Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda: Blue Bay Review

Pools were excellent, especially the one furthest from the beach. The beach area was nice but the water not so much. Very muddy, not the Caribbean sand we are used to. That’s ok though, just a quick 5 or 6 minute walk south brings you to an incredible beach. Spent our time in the water at that location. Food was ok. You will always find something to eat, you won’t go hungry. Staff was so good, especially in the buffets and restaurants. Grounds were impeccable and the bed was comfortable [... read more]. Room was good. This was our first trip to a resort with kids and was pleasantly surprised by how few were there. The Black and White bar needs a complete overhaul. Kinda sad because this is the only bar here. Recommend?…. Maybe for a week. 2 weeks is too long here.

Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda: Has potential, but fell drastically short on quality.

Resort listed as a "Luxury" 4 star but is at best a 3. You are welcomed with sewer stench around the lobby building and in areas on the grounds. Half of the public sinks were broken with noticeable urinals clogged or in disrepair. Ceilings in each public area were spotted with water stains from leaks and the thatch roofs had holes. Activities building was under construction as was the entire spa. The gym had half of its cardio equipment broken. The beach is small and has little to no shade cove [... read more]rs unless you pay extra to be in the time share/VIP area. The pool side is similar, with little shade coverage and a lot of seats in the heat of the sun. Expect to be at the pool/beach before 7am to find any covered seats. Food is fairly good at the buffet and the pool taco stand, but a al carte restaurants fall short. The specialty dinners are overly salted, and you are limited in dishes. It is an all-inclusive, but they tell you no to a second dish while serving sizes are small. The reservation system for meals is very broken. Yet, they only book one day in advance starting at midnight and by 8am most spots are taken. Not a vacation when trying to schedule activities by some limited timeframe. The salad bar at the restaurants is usually picked clean by the later time slots (9pm) for dining, so it feels less of a nice restaurant and more of rush to get you out. BBQ buffet by the small pool was good for meat lovers. Buffet had decent selection, but the lines were a mess and more a free for all so go with patience and it is more enjoyable. At night, the main buffet has a solid sewer smell in the waiting area outside. Bars were junk and the 24-hour sports bar is more of a barn with cheap lawn furniture. Reminded me of university where you hose down the place at the end of the night and no class to the location. TV's in bar were playing the resort advertisement on loop instead of sports games and asking for them to change the channel got no response. The lounge bar was again a patio with lawn furniture that was uncomfortable and cheap. Service was almost non-existent. Even with tips the staff ignored you and you were left to line up to get your own drinks/food. Asking for a bottle of water was refused most of the time for lack of supply and you are directed to get a cup from a dispenser. Self serve coffee machines were often broken and the Black and White bar (24 hour) usually had a long line for drinks. Stood first in line several times and watched myself or others passed over so the bartender would serve fellow Mexicans instead of the next customer. The cart shuttle drivers almost run you over and don't slow down while you are forced to share the same pathway as the work vehicles. Luis at the restaurants and Aldo at the main buffet were great though and engaged in good service. Room was in disrepair with lights hanging from ceiling holes, rust stained mirrors, and never consistency on towels or even leaving toilet paper. Sinks have no plugs and face cloths appear to be a mythical item to obtain. Leaving tips was lost as service did not change. Even had a welcome package for another guest sent to the room and it clearly was marked for someone else on a different floor! The company was great, and the sun was awesome. The pool areas are fun even if shaded seats are hard to get. You can get some reprieve from the sun under the bridges by the pool. The resort has space to be great, but just is run down and the workers don't seem to care. If not for good people I travelled with and met there, I would have been very disappointed with my vacation. At full price this is a rip off and quality is definitely low. If the damaged areas were fixed, and the service showed they cared at least a little, this could be a good place. In the end, it looked run down and with staff constantly wearing "Resting B**** Face".

Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda: Excellent resort

Hotel was neat well organized. Good food. (But not 5 star). Main pool was great. Good activities around pool. Beach was disappointing. Some great staff. Rooms were nice and offered beer and soft drinks. I would not recommend this hotel if you are a beach/ocean lover.

Blue Bay Villas Doradas: Relaxing as always

This was my 3rd time staying there. I enjoy the size of resort (small). Staff are always very nice and accommodating. My only complaints would be that the night shows are terrible and this time around buffet restaurant was closed for dinner Monday to Thursday leaving 1 less option for dinner.

Blue Bay Villas Doradas: Great Times at Blue Bay Villas Doradas!

Entertainment staff was amazing and always had something for us to do. Food can get repetitive but you can always find something that’s good. Really recommend the catamaran Free Style. The crew was amazing and takes you out to 2 different spots to snorkel. Recommend booking with Cesar down by the beach bar.

Blue Bay Villas Doradas: Quiet and Relaxing Resort

Resort was very quiet in July, had a very relaxing stay. We did the Isla Bonita and City Tour excursions which were both very fun. Food was good, especially the Chinese restaurant was amazing, but the snack buffet at the beach could have been better.

Blue Bay Villas Doradas: Wonderful!

The grounds were amazing. The staff polite, went out of their way for any needs. The entertainment was wonderful and friendly. Always felt inviting and relaxing. The beach is amazing!!! Restaurants varied and well prepared food. Pasta and omelette stations!!! yes please! wonderful. The rooms were always done well daily. Having a towel exchange for the beach towels was so handy. Had the photographer take some photos he was polite and the pictures were beautiful. Thank you Darlin [... read more]! I have no negatives about this hotel. I went Solo as a woman and did not feel intimidated or ignored at the couples resort. Treat very well. Security was amazing and I will be back!!

Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda: Great Value and great staff

We travelled to BBGE in early June 2022 so it wasn't as busy as it could have been in Feb-March. PROS: Some of the best staff I've ever met. Food was really good. Steaks were top notch. We ate at the a-la-cartes every night except for day 1. Pool was large and beautiful. Never a problem finding a pool or beach chair. Room was comfortable and cleaned daily as expected. CONS: No lobby bar. Sports bar was lacking atmosphere. No swim-up bars, but beach/pool bars were close by. Long walk from [... read more] lobby/restaurants to most rooms. We went to the gym several times at 7am and there was no air conditioning and often no water or towels. Some days it was difficult to work out. We really enjoyed our trip and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the resort. Nothing is ever perfect but most everything was pretty darn good and that's what I expect from my resort. NOTE: At this time of year seaweed is accumulating on the beach daily and there were bulldozers and trucks hauling it away. Some days it was still good to be on the beach and we swam often. This was just a minor inconvenience due to the time of year we travelled. I think that in the busy season this beach would be awesome as it is much larger than other resorts in the area.

Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda: Very average resort

3 stars resort in reality. Beach is marina for small boats, surrounded by 6-7 breakwaters with few piers, water is shallow, full of algae and brown - that's why everybody is in the pool. Pool is too full and shallow as well. You need to go out before 6 am to get spot in the shade. They do not clean floors in the buildings for days and it is very gross to walk by human poop 5 meters from elevator which doesn't work anyways, same cigarette butts by the pool day after day. Just don't have time to c [... read more]ontinue, there are better places for amount you pay.

Blue Bay Villas Doradas: Horrible experience

My money was stolen the first day I arrived and my credit card was used without my authorization. Hotel staff was the only one in my room. The manager and security accused me of drinking and possibly allowing people in my room which was not true. I would recommend getting a safe as soon as you arrive.

Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda: I would advise skipping this one...

Overall, I would recommend skipping this resort and paying the extra $200 per person for something a little nicer in the area if you're planning to take the time off work/school and come all the way to Mexico anyways. More specifically, the beach is unusable with obstructed views, seaweed and constant red flags on the beach making it impossible to swim. The resort is far too big (even for my parter and I who are in our 20s and very active). Be prepared to walk, and walk, and walk. If you forget  [... read more]sunscreen in your room, be prepared to derail your entire afternoon (likely an hour) just making the hike back to your room to retrieve it. It is just very impractical getting around the resort as the "shuttles" never come, are completely full or reserved for members only. The layout of the resort is very bizarre (the restaurants and rooms are SO far away from the beach and pool, and by far away I'm taking a solid 15-20 minute walk one-way). Personally, I would not recommend this resort for families with small children or anyone with any sort of mobility issues. There is nowhere that has any shade if you want relief from the sun which was a huge issue for us. A small area on the beach has little shaded cabanas, but of course these were for members only. The rest of us had to fight for loungers (not too upset about this one, we recognize that happens at many resorts) but there was absolutely no lounge area around the pool that was shaded. After a couple of days getting burnt to a crisp, we struggled to find any place to go on the resort to relax and have a break from the sun. The front desk is not helpful if you have ANYTHING that goes wrong in your room (or the resort in general). The rooms are very old and dated. You will be lucky to not find a stain on a pillow or on your sheets. From everyone we spoke to staying at the resort, everyone's room had some sort of issue (toilet paper roll kept coming out of the wall, shower spout wouldn't turn, phone in room wasn't working, mirror on the wall was cracked, patio door wouldn't open, room smelled like mold, etc.) The food was very standard, nothing exceptional or unique to it. I've been to resorts that have little taco stands in the afternoon, ice cream bars, grilled food by the pools.. this resort had nothing like that. It was your standard buffet food. You need to book the a la cartes 2 days in advance and get to the lobby no later than 11am or all the reservations for the next day will be gone (forget about same day reservations). This requires a lot of pre-planning that you don't really want to have to think about when on vacation. As a small aside not about the resort, it's starting to get very obvious that the pick-up times on the day you are leaving the resort are ridiculously early. They want to pick you up from your resort 5 hours before your flight to account for "travel time" and picking up other guests at neighbouring resorts to get you to the airport early enough for an international flight. While I do appreciate this, you end up sitting in the airport waiting for your flight home for 4 hours. As a result, every tourist is seen spending a ridiculous amount of money on the airport food (burgers and fries were $33 CAD with a bottle of water being $8 CAD). It seems strange that we all have to do this when we are coming from an all inclusive and could have been eating an included meal from our resort? Almost made us want to just arrange a private taxi/shuttle to get to the airport at a more reasonable time (2 hours before our flight). The money we would spend on a private shuttle we would save on all the airport food from being there so early.. could it be the resort, transportation service, and airport want you to check-out of your hotel crazy early in order to spend $$$$$ at the airport?!? You do wonder why a 4/4.5 star resort is so much cheaper than the other 4/4.5 star resorts listed online.. it's because this is a 3.5 star resort at best, honestly. I would really advise skipping this one.

Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda: The years have not been kind

Unfortunately we would recommend for others to NOT stay at this resort. Right as we arrived we noticed it was incredibly outdated and broken down. The front entrance staff were all horribly rude and unhelpful. They waste an hour of your arrival pitching their pricey VIP program that no one participated in, though they still reserved over half the beach for them, leaving only 4 sun shelters for the other 800 people to fight over. The room was gross, they checked us in to an unclean room with a bu [... read more]nch of molded food on the desk. They refused to move us and simply just removed the food an hour later. You could not swim at the beach as it is located in this seaweed reef. The one small pool water was literally green, and it was a 10 minute walk to and from the other one. The food was flavourless and always the exact same, with minimal healthy eating options. The room was broken in so many places, racks falling off the wall, mirrors rusted, door didn’t even close. Overall, not a great place, and our standards are not high by any means. The bar staff and entertainment staff were the highlight.

Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda: A Great Resort.

We recently spent a week at the Blue Bay Esmeralda and were pleasantly surprised at how wonderful this resort is. The food was very tasty, selection could be a bit bigger but everything had amazingly delicious flavour, right down to the dessert. We have traveled to many resorts over the years and this was the first time we truly enjoyed every meal. The drinks were a hit and miss, rarely tasting the same but always cold and served quickly by awesome bartenders! (Tipping helps) The facil [... read more]ity was clean and employees wore masks at all times, indoors and outdoors, which we thought was pretty exceptional considering the heat and the long hours they worked. The resort is very large and spread out. The walkway from the main area to the beach is about a 5-7 min walk through a gorgeous jungle like path, or you hop on the cart and it’s a quick ride to wherever you want to go. The resort is also home to a variety of wild life, from monkeys to raccoons, deer, beautiful birds, and more, all of which make for an entertaining experience. Our first room was in Building 6, which is in the section furthest from the beach, but close to the second pool. The main pool is by the beach along with a buffet and few bars. After our second night we changed to a swim-out room in building 3 which was closer to the beach. This Suite (#3117) was spectacular, two bathrooms, a king bed and a separate sitting area. Staff really seemed to do their best to serve you quickly and seemed glad to see you. Definitely one of our best experiences with resorts in Mexico. The one downside was the beach, not much of a swimming beach and the chairs are situated quite a ways back from the water. So if it’s for the beach you go, then you may be disappointed but the pool by the beach is awesome as is everything else in our opinion.

Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda: Maintenance issues

Days 2 to 4 of our week long stay we did not have hot water in our shower. The door to our room came off the hinge on day 4. The ceiling fan functioned poorly. The TV didn't work at all. The hotel is in need or repairs throughout.

Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda: The staff make this a great resort

Let's start with the bad, this is a very large resort which accommodates 2500 travellers. The rooms although dated were very clean and well maintained by a very friendly cleaning staff. The distances from the restaurants, buffet and show area was far from the rooms, although golf carts were available not many were operating. Occupancy was only at 28% therefore staff was limited and only 2 a la carte restaurants were ever made available to us, different themes on different nights but always same  [... read more]2 locations. The ocean in front of the resort is ugly, brown water and lots of washed up algae, however 100 meters either way and the ocean is much prettier. 5 minutes walk left of the resort is a beautiful lagoon area with crystal clear water. The pools are huge and the service is exceptional, kudos to the bar staff, fast efficient and always friendly. Same can be said of the buffet team, friendly greeting every morning afternoon and night, service is fast and they go out of their way to get you drinks, coffee, water and or juices. Front desk staff and manager were very helpful and knowledgeable. I would like to thank the lady in the back office who helped me book my golf rounds, she went out of her way and called several courses to find those that suited are needs, I'm ashamed that I can't remember her name. The resort has a great variety of wild life, deer, coaties, raccoons, giant guinea pigs or small Capiberra not sure what they were, spider monkeys, so many different kinds of birds and of course iguanas of all sizes. Again signs everywhere telling the guest not to feed and to respect nature As for the Covid protocols, they were definitely in place, masks had to be warn at the front reception area and they had boxes in case you forgot, lost or broke the elastic off yours. Restaurants and buffet while standing, and any other in door facility. Every location had plenty of hand sanitizers, the buffet was still self serve but they provided plastic gloves and they were mandatory along with your mask. There were signs everywhere reminding everyone of social distancing. Every public area was constantly being cleaned, bathrooms and dining areas were immaculate. Pool area was clean, trash and glasses being picked up by the bar staff all day. Busses and taxis required the wearing of masks while in the vehicles. The resort has taken every precaution, unfortunately not every nationality followed the rules, North Americans for the most part did but local Mexican guests and some Europeans didn't put much importance on masks or distancing. Overall I would rank this resort as good to great only because of it's incredible staff. Buildings and facilities are dated but still ok, beds were comfortable and rooms were very clean. Too bad for the Ocean but not much they can do about that. Things I liked include the food which was always amazing, kudos to the chefs. The friendliness of the staff, the large pool was a lot of fun with a lot of room. The beach bar with the swings was a nice touch. 👌

Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda: Great hotel

Amazing staff, very courtious and fun and super attentionate to our needs, you need to bring your aquashoes to go into the ocean..weeds and rocks,beautifull sand 20 min taxi ride from playa del carmen’s 5th avenue.

Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda: Solid resort

The staff were wonderful at the resort. Big pool, good food and good drinks. The service again was amazing! The beach isn't the best but walk to the resort next door and it's good! Would definitely go back

Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda: Nice resort, horrible beach

The resort is big, lots of walking, but they have golf cart shuttles. Food was good, staff were friendly at the seabob shop, lots of fun. They gave me and my girlfriend 2 beds and it took them 4 days of complaining before they changed our room to a single bed. Beach is horrible, black seaweed water, rocks and shells in the beach sand so it sucked to walk on bare foot. Very shallow water, only up to my belly buton. Over all 3 out of 5 i would not stay there again. Might as well stay at a [... read more] travel lodge if i want a room and pool, would be less walking and cheeper lol

Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda: Beautiful clean happy resort

A very large resort. Lots of places to escape the crowds. Food very good. Service friendly and good. Rooms beautiful, love the deck. Many bars to choose from, 3 buffet restaurants serving fantastic food.

Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda: This is a great resort

This was my second time coming to this resort !I find this resort clean and the food was great staff very acomadating! Although it is a large resort the trolley system is nice so u don't have to do too much walking! Especially love the wildlife!