Hotel BlueBay Grand Esmeralda

We have been to Riviera Maya hotel “Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda” hotel in August 2020. Because of COVID-19, the hotel was filled at about 25% of its capacity. That’s the reason why the variety of food was limited, but the food itself was pretty tasty. Only two restaurants were open per night, and in order to make reservation for next day dinner, you have to physically appear at the lobby every morning to see concierge. The beach was disgusting, the sea water was dirty and the button has plenty of silt. Never go there if you beach lover! Terrible color of the sea! However, the swimming pools are very good and really giant. At the evening time, there’re tons of mosquitoes, swarms of those flying insects! Probably, they don’t fight mosquitoes, we never saw fumigation process. At the hotel’s territory, there are 2 or 3 real swamps, where those mosquitoes breed. Mosquitoes was the reason why we never visit any show at the theater. The personal at the hotel was nice and friendly, everyone was wearing mask and other protective equipment. Service of “Cheap Caribbean” was really disappointed; we’ll never be their client anymore. During 11 days of our stay, they never show up and ignored our calls. We tried to buy some excursion via “Cheap Caribbean”, but with no success. Finally, we bought couple excursion from local company. The room was spacious and clean. Every room has balcony of patio.

I wouldn't return to that resort if it was free. The rooms were very old and smelled funny. We got the upgraded room that we originally paid for and it was ok at best. My wife decided that she wanted one of the rooms with the somewhat personal pool outside the door so we requested that on day two. They charged us another $400 for that room and we paid it only to find out that it was a standard upgrade from the garden view room. In other words, the upgrade for ocean view was the same upgrade as the pool room. The room with the pool had no view so the $400 could have been used for a pool OR a view. They charged us twice and refused to refund the money. We also paid for another couple to do the same thing and they has also already upgraded to an ocean view once we got there. So basically, they took my $800 for nothing! The second room had an air conditioner that didn't work. We complained about it several times and they did NOTHING. Another couple in our group that was next to us had the same problem. Sleeping was miserable! Finally I had enough and raised hell in the lobby and insisted on another room. We had good air for one night as they gave us a different room on the final night. They claim to offer shuttle service to and from the lobby as it is a long very hot and sweaty walk, but the shuttle runs about once every hour or so. It's less than customer friendly. The concierge and I got into a verbal yelling match. We went fishing one day and caught some mahi. We brought the mahi back and asked if they would cook it for us at the resort. Alonzo, the concierge assured us that we could have the fish prepared any way we liked by the "chef" in the steakhouse. That was going to be our last night meal and we made arrangements for everyone to meet at the steakhouse. We all got there only to find out that they would not cook the fish. Now my wife made the reservation and spoke to Alonzo but I also asked Alonzo myself personally about them cooking the fish and he assured me that that would cook it. That fishing trip cost me about $1500 for two boats and we wanted to enjoy our catch. I confronted Alonzo the next day as we were checking out and things got heated. Alonzo literally called my wife a "f'ing liar". I almost took a swing at him right there in the lobby. I told him that I personally confirmed with him that they would cook the fish and then he called me a liar. I had to be pulled away by our friends. The food was awful and the drinks were a joke. They used the worst liquor I've ever tasted. The beer consisted of ONLY Dos Equis. We literally went and bought our own liquor and beer and had it delivered to our rooms every day. The bartenders and servers were great and very attentive but the product was horrible.