My wife, daughter, and I spent a week at the Holiday Inn Sunspree Resort in Montego Bay, starting on Dec. 26 1999.

The Holiday Inn resort is situated on a vast expanse of beach front. A casual stroll from end to end takes about 15 minutes. No matter where you look, you'll find views of natural and landscaped beauty: palm trees, bushes covered in flowers, fountains, topiary, tropical plants in mind-boggling variety, and of course the turquoise Caribbean Sea. The beach is shallow and sandy. On windy days the surf is strong and the waves break against a reef a few dozen yards from the shore. The shallowness of the beach and the force of the surf makes swimming the in the sea difficult. Fortunately, the Holiday Inn provides two swimming pools: a huge, lagoon-shaped pool in the central court, and an "adults only" pool, complete with a bar at water level, located near Building 6. During our stay, the large pool was never crowded and was often empty.

The beach sand is quite coarse and might be uncomfortable to lie on with nothing more than a towel. Fortunately, there are hundreds of white deck chairs on every beach and around the pool. The chairs in the pool area are prime real-estate, so plan to wake up early if you expect to claim one.

Beach towels are available at a hut near the pool. You will need a towel card (available at the front desk) to check out a towel. Beach towels are a different color than room towels, and a sign in the hotel rooms asks you not to bring these towels outside.

The pool area and beaches near the pool are the center of most day and night activities and so are usually crowded. We were looking for peace and quiet, so we tended to spend most days at the usually empty beach near the Sea Breeze Restaurant. The breeze from the water is stronger there than it is around the pool, making the hot afternoon sun more bearable.

At the center of the main pool is an island, on which is a stage made to look like the ruins of an old fortress, overgrown with foliage. During the day various activities are held there, ranging from canned reggae music during mealtimes to "aquacise" classes conducted by an individual with the build and gentle personality of Mr. T, to bingo. In the evenings the stage area hosted various energetic dance shows (performed, I believe, by Holiday Inn staff members) and live music played by a resident band. The live music was in the light jazz genre, and was a nice way to wind down after a grueling day at the beach.

We opted for the "all inclusive" plan, which meant meals and drinks were available at no charge. I have no idea of the economic sense of this, but it certainly made things easier in a number of ways. Freedom from thinking about money is just one of the ways that a resort like the Holiday Inn transports you to a world very different from the day-to-day.

The resort has several restaurants, bars, places to get snacks, etc. Most people eat in the "MoBay Food Festival," located in the main building. Food is served here buffet style. There was plenty of variety at every meal: meat, fish, lots of vegetables, fresh bread, soup, salads, fruit, and a big dessert cart. You can serve yourself from warming trays and have a chef's assistant prepare something made to order, such as omelettes during breakfast or pasta at lunch. A different assortment was available every day, though some staples were available every meal. Quality of food here ranged from good to very good. The large number of tables, located both inside the building and out near the pool deck, meant it was never necessary to wait more than a minute or two for a table. The staff were very quick to re-set vacated tables. Juice, milk, and soft drinks were available in the buffet area, and other drinks could be obtained from the Great House Bar. Contrary to what you may have heard, the drinking water is quite potable.

The "Barefoot Bar and Grill" serves burgers, hot dogs, grilled-cheese sandwiches, and fish-and-chips. We ate there twice, once for lunch and, oddly, on our last night, when we ate salad at the buffet then brought fish-and-chips onto the beach.

The only other restaurant we ate at was the Sea Breeze, located at the beach where we spent most of our time. In this restaurant, and the restaurants located upstairs in the main building (Cafe Veranda and Vista's), food is ordered from a menu and delivered by servers. Reservations are required for dinner.

One night the Sea Breeze hosted a beach party with a buffet of Jamaican food. The food was great but the party was dampened by strong winds and an unfortunate choice of music, something that sounded like gangsta rap overdubbed on Bob Marley tunes and played so loud the speakers were distorting.

Also located upstairs in the main building are the Witches Disco and Mathilda's Piano Bar, neither of which we visited.

The advantage to the all-inclusive plan is that you don't have to carry money around. However, if you don't carry money around, you have nothing to tip with. Although I didn't see much evidence of tipping, I recommend you keep a supply of US singles for this purpose. I received pretty good service when the bar was crowded on New Year's Eve, and I suspect tipping helped. The large number of staff members means you may be served by several different people during a single meal, so a small tip for each service performed works nicely.

In addition to the pool-side entertainment I've already mentioned, the Holiday Inn offers various water sports and tours. Most of these are listed in the resort's promotional material, so I won't duplicate that here.

The glass-bottom boat ride is certainly worthwhile. You can see a variety of coral and tropical fish. On our trip we managed to see a stingray with a wingspan of three or four feet. Space on the boat fills up quickly, so reserve your spot early in the day.

On the one rainy morning during our stay we went on a tour of the Rose Hall Great House, an 18th century mansion on the site of what was once a sugar plantation. The house is said to be haunted by Annie Palmer, the "white witch of Rose Hall," who murdered three of her husbands and several slave lovers. My daughter was disappointed that the dungeon in the basement had been converted to a gift shop. Marcia, our Jamaican tour guide, had great command of her subject and managed to spook several tourists with ghost stories.

We went on a two-hour sunset tour of MoBay on the yacht Calico. The Jamaican crew were extremely friendly, dancing and singing energetically to canned reggae and making sure the rum punch ("chicken punch" for Julia) never ran dry. This cruise cost US$25.00 per person. We were picked up by bus at the Holiday Inn by a driver who collected people from other nearby resorts -- Half Moon Bay, Sandals, and Jack Tar Village. En route the driver realized the small bus we were in wouldn't hold the passengers we had yet to collect, so we pulled in to a residential neighborhood and stopped in front of what looked like a Miami Beach millionaire's residence, complete with wrought-iron gate and an automatic opener. The driver retrieved a large bus from inside and we were required to transfer.

In the airport in MoBay we were greeted by some singers in traditional dress. That and the warm, fragrant breeze made for a very nice welcome. Things in the airport were a little disorganized. We (the passengers on the flight, bound for the Holiday Inn) waited in the terminal for some time with no indication of what to do next from the Sunquest rep, who kept disappearing. The terminal was warm, and we were still wearing long pants and carrying winter coats (next time, I'll change into shorts at the airport before departing and figure out something for the coats).

More confusion occurred in the parking lot at the shuttle busses that were to take us to the resort. There were many busses in the lot, but it wasn't clear which were going to the Holiday Inn. The Sunquest rep was nowhere to be seen at this point. It wasn't a big deal, but a sign in the bus window or a little coordination would have helped.

At the MoBay airport, once you get through customs, is a currency exchange booth where you can pick up some Jamaican money. Unless you are planning to buy things in the Jamaican interior, I wouldn't bother. Everything at the Holiday Inn is sold in US dollars, and most prices we saw outside were also in that currency. (However, we did pass a KFC that advertised 10 pieces of chicken for only $435 -- US$1.00 was worth J$38.00 when we were there.)

We arrived at the Holiday Inn at about 11:30 a.m. Our room wasn't ready, and neither were the rooms of most other passengers from the plane. We were somewhat prepared for this, having packed shorts and sandals in carry-on luggage. So we changed in the washroom, parked our luggage in the Sunquest office in the hotel lobby, ordered a rum punch, and began vacationing. As it happened, the rooms weren't ready until about 4:00 p.m. Some people used that time to sit in the lobby and complain about the delay. My advice: expect a delay and relax.

We opted for an ocean-front room upgrade which included a king-size bed and a sofa bed. The room was a standard Holiday Inn offering: complete, clean, no surprises, unmemorable. The room included a good-sized balcony. The ocean (the Caribbean Sea, actually) was no more than 30 or 40 feet away. The view from the balcony was spectacular. Except for a couple of nights when the humidity was high, we kept the patio door open and were lulled to sleep by the sound of the surf. The room included an air conditioner which we used the suppress the aforementioned humidity when necessary.

Our room also included a telephone, TV, clock radio, coffee maker, ironing board and iron, and a small safe. The TV picked up mostly American networks from satellite, plus German and Spanish channels. There was a single Jamaican channel, but reception was poor. One channel was supposed to broadcast information about activities at the resort, but it either wasn't transmitting or didn't work in our room.

The resort offered free use of washers and dryers, which was very useful if you like to travel light. Laundry soap is available at the "Groceteria," a kind of corner store located on site carrying things a vacationer is likely to need, such as OTC medications, film, coffee for the in-room coffee makers, postcards, batteries, etc.

We had a wonderful time at the Holiday Inn, and I'd go back there without a moment's hesitation. The beautiful scenery, pampering by staff, freely available food and drink, and gorgeous weather are so different from the daily grind (different from Canada in winter, at any rate) that I immediately felt like I was in another world. Hours after arriving on Boxing Day, Christmas seemed like a distant memory. The resort is well equipped for families and couples seeking a relaxing, worry-free break from reality.



Recommended: Yes