Okay, so work and Christmas got in the way. I have two parts yet: hotel/general and hotel/food.
Topside: Hotel
We stayed at the Sunscape Sabor which was selected predominantly by price. We got a package, but if we assumed $600 per person for our flights (which is low, as I think they were more in the $700 range), the hotel came out to $100 per day- for two people at all All Inclusive, that seemed like a darn good bargain. I will say I in the AI sense, I did not "get my money's worth". I had a sip of a margarita that I deemed to strong and gave away...
So, we went into it thinking if the food was as good as Applebees and the rooms about the same as a Holiday Inn Express, all was good. In the end, that was about right.\
The most important thing was the pier. It was just a few minutes walk down the beach from our room and no charge for use. That was a major plus.
Our room was basic but looked surprisingly like the photo on the website.
We were asked multiple times if we were on our honeymoon. I really hope whomever assigned our room didn't think we were- as the double beds weren't that romantic. We thought about asking for a king, but liked the location of the room (right by the snack bar and main pool- about as close a walk to the pier as you can get at the Sabor.) We've seen people describe this place as "small" but walking to the back of the property seemed pretty long to us, so we didn't want to chance a long walk to get a king bed. We were on the first floor but our patio was railed off, which I preferred as it made me feel a bit more secure leaving my stuff out to dry on it. (The ones without rails people did the same...)
The rooms floor was tile and concrete and I found it to be sticky at times. We usually put towels on the floor to act as area rugs. The pool towels were much more comfortable/soft than the bath towels, so we kind of hoarded those. The room had a fan and A/C that worked really well. Still, the A/C could not combat the humidity, so we chose damp over freezing, and as the rainy week went on, things in the room just were really wet feeling. There was a mini bar that was replenished daily: 4 sodas, 2 beers, 2 waters- they had no issue giving us more water on request. We got 4 waters daily, plus the other stuff. The beds were hard but comfortable enough. Bedding was not super soft, but it was serviceable. There were too pillow choices: too hard and too soft. Goldilocks was not pleased, but I slept.
The bathroom was not overly large but the tub had a ledge on the back and around the side that made sitting and shaving nice. It also was fairly flat which made standing to shower in a tub easier. There was no plug though so you couldn't bathe, and the tub was kind of sketchy looking, so I'm not sure I'd want to. The bathroom had no fan, just a window you could open, so it got really really humid and gross. The sink area was separate from the tub/toilet and had a hair dryer though I never used it. The lighting in that area was poor, but there was a second mirror so you could get closer to it than the one behind the sink. Our sink leaked if you stopped it up and then released all the water at once- upon inspection, it was held together by electrical tape.
The facilities of the resort were basic but nice. There were multiple restaurants, I'll go into when I talk about food.
We only ever went to 1 bar, but I think there were 4 of them. The drinks were poured heavy. I got drinks for my husband and one was literally half a glass of vodka. He didn't drink much due to the diving, but had no complaints. I had pineapple juice most of the week. If you asked, they'd make blended smoothies, but they weren't really anything more than juice and ice. The bar had swings, which seemed like they'd be fun, but in the end I decided it was over-rated.
There were 3 pools: the main pool, a smaller pool in the back of the resort and the scuba pool. The scuba pool can only be used if you are under instruction. I'm in the picture for scale. It was tiny. 1/3 of the pool has a ledge at 5 feet and the other 2/3 were about 15 feet I think.
The main pool wasn't huge, but it was never crowded. There were lots of chairs around it, and occasionally they would string a volleyball net. There was also a basketball hoop- which Kevin hurt himself dunking while jumping into the pool. His heel is still bothering him and he's using a cane. He said he was worried about catching his fingers and didn't think about landing. At least he made the shot.
The final pool seemed to always be filled with kids. We didn't go there much.
The lobby has free wi-fi. It wasn't super reliable but we were able to post to facebook, scubaboard, check email, basic websurf (how much do you really want to do on vacation) and most importantly communicate with our dive op. It's free, which is way more important to me than being in room. Plus, since we had to go to the lobby, it made me not want to spend TOO much time on the internet. The lobby was often crowded with people on devices but there was usually somewhere to sit.
My biggest complaint about the resort comes because I'm an old fuddy-duddy. It was INCREDIBLY loud at night. The 7:00 movie in the lobby (usually when we were checking email) had volume so loud we would seek out how far we could go before we were out of range. It hurt my ears. And at about 9:30 each night there was a show, and that was usually when I was trying to go to bed. The room by the pool was nice during the day to get to things, but right by the 'action' at night and I just wanted them to be quiet! It was generally quiet by 11. There is a club to dance at at night (never went there) and we could not hear that.
I can't rate the entertainment, because I have no idea what was available. I saw about 30 seconds of the fire show while trying to see what the noise was, and just ignored the other shows. Most of the scheduled activities during the day took place before 2:00, and we were diving then. I did see the tail end of a dance lesson, and it was just sad: 3 staff members teaching one lady to do the dance. Participation, for that one at least, was not high.
The overall feel of the resort was "kind of run down, but pretty". We didn't really use the beach, but we snorkeled one day and it was decent enough.
