HAs anyone heard of the FDR Family resorts in JAmica???

[daisy1234]

These sound really neat...I read about them on about.com! Yu gat a nanny for the week as part of teh vacation....a little different.

[willow33]

We were just there! We went for a week during Thanksgiving. We stayed at the FDR in Runaway Bay. The resort is nice, nothing spectacular, but very clean. I would say the rooms are dated, but clean and very big. We had a 2 bedroom suite. It was the size of a small apartment, had a full kitchen, dining area, living room, 2 large bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. Everything is included and the nanny concept is really nice. Your nanny is also the person who cleans your room. They assign one nanny to you for your entire stay and she is available during the day between 9am-4:40pm with an hour off for lunch. She is also available after hours for $4/hour. We had Tameika and she was amazing! I was so nervous about letting a stranger watch my kids, but they took to her right away and she was very mature and eased all my fears. Plus, the resort is small so you are never very far from the kids anyway. The biggest plus was having her sit in the room when my youngest ds took his naps.

One thing to mention is that the beach area is not the greatest. It is small and perfect for small kids, but not great for adults. You can walk through a gate at the end of the property and use the beach in front of the Breezes resort which is what we did a couple of days.

If you need any other info please don't hesitate to email me. My 4yr old DS keeps asking to go back so he obviously had a wonderful time. We would definitely go back!

HTH!!

[hollybloom24]

We have been to FDR Pebbles. Here is a review I wrote of tripadvisor.com:

FDR Pebbles

While it is very nice, this is not a luxury resort. Before you book your trip, you need to think about whether you will be comfortable using the nanny, because that is really the only reason to go to Pebbles – the nanny is the true luxury! They work from 9 am – 4:40 pm each day with an hour break for lunch (you pick the time between 12 pm – 2 pm – we always picked 1 pm, during our kids’ naptime.) They are also responsible for cleaning and stocking your room. We have twin daughters, and they had just turned two when we went to Pebbles. If you have more than two children, you are required to hire an additional nanny each day at a cost of $20 per day. I am not sure if at night you need to pay both nannies to stay on when kids are sleeping, or if you can use only one.

The rooms are like cottages on the beach. The kids have a separate sleeping area separated by a 3/4 wall, which allows adults to stay awake and read or go out on the balcony while the kids sleep. I would suggest booking an Oceanfront room (buildings 10 and 12 seemed the nicest) as opposed to Beachfront. It is a little more money, but it was so nice to be able to sit outside and watch the ocean while the kids were napping/sleeping, etc. If your kids can walk up stairs, I would also suggest a room on the second floor as opposed to the first floor – we heard our upstairs neighbors walking around quite a bit. All rooms have air conditioning and cable TV (Showtime and Cinemax). The TV is satellite, and it often goes out at night due to weather issues. It happened to us 2 out of 7 nights. I would suggest always keeping your doors locked – although we never felt unsafe, it is a third-world country and caution should always be used.

We found the all the staff to be extremely friendly, professional and helpful. Keep in mind their version of “fast” might not be your version – everyone is on Jamaica time, especially the front desk staff. Freddie the manager seems to be very efficient, so you can always ask for him if you feel you aren’t getting anywhere with the front desk staff.

Nanny info: The nannies are “on call” with Pebbles. The good ones get called back to work (and they want to work), so you know that the nannies working have been tested. Our nanny was Judy-Ann Peters and I thought she was great and I was always comfortable with her. You can let the nanny take the kids and do their own thing (never leave the grounds), or you can have the nanny stay with your family and be an extra set of hands – whichever you prefer. If you desire, your nanny is allowed to eat with your family in the dining room - you need to ask the front desk for a permission slip for her. This slip shows that you have made a personal request to have your nanny dine with you and your family. The manager will also need to sign the slip – we never did this (as we were greedy and wanted meal times to ourselves with no kids!) What we didn't understand is when the nanny is feeding your children, unless she has a slip, she is not allowed to eat. Considering how little they earn daily (see below) I think this is a nice thing to do. They don’t advertise that this option is available, so be sure to ask.

You call the shots – give the nanny the meal and napping schedule you want your kids on, and they follow it. We also asked our nanny to bathe our kids every night. Be clear on dietary expectations – we saw nannies giving toddlers soda and huge chunks of hot dogs. The key is communication – be clear from the start and you should be very happy.

Make sure you explain when you want sunscreen, hats and bug spray on your kids – the nannies are good about this and our kids were never sunburned at all, and only got bug bites when I was watching them!

After 4:40 pm, the nanny is available to you for $4 an hour. We had our nanny come back from 7 pm – 9 pm every night so we could have a relaxing dinner.

At the end of the week I tipped our nanny $10 for every day she helped us. I am not sure what is expected or what other people do. They earn less than $10 a day (not including the night time babysitting) so a $10 a day tip is probably considered quite a bit to them. The average Jamaican earns about $3,400 annually.

Food:
We had no issues drinking the water at the hotel. It is filtered.

Breakfast is buffet style and offered the best choices – eggs and omelet station are always available, as are fresh waffles. There are plenty of breads, fresh fruit, yogurt, and smoothies available. If your kids like a particular type of cereal, you may want to bring it – I only saw Corn Flakes and Fruit Loops. I thought the coffee was very good. If you are fussy about tea, you may want to bring your own.

Your nanny stocks your fridge with soda, beer, milk, juices, water, cheese, fruit, etc. When you arrive, you fill out a form stating what you desire and how often you would like the fridge stocked.

Every Saturday is Jamaican night at the buffet, and it was the best food we had. The Jerk chicken and pork is excellent! I would also suggest making reservations when you first arrive at the Jamaican and Italian specialty restaurants. The Italian restaurant isn’t fabulous, but the location right on the ocean is wonderful (bring bug spray).

Be very careful of the bones in meat and fish items. They are often cooked on the bone, and the fish served are often a whole fish. Be especially careful with kids and this food. Make sure to talk to your nanny about this.

For a special occasion, ask Freddie the manager to arrange for a private dinner on the beach – the food is from the buffet restaurant (the servers wanted to get out food from the buffet and bring it to us, but we convinced her to let us get our own food) but it is very special. At the end of the evening we tipped our waitress a few dollars. (Again, bring bug spray).

Also, if you are looking at the ocean, to your left directly outside of the resort wall is a restaurant/bar literally on the beach (the floor is sand) called Time ‘N Place – apparently it won Conde Nast Traveler’s award for best beach bar in the universe. It is not part of the resort, so you’ll have to pay for meals and drinks. They have a bonfire almost every night. We walked over once and it was empty, but I have heard that it is a really fun place with good food and drinks. I regret not trying it out!

Shopping:
If you want to bring home Jerk sauce or Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, take the free Historic Falmouth tour offered through the hotel (twice a week) – it stops at a grocery store and you can buy 8 oz of JBM coffee for about $12 ($16 at the hotel and $17 at the airport) which is a big savings from home where it sells for $50 a pound! Jerk sauce is around $1.50 ($4 at the hotel and airport).

To the right of the resort beach, there is a little area called “Bamboo Village” which is a bunch of little shops (they are little shacks) that the locals sell baskets, art, dolls, beaded jewelry and wood carvings. You will also notice the owners walking up and down the beach. If they attempt to “push” their items on you, just say “no thank you.” If you get into a big conversation with them, you’ll have a hard time getting rid of them. On the Pebbles beach they are not allowed to be overly pushy – if you walk off the resort property, you are fair game! If you want to purchase anything, bring a resort employee with you (Nolan from the entertainment crew went with me.) You’ll get a better price and the owners won’t take advantage of you. Always bargain! I bought two Jamaican dolls – they started out asking $10 each, and I ended up getting two for $11. They all seem to sell illegal substances, although they never openly offered any to us. Be safe and don’t bring a large amount of money with you.

The hotel offered a “shopping tour” of Montego Bay – I did not take the tour so I am not clear where it went.

Other suggestions:
I suggest bringing at least $40 (per week) in $1 for tipping, to pay the nanny at night, and for small purchases. Bringing a bunch of $5 is smart too.

Bring more sunscreen, diapers and swim diapers (2-3 per child, per day) than you think you will need. They charge about $2 for a single swim diaper at the hotel gift shop! Also bring bug repellent for children and adults – the mosquitoes at night can be harsh.

Bring large insulated cups if you tend to drink often – that way you can fill up a big cup and run to the bar less often.

Bring water shoes for kids and adults – the ocean floor can be rocky.

In addition to a beach bag, bring an extra bag for your nanny to tote around diapers, sunscreen, snacks, clothes, etc.

Don’t bring expensive or fancy clothes for your kids – our kids destroyed everything! T-shirts and shorts seemed to be best for us.

Don’t wear or bring expensive jewelry or watches.

Bring plain white, cotton t-shirts to be tie-dyed. They have a workshop every day at 2 pm. The hotel shop also sells them for $6.50 for children and $9 for adults. These also make good gifts to bring home to people.

Bring disposable bibs and sippy cups if you need them – Pebbles doesn’t have them.

The hotel has safety deposit boxes (each room gets their own – they are just like at a bank) at the front office. I suggest storing your money, airline tickets, and valuables in the box (24 hour access).

The hotel has a laundry room available for $9 per load. The laundry detergent Pebbles provides is a little odd – I might suggest bringing your own. There are two washers and two dryers available. For the $9 you could certainly put two loads in (especially if you bring your own detergent.) I put a load in on my way to breakfast, switched to the dryer on my way back from breakfast, and then picked it up an hour later. It was a painless vacation laundry chore.

As mentioned above, the nannies are not paid all that well – most have young children. Bringing small school supplies, new tooth brushes, small bars of soap, small books, and leaving things that you packed but didn’t use such as Children’s Tylenol – all these things are quite expensive and hard to come by in Jamaica - to give to your nanny is another nice thing to do.

Pack and Plays are available for young kids to sleep in. I would suggest bringing your own Pack and Play sheet and blankets – they use regular flat sheets in these cribs.