, Garth, Gavin, Anthony (tuco) you have to ask him also, were all great bartenders and fun to be around. Deijon was hilarious. Also "Q" is a manager in training and willing to help with anything. Don't miss the pirate night. More food than i could think about eating. The employees tend to get a little wild with their dancing at the end.
My wife wanted to swim with the dolphins at dolphin cove. This proved to be a very long day. 4 hours there and 4 hours back. I wouldn't recommend it unless it was really what you wanted to do. My wife said it was worth it , but it might not be for everybody.
We had a great time and didn't want to leave. I highly recommend the Whitehouse and we will be back.

This was our 15th "all inclusive" Carribean holiday and our 9th visit to Sandals.

We went to Sandals Whitehouse in Jamaica in January and liked it so much we returned with my wife's two sisters and their husbands in November.

I beleive this is the first Sandals that has been created from a "green field site" so they have included all the good things from other resorts.

Here are just three reasons why we liked it so much:

1 All rooms are sea facing.
2 All restaurants have non smoking indoors.
3 There are more sun beds than people!

All the staff were friendly, rooms clean and food good.

Strongly recommended.

Roger

Cheltenham UK

This is going to be a long review, so here is my bottom line: I thought this was a decent hotel but was disappointed because I expected a lot more from the reviews I had read. Things here were hit or miss and there were too many misses to love this place.

Service: This was an example of hit or miss-we either encountered extremely friendly, nice people, or we had people who couldn't have cared less about helping us on our stay- more about this below-

Rooms: Our room was fine, but the decorations felt heavy and slightly dated, especially because this is their newest resort. We stayed in the French village and didn't mind the walk back and forth. The beds were very comfortable and climate control worked perfectly. The bathrooms were very standard. We had a view of the beach which was nice.

Food: This is an area where we were disappointed, again hit or miss. We ate at Bayside the first night and it was not good. Not horrible, but definitely not good. The best food there is the Jamaican food- Eleanor's was really good and we had lunch a few times at Bluefield Beach club. We also had decent brunch/breakfasts at Bayside- the highlight is the selection of fresh squeezed juices there, they were delicious. We had dinner one night at Giuseppes and my husband's pasta was good but my fettucine with parmesean cream sauce was pretty bad-the noodles were very overcooked-the appetizers here were great, but I was so disappointed with the main course. We also had sandwiches
at the Arizona retaurant- the french dip was pretty bad and the burger
was so-so. CJ the bartender was very nice and made tasty papaya ffrozen drinks for us. The cafe was also cute but a few times when I ordered cappuccinos, they came with a LOT of grounds in them- the ice cream was great and the pastries were good- the best were the little fruit tarts which were delicious.

Transportation: we thought that after the crazy cab rides we take in nyc, we would be fine with this but this is a wild ride from the airport. In all seriousness, there were 3 major accidents (with machine gun toting police at the scenes) along the way to the hotel which did not add to our feeling safe on the drive there. It took about 3 hours to get there from the airport because of the accidents.

Beach- the beach is pretty, but this place is HOT- it said 81 degrees
every day there, but the humidity is oppressive and it was the hottest
place I've been in December. It never really cools down either. The water was very warm. The pools were also very nice and well-maintained. They ran out of towels at the pool by the french village-we asked 3 guys who were sitting around, if we could get some towels and they said that they would get some for us. 45 minutes later, they were still sitting around talking to each other and we still had no towels so we went and did something else.

Activities- We took the glass bottom boat tour, 2 days in a row with the exact same 2 guides, there were 5 passengers on each day- the first day they stopped, pointed out types of fish, made jokes about not smoking the seagrass, jumped in the water and pulled up a starfish
for us all to see and were just so great. It was such a great tour, we went back the next day- we pulled out of dock and they literally said not one word the entire "tour." I felt bad for the other people on the boat who had said they hadn't taken this tour before, as they really missed out on what could be a fun time. Again, hit or miss. Otherwise, we had fun playing tennis, pool, pingpong or just swimming or relaxing.

Internet- we really wanted internet since we don';t have international
cellphones. They charge about 15$/day (or 22$ for 3 days). We brought our own laptop but they don't have wifi- we called and asked for an ethernet cable and the front desk said they would try to locate one. The next day we called again and the person at the desk was talking to someone else at the same time, said that he would try to locate one. Finally, the next day after that, a very nice woman at the front desk said that she would ask the IT manager for one but to stop by that night. We stopped by and talked to the IT manager later that day who was so nice and acted horrified that no one had asked him to help us earlier in the week, he was very nice. Again, he just could not have been nicer, but the other people at the desk had not been at all helpful.

Bottom line- this is a decent resort but from the staff to the food to the activities, things were either great or lacking with little in between. It was extremely hot and we still had an ok time but this is not a luxury property and unfortunately would not go back.

let me know if anyone has questions!

Being our second trip to this property we were interested to see how it had matured. (we had gone the year it opened in 2005). Well we were NOT disappointed in any way. The staff, service, rooms and cuisine were fabulous. They have added a "Pirate's Night" dinner that is an absolute must. We can't wait to get back in May of 2008.