Montego Bay

Montego Bay is owned by PC Marketing. At one time, it was owned by Mathews Industries, Inc., as was SunMaster. Most of the Montego Bay tanning beds you will find on the used market fall into a couple of basic categories: Legacy Series, a failed attempt to make a 10 minute tanning bed using a 5% UVB lamp (this was before PC Marketing), the Classic Series, which are the same beds but using the Wolff Bellarium S lamp and a 20 minute analog timer, the Wolff 24 (also known as the MB24), the MB16 (also private labeled under different names) and two different Celebrity Series. I won't cover all the newer beds here. They have been making beds since the 1980s.

The Legacy and Classic series beds were behemoths, with either 24, 26, 28 or 32 lamps. They used F73 lamps, either Bellarium S or SunMaster Plus. The Wolff 24 and Montego Bay 16 also used F73 lamps and were quite heavy but much shorter. The two Celebrity Series types used F71 lamps, and are quite different than other Montego Bay offerings.

The original Celebrity Series were all steel tanning beds, with a very unique design that was a direct copy of the SonnenBraune 524ES tanning beds, only longer. They came in 24 or 28 lamp versions. After PC Marketing bought them out, they discontinued this heavier frame and instead had ESB private label their tanning beds under the Celebrity Series name, using card style electronic ballasts.

In all cases, I would tell you to avoid all Celebrity beds on the used market. The ESB versions are simply very old styled and impossible to find parts for, and do not have the most impressive quality. The metal Celebrities have their own problems, particularly with the 28 lamp model. Some of these beds are know to "spread out" in the middle, which pops the acrylic out of place. This can pinch the living daylights out of you or seriously hurt you. This only happens when the beds are exposed to very hard duty, but it is still possible. The other problem is getting parts.

While many will say that the metal Celebrity beds are not knockoffs of the SonnenBraune 524ES, I was in sales when they came out, and sold BOTH brands. If you saw them side by side, you would laugh at anyone who told you that the Celebrity wasn't a knock-off. They both have a very odd styling, where the center of each bed has a deep indention designed to house cooling fans. Very unmistakeable.

If you get the chance to buy a Classic Series or Wolff 24, buy it. These beds weight a ton but are very heavy duty. They are average performers. The Legacy is the exact same bed EXCEPT it had a digital timer. You can modify the beds to use an analog timer, but unless you are handy with electronics I would say to avoid them if the timer doesn't work, as replacing it will be at least $100, and likely much, much more.

As for new Montego Bay beds, PC Marketing is a decent enough company, and while I personally think their prices are a bit high, they make a very good product and back up what they sell.