Updated October 2026. October 2026: July 2020 scores kept as a snapshot; the 1,067-review rule is restated as a volume screen, not a probability sample; JTB arrival figures added.
Scores below were taken from Google Maps, Booking.com and Expedia between 16 and 18 July 2020. They are not a 2026 ranking. The "star" column is the review score on that site on those days, not the hotel's official class. Parish names are given in the usual Jamaican form. Where the 2020 table used a short name (Sandals, Secrets, Breathless), the property is not identified further here.
The lists were drawn from a starting set of 60 hotels across all 14 parishes. A hotel had to clear a review-count screen, and was then ordered by review score. Where two hotels shared a score, the one with more reviews was placed higher.
Borders had reopened on 15 June 2020 after a closure in April and May. In July 2020, stopover arrivals were 41,941, against 270,462 in July 2019 (Jamaica Tourist Board, July 2020 monthly report). For the full year, stopover arrivals were 880,404, down 67.2 per cent on 2019 (JTB Annual Travel Statistics 2020). The year the lists were made was a thin year for visitors. Later JTB figures, as compiled by Tourism Analytics, put calendar-year stopovers at 2,900,358 in 2024 and 2,601,416 in 2025, a fall of 10.3 per cent; the source links the sharpest drop, in December, to the category 5 hurricane of 26 to 27 October 2025 (Tourism Analytics, citing the Jamaica Tourist Board).
Google Maps
Only hotels with at least 1,067 reviews were ranked.
| Rank | Hotel | Parish | Google reviews | Review score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bahia Principe Grand Jamaica | St. Ann | 9,311 | 5 |
| 2 | Grand Palladium Jamaica Resort and Spa | Hanover | 7,042 | 5 |
| 3 | Sandals (name not further specified) | St. James | 1,465 | 5 |
| 4 | Grand Palladium Lady Hamilton Resort and Spa | Hanover | 2,778 | 4.7 |
| 5 | Iberostar Selection Rose Hall Suites | St. James | 4,790 | 4.6 |
| 6 | Hyatt Ziva Rose Hall | St. James | 1,183 | 4.6 |
| 7 | Secrets (name not further specified) | St. James | 1,660 | 4.5 |
| 8 | Half Moon | St. James | 1,516 | 4.5 |
| 9 | Spanish Court Hotel | Kingston | 1,746 | 4.4 |
| 10 | Breathless (name not further specified) | St. James | 1,099 | 4.4 |
The 2020 post treated 1,067 as the sample size that is "usually considered representative" of a large population, at a margin of error of plus or minus 3 per cent and 95 per cent confidence. That figure is the ordinary sample-size result for a yes-or-no share near one half, under simple random sampling: 1.96 squared, times 0.25, divided by 0.03 squared, which comes to about 1,067. A pile of Google reviews is not a simple random sample of guests. People who post are a self-selected group. The 1,067 line is only a screen for how many reviews were on the page. It does not make the score a measure of every visitor.
Booking.com
The review counts on Booking.com were smaller. The 2020 screen kept hotels with 200 reviews or more, on the view that reviews there are from verified customers. Ordering was again by score, then by the number of reviews.
| Rank | Hotel | Parish | Booking.com reviews | Review score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Spanish Court Hotel | Kingston | 661 | 5 |
| 2 | S Hotel Jamaica | St. James | 462 | 5 |
| 3 | Jewel Paradise Cove Beach Resort and Spa | St. Ann | 336 | 5 |
| 4 | Bahia Principe Grand Jamaica | St. Ann | 235 | 5 |
| 5 | Grand Palladium Lady Hamilton Resort and Spa | Hanover | 211 | 5 |
| 6 | Grand Palladium Jamaica Resort and Spa | Hanover | 201 | 5 |
| 7 | Holiday Inn Resort | St. James | 1,280 | 4 |
| 8 | Royal Decameron Cornwall Beach | St. James | 383 | 4 |
| 9 | Hilton Rose Hall Resort and Spa | St. James | 274 | 4 |
| 10 | Deja Resort | St. James | 633 | 3 |
Expedia
The screen here was 1,000 reviews or more, then score, then review count. The original table gave Secrets and Jewel Paradise Cove the same rank, 6. That tie is kept. Several counts sit on or next to 1,000, so a gap of one or two reviews is too small to treat as a real difference in volume.
| Rank | Hotel | Parish | Expedia reviews | Review score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Spanish Court Hotel | Kingston | 1,000 | 4.7 |
| 2 | Hyatt Ziva Rose Hall | St. James | 1,001 | 4.5 |
| 3 | Couples Swept Away | Westmoreland | 1,000 | 4.5 |
| 4 | Iberostar Selection Rose Hall Suites | St. James | 1,000 | 4.4 |
| 5 | Hilton Rose Hall Resort and Spa | St. James | 1,185 | 4.3 |
| 6 | Secrets (name not further specified) | St. James | 1,000 | 4.3 |
| 6 | Jewel Paradise Cove Beach Resort and Spa | St. Ann | 1,000 | 4.3 |
| 7 | Grand Palladium Jamaica Resort and Spa | Hanover | 1,002 | 4.1 |
| 8 | Grand Palladium Lady Hamilton Resort and Spa | Hanover | 1,000 | 4.1 |
| 9 | Tobys Resort | St. James | 999 | 3.9 |
| 10 | Holiday Inn Resort | St. James | 1,074 | 3.8 |
Spanish Court Hotel is the only property in the top rank on two of the three sites. The three lists do not agree with each other, which is what you would expect when the sites hold different reviews and the screens differ.
Updated October 2026
- Tables are unchanged in scores and review counts, and are labelled as 16-18 July 2020. They are not a current top-ten list.
- The 1,067 cutoff is restated. It matches a simple-random-sample formula for a proportion. It does not make Google reviews representative of all guests.
- Visitor context now uses JTB figures: July 2020 stopovers 41,941 (down from 270,462 in July 2019) and full-year 2020 stopovers 880,404 (down 67.2 per cent). A 2024-2025 comparison from JTB figures published by Tourism Analytics is added so the pandemic sentence is not left as the latest word.