Our trip was scheduled for Saturday October 22, Air Jamaica out or Philadelphia.

The night before, I checked to see about departure times and gate info. I was shocked to see that our flight, which was supposed to be non stop, was now going to Newark, NJ, then on to Montego Bay. Our flight was to have left at 7:25AM. They changed the flight to 7:00AM. Nobody from Air Jamaica called to notify us of the change. OK, we thought, no big deal. We would just arrive an hour later.

When we got to Newark, and after all of the Newark passengers boarded, the pilot informed us of a malfunction of one of the engines. After one hour, the pilot announced they needed a filter. However, the part was not at Newark, they would have to call for the part somewhere else. After being at the gate for 4 hours, we were told we could get off, after they gave us new boarding passes. Another hour went by, and we finally got off. Realizing that the best we could hope for was to be at Grand Lido Braco around 9:00PM, instead of 10:00AM, we decided to ask for a room and meal and fly out of Newark the next day. We called Grand Lido Braco to change our arrival time, and they were very accommodating. Air Jamaica gave us a room at the Ramada, and a $ 60.00 voucher for dinner, which was nice.

Sunday we arrived at Newark, and everything went smooth.

We stayed on the prude side because of the tremendous price difference, and walked to the Au Natural side every day.

Our observations:

FOOD <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/dine.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/dine.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/dine.gif" alt="" />

Food was mediocre at best. Nothing close to the food we had two years prior.

Victoria Market has seemed to go more presentation wise for dinner, rather than quantity. Breakfast were still super there, however.

The Japanesse Restaurant was fun, and the food was good. But we always walk out hungry.

We decided to skip the French Restauarant because my wife and I didn't want to get dressed up, for a two hour dinner, that last time was average.

WEATHER <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/cloud.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/cloud.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/cloud.gif" alt="" />

First couple of days were nice, but later in the week, around 11:00AM every day, it got cloudy and usually rained.

PEOPLE

People were very nice, and despite the bad weather, most had a great time.

MISC.

Staff was friendly and great, and the pool volleyball games were fun. The evening entertainment was fun also. We did not go to the Pajama or Toga night due to very light volume of attendees.

Drinks are no longer served at the swim up bar on the au natural side. Also, there were only two kinds of beer.


Trip to and from airport was non - adventurous. Took about an hour, and we asked both times for the driver to drive straight through.

We got bitten terribly the days we went to the beach by no- see ums, or Sand Fleas. We brought mosquito repellent, and were not bitten once by those babies.

All in all, we had a better time two years ago, but will definitely go back again.