My Negative Review of ROR

Hey All,

I am back from my ROR wedding on Jan 22/09. I had a blast with my family and friends, no thanks to ROR or Sunquest/Skyservice.

I have added my review and some pictures. I have more pictures and will provide any help or questions that anyone has. Just PM me.

My review is negative review of ROR. If you are booked you may not want to read my review.

I dont have my photographers photos yet, but I will add some as I get them.

Congratulations to all the other ROR brides.

Ang and Lindsay it was nice to meet you!

Christene

Wedding pictures by christenew - Photobucket

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Here is the review that she attached

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Let me start this by saying I would not return to ROR or recommend it to any of my friends or family. If you don’t want to hear the negatives, or you feel it may upset you, I would stop reading now. Please excuse my grammar as I am not proof reading this. It has taken me so long to write it.

Flight/Skyservice

We flew out of Toronto flying Skyservice. Our flight was supposed to leave at 6:25am. We started in Toronto sitting at the gate with a three hour delay because the sewage and water system was frozen. We then headed out of the gate and onto the runway where an electrical problem caused us to return us the gate. They then refuelled us while we were all on board, which felt very unsafe. We were then able to depart. There were 9 brides on our flight. It was tight to try and get my dress in the overhead bin. I was able to get it in and didn’t have any issues with needing to have my dressed pressed. I just let it hang in the room and the humidity took care of the rest.

Resort/Rooms

We arrived at ROR without any difficulties. Sunquest provided the transfers. It was an 1.5 hour tip to the resort. They did stop on the way for a washroom break and grab a beer. When we arrived at the resort the check in process was quick and easy. Our room was ready when we arrived. We checked into our room. My FI and I had two double beds pushed together with a semi-ocean view. The two singles in our group ended up with the most central views of the ocean and both had king sized beds. This just made us laugh. I didn't laugh though when the majority of the people in our group ended up with flowers and towel decorations on their bed. We barely got towels. The beds are on the hard size, but we didn’t have any problems sleeping.

Restaurants

The resort is beautiful and quite large. The hotel rooms and the junior suites are in different buildings which meant for long walks to visit friends or families. We had difficult times booking dinner. You have to line up in one of two lines, depending on which area of the resort you are staying in. They would only book reservations for the day of. They would only allow a max of 10 people to book together. The restaurants were only half filled for each sitting. At one point I was 4th in line and could only get the late sitting. It was BS. We tried all of the restaurants. The Japanese restaurant (Tushima) was fantastic. The Asian restaurant (Mandalay Bay) was horrible. We ended up at the buffet after because we couldn’t find anything to eat. There is a Italian restaurant, which is open most of the day. There was little food available when we would go. The main restaurant was St Ann’s. It had a very good selection. One night they had jerk pork, chicken, etc. Another night there was lobster tail. There was also shrimp, muscles, crab. Breakfast was good. We ate at the steak house. It was good but the portions were small. We ate at the Jerk hut. It was great. I don’t like spicy and I enjoyed it. The most frustrating and maddening time I had was at the gourmet restaurant. We were originally going to go off the resort for dinner the night before the wedding. My FI and I wanted some time alone. We made reservations for Sir Richard. We arrived and asked for a seat in the corner which the waiter was able to give us. I couldn’t believe it when two toddles arrived with their parents without shirts on. They screamed. They threw fits. The parents would take them in and out of the restaurant. The staff never said anything. It was so loud I could barely hear my FI. One couple walked out before appetizers were served.

Beaches/Pools

The beaches were lovely. There were enough chairs any time I went down. Sometimes we would have to look for some. There were always people on the beach selling weed, etc. Some were quite pushy. Security was always visible on the beach. The pools were great. Loved the swim up bars. The bartenders were great and made a number of fantastic drinks. I do recommend taking a big cup as the portions are quite small. It does allow for you to try every drink available.

Wedding

We had to stalk Chandlyn despite leaving messages at the front desk and calling the number provided. We ended up finding out from Lindsay where her office was and sat there until she arrived two days before the wedding. We met with her and went through all the setup, which was easy. She was very nice and helpful. We ended up having the reception location moved to plantation because of the number of brides getting married that day (3). We booked the beach gazebo, seagrape, steel drum band, plantation, and the civil ceremony. We brought all the our decorations etc to the meeting and she put them out for us.

The day of the wedding it was pouring rain the morning I woke up. The ceremony was at 3pm. It didn’t stop raining until just before 1pm. I am pretty sure the 11am bride had to be inside. My MOH and I went to the spa for a massage and pedicure at 10:30am. It was a great price. It came to $75US/pp. It also gave me the opportunity to talk to Ang and her MOH. He stylist did a fantastic job on Ang’s hair and makeup. I wouldn’t recommend the mani or pedi. It didn’t seem to be too sanitary. We got out of the spa at 1pm.

On the day of the wedding they brought my flowers up to the room 5 minutes before the ceremony was supposed to start, after I had to call to inquire where they were. I had ordered white roses ahead of time through Tai Flowers. These were old with brown spots, nor were the number that I had requested. Nikki came and picked me up and walked me to the beach front. 4 of our guests were late and went running in a head of me between my MOH and myself coming down the aisle. I put my two songs on a CD and put a guest in change of supervising the person from the resort. I recommend your song being over 3 minutes because it is a long walk up the aisle. They do hook your music up to a sound system. I used a CD so I can’t speak to the IPOD setup.

The ceremony was lovely. The minister was accommodating with our vows. We wrote all our own vows. He edited some of the vows to make them legal. We did ask for a civil ceremony and he did a prayer in the middle of it. My FI and I just looked at each other and said hey lets go with it.

After we were pronounced man and wife the steel drum played. They were fantastic. We were served rum punch and champagne after which was great. We actually ran out because my group is a bunch of alcoholics.

We brought our own photographer from Toronto. We presented him as my FI’s cousin. We never had a hassle from the photoshop. They did however hang around. We did pictures which turned out lovely, even though it rained the day of the wedding. We shot photos from 3pm-6pm. It worked out well because the beach cleared out by 5 or so.

Our reception was moved to Plantation where the other two brides had their receptions. Our dinner service was so slow. They served my husband and I our appetizers before they even took our guests orders. Grant and I were done dinner before anyone else had been served. Our dinner was supposed to be from 6:30-8:30pm. We got out of there at 10pm. We went to our reception and was told by both the bartender and the dj that they would be done in 30minutes. We had to bribe them both and get them to stay. We got less than a 1 hour reception, which I had to pay the entire cost despite speaking to Chandlyn. I did not receive a refund for the time from 8:30-10pm. We had the bonfire set up, which I wouldn’t pay for again. We used the dj and brought a CD of what we wanted him to play. He played 4 songs.

Staff at the Resort

We found that the staff of the resort were rude and didn't seem to care about customer satisfaction. One example - My husband asked multiple times to buy a bottle of champagne to bring back for our one year anniversary. He was told to come back because the manager, who had the key wasn't available. When he was available they were sold out. He told the lady of the importance and her response was "sorry that's too bad". He asked her if he could get one the next morning. She said no. He asked if she could ship one to him. She said no. He asked if my dad could pick one up on Tuesday, she said no. He said to her "look I am not leaving here until you find one". She after some foot stamping she went to the bar and came back with one in under 2 minutes. This was just one little thing that didn't make the week an enjoyable one.

One time I saw a woman ask where she could get coffee. The woman didn’t turn around and look at her and said “over thereâ€. The woman said “I am sorry, whereâ€. The woman’s response was “I said over thereâ€.

Excursions/Activities

We booked horseback riding with Chukka Tours which was very good. We just took a pool towel from the resort to prevent chaffing. I was a virgin and had fun. They take you around some flat areas, then a little hill. They then take the horses into water which was cool.

We also booked snorkelling through the resort for $16US. I highly recommend this. My husband did it twice he had so much fun. Don’t worry if you can’t swim. They give you a life jacket. It was the best excursion for the money.

On Tuesday the dolphin swim offered an upgrade to the next price level. A couple of people in our group went and loved it. Others went on the zip line and enjoyed that.

I am going to sound like a geek but I found the hidden gem of ROR. Every day there was Bingo at the main stage. The one day there were 9 people who played and 6 were from my group. You can win tshirts, mugs, and rum.

Lee’s Tours

I cannot say enough about Lee’s tours. I called and spoke to Norma and booked a private excursion for our group. It was our gift to our guests. She arranged a private van to Dunn’s River Falls, which was beautiful. We went at 8:30 am and there was barely anyone there. It was so busy when we left. It was nice because we left all our stuff on the bus so it was safe. I recommend that you bring water shoes and don’t take anything you would want to loose. My mom who didn’t climb the falls wore my engagement ring. We then went into Ocho Rios and went shopping. Our driver Richard was accommodating and took us anywhere we wanted to go. She supplied us with water, beer and rum punch.

We rebooked Lee’s tours for the day after the wedding. We went with our photographer around OchoRios and area for $50US. Our time was unlimited and he worked with the locals to get us into areas we would normally pay for.

I would highly recommend booking Norma. My only thing that drove me crazy was with Riu. Norma left a phone at the front desk for us. We asked over 15 times to pick it up and everyone said they knew nothing about it. We got a hold of Norma and she sent one of her drivers (Michael). He asked and they brought it out immediately. It was so frustrating.

Return to Toronto

On Saturday we were picked up at the hotel at 7am by sunquest. There was a notice in the hotel lobby stating that a skyservice flight to Regina was delayed indefinitely and that sunquest would keep them updated. We got to the airport in Montego Bay and were told our 10:30 am flight would be leaving at 3:30. By the time I got to the check in desk the flight had been moved to 4:30. I learned on the flight home that the people staying at the Riu Montego Bay with sunquest were not picked up at their hotel until 2pm and were told of the delay. We were not. So we sat in the airport for 6 hours. The gave out $15 vouchers for food. By the end of the line they had changed them to $10 vouchers. The singles in the group were told they were only entitled to $10 because they were on their own, yet some of the couples got $15 ones. It was ridiculous. When we finally made the flight the captain apologized once and nothing from the "customer service representative" on the flight. Not one single person in our group will ever fly skyservice again. There service was horrible. It made for a bitter ending to our trip as many of the people we travelled with ended up with a respiratory infection.

I am very happy that in the end we planned a destination wedding. We had a fantastic time with our friends and family. I can't complain about the weather. I would however never recommend skyservice or Riu to any of my friends/family.

My Review.doc

I can't get it to open. I'm sorry you had a negative experience. Hopefully you had something good to remember it by.

It opened for me...

I just finished the review and it didn't sound that bad to me. Bad customer service is always a kill joy but overall, sounds like you had a good time. Thanks for the excursion tips. Question:

Did you get the day tour for 50 bucks total or pp?

Congrats, but holy crap, Christene - sorry you had such a shitty experience with ROR/Skyservice. I'd be especially pissed about your reception ... or lack thereof. Looking forward to your pro pics. At least you managed a decent time out of the entire week!

Hey Christene, welcome back! Sorry to hear you didn't have the best experience. I can't imagine how disappointing the whole deal with the reception was. Your pictures look great. Can't wait to see more!

so sorry you have such a negative memory of what was supposed to be the best time of your life

could you please post the review and pics in the thread? having attachments is a huge reason the forum gets so bogged down, and it costs points for members to have to open them.

if you could do that it would save us mods a lot of time having to go back and fix this.

thanks!

Already fixed it, Ab, I hadn't read all the way to the bottom to your posting....

Congrats on marring the man of your dreams, I am sorry your wedding did not turn out as planned. I think it is horrible they served dinner so late and pretty much took away your reception I would be angry also. I am also sorry for the poor service you got.

I'm so sorry you had such a crappy experience!! I know how you feel - I hae such mixed feelings about our wedding vacation too. On one hand there were so many let downs & disappointments, but on the other we did have some great times too. It's so hard when there is such a build up for it to be the "perfect" day/week and then it's not. It just plain SUCKS!

At least you are now married to the man of your dreams & you can start thinking about a Renewal of the Vows that is going to be out of this world!! lol