To start, we are very well travelled . We’ve done Cuba , Dominican Republic now Jamaica . As well as 13/14 other countries. Stayed in some of the finest hotels there is to offer. Also visited some of the best attractions / beaches . Il start off with some negative and some positives . There is theory in my 5* rating despite a batch of negative / constructive feedback. Very poorly cared about honeymoon booking. From the staff . None exist banners for the room , no towel are , no drink in the room. Nothing . Bell person service was a waste of time , waited about 30 mins before they had someone to take the bags to room despite us being a 2/3 min walk away. NO WELCOME DRINK for the British flight in , despite the US flight following days all having one. No offer to use he bar whilst we was waiting. Parts of the Hotel sits on probably the best grounds of Jamaica (from our visit to some of the beaches and hotels on other parts of the island) . The beaches are 5* the beach bar attendants are 5* Butler was 1* reception staff are 1* We paid extra for sea view / deluxe luxury . Was given an old room newly merged into the gran side standard next to the swimming pool with no beach view . So we was given a standard room , no sea view but with a wrist band that allowed access to more international known alcoholic brands , WHICH can only be obtained in the lobby (first and last place you’ll visit at the hotel) clever tactic. The premium grey goose and Appleton 12 year are always (out of stock) or hidden away . We paid around £500 per person over 2 weeks to have the benefit of drinking these particular drinks. If you asked for it and was firm they would go to the cellar and get one for you. £500 per person over 2 weeks with 100’s of guest , having these promised beverages at guest deposal should be absolutely guaranteed. Wasted an evening changing rooms to a better room but still not a deluxe room, tui (by some miracle) managed to get us into a room which was really lovely of them . The tui rep for this hotel is genuine 5* very caring , very helpful and very understanding and friendly. This however was 6 days into the holiday. One of our biggest issues was we also had a few trips booked . Every hotel we’ve ever stayed at all inclusive / half board , have made us a pack lunch or let us take some food from the buffet in a takeaway box . This hotel doesn’t let you . There are so many false promises . Aforementioned 24 hour snacks is rubbish , you get like a mini danish that’s been left out all day and stale coffee in the lobby . That’s the only place you can also get a coffee in the day , so if you’re wet and in your beach clothes you’re stuck with the real cheap basic alcoholic drinks by the pool / beach . VERY clever from hotel directors to get so much more money out of people cynically. The hotels always booked up so they’ve got no problem, the money is flooding in. In terms of staff , personalities vary from person to person . It’s like you have people who aren’t very nice , friends , good friends and you’re best friends . The staff are like this too . This hotel at the moment trip advisor reviews are 25% average poor or very poor . This is shocking from a ‘luxury hotel’. Start listening to your customers and make changes . If you lose a star you will lose a lot of customers , lots of holiday providers will drop you . Business maybe good now but sustain that long term . Best friends members of staff 1st Amoy - works in the lobby , is a butler but wasn’t ours , due to placement of our room helped up , booked our restaurant . Was sweet and kind . I believe she was helping until our butler was back . 2nd Kamille / Jermaine and the rest of the beach hut staff , hard working friendly . There is a lad that works in the biggest breakfast restaurant as well . Works on the right hand side . Aldaine or something . He is awesome . So friendly. These guys are really what made the holiday better. Chantel was very friendly , and actually helped cooked one of the best meals (a waiter) I had at the resort! 3rd the 2 lads who did concierge - like I think he worked on building 26 I wish I knew his name . He was about same age. And building 27. Amazing cool people. Members of staff that aren’t so nice . MOST of the supervisors , they genuinely stand there staring at the staff making the guest feel uncomfortable and the staff feel nervous and uncomfortable. They stand there like a security guard watching a man in hoody in a shop. Not serving customers but instead staring at the staff . Your staff are genuinely mostly awesome . The passion and morale and friendship toward each other will keep customers happy . Just chip in serve and help customers instead . A lot of the staff put on American accents when speaking to guest and noticed all men have very sort hair . This feels forced by management. Other people waking around when asking where somewhere the just say don’t know , don’t want to help you or point in a direction . Or send you on a wild goose chase . We wasted so much time as the place is massive . A buggy with 2 black people on the black drive drove past me once and ignored me looking at me. And a young lad refused to serve me (served a black lady who came behind me after me being stood for about 1 min) I reported him to the hotel I’ve got thick skin but some people don’t. There is a strong bias/ dislike towards the British . I don’t know if it’s because British don’t tip as much or at all compared to people from the USA, or some other reason I don’t know . British people usually stay 2 weeks and pay a lot more for flights in comparison to 5 days short flights etc . so we can’t afford to tip as much. I feel this is reflected in the bias level of service in this place unfortunately. This is the same in other Caribbean places. A lot of the reception staff are up for an argument , they almost find pride in saying no and saying there nothing they can do and smirking , and there’s nothing they can do to everything you ask for or to help with. Room service was abysmal , shocking beyond words . Missing orders / orders not turning up / orders taking hours to come . Literally our only 3 orders . The lady whom usually answers the phone , has no people skills and potentially a hearing loss . She so unhelpful it was almost comedic something out of little Britain. Room service not turning up caused us to have no food for our long trip to negril 8.20/9.30 . Our evening trip to blue lagoon turned up too later last the time we needed to leave so no dinner . We was given a silly little cake with chocolate sauce saying (sorry on it) which is not a reasonable replacement for what we lost . We had dinner on the beach that was advertised as 55$ per person on everything . However the changes the price to $69 person but with our changing all the leaflets information prices etc . So completely false advertising (staff excuse is they haven’t got around to that yet) this could have been something honoured at least with the problems we have occurred. Your hotel is literally 95% the ritz and 5% like a shockingly bad . You can walk out of a lift which is dirty , old and serious need of a refurb to a lobby which is pure luxurious to a hallway that’s mouldy damp , smells stained really badly, to gardens which are on par with some of the best I’ve ever seen? it’s bizarre . You need to be consistent, get rid of the carpet and tile it , to stop the wet swim suits / bathers . Causing the carpets to go mouldy and smell . I saw 5/6 members of staff taking up and returning grass which is perfectly okay , but not sort the out the carpets? Again bizarre . Shuttle bus buggy also , big waste of time . Probably every 30 mins. If you’re hot and exhausted and want to say visit the shops which probably around a 15/20 mins walk . You’d be better just walked or not going . Probably suffer more stood there waiting for the shuttle buggy to turn up. Again food situation is also an unusual one . Eat some of the worse food I’ve ever had and some of the best food I’ve had! The noodle one was terrible . The hotel are using spaghetti instead of udon noodles? the buffets were just the same food every day more or less . Things weren’t always marked correctly either (being veggie) this is important . I feel a lot of the chefs are rushing the food . The foods coming out undercooked (we walked out of 2 restaurants Picasso and Italian) 2 others could have walked out due to negligence not washing spoons after serving up meat . Or just made to a poor standard . The food in Riu was so so so much better we last stayed at . The best meals we had was dinner on the beach and the other one a member of the waiter team actually made it because the kitchen was busy!! See pictures. However was fantastic meal. The best food was the jerk sauce . And the vegetables at lunch including the capers / olives etc. the festivals / dumplings were brilliant . So so so good . Like I could praise the guys on the jerk BBQ stand . I’m veggie and they would grill sweetcorn’s for me on empty BBQ and coat with Jerk sauce. I don’t know his name . He is really nice though . He seemed stressed from being on a popular station but when I was asked on my trip what the best part of the holiday was . I said the jerk sauce / jerk sauce / dumplings / festivals (oblong dumplings) man’s station. The open air entertainment is yards always from most of the rooms , so until near 12 midnight (6am BST) so can hear noise as you are as part of it . So anyone from Europe especially will struggle to get any sleep . Or the families with children who usually sleep early . Entertainment team seam to be juggling roles , doing lots of different jobs almost . The saxophonist was beyond brilliant , he was phenomenal he only played for short burst and did about 10 other jobs throughout the day . He’s a special talent , I’m 28 however so so many people sat in the lobby to watch him most evening for an hour or so , again You’ve lost what people want from these guys by expecting so much of them, a member of staff told me he is so tired he has no energy to even eat he’s so exhausted it making him Ill, another member of staff told me they are expected to work so much that occasionally they’ll call in sick because they’re unwell , we also saw a worker had collapsed because of the heat . I made this clear when speaking to one of the supervisors. I know you can’t be in 5 places at once . The key thing is to employ a lot more staff to cover different areas . Have some dedicated at all time to beach / pool . Stick to registering people for activity and then coming to find them before . A lot of activities were on the ‘board’ but never actually happened . Loads of other guests noticed this . The entertainment team seem to stick at the pool with the people with big personalities. We went on a wild goose chase trying so find some of the actives that the staff didn’t actually turn up to or no one knew where they were being done . I managed to speak to one of the managers / directors about some of these concerns and others . And he seemed like he cared and was interested. He said he knows there improvements to be made and now aware of some problem he wasn’t previously aware of which made me respect him a lot. Look. Not everything was bad , hence the 5* , the beach and the garden areas was top top top notch . The gardeners need a pay rise . They work in that extreme heat for very long days , making the place look magic . I’m very cross again that this is the only hotel that doesn’t allow the gardeners to give guest coconuts and allow to give them tips . Again it’s all so the hotel can sell the coconuts! Very poor. They are the hardest working people on the resort and probably the lowest paid. Same with the beach workers . They are awesome . The lobby bartenders are super awesome . The lady with short hair was always very kind and nice also the gentleman whom was about 40 . Something about their charisma and charm and kindness to each other was really special. They were funny . Easy going . This was often spoilt by staring managers / supervisors . They burst into life when they wasn’t around . Making funny jokes . Banter . Doing little tricks etc. no one needs to be micro managed. In my opinion do book this hotel, but please only book it for the grounds / beach . Please don’t book it because you feel like you’re going to be treated like royalty from everyone . Cuba will always be my favourite because of the staff/ grounds , and then Dominican Republic staff grounds / food then Jamaica 3rd. Rest of the places are Europe / Asian we’ve stayed so they’re very different. So we won’t compare those. Both of those other places were far less cost . A lot better value for money . Book this hotel for the grounds and some of the aforementioned staff . Book this hotel also because it’s in a great location for the trips . 25% of people like I mentioned on trip advisor ratings were average or lower . These weren’t really for the grounds. The grounds are fantastic (except some of the lifts and carpets). More for the service . If you’re wanting the most special occasions I.e. honeymoon on the other hand , I would give it a miss . If you really not fussed about the location and say it’s first time to the Caribbean . I would say absolutely for sure go to Dominican or Cuba . But if it has to be Jamaican or wants to be. Then this is a good choice . Another point to make positive is , negril is shared beach between the public and other hotels . We found negril absolutely awful , we was absolutely bombarded with sellers offering me class A drugs / pills etc around 15 times in the space of about 10 mins and wouldn’t leave you alone I actually hid in one of the cars and sat because it was relentless . It was suffocating . THIS hotel we stayed at was private grounds so there was none of this . It was serene. The rasta man was the only person who literally didn’t even push . He came to edge of the beach and called to ask if anyone wanted to buy anything , bracelet / ornaments etc . Genuinely a kind / wise man . Buy all your souvenirs at the shopping village , on the right as you come in , magnets / key rings / shot glasses for as little as 1USD. Some people were really nice . Like really nice good morning hellos. Final point to the management, be the place that says yes , encourage your staff to help the guest get want they are really wanting for their holiday . I heard a young girl on her first ever trip abroad asking if she could have a shot of this particular drink that you had to pay $9 on top of the already ($500 (2 week)) increase premium (luxury) and he said no . He said he could get his contract terminated or something!! It’s bizarre! she just wanted to try it (must be famous in USA) or something . Be the place that says yes you can do this or do that . I heard a lot of staff say ‘if I do that il get my contract terminated’. For the smallest things Including when we asked for a coconut. Must be horrendous to work for. In dream vacations wishes do come true . And I know someone who worked at sandals was told ‘you must do anything more or less to make the guest happy’. Final words - Grounds 10+/10 (except 2 lifts and the mouldy carpet) Beaches 10+/10 Breakfast 7/10 Lunch / beach - poolside 10+/10 Dinner on the beach 10+/10 with chef Richard Dinner buffet 6/10 Dinner in other restaurants average 4/10 Certain members of staff 1/10 reception / own butler Certain members of staff 10/10 aforementioned. Peace and quiet 9pm - 12pm onwards 0/10 Peace and quiet in the morning 10/10 Thanks for reading

My first piece of advice before even getting to your resort is to book Club Mobay and private transportation to your resort. We skipped large lineups at the airport and having private shuttle ( Byrons) allowed us to get to the resort without any stress. I traveled with my wife, son (20) ,daughter (21) and daughters friend (21). We chose this resort because we were travelling with younger adults and wanted a more fun/party vacation experience. Rooms were very good, housekeeping excellent. No issues with fridge being restocked or towels, face cloths being replenished. We were in room 25202, great location for lobby, pool and beach but a little higher up would have given us a better Ocean view. We were blocked out by some trees. Our kids room was just down the hall ( 25214) and they had a much better unobstructed view . Food was what we expected . Buffets had good selections and restaurants ( Rodizio and Takara) were decent. Overall the staff were friendly . There were a couple of sour faces but not enough to effect our experience. Luxury beach is not the greatest so if your a beach person this is not the place for you. The pools were great. Lots of fun at the main swim up bar area but you could always find a quiet spot if needed. I think the negative reviews of this resort are born out of expectations. This is not a Luxury retreat .It's a very good resort and if you go expecting to have fun, good food/drink and accommodations then you can't go wrong with this resort.

Lets start with the good, the resort is exceptionally clean, with a nice layout. Check in was good and the bartenders fantastic. Good drinks with quality liquor. They first checked us into a road/ocean facing room. It was terrible with the trucks using engine brakes non stop and one of two elevators out of service. When we asked for a room change they were accommodating, we thought that we had a winner for a resort but that party ended right there. The pool deck is marble tiled and slippery, several people took tumbles in the week we were there luckily none severe. The resolution would seem to be wearing water shoes around the pool. If your older or have mobility problems you will want to be cautious as this pool deck is unforgiving if your weight isn't placed on your feet just right. There was an exposed hallway at the end of the room hallway leading to the pool that was wet and extremely slippery when it rained, it remained a hazard well after the rain stopped. The kicker is that it was just in front of the staff elevator and no one cleared the danger. The restaurants are clean but the servers are smile less on the average. Nothing worse than feeling a burden when you eat. The pasta sauce was horrendous with the fat from the ground beef laying on the top and being dished onto my pasta as sauce, yuck, that grease sauce went promptly in garbage. The only good offering at the pool restaurant was the jerk chicken, after a week of jerk chicken for lunch every day I don't want Jerk Chicken until my next visit to Jamaica next year. This traveler is an early riser and has always despised those that save pool and beach chairs in the early morning not to return for literal hours, if not until after an excursion. It was a refreshing instance to see this resort had an attendant on duty to remove towels placed on chairs to reserve until 9am. That is until after lounging on my chair from around 7am until about 8:15 reading news and doing crosswords went to refill his coffee, only to come back to his chair to see his items removed. Which initiated a debate with the attendant over the terminology between " use and reserve ". When she realized she was being exposed as petty she got snotty, initiating a desk complaint, which changed nothing. Making early risers have to stay on their chairs until 9 or chase down their belongings. It was a mess that will have this vacationer never to return. I wish I could say that Luxury Bahia provided a good getaway but that would be untruthful. Disappointed doesn't do justice to the impression place by their lack of concern for the early risers and their complaints and the lack of common sense. They were perplexed when it was pointed out that we couldn't really " use " any chairs until 9am. They said yes, we said absolutely not when your removing belongings. This is not relaxing, and it certainly flies in the face of customer service.