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When you arrive at the airport, don't judge the resort until you get there, for the road to Ocho Rios is one you will want to forget. The two hour ride to the resort passes through the many towns on Jamaica's north coast over bumpy roads. But once you arrive at the resort, things will surely go more smoothly.

Upon arrival, I tried to remove my bags from the taxi, but the bellman assured me that it was time for me to stop working and let them do the work. I was pleased to agree. We were given an Oceanfront One bedroom Jacuzzi Suite overlooking the pool area to the ocean. The room was nice enough, but the small sitting room was uneccessary; we never used it. The Jacuzzi was also not worth paying extra for; there was not enough hot water to fill it and filling it took over an hour. By the time it was full enough, the water was cold. Take a less expensive room, they are just as nice.

We were whisked to our room after a short check in, then invited to go have a meal. The italian restaurant is really a buffet restaurant serving a variety of cuisines for lunch, and for dinner, serving a standard italian menu, no buffet, which was nice. The food on that first day tasted delicious, was plentiful, and the service couldn't have been better.

We explored the resort, to discover a mineral pool, a mineral water jacuzzi, a nude beach complete with pool and jacuzzi (the nicest beach at the resort), the spa, an array of hutched buildings on a hill on the west side of the resort, the main pool and jacuzzi in the center of the resort, and the main beach. I was surprised at the smallish size of the main beach and the quality of the sand which was more like mud. There were several thatched umbrellas for shade, and the water was chrystal clear once you cleared the first ten feet away from the beach, perfect temperature and beautiful to swim in! There was also an entrance to the sea below the mineral pool that lacked a beach but led directly to two feet deep of gorgeous clear water in a private cove.

The Grand Lido espouses to be a high class, full service luxury resort. In many ways it is, but in many ways, it is not. The positives include excellent service some of the time, 24 hour room service, premium drinks whenever you want them, good food, 24 hour tennis, and the list goes on. The negatives? Sometimes the service is terrible, the premium drink you want is not in stock, the room service menu is very limited, when it gets there the drinks are watery from sitting around too long, the fries were cold, etc. There are no reservations taken for tennis, so when you want to play, the court might be occupied and you have to wait - a minor inconvenience.

One major issue was that of staff members using facilities, eating in the restaurants. I found myself many times in the gym waiting for a piece of equipment while a staff member used it, or waiting behind staff members in line at the buffet. That was definitely irritating. The rooms were very unspectacular, a little above basic hotel rooms, even though the layout was like a suite. The bathrooms were very nice, as were the little balconies, but the furniture was old and ugly, the curtains were ripping, that kind of thing. The twice daily maid service was wonderful and always on time.

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Like most all-inclusives, there were constant activities. The nighttime entertainment was usually excellent. But the beach activities were invasive. Most people were not at all interested in participating with the afternoon beach olympics, or dance lessons, but the leisure directors got on megaphones and urged and cajoled and insisted that people come and join until they got four or five participants. Then on the blaring megaphone every detail of the event was broadcast to all within earshot. No one really understood why they pushed these activities when no one was really interested in them at all.

San Souci is really ideal for rest, relaxation, dining, drinking and relaxing. They should let it be what it is and not try to make it something it is not, and something that no one wants it to be. In summary, if you are going to pay the full price of around $800 per day for two (summer rack rate), go somewhere else because you would do much better for the money, but if you can get a discounted rate as we did for around half that, then Grand Lido Sans Souci won't disappoint.

Michael Wainstein, E-mail

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