Club Ambiance Trip - 7th - 22 April 2009
Our trip started in Birmingham (the real Birmingham in the UK) on a damp Tuesday morning. We checked in with Thomson with no issues at all, our seats had already been reserved. Seats 34A & 34B - supposed to have been exit seats, but good old Thomson can't do this right and have put a bulhead in front of the seats between you and the doors, thereby limiting your legroom. The seats were also very narrow as they had your dinner tray in the arm of them, so if you are thinking of paying to upgrade your seats on the Thomson flight don't bother the other normal seats are just as good if not better in some respects.
The flight on this occasion left 30 minutes late, 11:35 instead of 11:05 - the flight time was a full 10 ½ hours..And it felt like it too. The food on board was not bad, a shepherds pie hot meal and a cheese sandwich box meal later in the flight.
We landed approximately half an hour late having failed to make up any time, it is quite a long walk from where we landed to the immigration queues with only a small part of it being moving paths, near the end of the walkway. The queue in immigration was not as bad as it looked"¦what seemed like an age waiting was in fact when I checked my watch only about 20-25 minutes.
No awkward questions at immigration meant we were on our way to baggage collection, which by the time we arrived at it our bags were already off the carousel and on the floor waiting for us. Red capped porters try to persuade you to let them carry your bags, they charge a dollar a bag"¦we did not use their services. We made our way towards the exit and the customs declaration area. A lot of people seemed confused at this spot, but it is really straight forward, if you have nothing to declare go to the green channel where it also reads "nothing to declare". If on the immigration cards you filled out on the plane you have added something to declare then head for the red channel where it reads "items to declare".
This queue took us 10 minutes to get through, and we haeded out to the car park where our pre arranged lift was to be waiting for us. We used the services of Moodie (Aka Andrew Moodie) he had told us he would be waiting with a card with HIS name on it..a little strange but this is Jamaica..we found him and following a brief introduction he left to bring his people carrier to us. The trip to the hotel was very pleasant, Moodie was full of fun, laughter and useful information. The journey flew by and we were at club ambiance within 40 minutes. Moodie charged us $80US for this transfer. This appeared to be the going rate, and I thought it was worth it to get to the hotel without using the tour ops transfer bus, which did not turn up for nearly two hours.

Part II
Check in was painless, we were greeted and given a nice refreshing fruit drink whilst the check in guy went through our details, just a couple of signatures and payment required for the safety dposit box, they will not let you pay for this at the end of your stay like most hotels, you need to pay up front, it is $3US per day, you can pay by cash, us dollars or Jamaican or by credit card. I thought this was very expensive and unnecessary for an all inclusive hotel. This was a common theme at Club Ambiance for any extras, they wanted to charge a fortune, they were charging 5 star prices for a 3 star hotel, but I will come on to these later.
After checking in we were shown to our room by the bell hop, who carried our bags up the stairs to the room just behind reception and behind the stage.. a wonderful view of the gardens and the Caribbean sea. The room was lovely and cool on entering and was a good size, it was just one of the standard rooms, with a bath and a shower. The bed was covered in flower petals and two big white swans made from the towels, balloons had been tied to the bedside lamps and a bottle of sparkling wife on ice left for us, this was for my wife's birthday a few days into the holiday, it was a very nice touch and much appreciated.
The boy showed us round the room, instructing us on the various bits and pieces, such as the air con and the TV. The TV had about 15 channels mainly various US news channels, ABC, Fox, CBS, CNN etc, and also a semi hard porn channel "the playboy channel" though this channel showed full sex inc oral it never showed the "money shot" with clever editing losing this shot right at the point"¦.still we were not there to watch TV anyway.. The room also contained a nice sized fridge if you wanted to keep your own stuff cool etc. The shower was always hot and extremely high pressured"¦never had a problem with low water pressure. This was room 23. Whilst on the subject of the room, after about 5 days we had a plumbing problem with the bathroom and this resulted in sewage coming up through the bath plug hole one day, I reported it and they sent maintenance to sort it, after about 30 mins of them struggling it still had not been fixed and the smell was pretty bad, so not wanting to remain in a room that was sullied with sewage I went to reception and asked for a room move, they complied without any hassle at all, choosing the empaty room next door for us to move into (this was fine as it meant not having to repack everything, just carry it all next door) we had no other problems with the accommodation. The rooms on this side of the building are subject to road noise, from the very busy main road outside, but it never bothered us much.

Part III
After ditching our stuff in the room and seeing off the sparkling wine whilst sat on the big balcony, we headed off to explore a little, bear in mind this was now around 7pm Jamaica time 1am british time and we were totally knackered by now having been up since 5am. We headed off down the stairs and back through reception. Reception is an open plan affair, with the excursion desk and internet caffe (2 pcs and a space for your own laptop) along with an ATM.
To expand on these services, the excursion desk is open from around 8am and is run by a lovely woman called Jasmin. The excursions offered are not bad value, and Jasmin is open to abit of haggling especially if you wish to book a number of trips. We used her to book a couple of shopping trips into Ocho Rios and the shuttle to Dunns River falls"¦these are utilising the hotel shuttle..$12US per person - the mini bus leaves the hotel at either 10am or 2:30pm"¦the bus drops off at Dunns river falls first and then goes on to Ocho..it will park up in Ocho and you are expected back at it in two hours. This is plenty of time to explore the shops and stop off for a couple of red stripes. The second time we did this we went to the Hard Rock Café for lunch and then still had time to do a little more shopping. In Ocho also are plenty of ATMs that issue both US and JA dollars. The same two hours can be spent at the falls..you have to pay for your own admission to the falls $15US per person and if you want a locker there for your valuable its $8US but you get $3US back when you return the key. Two hours is again plenty of time at the falls. You are advised to take water shoes and there are plenty of places to rent or buy them when you get to the falls. I don't know how much they were because we took our own.
The other trips we booked with Jasmin were a day trip to Negril - $80US per person"¦I did contact Moodie to get a price for this trip and he wanted $200US but this would have been the same if there were 4 of you instead of two so could be better value if there are a number of you. Anyway the trip turned out to be a private one with just my wife and I travelling in a car with a driver. He picked us up at 07:30 and we drove along the coast road into Negril approx 2 hours. When we arrived he dropped us at the Margaritaville in Negril where you can you the sun loungers and shades for free as long as you purchase drinks etc from them. We were happy to spend the day here and took in plenty of food and drinks whilst settling up at the end of the day. At 5pm Jake our driver picked us up and transported us to Ricks café to watch sunset and the cliff divers. This was a nice end to the day and we spent about another 1 ½ hours here. We then were driven back to Club Ambiance - arriving back around 8:30pm - a long day but a nice one and it was good to be able to swim in the sea properly and walk the beach - 7 miles of it..
The next trip was to Bob Marley's house in nine miles. This was decent trip which included the transport and entry fees..$55US each..this was a half day tour - picked up at the hotel at 10:00 and returned approx 1:30pm..and the final trip we did was Rafting on the Martha Brae river. Again the fee included both transport and entrance fees..this one was $75US each. The rafting was very good, nice and relaxing and lasts for approx 1 hour 15 mins"¦you are greeted with a nice cool fruit punch before being shown to you raft, you will have a photo taken at the end of the trip which you can purchase..$7US.
Jasmin at the trip desk will also organise taxis if you fancy going anywhere on your own..we used a taxi a couple of times to go to Drax Hall to the Irish Rover pub, where we had some great food and great drinks, on a Friday night they have a fantastic live Reggae/Ska band on. Angela the hostess will treat you like royalty"¦
Anyway back to the reception area - I have digressed a bit but I am sure you wanted to know a bit about the excursions. The ATM in the reception will issue both US and JA $ but I did notice it was out of order quite a bit, it will also charge you $6US for any withdrawals..no matter what the size. The front desk will change money but the exchange rate was appalling"¦about 25%+ less than you could get at the Cambios in Ocho.
The internet consisted of 2 PC which you bought time from the front desk - $3US got you 15 minutes and $5US got you 30 minutes"¦There were other combinations you could purchase but I cant remember the price. There is also a machine that issues phone cards..again no idea if they were good value as I used my mobile.

Part IV
After mooching around we headed for the bar in desperate search for a cold one, we took our seats at the bar and was greeted by JR a fantastic barman who welcomed us like old friends, he explained a few of the drinks whilst pouring us two ice cold red stripes"¦mine was downed in one and was refreshed just a quickly..The Bar staff are fantastic..I have never been to a hotel where the staff are so genuinely nice"¦they are genuine full stop. They appear to be really happy in their work and are always singing and dancing. You can choose to tip or not and if you don't you will not notice any deterioration in the service you receive because the staff do not expect you to tip. I chose to tip through out our stay on an adhoc basis - if I had cash in my pocket then I tipped at the bar every couple of rounds or so..likewise in dinner if I had the same waiter for the meal then I tipped a dollar or two. Staff worthy of a special mention are the hard working bar staff, JR, Barney, Phillip, Faith, Nigel, and I'm sorry but I cant remember the names of a couple more, when I do I will give them a thanks on here. In the dining hall the waiters/waitresses all worked so hard. You take your seat and they appear like magic with a just of iced water, and take your drinks order which they run off to the bar to fetch"¦dinner is a buffet normally with a chef station doing a carvery or pasta type dish. Each night had a theme, international night, Chinese night, Italian night, seafood night, Jamaica night, bar b que night and carvery night. This is repeated each week so if you are there for two weeks you will see all the meals twice. I was not impressed with the food - it was never hot enough"¦always luke warm"¦it was very bland, the soup was good, and the salads looked ok but I am a salad dodger not a salad lover. The food never looked like it was going to be appetising"¦and a couple of nights I survived on soup and a roll"¦though saying this I never actually went hungry.
The night we arrived it was Italian night and this being my least favourite food I thought we were going to be off to a bad start"¦but I found some chicken dish that was ok and the minestrone soup was very good. They have a lot of deserts to choose from but they all seem to tastes the same"¦always seem to be missing that something that makes you enjoy deserts???
As we finished our meals we both looked at each other through half opened eyes and said time for bed..this was 8:30pm"¦.we were shattered..we returned to the room and slept through till 7am"¦.where we will continue this trip report later"¦

Part V
The morning started bright and early and was a gorgeously sunny and hot day. We made our way down to breakfast and was greeted by the friendly staff again, we were seated in a seat next to some large open windows overlooking the legend bar and the still Caribbean sea, a perfect outlook. The waiting staff take your order for coffee and tea and then you help yourself from the very large buffet. There are a lot of choices but unfortunately it does get boring after the 4th or 5th day"¦The buffet consists of hot porridge, a selection of fruit (mainly different melons) but sometimes, orange slices and only once was there grapefruit. There is some very rubbery cheese but no cold meats. There was a smoothie counter on about 5 occasions through out the 2 weeks. These were very good. The hot counter had scrambled and boiled eggs/French toast (beware it is sweet not savoury how brits usually like it)/grilled sausages (sometimes these were ok sometimes they were like hotdog sausages)/then there were some Jamaican specialties, salt fish/liver/dumplings etc. The one consistently good area were the omelettes, cooked fresh for you by Colin but done by Joseph for a week of our stay as Colin had injured himself and was off for 6 days. The omelette station also provides the American style pancakes too"¦cooked fresh. This is where you will find the American style crispy bacon and syrups"¦.(Why do Americans feel the need to cover their breakfast savoury items in pancake syrup???) There are usually a choice of 3 different fruit juices to go with this lot.
Following breakfast we made for the beach towel collection point - this is at the side of the pool bar next to the swimming pool, you basically just help yourself to what towels you want..though I did see people signing for them on occasions - we were never asked to and we were never limited to how many we took either"¦the towels are one negative to this hotel - they are well past their sell by date..both the room towels and the pool towels "¦the room towels are in fact a disgrace"¦even when they are returned to you from the laundry they still look filthy off white and are hard..they do not dry you very well at all as the fibres are so worn"¦the pool towels don't look so bad because they are blue but are very worn. It would not cost the hotel much to replace these towels and would make a big impression on the guests.
The pool area had loads of sun beds and shades and there was always plenty available at any time (the hotel was full for all but 4 days of our stay) yet no where was crowded..full is only 90 couples so you can easily "lose" this amount amongst the pool and three beach areas, along with the bars etc"¦
We made our way down to the beach area and though it looks very nice as a beach goes it is very poor, we did know to expect this so it did not come as such a disappointment. The beach is man made and the sand is more like rough shingle..the sea is very shallow, about thigh to waist deep at best and there is quite a bit of seaweed on the floor..though they do go out and try and dig this up on occasions. Still it was fine for laying by and dipping into when things go a bit too hot. We preferred the Clothing optional beach which was very popular throughout our stay - it was the most busy of the beaches and was frequented mainly by the more mature couples..the youngsters seemed to stay away. Most people were nude in fact by the end of the holiday everyone on the beach was baring all. Though if you want to use this beach feel free because anything does go, if you want to go nude do so, if just topless is your thing then do it and standard cloths on bathing also no problem. Topless seemed to go anyway in the resort, by the pool and on all beaches"¦