Jamaica with DD and DIL -- a blast
 

Spent last weekend with step daughter (DD) and step daughter-in-law (DIL) at the Grand Palladium Jamaica near Lucea, Jamaica. DH and I stayed at this same resort, but on the Lady Hamilton side, in April 2010.
Background -- I am 53, DD is 28 and DIL is 24. Although they are not girls, I will refer to them as that in this report for brevity sake. This is our first time to travel together, and it was wonderful. However, the beginning of the trip was not fun for me. Due to fog in my hometown, I missed my connecting flight in ATL, so I did not fly with the girls. I was concerned, but they made it to the resort just fine. I however, endured delay after delay, and finally arrived at the resort around midnight. I quickly checked in and found the girls in the disco. After we returned to the room at 1:00 am, I realized there were no towels in our bathroom. However, a call to the front desk fixed that. We found the lack of towels to be a problem throughout our stay.
Our room was in building 11, which is the closest buiding to the pool and restaurants. This resort is very spread out, with several low rise building over several acres. Our room had two double beds and a pull out sofa bed. We had an ocean view if you walked onto our balconey. The room was fine, but we had to be careful when we showered. The shower door is poorly positioned so that it was easy for water to escape onto the floor. The second time I showered, I flooded the bathroom. There was a large jacuzzi in the bathroom, but we never used it. The room had a coffee maker and a mini fridge, which was restocked daily with Red Stripe, water and soft drinks.
The girls prefered the pool over the beach. Most of the time we lounged on pool chairs or sat on a wall that ran through the middle of the pool. That was fine with me. I live near a a coastal community, so I get to see the Gulf of Mexico quite often. The girls used to live in the same town, but moved to ATL a few years back. The pool area was huge, and you never had to look for an empty chair. We did walk down to the beach for photos and to take a quick dip. The sea was a little warmer than the pool. The sea was a beautiful.
Because I was a returning guest, I was allowed to make reservations at the ala carte restaurants. We had wonderful meals at Bubba's, the steak restaurant, and the Italian restaurant. We ate in the Sport's bar for lunch the first day. After that, we ate breakfast and lunch in one of the buffet restaurants, and had a wide selection of dishes.
We did a zipline through a company, it was NOT Chukka. I chose the same zipline company that DH and I used in 2010. Our driver, Murphy, gave us a lot of information on the ride to the zipline. There are five lines and we felt very secure.
The girls surprised me with a massage in the spa and it was very relaxing and enjoyable.
Some differences I noticed from our trip in 2010. DH and I stayed in a honeymoon suite, and the room was much larger and the housekeeping service was much better. In 2010, we had trouble keeping our room cool enough. On this trip, our room stayed cool, as the resort is now placing a card in the slot that keeps the electricity on even when we are not in the room. During our stay, the humidy level never seemed excessively high, with temps around 85 degrees, very pleasant for us. I live in Florida, and can handle high temps and high humidity. However, at this resort on this visit, clothing and sheets always felt damp.
Grand Palladium is about a 50 minute ride from the airport. The resort is well maintained and the grounds are beautiful. It caters to families and couples. It does not cater to people looking to party all night long. The disco is very small and there was not much of a party going on. That was fine with us, but I am just letting you know what to expect. The entertainment is fair. I enjoyed it but the girls did not at all.
We felt the service in the resort, other than housekeeping, was great. Most of the people who worked at the resort were very friendly and helpful. I would go back again.

Yeah!!! I love Jamaica. I've only driven thru Lucea (on the way to Negril) but that's such a lovely stretch of coastline. Thanks for writing such a nice report.

Thanks, gracie, for the trip report. I'm glad you had a nice time. Did your daughter and daughter-in-law end up doing carry-on or did they check luggage? How did it work out for them?

Everyone carried on (i read on the other thread).

Thanks suze. It was such a big issue before the trip that I wanted to know what happened.

They both did carry-ons but vowed never to again. I don't quite understand why, because they only had to roll their bags in the Atlanta and Montego Bay airports. They have not flown much and have never had their checked luggage riffled through as I did on a return trip from Europe many years ago. Several items were stolen. I have also suffered from delayed luggage more than three times. The worst was on another trip to Europe. Our luggage did not arrive on board our ship for two days.