Grand Lido Braco - Jamaica SuperClubs

My fiance and I won this trip in a a ticket raffle to support Big Brothers/Big Sisters in August of 2005. We booked our trip for our honeymoon from January 1 to 8, 2006. We had to pay our own airfare, but travel to and from the Montego Bay airport and everything concerning the resort, except outside trips such as horseback riding, Dunn's River Falls, ATV riding, shopping in Ocho Rios, etc., was included.

The crowd wasn't large at all at this time of year. I suppose it is large for the holidays and dies down right afterward. That was fine with us, as we were able to get great times for restaurant reservations and were first in line for snorkeling for 5 days of 7, and it was nice and quiet at night for sleep and romance.

This was the first SuperClubs resort built, but it is maintained very nicely overall. The layout is an old British-type Caribbean village town. There is a center fountain, cobblestone sidewalks, a registration office, a courthouse where meetings and conferences can be held, a jewelry and watch store, a cigar store, an office with computers and faxes so you can conduct business and check your email for a certain amount of money for a certain amount of minutes, a clothing/swimsuit/beach towel shop, a gift and sundries shop, a spa with massages, aromatherapy, facials, etc., and a nail and hair salon, disco, and multiple bars and restaurants/cafes. There are two beaches, nude and clothed.

We looked at the SuperClubs website prior to going to see photos and amenities. The website estimated our 7-night stay at approximately ,000.

Realistically, the place was very nice and had good food and drinks and good activities, and the staff was beyond belief with their friendliness and hospitality. However, we felt the trip would have not been worth the had we paid for it ourselves. We would have paid about ,000 for it. I have been to another all-inclusive resort in Cancun, Mexico, called the Cancun Palace of the Palace Resorts. Together with airfare from the Midwest, I paid for a 4-night stay back in 2000.

If you were to consider going here, I'd try to search the Internet for any travel deals for this resort. Don't pay what the SuperClubs website will charge you, as I consider that to be too much.

Quick Tips:

Check the Internet or travel agents for better deals than what the SuperClubs website offers.

The gift and sundries shop is reasonable for swimsuits and beach towels, postcards, recipe books, food items, photo frames, etc. I'd recommend bringing your own sunscreen or tanning lotions/oils, as the selection is somewhat limited. We went shopping in Ocho Rios for per person. We should have just bought what we wanted at the gift shop, where we may have spent a few more dollars, but we could have saved the cost of the trip, a rough and bumpy ride an hour each way to Ocho Rios' tourist-trap craft market (where some items were made in China), and 5 hours out of our day.

Best Way To Get Around:

You need to tip the driver who brings you to the resort and takes you to the airport. Otherwise, you need no money unless you want to book outside trips, rent golf equipment, buy bottles of wine and champagne, go shopping at the gift shops and jewelry store, or have things (other than the complimentary manicure and pedicure) done at the spa/salon, such as haircuts and styling, waxing, massages, aromatherapy, etc.

The Grand Lido Braco is divided into an eastern side and a western side by a resort town, which is built as part of the resort. There are several different buildings for rooms. The east side has regular rooms; ground floors, some wheelchair accessible; and a second and third floor. The west side is an au naturel side, which is the totally nude side. Some of these ground floors are wheelchair accessible as well. The construction, decor, and style of buildings and rooms are similar, if not identical; only the presence of clothing of the visitors is the difference.

The ground floors have a concrete patio that empties out onto the grassy lawns and are surrounded by flower plants, bushes ,and palm or coconut trees. The second and third floors have balconies/verandas. All have two Adirondack-style chairs and a small table.

The rooms have a door and a window that open to the patio/balcony. All flooring is ceramic tile. Beds are two double beds or one king-size bed. There is a tall entertainment cabinet with a color TV and remote. The bottom of this cabinet is a dresser. There is a small desk and chair, a couch, a mini-refrigerator, a coffeemaker ,and one nightstand. A portable CD player/radio sits on the nightstand. One ceiling fan and one wall-unit air-conditioner are operated by remote control. There is a long closet with bi-folding doors, an iron and ironing board, and only two to three clothes hangers. There is a safety deposit box inside the closet, for which you must obtain a lock and key from the Registration Office. The bathroom has a bathtub/shower and sink with a moderately sized counter. A small hair dryer is present and has inadequate power. The mirror is very large and extends over the sink and toilet. The wheelchair accessible rooms have a open shower with a small rise to enter and a lowered sink and counter.

My husband and I stayed in a second floor room with a balcony on the east side of the resort. I would give the room itself, with bed and furnishings and decor, two to three stars. The bed is comfortable, the furnishings adequate. The bathroom tile is older, as several were cracked, and grout was missing in the bathroom floor and surrounding the shower/tub. The faucet was older. At times the bath/shower water was nice and warm, and at other times it was lukewarm. It never got scolding hot.

There are several restaurants at Grand Lido Braco. The French restaurant is the best. Make your reservations soon after your arrival, as they are very limited and fill up quickly, no matter what day it is. It's considered to be the only four-star French restaurant on the island of Jamaica. The French restaurant has a five-course meal, with several selections on the menu. It's not totally French food, as many selections are considered Asian and American. The restaurant is up two flights of stairs, and as far as I know, there is no ramp system or elevator for wheelchair or impaired visitors.

The Japanese restaurant has a sushi bar and Hibachi grills. Reservations are a must here as well and fill up quickly. You can only make reservations for one or the other, the sushi bar or Hibachi grill, each night, not both.

Other restaurants include an Italian sidewalk cafe, a Jamaican jerk chicken and pork cafe, and the au naturel bar and grill serving hot sandwiches, chicken and pork, breads, and salads. The main dining area is the only area open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This is a bread station, salad bar, fruit and dessert area, and hot buffet items.

Hours for the restaurants are very different. No restaurant has consistent serving hours through the day. You can always find something to eat, but it may not be at the restaurant you're craving at the time. The food is good to excellent, liquor is excellent (and they don't scrimp on the alcohol when mixing drinks), and desserts are fair to good.

We ordered room service consistently for breakfast (except three mornings out of eight), and the choices are very good. We attempted to leave a doorknob hanger out the night before, as it said to check what you want and leave on the doorknob by 2am. It was never picked up. It's just better to call prior to wanting it. The average time for delivery was 25 to 35 minutes for breakfast and 30 to 45 minutes for dinner.

The resort is split into two beaches, separated by the 'Town'. The East beach is for clothed visitors. Here you can visit the WaterSports Office and sign up for snorkeling, sea kayaking, scuba diving, windsurfing, Sunfish sailing, catamaran sailing and glass bottom boat rides. There is a beach volleyball court roped off, plenty of lounge chairs with cushions. The gazebo where all the weddings take place is also on this beach, at the end of a concrete sidewalk strip over the beach and out to the water. The resort's beachfront rooms are plentiful right along the beach and one can walk no more than 100 feet to the beach from their rooms. If you have a garden view room, the beach is still very close, perhaps 250 feet. There is a large Jacuzzi outdoor tub at the very eastern end of the beach next to a small bar which serves hot food. Within an extremely short walk is the main swimming pool with volleyball net and nearby Jacuzzi, which is partially shaded by coconut trees.

The West beach is the 'au naturel' beach for complete male and female nudity. Beach chaise lounges are plentiful as well as floating chaise rafts. You may retrieve snorkeling equipment from the clothed beach side at the WaterSports office and bring it back to use at the au naturel beach. The resort's rooms also line this edge of beach, again no more than 100 feet away from the beach's edge. Very nearby, there is a very large swimming pool with one open and one tree-secluded Jacuzzi. A volleyball net is set up in the pool on one side. At the other side of the pool, the edge descends into the pool water just as the beach descends into the ocean. Floating rafts are abundant and plenty of open and covered (by umbrella or deck roof) cushioned chaise lounges. There is a bar that serves hot food on this side as well.

Both East and West beach areas and pool areas are very nice. The au naturel beach we found to have cleaner sand. It seems the staff rake the sand more often on this side and it has less seaweed, broken shells and rocks than the East beach has - but the East beach is still nice. I would wear water shoes as you will step on sharp stones, shells, coral under water.

People using the au naturel side are very respectful and fun. If you're a new visitor to the idea of a nude beach and pool, you will feel very comfortable no matter if you're male or female or what type of body you have. There is every type of person and body type present. If you choose to use the au naturel side, rules are strict about being nude. Therefore, clothed people cannot walk over from the other side of the resort to gawk and watch. Whoever is on the au naturel side must change out of their clothes and be nude.

The resort is all-inclusive and activities are planned daily and nightly for both east and west sides of the resort. All visitors may attend any activity, any beach, any restaurant, etc. The only difference is activities, etc., on the west side are nude activities.

There are activities such as a Toga Night, a Mardi Gras Night, '60s and '70s nights, etc. There are singers who come in nightly to sing for a few hours. There is a DJ, dance lessons, dance contests, a disco, and a dance floor in the open-air restaurant, where they remove tables and chairs in that specific area for the night.

There are card games, casino games, bingo games, trivia contests, volleyball tournaments, bocce ball games, tennis lessons and games, golf lessons and matches, a Best Tan contest, and much more.

There is an upstairs room of a town building that has two pool tables, a dartboard, a Ping-Pong table, and a cabinet with games and books. However, there were only three pool cues for the two tables, one piece of chalk, no scoreboard for the darts, and only four darts, and the board/card/dice games were missing pieces. Books were very limited and most were written in German. There is a small TV with bad reception, without any chairs to sit and watch.

There are two bars on the east side and one bar on the west side. There is a piano bar and a disco centrally located.

All bars serve alcohol. Not all serve frozen drinks. All restaurants serve liquor, or your waitress can retrieve drinks for you from another bar to bring into the restaurant. If a certain type of drink is not served at the location where you are but is served at another location, staff is willing to go and retrieve the drink you want from wherever it is available and bring it back to you.

Room service also serves alcoholic drinks and bottles of wine and champagne (bottles are for a cost though where glasses are free). There is no mini-bar in the room, but inside a mini-refrigerator, there are typically four sodas, two beers, two bottled waters, and a bottle of cheap champagne.