While looking for a sunny Jamaican resort on a budget, Groupon came to the rescue. With plane tickets and passport in hand, it was off to sunny Jamaica. Our Plane landed in Montego Bay and it didn’t take long to know we were in the land of Marley. Before I left the terminal I was offered two great deals on ” the good stuff mon!”

After easily finding our ride to the resort we got a couple of Margaritas for the road and headed off on the 45 minute ride. After a well lubricated ride we arrived in Runaway Bay, Jamaica, home of Club Ambiance. Club Ambiance is an all inclusive resort on the north coast of Jamaica. This low-rise resort is much more comfortable than glitzy, more quaint than luxurious. Depending on your view, the resort was either small or cozy. Our room was like a time warp back to a 1980’s Holiday Inn.

The furniture was as original as it was uncomfortable and the tile floor did little to improve the warmth of the room. They did get the Bed right, big and very comfy, and that’s the most important thing to get right we you are talking about a romantic getaway. The fact that the PlayBoy channel was free was another bonus. The food part of this all inclusive resort was found to give mixed reviews. While the dinner buffet was “good” and had a bit of the local home cooked angle, it varied little from night to night and what the menu said we were eating seemed a guess more than anything.

Other than a lack of variety and being a little too salty it was good. Breakfast, always harder to screw up, was better. A standard fair of eggs, bacon, omelet bar etc. plus lots of fresh local fruit, proved to be a great way to start the day. All other eats were a little more limited. Cold cuts. cheap frozen pizza and big pans of pasta made lunch and snacks less than we had hoped. The other prime attraction of all inclusive is the alcohol. Yep… they had all the free drinks you want to slurp. Red Strip was the bar brand for those who love their beer and lots of cheap local rum for most everything else. Above the main bar (they only have two) is a nice list of local drinks. (recipes will be posted on our site)

Trying the different drinks and the colorful banter with the bar staff proved to be one of the better ways to spend on site. The staff was both very attentive and a ton of fun to hang with. They mingled freely without being intrusive and generally caused fun to occur. For those not up on local geography long stretches of white sand beaches are not common in this area. Club Ambiance suffers from this fact. For a sandy beach you will need to settle for a small waist deep lagoon. If you are looking to avoid tan lines, Jamaica, a colony of the notoriously stuffy British, is a little more prudish than other Caribbean Isles. Club Ambiance does have a small clothing optional alcove about knee deep, off the small,waist deep lagoon. On the plus side, across the rocks that separate the lagoon from the real water, is beautiful snorkeling water.

Pretty fish, coral and deep clear water are also included on your all inclusive list for this resort. Club Ambiance calls itself a Adults Only resort. We scratched of heads on exactly what they mean. In our stay we saw no wild, sex crazed swinger types but neither did we see any kids. In summery Club Ambiance is a quiet comfortable getaway resort. On a dollar for dollar basis, our stay was relaxing, we drank a lot and we laughed a lot and played a lot. Hard to beat all of that when you figure we did all than for about $100 a day including airfare. SWEET!