Evening Six - Christmas Buffet

As it was a special occasion, Sandals held a big buffet under a tent near the Manor Building. By the time we arrived, there were a few hundred couples crammed together in the tent with a band playing on the stage.

We walked through the tent, behind the outdoor buffet to an area where 10-12 small tables were placed. Preferring the peace and quiet to the loud and stuffy tent, we sat at a small table.

We got in the long line for the buffet and thankfully, it moved fairly quickly. Many of the food items were dishes from the restaurants, with the "luxury" addition of a carving station with turkey and ham, both of which were cooked properly and were tasty. Carved roast beef would have been a nice addition, but hey, we don't want to go overboard with the luxury. It's only Christmas, after all.

The only item that I hadn't tried before was the curried goat and I enjoyed it very much. The one item that truly puzzled me was the spaghetti, which was served in a sweet and sour sauce, for some reason I will never understand.

Considering the tiny portion sizes of the dinner entrees at every restaurant we visited, we were actually happy to have a buffet for a change. The irony is that we tired of the buffet format at Club Med yet we wished Sandals had at least one buffet style restaurant at the Grande Ocho Rios. At least Club Med had true gourmet items on their buffet; they spared no expense.

Considering this was Christmas, Sandals could have elevated this mediocre buffet to "luxury" levels by adding some decent-sized peel and eat shrimp, crab legs, sliced roast beef and better desserts than the selection of tasteless, dry cakes that adorned every desert table at the Grande.

However, that would require a financial commitment and level of quality that Sandals only promises but refuses to deliver. 

Evening Seven - Market Place

There was only one restaurant we hadn't tried at this point, the Reef Terrace, described by Sandals as "authentic Caribbean cuisine from fresh seafood to curried dishes in a sea view garden setting". However, after seven nights we knew that what Sandals actually meant was "not remotely authentic Caribbean cuisine including frozen seafood, one curry dish in a feral cat garden view setting.

So, out of eight restaurants, two serve Caribbean and two serve Italian. Two or three restaurants are closed every evening. Are you getting the picture here? Not as many food choices as you thought, eh?

Anyway, I wasn't falling for that "fresh seafood" claim anymore. I knew we'd be eating tiny, frozen shrimps, eraser scallops and Pollock doing a crab meat imitation. As we simply didn't want to take a chance, we simply returned to the Market Place and ordered the Lobster Medallions again. The dish was identical to our previous visit and we were happy campers.