Royal Decameron Montego Bay and Runaway Bay

 I waited two months to write this to see if I still felt upset by the treatment at this hotel and I do, so unfortunately here is my first negative review i have written. I have stayed at Royal Decameron hotels in other countries and because of those great stays I convinced my group of 4 (ages 30-60) that this hotel would be great. After a year of planing a multi country trip with a 10 day stay in Jamaica everything fell apart as soon as we showed up for check in, After 12 hours of travel to get to Jamaica (unavoidable due to distance traveled and not the hotels fault) it was a little disappointing when we were told that our room was not ready. Being a seasoned traveler I was not upset as I had my bathing suit in my carry on, so we changed into our suits and got a drink. While waiting we could hear a disgruntled group talking with the guest services and then we saw them shuttled into a van and leave. We went back to the desk and were told that our rooms would be ready in a bit and about 1hr later told we needed to talk to the manager, Carlos. We had read reviews online and had heard that they like to try to get people to move to their other hotel in Runaway By, we told the lady that we did not want to move, but we still were forced to talk to Carlos. In our talk with Carlos we were told we did not have an option but to move unless we did not want a room that night as they were having power problems . This was odd as there were people still at the hotel and lights and tv's running, but he was adamant and we were forced to move to Runaway Bay (free dunn river tour for compensation) Now this might not have been a big deal if we had not looked at that as a option to begin with and had specifically chosen Montego Bay because of what we had planned for our vacation. Carlos had assured us that the drive was about 40min. On the drive there around the 30 minute mark we asked the driver if we were close and he laughed when we told him the timeline Carlos had given us and told us it was an hour and and half drive. Once we got to Runaway Bay things could have gotten better,however apparently Montego Bay (Carlos) did not tell them they were transferring us and the check in desk couldn't help us, they took our information and told us they would call us when the room was ready. When I asked how they would call us, were we supposed to stand in the front lobby as we didn't have a cell phone she stared at me and said i don't know and walked away. After thirty minutes of which we stood in the lobby waiting for a call we saw them handing out keys to people yet we were still denied keys to a room. I finally had to stand at the desk and talk with three people before it was all settled as they kept misplacing our check in. So after 5 hours we were finally able to check in. I will leave the review of runaway bay for that hotel review- short of it staff was good, location, beach and things to do- not good. After much discussion over 2 days we were finally able to move back to Montego Bay. The problem was no longer electricity, but we were told water. It is an island, I can handle services being a little wonky, but we were to find out that the moving of people was all just because of rooms being overbooked. Nothing worse then finding out you have been lied to, especially when we still had 7 days of our 10 day booking to go. The rooms at the Royal Decameron were okay, not great but for a three star what i expected. The other couple that we traveled with, their room had a screaming fan, their toilet literally yelled when flushed and did not stop until you put your hand in the tank and leaked on the floor- one of them slipped and fell as constant wiping of the water was necessary. They asked to have it looked at a number of times with no results. The hotel is close to the airport which is great because the taxi ride is 10 minutes, the bad is that you will hear every plane land as the airstrip is right next to the hotel. The beach is fine, not what you might expect when coming to an island known for beach. however the sea urchins come in and are stuck to everything, this is mother nature and not the hotels fault, however they have no warning signs and so at least 2-4 people a day end up with sea urchin injuries . Our group is well versed on these little buggers and one of our party was still afflicted with an injury.- Suggestion to have warning signs up along the beach for people- especially as lots of people this would be their first time in the ocean. A positive on the service at the hotel was the day one of our party did get a sea urchin in her foot, the staff were very attentive to her and helped get out as much spines as they could and wrapped it up. As they said they do it 2-4 a day so are very good at it (not to say that it wasn't excruciatingly painful!) Also the view from the rooms are nice as 90% of the rooms are oceanview. The service was sub par (hard to get drinks) and food just okay. It appears this place has come under new management and if this is the way they will run the hotel I see this rating for their to be more of a 1 1/2 to 2 star hotel. On our checkout day I went to speak with Carlos as I am a strong believer in writing a review I would say in person. I sat down with him, was not angry, but just let him know what my concerns were. The whole time I talked he leaned back in his chair and stared over my head behind him or at someone else, i stopped mid sentence and still no acknowledgement from him, so i stood up and walked away. If this hotel wishes to maintain its 3 star rating it will require far better management who are interested in making the hotel a positive experience, we are not 5 star hotel type of people, being a backpacker I can accept not perfect, but I do expect to be treated with a bit of respect, not to be completely ignored and not to be lied to and that is all the service we were offered. If this hotel continues to run like this i would not suggest going here. Everyone we talked to had horrible experiences with service or with Carlos directly. By the end of this vacation i felt horrible and embarrassed for being the one to say that the Royal Decameron was a good hotel chain and convincing my group to choose them. Luckily we were all able to still have a great time despite this hotel and would go to Jamaica again, but never this hotel! Show less

Room Tip: 90% of the rooms are oceanview which is positive. Rooms are hit and miss. Two rooms side by side... [gallery ids="319,421" type="rectangular"]