We were given champagne and escorted up to the Concierge Office. I highly recommend getting a Concierge-level room. You get a stocked minibar in your room, 24-hour room service, and the Concierge staff will efficiently make any reservations and arrangements you need.

My only complaint is we never got the terrycloth robes that our room was supposed to have. I called every day for the first four days, and they kept saying the robes would arrive soon. At the Concierge orientation, not one of the dozen couples had received robes either. Bummer, 'cause robes would have been really handy.

Our room was in the Paradise block, very near the center of the resort (conveniently located, but noisy). It was a Honeymoon Grande Luxe Beachfront Suite, though it wasn't anything I'd call a suite. It was an average-sized, narrow hotel room with a balcony. But the view from the balcony was totally worth the money -- we looked directly out onto the beach! Hella gorgeous blue-green ocean, framed by swaying palm trees, and fronted by a fringe of white sand. It was like gazing out into a perfect picture postcard.

Other than that, the room was pretty standard: king-size four poster bed; desk and chair; small table with two chairs; amoire with large TV (though very few channels) and just barely enough drawer space; nightstand with small drawers; small closet with iron and board, plus beach towels; minibar with fridge and lots 'o liquor, juice, and sodas, all refilled daily; and a marble-accented bathroom of reasonable size with plenty of thick bath towels. On the balcony were two cushioned chairs and a table, which we used several times for room-service meals.

The floors throughout are ceramic and marble tile, which gets dirty/gritty/sandy quite easily. I wore flip-flops around the room to keep my feet clean. Sandals gives you an amenity pack with shampoo, conditioner, bath gel, and aloe vera gel, but all except the aloe vera smelled too antiseptic for our tastes. Every room has both air conditioning and a ceiling fan, which we alternated between. At night, the air conditioner was too cool (and the controls are too high to easily reach), but the fan was perfectly pleasant.

The weather overall was great. Sunny and warm all day, but not that hot. It's incredibly humid, more so than Florida (my hair became a mega-curly afro quite fast), but it wasn't unbearable. There were always ocean breezes to cool it down, and nights were delectably sultry.

We spent most of the first day recovering from about 17 hours of travel. Sandals' room service is pretty good -- limited menu, but the jerk chicken sandwiches and breakfast omelets are very tasty (though the chicken's not as super-spicy as at the Beach Grill). We didn't explore much of the place that day, and just had dinner at the central restaurant's buffet.

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