Antigua vs. Jamaica (Sandals or Couples?)

Okay I am changing my question now that I spent an hour on the Sandals website checking everything out!

It seems like Jamaica has WAY more of the tours and things we like to do than Antigua does... however, here is my dilemma...

I have heard that the ride to and from the airport is quite long in Jamaica if you stay anywhere other than Montego Bay - like 2-hour ride. The problem is that I don't know where any of these tours are and if we chose to say at Montego Bay, but then had long rides everyday to a different tour, that may present a problem for me (I get bad carsickness as I have mentioned before). I am wondering if its worth it to stay further from the airport and just suffer that ride twice but be closer to everything we'd want to do while we're there...

Am I making any sense?! Help!!!

We did Sandals for our HM and were not in the very least impressed.
Others have loved it, it just was not to our liking.
Too many things went wrong and I unfortunately got to know the general manager very well.

If you do book, stay in the Mediteranean Village. The old part is OLD and really needs to be updated. Bring mosquito spray because they do not spray the grounds at night.
The Mediteranean pool is the largest. Very nice, good party atmosphere. Hardly anyone was on the beach. I found out why after I got stung badly by jellyfish, which led to another meeting with the general manager. No postings about jellyfish, and the nurse had nothing that could help the sting. No Benadryl, nothing.

When DH and I were at Sandals, Med village had only been open for three weeks and had lots of problems. I guess that is what really turned us off - we spent a lot of money and were not happy with the services we received in return.

The island is lovely though, I would go again but stay at the St James Club.
Take an island tour, if you happen to meet a taxi driver by the name of Fish, he will take you for the same fee charged by Sandals, but will be on your time schedule, not Sandals.

Wow i had the opposite experience from the ap.

We went to Sandals Antigua in May and absolutely loved it! We stayed on the older side, and i'm so glad we did. The Mediterranean Village is really nice, but it's like one big building, like a hotel. The Caribbean side (older side) is a bunch of two story buildings, all hidden amongst gorgeous gardens.
We loved our room, it was simple, but all we needed. The beach is the most gorgeous i've ever seen (didn't see one jellyfish, but maybe they are there certain times of the year?)
They sprayed every night around 6pm for mosquitos, so that was good. The food was awesome and the drinks are made well.
I would definitely go back. Take a look in my album, but here's one pic:
we took it from a helicopter!

DH and I honeymooned at Sandals Antigua and LOVED it! We stayed in the Mediterranean Village which was absolutely gorgeous. We could not believe how amazing our room was. We found that there were a lot of people on the beach... you had to get there early to get chairs. The pool is great, and all of the restaurants are great... watch out for lunch time though, after 2pm your only choice is pizza! The spa was beautiful... we had a couples massage and got mani/pedis the day before we left. I would DEF recommend staying here!
We also stayed at St. James' Club before we went to Sandals and it was like night and day. SJC was very quiet... not much to do... only a couple of different places to eat... doesn't compare to Sandals at all, IMO. Good luck!!

Like I said, others loved it, we hated it.

too many things went wrong :
- took over 3 hours to check in because a lot of rooms were not ready. Then our luggage went missing.
- there was a group of travel agents touring the place. More attention on them than on guests.
- there was a radio station from Canada broadcasting from the pool and promoting the place. Again, attention was directed towards them.
- there was a promo wedding. Someone won a wedding at Sandals and it was filmed for promo use. Nice idea, but it made certain places off limits to guests for the whole day.
- random power outages, during the day and at night. The place gets REALLY dark at night.
- jellyfish in October. a lot of people got stung.
- the mosquitos and sand flies.
- the lack of service at the pool bar. It got so bad that the activites director took to making pitchers of drinks and serving them from a float in the pool.
One guest got so fed up waiting 15 minutes for a drink that he hopped over the bar and got it himself.

The general manager was a lovely man who patiently listened to my complaints and then admitted that he had a lot of work to do on improving the various situations. Every day we ran into the GM and I was greeted with a hug and a kiss, and a wish for an enjoyable day.

From the comments I've read, it seems that he has been successful.

I learned my lesson though, never forget the Benadryl or the bug spray, and that vodka works as a good antiseptic on jellyfish stings.

BUMP

Changed my question so now I need more help

ok me and my husband stayed at Sandals-Jamaica (montego bay).

1)We took the horseback riding tour, and to get there from montego bay took about 45 minutes on the shuttle.

2) we took the duns river falls tour (climbing a waterfall) and that took like over and hour to get there by shuttle bus! We also stopped mid day at Sandals Ocho rios for lunch and dunns river falls is right next to that sandals.

I hope this helped, it seems as though the attractions are nearby the OTHER Sandals (like ocho rios). but as you said its like 2 hours from the airport. Either way your gonna have to go on a LONG bus ride, its just a matter of how many long rides your willing to take.

****VERY IMPT> my opinion the sandals at montego bay is MUCH better than ocho rios (JUST MY OPINION) when we took the trip to the waterfalls we had lunch at ocho rios and got to walk the grounds and its SOOOOOO small. TINy tiny. the beach is sectioned off very small, much smaller then montego bay beach, also the overall resort is much smaller.

The ONE plus side I saw in ocho rios is that they had jet skiing as an included water sport. Montego bay has everything but jet skiing because montego bay has very high coral reefs.
So if jet skiing is a huge deal for you and your hubby than you might want that option.
HTH

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Posted by Dalia

ok me and my husband stayed at Sandals-Jamaica (montego bay).

1)We took the horseback riding tour, and to get there from montego bay took about 45 minutes on the shuttle.

2) we took the duns river falls tour (climbing a waterfall) and that took like over and hour to get there by shuttle bus! We also stopped mid day at Sandals Ocho rios for lunch and dunns river falls is right next to that sandals.

I hope this helped, it seems as though the attractions are nearby the OTHER Sandals (like ocho rios). but as you said its like 2 hours from the airport. Either way your gonna have to go on a LONG bus ride, its just a matter of how many long rides your willing to take.

****VERY IMPT> my opinion the sandals at montego bay is MUCH better than ocho rios (JUST MY OPINION) when we took the trip to the waterfalls we had lunch at ocho rios and got to walk the grounds and its SOOOOOO small. TINy tiny. the beach is sectioned off very small, much smaller then montego bay beach, also the overall resort is much smaller.

The ONE plus side I saw in ocho rios is that they had jet skiing as an included water sport. Montego bay has everything but jet skiing because montego bay has very high coral reefs.
So if jet skiing is a huge deal for you and your hubby than you might want that option.
HTH

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Thank you!!! That did help b/c the 2 excursions you named are things we'd def wanna do.

honestly the horseback riding was ammmaazing ... especially since Ive never done it before. Plus its like 1 hour of regular horse back riding and then they take you horseback riding in the WATER for like 15 minutes!!! its so coool :)

the dunns river falls was also a great experience, I would say you CANNOT go to jamaica without doing this! (BRING A WATER CAMERA FOR SURE!!!)