Negril, Point Village Review

Overall Rating

During my stay at point village in Negril some of the staff were very friendly and helpful and my room was always swept and cleaned every day, but, then again, they were meant to do that!

The beach was nice and secluded, great if you have kids and lots of sea life for snorkelling.

When I arrived, on the first and second night the food seemed okay, jerk chicken, jerk pork, fish, rice, buffet style etc and with three different restaurants to choose from, Italian, Jamaican (overlooking the sea) and a main indoor restaurant - I was overjoyed, as I said, but only for the first two nights. After a few days a pattern began to emerge, every day at Point Village the food was almost exactly the same.

All I can say about the Italian restaurant is..do not go... unless you like pizza's.

The only way to describe the food is that the chef just wasn't interested in being there. There we were in Jamaica and the Jamaican kitchen staff couldn't even cook
Jamaican food right. The fried plantain was a prime example, fried in giant chunks and tasted like you were chewing on a sponge. Every day there was some form of chicken dish...baked chicken, grilled chicken, spicy chicken which strangely enough tasted exactly the same and swimming in grease. The exception being ginger chicken, this tasted the same but with added ginger!

The pinnacle of Point Village cuisine however, had to be the bacon - what did you do to the bacon? We spent many an hour theorising what happened to it. Here is the conclusion...buy 5 kg's of streaky bacon, leave out in the sun for a minimum of 5 hours/days/months/years, fry in one packet of lard until the pan set's alight and the kitchen has burned down. When the fire brigade have turned up and extinguished the fire, take the charred remains of the pan, scrape out the bacon and serve it to the guests.

If any chef's in Jamaica have any other ideas please let me know...that bacon will haunt me for many years to come. In fact I still have indigestion.

Moving on to the service, some of the staff were very abrupt and rude. Although I must say the trainee staff, from a local hospitality college were very good.

One evening in the main restaurant, I sat with a meagre meal in front of me, stomach growning in rejection, and requested a mere glass of Lemonade, I waited simply because I liked to have a drink with my meal, and waited, and waited, in fact, I am still waiting to this day. I ask, where is my Lemonade?

Moving on to the room, our room was simple but adequate, although frustrating that there was a kitchenette, with no utensils, pans etc....but we did get one spoon. The bathroom was the worst point, obviously hadn't been updated for 20 years and there was a slight smell from the drains, mould around the ceiling and mirror and no concealed light fitting. The towel rack was above the toilet which was disgusting. The stairs up to the room were quarry tiled, some tiles on the edge of the stairs were missing and had clearly been like this for some time. I felt this was an easily rectifiable safety hazard and he bathroom could be easily improved.

Overall we still had a fantastic stay Jamaica, but Point village was only okay, it could be a good resort if those in power were willing to put in a little extra effort and rectify the problems I have outlined, which in my humble opinion could be simply done.

The frustrating thing was that the resort was locked off at night so we couldn't walk down the beach to the night-life in Negril, we found that after 9.00pm the hotel were unable to find us a taxi, dinner was at 7.30pm so this was ridiculous, particularly considering the surplus of taxi's in Negril.

The entertainment at the hotel was poor, Butlins Jamaica style, the highlight was the lecture and test about Jamaican history, all of which unavoidable as it took place in the main restaurant. Overall, kind of felt as if we were trapped in the resort, the staff advised not to wander on to the road to get a taxi but were unable to offer an alternative.

If taxi's were available at the hotel they were overpriced, the resort would benefit considerably through some kind of discount agreement with a taxi company or a regular free shuttle bus provided by the hotel.

There was a free shuttle to a bar up the beach but only on a Tuesday night at 5.00pm? Pointless.