The truth about Grand Pinapple Beach Resort

[San-D-Beach]

Just back from the Dawn 4-1-07

The truth about GPBR is that it really isn't an all-inclusive resort as they state when selling day passes.

I called there previous to booking the day pass and spoke to a director there. My DH, myself and two kids were interested in playing some tennis while we were there and when I asked if we needed to bring anything (towels, rackets etc) she told me not to bring a thing, that everything was included and was available at the resort. She sent me an e-mail confriming the booking.

We took a taxi (bus) with Carl and Gordan @ $16 pp

Another person who was in our group going on the bus decided to ask other drivers for a better price. Drivers are plentiful when you get off the ship. He immediately found a better price and tried to get the same cost from Gordan... who became very annoyed and approached the other driver who gave the better price. We all ended up going with Gordan rather than go through the hassle of switching drivers.

We stopped at Devil's Bridge on the way and that was absolutely beautiful.

On to GPBR - Noon - arrived and checked in. Paid $177.00 for the four of us and set off to the beach with wrist bands. The beach was gorgeous! Went to the snack stand and got some food as lunch was not going to be served until 2:30pm. Went back to the beach and went for a swim. Came out and realized I had not gotten any towels before going back down to the beach. I went to the activites center to grab some towels and that is when the fun began. I was told I could not have any towels due to being on a day pass. I informed the man at the counter that I was told everything was included. He sent me back up to the office. Still dripping wet, I arrive at the office and get no satisfaction from anyone. After complaining they finally decided that if I gave a $20.00 deposit for each towel they would let me have use of them. I had no money on me at that point, so it was back down to the beach to get cash. On the way, I decided that it was just ludicrous to deposit $ for towels so we just dried by the sun.

 

Lunch was served at 2:30 - it was good but obviously couldn't compare to the Dawn's food. It was served in an outside dining area and food had to be kept covered due to birds landing and eating off servers. I went to get some fresh fruit and saw a small bird eating off the spoon from the fruit bowl! Needless to say...I passed on the fruit!

 

After lunch we decided to play some tennis. I had a slight headache but continued on to the activities center for rackets. Well, the man pulled the same thing on me about the rackets telling me we were not allowed to play tennis or have use of rackets. OK...back up to the office. After about 30 minutes of talking to five different people, waiting for phone calls from managers, and finally pulling out a copy of my e-mail ( to their surprise!) They allowed me to use four tennis rackets with a deposit of $80.00. Thank goodness I had the cash on me! By this time my headache had turned into a migraine and my DH and two kids went to play tennis. I found a shaded lounge chair.

 

Tennis courts were horrible and the stench of sewage was unbearable there. They didn't play the amount of time they would have liked because the conditions there were disgusting.

After that incident we went back in the water for a bit then decided to walk down the beach. We walked about 40 yards and ran into some friends we made on the ship. The same beach in that section was free and open for public use ( I beleive it is Long Bay). It had stands for drinks and food.

After speaking with them, I really felt ripped off. In no way did use $177.00 worth of GPBR - facilities, food and beverages.

3:45 - back on the bus heading back to the ship

Six islands - five excursions - this was the only time I felt that I was ripped off throughout my whole cruise. For people with kids...I would suggest going to Long Bay by taxi and enjoying the same beach. For a group of adults... I would suggest if you think you can drink enough to cover the $ that you are paying for the day pass then it is worth it. But for us it was a BUST!

Total - $241.00 ...... up in smoke!

[LiLBxQt]

I'm not sure when you booked, but I booked a few months ago for an upcoming cruise and they have had it posted on their webpage that beach towels required a $20 deposit... Not sure why this was of a surprise to you...

[Karysa]

We were in Antigua for a land vacation last month. We wanted to do an all inclusive for one day because DD wanted a windsurfing lesson and DH wanted a sailing lesson. So we figured if this was included in a day pass it would hit two birds with one stone. We stopped by Jolly Beach Resort and picked up their information on day passes and called Pineapple to compare. I asked questions pertaining to the lessons my family wanted etc. and was told that it was all included and for a significantly cheaper price considering that there were 5 of us. My husband thought that it was too good to be true and called the next day just to confirm and low and behold we were told that food, drinks, loungers and the pool were included but not equiptment or lessons. We went to Jolly where my dd and dh got their lessons and our younger two pretty much had the pool to themselves. We had spent a day on Long Beach earlier and it is a nice beach, we had absolutely no trouble using the washroom by the pool at Pineapple either.