Six wonderful weeks of relaxing, value-for-money vacation…. Or not?
Firstly let’s start with the basics; the Bahia Grand is not a 5-star hotel, certainly not by Canadian/North American, and European standards; no South American/Caribbean hotels are in my humble opinion, they are all 4-star… and it is on that basis that I booked my holiday, pitched my expectations, and indeed the price itself also matched the 4-star level.
So let’s start with the GOOD, well actually, I’ll start with the EXCELLENT; the staff, every single one of them. There are lots of them, in all departments, they are smartly dressed, attentive, courteous, efficient, and almost without exception are happy. Not the ‘forced smile, we have been instructed, false’ type of happiness, but it feels genuine, they constantly interact with each other, laughing and joking, while also getting on with the serious business of looking after the guests… and that creates a wonderful atmosphere for us holidaymakers. This phenomenon is, in my experience, quite rare, and behind the scenes it is the management (the invisible suits) that should be given some credit also for this success; well done to all of you, you deserve 11/10.
Now however, let’s talk about the opposite end of the rainbow; …… the UGLY (1/10).
The beach is not just small, it is absolutely tiny! This hotel has 1428 rooms (Google) and in peak periods therefore, some 3000 guests are attempting to share an extremely limited number of available sunbeds. The first ‘reservation towels’ are already covering beach loungers by 4am (no, that isn’t a typo!) in the morning, and by 7am…. Forget it, you’re too late if you are just waking up!
There are also 3 good size swimming pools on site, but a similar lack of sunbeds meant that more often than not, there are very few available by 8am (despite hotel signs prohibiting the reservation of sunbeds!). The situation is exacerbated by the uncontrolled issuing of ‘free’ beach towels, that do not require a financial deposit and are not recorded against your hotel room…. I watched many groups of guests who, with excess towels, reserved sunbeds both poolside and on the beach at the same time!! The pools have swim up bars, from which a good mix of music is played throughout the day, and usually at a reasonable volume. Poolside entertainment is provided of course, and was generally of good quality.
FOOD (8/10). With a good variety of ‘specialist’ restaurants scattered around the grounds offering a variety of country/regional specific cuisines to tempt you away from the main restaurant (an allowance of 3 per week per booking), the food in general was very, very good.
The range and quality of food in the main restaurant was quite superb, (breakfast, lunch, dinner), and varied from day to day, whilst still maintaining the staple basics we all expect; fries, pizza, burgers, ice cream!
Of course, the inherent problems of maintaining large quantities of food on display in heated dishes cannot be avoided; warm temperatures, rather than hot, for a large proportion of the food. However, there were also plenty of ‘service chefs’ cooking very hot food to order while you waited; fish, pasta, omelettes, burgers, meats, etc.
ACCOMMODATION. We stayed in one of the older rooms, which was very much in need of an update, however I am not going to dwell on this subject. The hotel is currently rolling out a refurbishment programme (they came and measured up our room during our stay), and the daily servicing kept everything clean and topped-up. We also had the unexpected bonus of a bath, which disappears with the refurbished rooms! Sadly we experienced several maintenance issues; a water leak through the ceiling, a wandering toilet seat (a broken retaining bolt), and a light switch hanging free from the wall mounting. All of these should have been easy repairs, but without exception required many telephone calls over several days before being attended to. Within 24 hours, each of the problems reoccurred, and with the exception of the light switch which I repaired myself (!), were still requiring attention when we departed… I simply couldn’t be bothered to keep asking for the repairs every day!
ENTERTAINMENT. Lots of it, and plenty of variety. If there is a complaint however, it is the habit of leaving the main reception area, and outdoor seating, in absolute silence with an empty stage, whenever there was an event occurring in the nearby arena. It appears to be a fairly blatant attempt to increase the main event viewing numbers, however it always then left very large numbers of guests in silence (not even some pre-recorded music for example) who chose to stay seated in the reception.
OVERALL CONCLUSION. For 6 weeks we enjoyed the food, service, and the pools. However, the beach remained out of bounds to us. The thought of setting a 5am alarm to reserve our place on a beach that was packed like sardines on a daily basis was an absolute anathema to me!
Was it good value for money? Yes, it was and worth an overall rating of 7/10.
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