My wife and I went to the GLB with a large group (about 100) from Jan 5 to 12, 2008.

We went to many all-inclusive resort but it was our first time in Jamaica. We stayed on the textile side of the resort and we were lucky enough to get a beach front room.

My review is personal but while I was there I talked with the rest of the group and we mostly shared the same opinion.

SHUTTLE FROM THE AIRPORT: The driver almost grab the luggage from our hands to get it to the bus and had no shame to tell us that we must give them a tips. I have no problem tipping but it is bothering when it is ask in such an impolite manner. We also witness some "illegal transaction" as soon as we got in the bus but since I do not use drugs this did not cost me anything ! The ride to GLB is about 45 minutes.

CHECK-IN: Very efficient. They took charge of our luggage as soon as we came in and they gave us our key since our room was already ready. We had no trouble finding our room and we got our luggage very quickly.

ROOM: The room was correct. Is was always kept very clean and they change your towels as needed. There is a mini-fridge that is refill every day (except one where they refilled the water but not the soft drinks). We had an ocean view and we really appreciated it. The TV reception was not so good and the sound was really bad on about half the channels. A/C was working very well.

BEACH: This is the really bad part of this resort. We heard that the "au natural" beach is beautiful but we were on the textile side and the beach was really really bad. The first few days it had piles of debris and the section in front of the rooms really smelled bad. We saw the employee work everyday to clean the beach but there effort was not enough. There are a lots of rocks and I would not even risk myself to play beach volleyball barefoot because you hurt your feet just walking on the beach. The beach was a little better on the last few days but even then you cannot go far in the ocean before you encounter rocks, shells, sea urshin and other dangerous thing at the bottom. I went to resort that were a lot less expensive and we found a much better beach there. However I must say that we never had any trouble getting towels and chairs at the beach.

POOL: COLD ! The pool is very beautiful and it is kept very very clean. The guy that clean the pool does a great job considering the number of tree leaves falling in it all day long. We use the pool mostly to play pool volleyball since it was too cold to just relax in it and enjoy it.

JACUZZI: THIS WAS A REAL JOKE... The jacuzzi at the end of the beach near the bar was working (bubbles) but it was freezing cold, and the one near the pool was hot but not working (no bubbles) making it a disgusting hot water bath. Both issue were reported to management multiple time but neither of them was fix while we were there.

RESTAURANTS: We tried every place on the site and in general the food is really good. The buffet that is serve for breakfast and lunch at the Victorian Market is correct. You will find a limited selection but everything is good and hot enough. For lunch you can also go to the "Reggae Cafe" where you will find soup, sandwich and the best meal of all, the jerk chicken. We loved to go there for lunch because the jerk chicken is so good and you can always go to the buffet for desert afterward. For dinner you have many option. The Vic Market and the "Pasta" Italian restaurant offer a la carte and you don't need a reservation for them. The food is correct at both places but we found that the Italian restaurant is not consistent since we loved the pasta there some days but 2 days later the same selection wasn't really good. You can also dine at two other restaurants that need reservation (make those as fast as you can because they fill in fast). The French Restaurant was disappointing. They require a jacket but they will lend you if you don't have one. They are really taking them self seriously and the food is not better that what you find elsewhere. It is also very dark so if you want to see what you eat it is not the best place to go. We thought that the personnel there should remove the stick they have up their a... and be more friendly with the guess. The white gloves and the long face did not make our meal more enjoyable. The is also the Japanese restaurant that offer the "show" at a heating table, or the sushi bar. The "table show" is really expeditive so if you are the first seating you will feel the pressure to get out of there quickly, but the meal was great and everything was very good. We also tried the sushi bar even if we are not amateurs and we were pleasantly surprise. The presentation was great and the food was fresh and very good too. Finally there is a bar/grill at the end of the beach that is opened 24/7 and you can get a good selection of food there too. The menu at the grill is the same as the one you can use to order at the room. We did not experience room service but we tried a lot of thing at the grill (burgers, nachos, lamb, wings, pizza). The pizza and burger are less than average but the other selections are good. You can also ask for a Champagne bottle directly at this bar. We enjoyed getting a bottle of champagne and nachos late at night and go to our patio to enjoy it.

ENTERTAINMENT/ACTIVITIES: Less than we expected. They sell this resort saying there is a lot of thing to do but there are a lot of deception when you get there. There are themed night but the participation is very low since is it not everybody that like to go to a disco in PJ or in toga. We saw the band only one night and it quit really fast. There were a lot of activities that started late or did not occurred at all. For example on Casino Night the table were installed around 7:00PM but there were no dealer to be found until 8:15PM... A lot of people were waiting to play and then 1 dealer came to one table and we played for about 15 minutes before he ask us to leave our seat so other could play (i.e. the player that took place around the other tables hoping to get a dealer!). Another example was the "billard tournament" where no staff was to be seen. We had a "pool volleyball" tournament because we took charge and invited players to come because if we did not this activity too would not have occurred. The staff also claimed that the sea was too rough 5 out of 7 days as an excuse to not take out the boats for snorkeling or scuba diving. The sea was not so bad. One day they took out the boat in the morning but we could not go for snorkeling in the afternoon because they claimed there was too much wind... We suspected it was more because we were few people to have sign in and they did not want the trouble to do it for few people. One last note, Karl the entertainment supervisor is rude and we felt he did a really bad job. But there is one thing that was a success and this was the beach party. We suffered a power failures (all Jamaica) that night but since they were already prepared for the beach party (food, tables, candles, etc...) we had a great time having dinner directly on the beach. The show was so-so but we liked the experience anyway. My wife also took advantage of the complimentary manicure/pedicure (with reservation) and liked it.

TENNIS: Two courts are available with balls and rackets that are not so bad.

EXCURSIONS: We book two excursions with the concierge. The first one was to go to the Dunn's River Fall and it cost 42$/pers. Be aware because they will try to sell it to you for 50$/pers. They tried it with us but when we pointed out that it was specified 42$ in the brochure right on their desk they charged us 42$ without saying anything (no excuse), and they did sell it for 50$ to many others that were in our group! This excursion is great. You take a cab and it takes about 40 minutes to get there then it takes between 1 hours and 1.5 hours to do the activity depending of the crowd there. When we went it was really crowded because there was a cruise ship group that was at the port this particular day but it was a lot of fun anyway. If you can book a day when there is no cruise ship around it would be better. You can bring your camera and the guide will transport it for you but be prepare to tip to get it back. The climbing of the falls is relatively easy and the rocks are not slippery but do not go barefoot since there are small pebbles that would hurt your feet. You can also rent water-shoes on-site if you don't have appropriate foot ware. We also book another excursion, the "Luminous Lagoon". BEWARE... THIS IS A TOURIST TRAP. We were lucky enough to book a couple of days in advance so we were able to cancel easily when we meet the part of your group that went there the first night. We had a good idea of the value of this excursion when we heard them sing "IF YOU THINK YOU JUST GOT SCREWED CLAP YOUR HAND!" while they were getting out of the bus !!! There were 34 peoples of our group that went that first night and they all (no exception) thought that it was a scam. They saw nothing so luminous there and the water was just too disgusting to get in. A few tried to swim in it but they said the bottom was like a mix of mud and garbage. Some of them were lucky enough to have book this excursion using our travel agent so after complaining, the travel agency accepted to give them back 50% of what they paid.

BAR: Good selection, variable service. Try the "Hummingbird". Champagne available to the bar at the end of the beach.

SHOPS: The shops on the main street are very expensive but there are some item that you will only find there if your not planning to go outside the resort (like Jerk Spices). But there were beach vendor that install tables of items near the pool almost every day. You can find some nice souvenirs there but you must bargain a lot to have a good deal.

CHECK-OUT: Everything went smoothly.

So I would definitely not rate this resort as a 5 stars, 3 stars at most. The food and service was good but not exceptional, the entertainment and activities were bellow average and the beach was just not up to our expectation.