The food was great with many choices. The room nice. A focus on partying and drinking. Have to rush early in the morning to compete for a good spot and lounge chair on the beach. The staff work very hard including pulling seaweed off the beach daily (and keeping the resort clean and well manicured.) Most people swam in the pools to avoid the seaweed. We wore water shoes to get out into the ocean as there were sharp rocks near the shore.

What spoiled it for me was the high pressure tactics of staff trying to get us to buy into the loyalty program. Purchasing it would have given us exclusive access to certain luxury rooms and areas of the resort for the same price as we paid for our trip plus $30k over the years.

I found the staff’s friendliness artificial with the focus on getting as much money out of us as possible. Prices in the resort store were very high. $14 CAD for a chapstick. $400 to purchase photos that were taken of us.

For all these reasons we chose to go somewhere else for our next vacation. Sorry Esmeralda you lost this customer.

My husband and I returned from the Blue Bay a week ago. We were there from Jan. 13- 23.
I had read a lot of trip advisor reviews before choosing this resort. And, as usual, there were many varied reviews. I try to take a bit from each review and consider the fact that we all want/expect different things when on a vacation.
We were in building 6 third floor. We were in an end room overlooking the smaller pool which we really liked. The room was spacious. We had a king bed, walk in shower and double sinks. The air conditioning and ceiling fan both worked well and the bed was very comfortable.
We arrived at the hotel at around 9:15 p.m. and were greeted by very friendly, efficient front desk staff. They told us that the Festival buffet was open until 10:00 so after checking in we went straight there.
Our room was about a 10 minute walk to the beach. It’s a nice, easy walk that we always enjoyed. For those of you not able to walk far there are golf carts that pick you up at designated spots. I had read in one review that they felt the carts didn't pick up often enough but when we were there we saw them all the time.
I had also read that it was a challenge reserving the a la carte restaurants but we had no problem. We went to the Mexican, Italian and Seafood restaurants. Our favourites were the Italian and Seafood ones. Delicious beef fillet at the Italian and delicious scallops and salmon at the seafood one.
I also want to add that when we booked the restaurants I told them I was allergic to shellfish. At each restaurant the information had been passed on which I really appreciated.
We had breakfast every morning at the Snack Bar next to the pool near us. It’s called a snack bar but they offer a full breakfast. We had freshly made omelettes everyday.
Lunch we would always have at Jaal-Ha buffet on the beach and dinners when not at an a la carte were at the Festival buffet.
There was always a great variety of food and something for everyone.
Most days we went to the Columpios Bar on the beach where you sit on swings. It’s a great place to meet people.
The resort is still battling the seaweed at the beach. Everyday, all day there were people cleaning it up, they did an amazing job. The beach looked good but the water close to shore was brown. We knew this prior to going so we knew what to expect. They have great pools so it wasn’t a concern for us. And we still enjoyed lying at the beach looking at that beautiful white sand.
I’d also like to add that all the staff at the resort were great. We especially want to thank Orlando at the Festival buffet, Alberto at the beach bar, Candelario who did an amazing job cleaning our room and Elvis and Mauro at the poolside snack bar. They made our trip that much more memorable.
We had a fabulous holiday and hope to go back one day.

4 stars... ha so at night drunk people misbehaving in the hallways, very loud. The beach wasn't the best however it wasn't terrible either, you can always get a beach chair and it has bar service down there. The swing bar, holy smoke this was an amazing experience for me. The bartender, Ivan, just kept making shots all night. lol The black and white bar during the day has good service but at night it is non-existant but it is full of people so you can always go to the bar for a drink. so food here was excellent in my opinion the buffet was great. i did find it annoying that you would have to book you dinner only one day in advance and if you were late getting up the only booking were for 9pm. The steak house and the Mexican restaurants in my opinion were fantastic. The bacon for some reason sucked everywhere equally. i mean i found myself picking it off my fillet Mignon. It appears that this resort sprawls across a vast area however it really only takes 5-10 minutes of walking to get anywhere. really it was the only exercise i was getting so I welcomed the short walks lol . Another irritation is the hard sale to come and buy a time share, although, we found if you just tell them that you talked to Jerry they will leave you alone. But for listening to an hour they will give you a coupon for two hundred bucks of spa treatments. the rooms are spacious and large, although we did have two different rooms there and after talking with others there above the 3rd floor the water pressure sucks. I found that we hardly needed our ac unit for cooling but it would get very humid there without it on so we turned it on when we left the room and that seemed to work very well. The staff was amazing, everyone. the waitresses, the waiter, bartenders, everyone very friendly and nice.