We stayed at the BBGE from Jan 5th to Jan 12th 2008. This is no way a 5 star resort but a solid 3 maybe pushing 3 and a half stars. Rooms - Excellent very comfy and large had a beautiful view of pool and beach. We were in the Tulum bldg on the 3rd floor. Service- Very poor and staff try their very best but there are not enough of them and many of them dont speak english. Food - Average at best , the Italian a la carte is the best restuarant at the resort by far great food and exceptional service. Pool - Way too cold and they need to heat it. There are not enough chairs by poolside. I would usually pay about a 40 peso tip for a boy to bring chairs from beach every day. In a nutshell i would not recommend this hotel or resort to a friend and would not go back ever. Finally - Alex and his group of Animation team are great and very friendly and try theior best to make the evenings entertaining.

We arrived Dec 30th and initally we were happy with the check in. There were some language issues, but we managed. The room was nice, although it was not completely furnished. Our patio had no privacy barrier and there was no room service menu. there was supposed to be a conscerege availabe at each building every day. Not the case for Bldg 6 The hallyways, poolside, bar areas were littered with food and drink for days on end. The smell of burning garbage was unbelievable. Service was awful. 20 plus minutes to get a drink, no clean dishes, cutlery, napkins glasses etc. The first morning I had to wait for my partner to finsh his cearal so that I could use his bowl and spoon. 5 star? I think not. There was no poolside service until our last day, Jan 6th. Our room was near the smaller pool, so stayed close by. There were never any activity staff. Not ever sure if there were any around at all. No disco at all. Once the "show" was complete, it was usually lights out !!! There was no posting of activites that were happening throughout the day. The "sports bar" was like a bingo hall. Large white concrete building with uncomfortable chairs and no decor. The spa was a good experience. Tried to get to the gym one morning only to be told they could not find the keys to unlock the main enterance. We had to jump a 3 foot wall and walk through brush to get to the spa-side of the gym and get in through sliding doors. It was over 3 hours before the main entrance was finally opened. Food was warm at best. The wine was great which was a pleasant suprise. A general area between the Italian and French Resturants was again concrete and lacking decor. Florescent lighting so bright that you could land a plane there. Hardly warm and inviting. Suprised to see no lobby bar. Again large concrete structure. We plan to speak with our travel agent to express concern regarding this "5star" listing. We paid top dollar and have to say it was a very dissapointing holiday. Won't be going back anytime soon.

You are paying a premium price for a "5 Star" hotel. Good luck getting any of ther services you payed for. A group of about 30 of us went to BBGE. Our "24 Hour Room Service" literally took 24 hours for it to arrive (if it arrived at all). Cleaning staff would clean our rooms once every 3 days. We were all salvaging bottled water from our "continuously re-stocked mini-bar" like it was contraband. The restaurants are unorganized and dirty. The serving staff told us there was a "charge" for ordering wine at restaurants (isn't this an all inclusive resort?). If you like crappy beaches, rude tip-mongering servers and the unescapable smell of rotten eggs, go ahead and book the BBGE. Take my advice- save your money and go to Hawaii instead

We stayed in this hotel for 2 weeks over xmas and new year and had a great time, although they had a massive problem retaining the standards once it got busy, during our first week we were spoiled as you'd expect from a 5 star hotel, but over xmas when the hotel filled up it was clear they could not handle it espically in the restaurants. There was simply not enough tables, plates or cutlery and on more than one occasion we found ourselves going for meals and having to walk out again to try again later and once we did get a seat on a half made table, you have to go and get your own drinks as the waitreses were to slow and if they did take an order there was times when the drinks never arrived or the one's that did came in plastic beakers, I had a time i had to drink my soup out of the bowl as they had no spoons left and the cloth napkins got replaced with cheap paper ones and this was just lunch and breakfast, Evening meals, again more queing as the restaurant wasn't big enough and we learned towards the end that they were letting the locals in for meals while the guests were waiting, and the food was often cold, if you can get booked in to one of the a-la-cartes they are excellent, Everything else was good, the cleaners aint really quick enough and often got to do our room when we were back in as the sun had set and the bloke that does the mini bar actually filled our's at 19:30hrs (a little on the late side) Our rep Nick from first choice was good and we had an amazing dolphin trip on his reccomendation, Pools were fantastic as was the day time entertainment, not the same can be said for the night time entertainment that's pretty poor and only on a 7 day cycle so by our second week we'd seen them all and once the show finishes about half ten thats it except the blue bay band who are rubbish and only seem to know 7 songs. The rooms are really nice and the bed's massive and really comfey but there does appear to be a double standard as someone we knew was getting roses and flowers left on his bed every day, we never got it once, that may sound petty but they need to keep it the same. All in all we have no regrets as we made our holiday amazing but i think for this to be a 5 star hotel is punching a little above it's weight, and not worth the £4500.00 or ($9000.00) we paid for it.

I stayed at blue bay grand with my husband from 30th of Dec thru Jan 2nd. Where to start? FOOD: Contrary to the feedback previously left on this site, the food was terrible. I simply can't imagine what they are talking about. The food was mass-produced institutional food. It was cheap food, poorly prepared. After three excruciating days at Blue Bay, I lost over three pounds! Even forgoing the quality of the food, getting a table was nearly impossible. There are currently seven hotel buildings with one more coming on line in a month or two. As it is now, there was always a wait to get a table and always a wait to get the food. The food conditions were unsanitary. The cooks were touching all sorts of things, like doors, their faces, dirty plates, and then immediately handling the food. One final note on the food. The first meal on the first day, I had cafeteria style tiramisu, I put my fork into it to have a little bug crawl out of the middle of the dessert... STAFF: The staff was certainly friendly enough; however the hotel is wildly understaffed. My room was not restocked every day. I had to clear plates off the tables at the restaurant before I sat down. I had to wait at least twenty minutes for a drink. I saw one poor guy working at 8 in the morning and then saw the same guy that evening at 11:30. It was horrible. GUESTS: This hotel was kid heaven. There was probably a 3:1 adult to child ratio. I like kids, but you simply can't get away from teh buggers. Also, some cultures permit their children great behavioral leeway, which really impinged on my fun. ROOM: My room was very nice, but it was simply not adequately cleaned. For some reason they had three different teams enter the room each day: one to restock the mini bar, one to clean and one to restock the towels. As a result no team did anything that wasn't in their exact job description. This resulted in food being left in my room for two days. This happened with other rooms too, as everyone eventually put their rotting food in the hallway to collect flies. FACILITIES: As others have stated, ocean was unswimmable. It was filled with seaweed particles. I only saw two children in the water. When the children's mom realized that her kids were in the water, she freaked out like they were about to get eaten by sharks. The pools were beautiful, but filled with children all the time.