Sarah Bartol
We stayed at the BlueBay for several days while on vacation. We had an enjoyable stay and can comment on some of the points made by other reviews:
Pros:
-Room was nice, clean, comfortable, not dated.
-Good AC
-Wifi was pretty good across the hotel
-drinks were good and were not watered down.
- employees were lovely and very helpful
- clean resort, everything was within reasonable walking distance.
- food was decent at buffets, omelet station was great. A la carts were very good.
Cons:
- very limited sun loungers, and the ones they did have people would 'reserve' by 6 or 7 am. I went out at 7am every morning for breakfast and almost all had towels on them with no actual people in sight.
- very limited shade on beach or by pool
- food at buffets was repetitious, same things every meal
Overall decent stay, nothing that would ruin my vacation.
Marko
The resort is beautiful, the beach and pools are great, but what really made the experience special was the people who work there. Everyone was incredibly friendly, welcoming, and always smiling. You can really feel how much effort they put into making guests have a great time.
A special thank you to the animation team for all the fun activities and good vibes every day. Big shoutout to Pedro from the animation team — such a positive and fun guy who really keeps the energy up!
And also Alex from Coco Bongo — the best man! What an amazing experience and unforgettable night.
Thank you to all the staff for making this vacation so special. I would definitely recommend this resort to anyone visiting Mexico!
Michal Strzembicki
Our stay at Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda was absolutely fantastic and truly memorable.
We would especially like to thank Alex and Yulissa for their exceptional help and professionalism. They organized a beautiful private dinner for us with a private Mariachi concert, which was an incredible experience and showed a very high level of care and attention to guests.
The food throughout the hotel was delicious, with a wide variety of options. The themed restaurants are on a top world-class level, offering excellent quality and great atmosphere. The service across the entire hotel was friendly, professional, and always helpful.
The hotel offers a very rich evening entertainment and animation program, so there is always something enjoyable to do in the evenings. The rooms are very clean, comfortable, and well maintained.
Garden-view rooms are a real highlight — they offer beautiful views and the unique opportunity to observe wildlife directly on the hotel grounds. We saw coatis running along the pathways, as well as deer, raccoons, and many other beautiful animals, which made the stay feel very special.
Electric golf carts run constantly around the resort, making it easy and convenient to get to restaurants, the beach, and other areas of the hotel.
Beautiful hotel, excellent food, and warm, professional service.
Highly recommended!
Boris Maganic
BB punches below its marketed weight class, with sub-par facilities and contradictory offerings resulting in a poor guest experience. From the moment you arrive, it's evident the resort is making up for what it lacks in quality with aggressive over-promising sales tactics inviting you to become a member of the “family” (CircleOne Vacation Club, a timeshare-inspired membership). Instead of investing heavily in sales, they could have focused on improving the facilities and addressing things like septic smell in the lower-tier rooms, simple maintenance items like wear and tear, and bizarre accessibility issues such as our cousins being able to open the door into the next-door unit, walking in on an unknowing guest.
Even trying to pay to upgrade rooms is a pain, because they're trying to balance priority for member guests with the immediate needs of ready-to-pay non-member guests, ultimately disappointing both in the process. We weren't able to get the premium room types we wanted, but settled for the next best available option, which admittedly was a big upgrade from the tier-1 septic, privacy-omitting mess we initially checked into.
It's a shame really because the Kids Club staff are remarkable, going out of their way to make sure children are enjoying their time, and the entertainment staff are incredibly friendly and welcoming — the resort does try to book fun activities through the day and unique performances at night for guest enjoyment.
But that’s all paled by the low-quality general food available for breakfast and lunch, with hit-or-miss quality for dinner which requires a reservation the day before (unless you’re OK eating early or late, which isn’t a real deal breaker). The odd thing with the reservations is that unless the entire party is present at the beginning, they will not seat you and you may lose your spot. Or, like in our case, since several members of our group got food poisoning from the prior day’s feast and couldn’t leave the room to eat, they wouldn’t allow us to take food back to the room. Ultimately we negotiated the allowance of some leftovers to be taken back via napkins (apparently napkin beef tastes better according to my brother-in-law).
The other issue is who the resort is marketed to. It’s trying to be everything for everyone: peace and quiet for seniors, fun and parties for younger singles, and safe smiles for young families. Practically on site it’s not a terrible mismatch, but it’s also evident that many singles and older folks didn’t expect to be seated next to tables with loud young children.
My ultimate read is that BB is trying to keep things together in a post-COVID travel world by being less-than-transparent about the reality of the resort, perhaps trying to uphold the status of a once-was (or possibly never-was) upscale resort. The result was ultimately an OK vacation but a definite never again for the brand, and we likely won’t be using Air Canada Vacations as a tour operator for future travel bookings.
Stan Club
Just returned from Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda and wanted to share an honest review of our experience.
We arrived around 9pm, and unfortunately the first impression wasn’t great. The lobby was quite dark and the central fountain wasn’t working, which immediately gave the feeling that the property wasn’t very well maintained. Throughout our stay, that initial impression proved fairly accurate.
Since we arrived late and haven't eaten any food, we went to the only late snack bar in the Mexican restaurant, which opened at 11pm (runs from 11pm to 1am). We went right at 11:05pm, and had a burger (which was tasty), and wanted a second. Unfortunately, by the time, we went for second, which was around 15 minutes later, the server said the burger patties were run out.
We booked two rooms in Building 7. One room on the second floor was decent in size but had a very strong, unpleasant cleaning smell upon arrival. The second room, on the first floor, had a loose doorknob that wouldn’t lock properly and we even found a large cockroach crawling across the floor. We requested a room change and were moved upstairs. We had also asked in advance for rooms side by side or at least on the same floor, but that request was not accommodated.
Housekeeping and basic service were inconsistent. Both rooms had to call multiple times (3 to 4 attempts) just to request water or cleaning service. Response time was slow.
Breakfast was offered in three different locations, but the selection was nearly identical at each. The omelette stations were disappointing, presentation and preparation felt rushed and sloppy. Overall, the food quality throughout the resort was underwhelming. It did not feel like the standard we expected in Mexico. We also met several fellow Canadian guests who experienced food poisoning during their stay, which was concerning.
There is only one coffee shop on the property and it doesn’t open until 10am, which resulted in long lineups every morning.
The pools are large and visually appealing, but there were no umbrellas available, which made it very difficult to escape the strong midday sun. There are limited shaded canopy areas, and guests were reserving chairs as early as 5am to secure shade. Additionally, the pool surfaces are extremely rough — several of us ended up with scratches simply from getting in and out. At the main pool, only one or two staff members were circulating for drink service, which wasn’t enough for the size of the area.
The nightly entertainment had effort behind it, but shows often started late and the overall quality was not impressive.
One of the women’s washrooms near the beachside restaurant was missing a toilet seat and toilet paper for the duration of our stay, and it was never addressed.
On a positive note, most of the staff we encountered were friendly, and the resort grounds are very large with plenty of space to walk around.
We went in knowing this was marketed as a 4-star resort, not 5-star, but our overall experience felt closer to a 3-star standard in terms of service and upkeep. At first glance the property looks nice, but the details tell a different story.
Unfortunately, based on this visit, I would not return or recommend it.
Picture attached shows the " 1 " was missing, and we couldn't even press the button going down, and needed the help with one of the staff members in the building.
I really hope this review will lead to REAL CHANGE by the management in this resort, and not the generic, cliche response to every 1 or 2 star reviews. Because BlueBay does have potential, but not there yet.
My Booking
