Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda All-Inclusive Resort, Playa del Carmen Centro

This resort seems fairly modern and updated. It is not a 5 star as some places advertise it but it is a solid 3.5 to 4 star resor in my opinion. The food is decent and they have a good selection of drinks. Pros: -Property is fairly modern. Entrance lobby is quite upscale. -Pools are well kept and large. There is plenty of room to get a chair and also enjoy the pool. There are several pools. -All bartenders were friendly and there was a good selection of liquors including Absolut, Johnnie Walker, Jose Cuervo, Appleton Rum, etc... -Waiters were excellent at the pool and came around often. -Room was clean and maid service was good. Each room has a nice patio and some rooms have patios with a pool right off them. -Buffet was decent. -Japanese restaurant had good sushi. -Resort is a short distance (10 minutes) to Playa Del Carmen downtown area. The hotel has several daily shuttles. -Beach bar with swings is a cool spot to watch the sunset. Bartenders there are also great. If you tip a little they will make some special shots and also pull out the Don Julio and a couple other top shelf liquors that aren't out in the open with the others. -Spa area is gorgeous. -Workout facility is more than adequate. -Staff is exceptionally friendly. -They provide a trolly to get around areas of the resort as it is quite a sprawling property. -Cooks at buffet were great and would accomodate any reasonable requests. They made me fresh tortillas every morning since none were out. Cons: -Beach must be located in a bad area. Clay and mud come in with the tide so the water is not very clear. The beach has also been battered by the wave pretty good and much of it has sand bags exposed that were once covered by sand. -Hard to get into the other restaurants. I'm not sure what the deal with this is. We tried to make reservations a couple of times and each time the concierge told us they were all full. Another couple said they booked all their nights on the first day of arrival so they invited us to go with them. The Japanese style restaurant we went to wasn't even half full so clearly they are limiting the amount of reservations for the restaurants and trying to drive the bulk of guests to the buffet. The buffet was ok though. -The sports bar smelled of stale beer and really is the only late night bar open as the beach bar closes around midnight. There is no club at this resort so if you're looking for night life you'll need to head to downtown Playa Del Carmen for Coco Bongos or go to Cancun. This sports bar is the closest thing they have to a club. The shows they do have happen just to the right of this bar and you can watch them from the sports bar. -Wi-fi is not available in the room. You have to go to a common area. We used the sports bar. -The smell of sulphur is strong as you walk around parts of the property as there is wetlands on the property. Overall for the price this is a very good resort. If you're expecting 5 stars then you'll need to pony up and pay for it somewhere else but for the prices this resort advertises it is well worth the money. It's a solid 3.5 to 4 star property and I feel the service was quite good.

We loved the resort layout, pool, and access to the beach. We thought the food service was GREAT! They worked so hard to accommodate us. Very friendly staff. Helpful to know some basis Spanish words, as very few knew much English. The buffets and a la cart restaurants were very good, but stay away from the French restaurant. The entertainment was okay, but not Vegas quality. This was our first vacation to Mexico, we had a great time and would go there again..

This place is a 2 1/2 star at best. Unstocked fridge, had to ask. Could not get staff to understand that we wanted 4 face clothes each day. Understaffed pool area, only one person taking orders for an entire pool, if she even asked at all, one bar tender, no straws for drink for 3 days. One pool area closed. Food Sub par at best, have had better meals a Burger King. I was locked out of my room 3 times in one day. There is no pool food service. Shuttle inconsistent to restaurants and lobby, once waited over 40 min after my call and missed my reservation for dinner. The shuttle from and to the airport never returned me to the airport, I had to hire a taxi to get back.

We have mixed feelings about this resort. It was worth the price we paid, ($1,529 for 5 nights including airport transportation) but will probably choose another resort when we go back. The grounds were excellently kept. It was very very clean, the room was nice, and we had no problems with the service at all. The beach is non-existing and the water is brown and dirty looking. The food was good but is the same day after day. The walls in the rooms are paper-thin and you can see daylight around the doors so you hear EVERYTHING going on in the whole building! The carts continue up and down the halls sounding like freight trains! I have never stayed in such a loud room! The mini-bar is not really a mini-bar. It contained no liquor but only soda, water, and beer. It is advertised that you make dinner reservations in the morning for that evening’s meal. That is impossible and they all tell you that when you get there. You must make reservations the day before. To go to the small city, Playa del Carmen, you must get a taxi for $15 or a shuttle for $4 each. I was disappointed that you could not walk from the resort. You can take a ferry from Playa del Carmen to Cozumel for about $22 each and can rent a scooter there for $25 a day to ride all over the island. You get hassled and harassed the whole time walking the street to buy things and also to attend timeshare presentations. The rewards are great if you can handle it. We attended the “travel club” presentation at the resort. They did not want to take “no” for an answer and just kept sending someone else over to tell us the same thing over and over and over again. They promised 90 minutes but went way over 2 hours. I finally had to almost get ugly with them before they let us leave. They had bad attitudes and were openly angry that we did not purchase the membership. It was like being interrogated in prison and was very uncomfortable. As I said, it was a good trip overall for the low price we paid. That was our first time in Mexico and I believe that we will have a much better stay next time now that we know what to expect.

I would not go back to the Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda in Playa Del Carmen. While the grounds were nice, the basic room category was terrible. It was outdated, smelled musty, and I would not stay in that room with my children. We had to upgrade to a suite which had the swim up pool which was definitely better. The mini-bar is not a mini-bar at all. It only consisted of a few sodas, water and only beer. And if you asked them to stock the mini-bar with more beer, they refused. When we checked in to our original room and requested an upgrade, it took the front desk almost 30 minutes to make the change. The service from then forward was quite slow and the many of the staff were not friendly or helpful. The concierge in our building did not seem very knowledgeable. We heard many guests complain. We always had a problem trying to make dinner reservations; there was never availability, even if we tried to make the reservations early in the morning. The room service was slow and they charge you extra for room service which is ridiculous since you pay an all inclusive rate. The buffet breakfast is supposed to be open at 7 a.m. daily. One morning we arrived at 7:15 a.m. and a waiter told us they were not ready; we have 2 young children who were ready to eat; all we did was ask for a fork and spoon so the kids could start eating and the waiter refused to give it to us! On another occassion, my daughter got sick (vomited) in our room and we used some towels to clean it up. Afterwards, we called housekeeping and explained what happened. When housekeeping arrived to our room, they refused to pick up the towels! We also had ants in our room. We called housekeeping 3 times and they never took care of it. We used some bug repellent which we had to buy to spray around the room. They advertise that the kids club opens daily at 9 a.m. which is false. We found out they only take "sign-ups" from 9 - 10 a.m. and even that is not true because even then there was no staff at the kids club when it supposedly opened at 9 a.m. The beach is extremely small and quite dirty. They advertise that a business center is available for internet access and printing documents, however we found that there is not a printer available. If you want to print something, you have to email it to the front desk. Another inconvenience. Honestly, I would not recommend this resort. Instead I would recommend Iberostar.

The staff was great, very helpful very nice. Food was just ok ,good variety. I wouldn't come here for the beach. The first day the water was clear but green and the sand was full of seaweed patches on the ground so you would have to walk around them to keep your feet in the sand. The next 4 days the water was terrible, brown water couldnt see anything and this was just the area by our hotel cause in Playa the water was Awesome beautiful beaches white sand. We picked the hotel based on the rooms and just the look of the hotel, which by far was great but unless you want to stay at the hotel all day, I wouldn't come here for the beach. I would find something closer to Playa or in Cozumel.

We thought the food was very good and provided a variety that held our interest for a week. It would probably get boring after 7 days. We ate dinner at the Mexican, Oriental, Seafood (twice) and Steak restaurants along with the buffet twice. There were 3 formal dining rooms open which changed their theme among the aforementioned plus French and Italian, on different nights. The staff couldn't have been more friendly, especially Alejandro, Israel and Enrique in the dive shop. It had been a while since we last dove, and they took very good care of us. By the time we left, we felt like we were leaving good friends. The beach area is great for sunning, not so good for swimming. There is plenty of shade available to get out of the sun. The pools were very nice. There is a wade pool for children attached to one of the pools. This place isn't paradise, but it is very nice and I thought it was a great value.

I went with my best freind and we had a blast...wasnt as busy as we had thought a mexican resort would be like in the summer but that almost made it nicer. the staff were so friendly and nice. enerteainment was awsome...the food was great even the buffet had differnet themes...no complaints from me...

I Really Don't Understand Why People Rated This Resort Poorly! Great Service. Clean. Freindly. The resort has an upscale feel where everything look updated. From the pool furniture to the decorative pieces in the lobby. It just had a cool style about it. The main issue I kept reading about the was how far the walk is. The walk from the pool to the lobby was long, but only a little bit longer than walk you'd take at Iberostar Quetzal. The main issue would be the lack of trees. At Iberostar Quetzal, there is a literal jungle you can walk in to get away from the sun. At Blue Bay, you need to walk fully in the sun, which may be brutal for some. This issue is resolved by catching the golf carts that come by every few minutes. If a cart doesn't show up, we just asked someone to send one, and wallah, one would show up. The pool is very pretty. The only lacking feature in my eyes is a swim up bar. There are two beach bars easily accessible, so this really is a non-issue. I did like the bridges that go over the portions of the pool, which make for a romantic walk at night when the pool it lit up. The beach was nice. Not at all a wreck like we thought it would be from previous descriptions. There seemed to be plenty of thatch umbrella/cabanas all over the place, so getting some respite from the sun was relatively easy. The room was just gorgeous. We got the Deluxe Ocean-View room for $100 extra for the 5 days we were there, and IT WAS WELL WORTH IT. We also asked to be placed as high up in the building as possible, and were put on the 4th floor. This made for a fantastic view of the ocean from our balcony. LCD TV. Dual bathroom sinks. Rain shower heads. Huge shower stalls with seating. Buffets were good. There were two restaurants that held these. You can't really mess up a buffet. I sort of feel that Iberostar Quetzal had more selection of food at their buffets than BBGE, but again, a buffet is a buffet. Reserve Dinners. I was a bit dissappointed in the ability to reserve a 1st class dinner. It seems that even though there are like 5 different restaurants you can choose from, only about 2 or 3 are actually opened every night. I don't know if this was due to a staffing issue or if the resort just wasn't full enough to justify all of the restaurants being opened. It also seemed that everytime I tried to reserve a different dinner, we were told that there were no openings. We were able to eat at the Oriental, Steak, and Seafood restaurants. Each were realitively good. Service. We had NO issues with service. The staff brought us our drinks, room-service, and anything else pretty quickly and friendly. And this was before we started tipping. Kid Friendly? I don't know about that. I am really used to the kid friendly atmosphere that Iberostar has. There really didn't seem to be much for kids to do on the property at Blue Bay. There was no playgroud equipment, no wading pool, etc. Couple with the fact that there were plenty of ladies sunning themselves topless, and I wouldn't call it totally kid-friendly. I did see some people who looked to be staff whose jobs was to watch the kids. The kids looked to be having fun, so what do I know? I gave the location a lower rating, because it was a bit far from Playa del Carmen. $15 acb ride Tip of the day: Tip! We brought $100 in one-dollar bills with us, even though the restort is "tips included". These poor people worked their behinds off, and a couple of dollars sent their way was really appreciated. Additional Tip: Airlines We flew down on Mexicana Air. I was a bit scared by this prospect, but was pleasantly suprised. Friendly staff. Actual food. Drinks, including ALCOHOL was included! From now on, I'm flying Mexicana air whenever I go down to Mexico!

We were all excited about our group trip to Mexico to find that once we arrived there was insufficent staff at the front desk to handle our check-in. Once we arrived in our the air conditioning was not working and found out from travelers that air conditioning was out in the whole resort. Spend first afternoon at the beach and bar and found service to be okay as long as we were setting at the bar. Unable to make reservations for dinner that night so end up eating at one of the buffets to find that room service may have better. Could not try room service for breakfast because there were no breakfast items on the menu so we took a leisurely walk up to the buffet to find that breakfast was not any better than dinner. I would have appreciated the long leisurely walk back to the room if I had a full stomach as I had expected. Wait staff at the buffet was at all helpful and several items were out such as eggs and bacon. Was able to make dinner reservations that night to find out that the restaurant food was not better than the buffet. I would have to say that if you are looking for a place to stay where you will not gain any weight from all the food you will enjoy this would be it. If you are looking for a get away to enjoy the beach, food and night life this is not the place for you.