The phrase "spring break" is often synonymous with sun, sand and surf.

Some Penn State students said they found a surprise, however, when they arrived at the T-Water Beach Hotel in Negril, Jamaica, last month.

Adam Hyatt (junior-life science) said when he and 15 other students arrived at their hotel early on the morning of March 7, they found the premises to resemble a construction zone, littered with mounds of debris and garbage, crumbling walls and live electrical wires.

"If I needed to walk around there, I would've needed a hard hat," said Peter Barkoff (senior-kinesiology), the trip's organizer.

Student Travel Services (STS) Vice President Jake Jacobsen said the areas of the hotel undergoing renovations were not accessible to hotel guests and posed no imminent danger.

"The construction was more of an eyesore," he said. "It was in view, and it made the hotel look like it was under construction, when in actuality, the areas under construction were not accessible."

Barkoff said the students each paid between $850 and $900 to stay at a beachfront location in Jamaica booked in October but were offered a free hotel upgrade to the T-Water Beach Hotel by STS in the weeks prior to spring break. Barkoff said STS informed the students that their original hotel had been overbooked.

Jacobsen said STS knew about the renovations before spring break but refrained from informing the students because officials thought the affected areas would be completed in time for their arrival. He added that other beachfront properties had no vacancies.

STS representative Chris Riehl went down to the site on Feb. 25 to take pictures of T-Water. He said some sections were not "up to par," but added that the rooms were in good condition.

"You have to take into perspective that there were parts worse than others," Riehl said. "You can't get a clear picture of the way the entire hotel looks."

Steve DiOrio (junior-communications) said areas throughout the hotel were consistently under renovation.

"It was a hotel that looked like a hotel in downtown Baghdad. There were literally chunks of the building missing," he said.

Riehl said students began arriving in Jamaica and staying at T-Water the week before Penn State students arrived and continued to arrive in the following weeks, despite STS knowing about the construction.

"There were some disappointed people. Some people stayed there and had a terrific time ... the location is good, and in terms of proximity to the other hotels, some people said, 'We're going to stay and have some fun,' " Riehl said.

T-Water representatives could not be reached for comment.

Hyatt said he did not agree with Jacobsen's assessment of the property's conditions and added that if students were intoxicated, they could have fallen from a balcony.

"As far as it being cosmetic, that's ridiculous. I don't call exposed wires, ... a walkway that's crumbled away, with no barrier, no lights in the entire place, lights going off and on in the entire place cosmetic," he said.

He added that safety concerns prompted the students to attempt to find another hotel.

Jacobsen said after the students arrived, STS representatives presented them with a memo giving three possible courses of action. One was compensation for the difference in price if the students decided to stay at a designated alternative. Another was staying at the hotel for the rest of the week and receiving a $70 refund. Or the students could have obtained alternate accommodations and received a refund proportional to the number of students per room.

Hyatt, Barkoff and DiOrio said they did not recall seeing a memo at any point during their weeklong vacation.

Aaron Crooks (junior-professional golf management) said the $70 refund offer was an indirect effort to keep the students from taking further action against STS.

"They didn't blatantly come out and say it was to keep us quiet," he said. "If you do the math, that's $10 a day," he said.

Riehl said STS did everything possible to make the students comfortable and found them alternative non-beachfront accommodations.

"It had nothing to do with keeping anyone quiet," Riehl said. "That's not true. We were not in the position on site to offer much in the way of compensation."

Jacobsen said the other beachfront alternatives did not have available vacancies for the students.

"If we could've moved people to another beachfront property, we would've done so in a heartbeat," Jacobsen said.

He added that STS would deduct the cost of the rooms at the alternate hotel from their refund concurrent with the third option, but it could not do so yet because the students had not filed the necessary paperwork with the company.