Where to start on our stay at the Rex Blue Heron...? Let's begin on the few positives. The location is absolutely fantastic. If you are looking for a complete getaway from your daily stress this is the place. The RBH is located on a fabulous, long sandy beach with aqua-marine water perfect for swimming. There are four beach bars (I shall come onto these later) dotted at various points along the beach which are genuinely local offering great food. Regarding the rooms in the hotel, they are clean and adequate, if a little small. I would recommend that you go for a superior room at least, as these have air conditioning.Right then, the positives are over I'm sorry to say. Let's begin with the food and drink. My advice is do not, under any circumstances, go all-inclusive. The food is best described in two words - school dinners. It is atrocious. Also, people I spoke to on the all-inclusive said that the food regularly ran out and the birds that fly around the dining room use the fruit salad as a bird-bath. The alcohol offered in the bars is of the cheapest, generic kind. You will find no bottled beers or brand-name spirits here, just Wadadli beer (which has a formaldehyde after-taste) and cheapo spirits. If, like us, you are room only, they absolutely sting you for food and drink. On our first evening we were too tired to go exploring so we decided to eat in the "restaurant". We were charged the equivalent of ?45 (US$80) for two of us to eat their muck, and that's with no alcohol. Breakfast was the equivalent of ?35 (US$65). The prices were absolutely outrageous.The beers are the equivalent of ?1.50 (US$2) for less than half a pint. Even if you are all-inclusive, you still have to pay the equivalent of ?2.50 (US$4.50) for a 1.5l bottle of water. My advice is do not ever eat or drink in the hotel!There are four beach bars in easy walking distance to choose from instead. The best is OJ's, which is about a quarter of a mile up the beach (turn right as you get onto the beach at the hotel). The setting is superb (being everything you would expect from a Caribbean beach bar) the food is great (their red snapper is well worth checking out) and the average prices range from ?7 (US$13) each for lunch (including a couple of beers) up ?25 each for dinner (that's for lobster and a bottle of wine!). For a bit more haut cuisine, just up from OJ's is Gibsons which is a bit more pricey but the food is excellent. Heading back towards the hotel is the 3 Martinis. This is set just back off the beach and has a great atmosphere, with a mix of locals and tourists. Their music on a Thursday night is great fun. They also have apartments which I am reliably informed are cheaper and better than the RBH. One note of caution - one of their staff is the resident bar bore if she is off work sat at the bar. Avoid her at all costs!! Finally, if you come onto the beach at the hotel and turn left, Turners is just a short walk. The food here is very good but slightly more expensive than OJ's.Back to the RBH, unfortunately. The default attitude of the staff is surly, which becomes downright rude and unhelpful if you have a problem. We had no hot water or air-con for two days and the maintainence guy had mysteriously just left very time I asked them to fix our room. Nothing happened until I demanded they move us and even then I had to really give the manager a hard time to get them to do that. To say their approach is lacadaisical is flattering. The RBH is third world in its lack of customer service. Don't even try to change traveller's cheques - they will only allow you to change US$100 in any one time. We had to take a cab ride to Jolly Harbour to use the bank. (BTW don't use the cabs if you can avoid it. A 2 mile trip to Jolly Harbour cost US$11, whereas the bus back cost US$0.50 for both of us!). In terms of currency, it is best to bring East Caribbean dollars. The local bars do have menus with prices in both EC$ and US dollars, but they tend to round up on the US dollars.Overall, the RBH is fine for somewhere to sleep but for everything else it is absolutely rubbish. I would only recommend the RBH on the basis that a location this good will not last long before a multi-national organisation sees its potential and ruins it with a big hotel and formulaic bars (like they have done at Jolly Harbour). Stay at the 3 Martinis instead.