Roy & Nancy - July, 2007

Grand Lido Braco Trip Report      July 15-20, 2007

 

Road Progress…. Soon come mon!   The work goes on.  The bus ride to Braco is under an hour, but a traffic jam could change that dramatically any given day.  By Christmas or so they may have more divided highway open.  When it is done it will be only 40 min or so to Braco I think, maybe less.

 

Rooms:

  We usually book ROH since we are never in the room very much and would prefer the extra expense to go to staying extra nights or booking more trips during the year.  This time Royal Beachfront was on sale so we booked that.  We were told at check-in that we could upgrade to an A/N Junior Suite for an additional $150 per night.  I had looked at the A/N suites last year and it is just not worth it to us, though I can see how others might think it is worth it for them.  All the rooms from SuperSelect to Suites have a stocked (and restocked) refrigerator (Pepsi, Ting, Real Rock Beer, water…. Leave a note saying what you want and be sure to get that Real Rock out in favor of some Red Stripe!)   The Junior Suite I looked at was larger than our room.  It had a sitting area with a small sofa that our regular room did not have.  Other than that and the location I could see no differences between our room and the junior suite.  If you spend a lot of time in your room, or entertain guests in your room then the upgrade would be far more worthwhile I think.  To each their own.  We were given a Royal Beachfront room in building #1 and were very happy with it.  We asked to stay close to the center of the resort to make travel to and from the A/N side quicker.  We had room 111 last year and 123 this year.  Both are nice but neither has the new upgraded showers I keep hearing about.  Our bathroom was fine.  There were a couple of areas of chipped tile in there but for some reason that does not bother us like it seems to bother some people.  Go figure!   The room  was clean, had a nice view, and the A/C was excellent and the ceiling fan is so great that I cannot figure out why all resorts don’t have them.  Keep in mind that, like many resorts, beachfront rooms do not have a great view of the beach due to trees between the rooms and beach.  The best views would be those expensive suites on the nude side I think, but again we are not in our room very much so it make no diff to us.  

 

Service:

 Braco excels in all areas here… bars, housekeeping, room service, spa, front desk, ,, you name it,,, it was excellent.  Merle and Wayne at the A/N pool bar are still the best bartenders we have ever run across in Jamaica, and that includes some elite company from Hedo II!

 

Food: 

The food was good, but not great.  The first time we went we had some lobster but the last two trips to Braco there has been no lobster and not even all the much shrimp available.  I want the food at Braco to be noticeably better than other, less expensive resorts but it has really not been much better over our last two trips.  It was good though.

Munasan was very good and a great way to meet some nice people.  Piacere was very good and we were in and out quicker than on previous trips.  The tenderloin at Piacere was excellent I just missed the lobster tail I used to get along side of it!

   Breakfast was good every day, but no different than what we have had at Hedo II, Hedo III, BRB, and others.  Lunch buffet was the least desirable to us though still decent.  We opted for lunch at the nude pool twice and the rest of our lunches were at Nanny’s Jerk Pit (Now called The Reggae Café). 

 

Victoria’s Market was closed for dinner 4 of our 5 nights due to low occupancy.  They instead added a few small tables in front of LaPasta and served dinner from both menus (LaPasta and Victoria’s Market menus) there in the square by the fountain.  There is a lot less breeze blowing through there than at Victoria’s Market so it made for a sweatier meal most nights. The only night dinner was served in Victoria’s Market was Wed night when they started to set up the beach party dinner and suddenly stopped and decided to just do it in Victoria’s Market.  There was no rain, but with occupancy so low I guess they just didn’t want to go to the trouble.

 

A/N Pools and hot tubs:

Clean, relaxing, and well cared for. The A.N hot tub was just hot enough this time.  Last year it was almost as cool as the pool water, but much better this time.

 

Beach:

I would not go to this resort for the beach.  It is beautiful if you just want to look at it, but it is rocky and is hard on the feet due to the rocks while in the water.  Floating on a raft is fine though.  Bloody Bay is my beach choice in Jamaica and no beach on the north coast comes close.  Having said that, the A/N beach at GLB is large with nice sand and lots of chairs, palapas, and floats.  Both Hedo’s would be lucky to have ½ the beach found on the A/N side at GLB.

 

Guest Fitness and Tennis instructors were knowledgeable and fun and the tennis pro, Gawayne, is young, friendly, and fun.

 

Water sports:  Great staff, but the north coast is not nearly as conducive to water sports as Negril.  The wind and waves cause (or at least provides an excuse at times) to cancel dives, snorkeling, etc…   If being able to participate in water sports will make or break your trip I would advise Negril over any resort on the north coast.   This trip I did not dive at all, even though I am PADI AOW certified.  I did see that the dives went out pretty much every morning so not as many canceled dives this year as last year.

 

Theme Parties:  Pale and tame in comparison to Hedo, but were fairly well attended considering how few people were at the resort ….and they were fun.   The outfits, even at the Fantasy Party were far more conservative than what we are used to at Hedo but still fun and active.  The Fantasy Party, normally held in the A/N Clubhouse in our previous trips, was held in the disco this time, I think for the better A/C.

 

Entertainment:  This was tougher this year because since the late 80’s we have pretty much seen every cabaret singer in Jamaica.  I cannot fathom why the entertainment at so many resorts is based upon Jamaican singers covering older American pop songs.  It is a terrible shame that there is not more live reggae in the evenings.  I would far prefer that!  There was even very little reggae on the cd player at the pool… mainly Jimmy Buffet and Beach Boys stuff… which I like but would it kill ya to play some reggae?  The evening entertainment is a lot more fun, if more risqué, at the Hedo resorts.  The EC staff misses lost talent like Rohan and Carla who are no longer there.  The others are working to fill the void and will be find over time, but there is a learning curve. 

 

Piano Bar

We only saw a piano player sitting at the piano one of our five nights this time.  Maybe the time schedule was just off (Jamaica Time) but we have always loved the piano bar at Hedo II, and really enjoyed it at Braco last year.  This time it was simply not working!  It was simply empty and had no piano player all but one evening, and even that one night there was a player it did not work because he could not play any of the songs. 

 

People:  The resort was mostly empty it seemed!  I heard under 30% occupancy for some nights.  A nice young couple staying at the prude pool and beach by choice told me at dinner that for two days they were the only two people at the prude pool!  I have never seen such low occupancy at GLB during our previous visits.  There were a really only about 20 or so folks on the A/N side for part of the week too, but it was on the rise by the time we left.  The Full Moons were there during our stay again this year, and that is a good thing since they are fun and friendly without exception.  The Braco Bears were beginning to arrive our last day or two and they seemed great also.  

 

Minor Disappointments/baffling things, but no big deals overall:

 

No Lobster Second Year in a Row! !  When paying to stay at what claims to be an upper level resort like a Grand Lido I would like to find Lobster on the menu at least one time during my vacation!   Lobster is out of season April-June, but by the middle of July we expected at least some lobster.  Vendors were selling lots of fresh lobsters along the roadside on the way to the resort, and yet none was available at Braco. On our first trip to Braco we were able to order lobster at the French Restaurant (Surf and Turf along with a tenderloin) and that made it seem worth it to take a dinner jacket all the way to Jamaica. Last year and this year we had no such luck!

 

Changes I would suggest:

  More fun evening entertainment!  Sometimes it seems like several nights are different singers singing the same songs.  Add some reggae!

 

Even when occupancy is low management should make a better effort to give those of us who ARE there our full money’s worth!  Low occupancy would seem like the perfect time to grill some lobsters to show appreciation for those of us who did show up!  Too many cancelled events and activities! 

 

Overall, we loved it and will probably continue to go back there again in the future, but not to the exclusion of Hedo II and BRB both of which we like a lot for different reasons and strengths.   

 

Pics:

A few pics will be posted at webshots.com when I get around to it, if interested, just do a search for rhallva to find them.

 

Respect-

Roy and Nancy in VA