The Ritz Carlton's White Witch is a "must play" on Jamaica golf vacations, but there are less expensive (and equally good) hotel options.
Here’s another great example of why you can’t necessarily rely on a company’s reputation or online reviews when planning your golf vacations.
Recently, the editors of Golf Odyssey published a report on the best places to play, stay, and dine on Jamaica golf vacations.
One hotel they reviewed was the Ritz Carlton Rose Hall Resort & Spa.
Ritz-Carlton. No-brainer, right? Wrong.
Now, according to Tripadvisor, the Ritz Carlton Rose Hall is the No. 1 rated hotel in the immediate area, garnering four out of five stars based on a whopping 533 reviews.
Yet the editors of Golf Odyssey had this to say:
“We are hard-pressed to understand why one would choose the Ritz-Carlton Rose Hall Resort & Spa (Rating: C-) for their Jamaica golf vacations. While service was superb, it was not better than at the other resorts we sampled. With five floors of rooms set along a rather short stretch of beach, one better be content to sit poolside. The rooms are comfortable, but unlike newer Ritz resorts, the decor is an uncomfortable combination of island pastels and the traditional, club-like motifs and white marble bathrooms one finds in many Ritz-Carlton city hotels. In addition, the food was merely passable and grossly overpriced.”
To paraphrase, the Ritz-Carlton Rose Hall is not a bad place to stay on Jamaica golf vacations, but you can get a similar level of service, room comfort — and even better food — at other, lower-priced hotels.
This, my friends, is a perfect example the all-important perspective that Golf Odyssey gives its readers. They don’t just review hotels individually, but relative to one another, so you can make smart decisions.
Could you look up all the hotels yourself and read hundreds of reviews from people who may or may not have global golf travel experience? Sure. But I hope you have a few days to kill.
By the way, if you’re interested in taking a Jamaica golf vacation, and want to read Golf Odyssey’s full review (which takes you from the airport, through customs, to your hotel, onto the golf courses, into restaurants, and recommends other, off-course activities) you’ll find it in the October 2009 issue. If you’re not already a subscriber, you can access this story by taking a limited-time, free trial here.
Did you know? Golf Vacation Insider and Golf Odyssey are the world’s only golf publications that conduct “secret shopper” site inspections and do not accept advertising from golf courses, resorts or restaurants in order to provide you with expert, unbiased, and trusted advice.
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