Location
Runaway Bay- BeachProperty Information
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Resort Details
General Policies & Fine Print
Convention Policy - Individuals attending a convention cannot book this property for their stay. If found attending a convention, guests may be subject to higher room rates upon arrival.
Hotel Spring Break Policy - This hotel cannot guarantee a spring-break-free environment.
Transfer Policy - A price may display when children stay free, if your vacation includes transfer to your hotel.
General Information - Room taxes and service fees are included in vacation price.
Minimum night stay restrictions may apply.
Reservation changes may not be permitted unless authorized by the hotel.
Customer Ratings & Reviews
TripAdvisor Traveler Rating
4544 reviews
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May 26, 2020Beautiful and relaxing
We visited February 28-March 6 2020. My husband and I were traveling with my parents ( I know that may sound weird, but we are all adults and enjoy each others company lol) Our vacation started a little late due to our flight being delayed, then cancelled, then on time, then delayed again...Not the resorts fault though, once we finally did arrive (its about 1.5 hours from the airport - there was traffic), the ladies at the front desk got us set up right away! We were also able to take 3 steps to the left and book all of our dinners for the rest of the week. To be fair, we like to eat later (8-9pm), so there were lots of open slots, if you are an early eater of dinner, you may want to try to book ahead. Our rooms were next door to each other, which we joked about the thickness of the walls at the front desk, but seriously, even out on the balcony you couldn't hear anything, except out in the hall, the tile floor makes any little sound echo. Most of the other guests are respectful and try to keep it down and even if someone is a bit loud, they are in their room in a few minutes and its back to quiet. Our room was facing the road, we thought we booked ocean view (an oversight by our travel agent), again, not the resort's fault. My husband and I had been there 2 years prior and had a pretty good lay of the land so it was nice to be able to show my parents why we wanted to come back here! There is a bit of walking if you want to get the full experience, there are also trams always available if mobility is an issue (or if you don't want to walk to dinner in heels), all of the driver's we encountered were fast and super friendly. Breakfast by the pool/ocean was excellent! Make sure to visit Owen for perfect omelettes, there is always a line, but he gets it moving fast and is worth any wait..remember you're on vacation..relax ;) Also, don't let him talk you into extra eggs lol And don't even talk to me about the jerk chicken at lunch, so juicy and flavorful, you will want to eat it everyday...which I did...except the one day I ate lobster off the raft in the bay. Dinners were excellent as well: Rodizio-Brazilian steak house, relaxed with great service and variety of meats served at your table continuously, until you turn your card to say stop Don Pablo-Amazing, table side Chateaubriand was perfect and the service was on point. You cannot leave this resort without trying this restaurant! The Knife, was like a Texas style steak house, food was good, but the plating situation was odd. Your steak was brought to you on a piece of slate, which I think was why the knives were dull, the meat was hard to cut, but not hard to chew. Picasso-another amazing dinner and service. Similar to the Don Pablo experience. Dolce Vita-I thought this might be a challenge since we are Italian and my mum is an excellent cook, but the selection was varied and different enough from what we would normally eat at home that everyone was satisfied. Also, this restaurant used to be in a different building, the day before! I noticed the sign was changed that afternoon on our walk (replacing the Garden Grill - round building). I was concerned how they would be able to switch over an entire restaurant that quickly, all of my concerns however were laid to rest. Great job by the servers and everyone in the kitchen for adapting so quickly, our experience was not affected at all. Mikado-Japanese restaurant this has 2 types of seating, one where they seat you around a flattop with random guests (which is fun meeting new people) and the other is a table in the main restaurant. We did the group last time we were here and this time we had a table for 2 (date night). The latter was definitely more relaxed. My parents went for the seating before us and were selected for the flattop group, they liked the food, but found that they felt a bit rushed once they had eaten their main. Every night after dinner we would meet in the patio seating area by the lobby, have a nightcap and cigar, and talk about the dinners we just had. The weather at night was perfect, not too hot or cold, under the stars with great service and entertainment. The shopping in the village was fun, typical souvenirs, cute bathing suit cover ups and sun dresses. We also purchased jerk sauces and spices here to take home. The beaches and pools were clean, there were a couple days were finding chairs was a challenge, but people are always moving around so it didn't take long to gather enough for our group...also the water is beautiful...throw your stuff under a palm tree and get in there while you wait for a chair. If you want a relaxing vacation with delicious food, drinks, and great service this is the place. I know we can't wait to go back! *Note: Spring for the Club Mobay at the airport on your way back, you get your own lane through security and the food and drinks are excellent and plentiful.
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May 21, 2020
Ms
My friend and I stayed here the second week of June 2019 I thought I would write about my experience now since I'm trying to relive positive moments to get through this pandemic. It is the most beautiful place on earth, the resort is superb and the staff is the most gracious and hard working . We enjoyed the amenities our room was perfect not to mention the meals 😋 favourite restaurant was Takara because i love Asian cuisine and they did not disappoint. All the staff was wonderful but my favourite was Steve the bellman who was gracious when he greeted me on arrival and was very pleasant when bidding me goodbye when I was leaving. Thanks to all the staff... will be back most definitely.
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May 16, 2020Excitement squashed by poor service
My wife and I have stayed at Bahia Principe Luxury Runaway Bay from Saturday March 7th to Wednesday March 11th. Our experience and stay at this resort was rather lacklustre to say the least. I would like to prefix this post with letting you know that we are well travelled, have stayed in many resorts in the Caribbean and are Silver level Bahia members as well as members of other similar resorts. In fact, this was our 3rd stay in Jamaica but first with Bahia chain in Jamaica. The problems started prior to our trip when we tried to do early check-in online and select our ala carte restaurants. The website would not allow us to book the restaurants with a message about it being adults only and no underage visitors permitted. We are both adults, travelling without kids, staying at Luxury Runaway Bay which is adults only. We also couldn’t pick our room and this was important to us because my wife has troubles sleeping and we needed something quiet. I called Bahia customer service line 1-844-674-2175 and was informed that prior callers were experiencing similar messages on the website and that I should email my resort directly outlining what restaurants we’d like to try out and our dinner times. The lady on the phone provided me with the address customerservicebpjam@ to which I’ve sent the email, requesting my ala carte preferences, dinner times as well as requesting a room on top floor. We have not received a response at all. Day of the trip, our flight was 4 hours delayed to Jamaica, therefore we arrived late to the resort and were the only ones being transported by the mini-bus. We were the only people at the front desk checking in. Unfortunately the process took over 30 minutes even though we did early check-in online. Why it took so long is because front desk would not give us the keys to our room and instead made us wait for an escort to the room. This process is ridiculous and quite frankly seems like a method of forcing an early tip from new arrivals. During that wait period, we saw the customer service representative sitting in the lobby regarding our ala carte booking. She tried her best to get what we wanted and within our dinner time window. This is where we were also informed that the email was never received because it went to Bahia Principe Grand Jamaica next door but was never forwarded to customerservicebplux@. Why wasn’t this forwarded if our booking # would indicate we emailed the wrong hotel? Why weren’t we responded to stating that and been provided proper email address? At this point we are very tired, very hungry and we finally got fed up on waiting on the room escort and said we can take ourselves to the room. The front desk lady handed us the keys and decided she will take us there herself. She said we are on the 5th floor out of 7 floors and assured us it was a nice room. After a quick change of clothes, we headed out to the buffet where we felt let down again. There was a line of people in the restaurant lobby waiting to be seated. Mind you, this is after 7pm, way past peak time. We were told some tables had to be cleared off but visibly we could see lots of tables set and clean. Again this felt like a method to get tips but instead it angered the hungry waiting guests. Resorts like R*u or Ib***st**r do not escort guests in the buffet to the table and we never experienced these wait times at those resorts (Jamaica inclusive). After dinner we went back to the room and quickly learned our stay will not be what we dreamed of. For starters, the hallway to our room was facing the lobby area which was loud because that is where the bar is as well where the “shows” took place. The balcony was facing the pool area but that side proved to be quieter given the weather was bad. The hallways aren’t carpeted and you hear every luggage rolling, the cleaning staff carts and an echo with every conversation. Our bathroom had a smell of mold, mildew and sewage although it appeared to be clean. Over the days I noticed water seeping through the tiles between the wall and floor by the toilet, so I suspect the damage is behind the wall and in the pipes and the smell is coming through the drain holes. We kept the doors to the bathroom closed as it would stink up the whole room. On one of the mornings, our safe would not open. We called front desk and it took 1.5 hours for someone to get to our room to resolve the issue but in that time frame, we had roughly 5 calls from the front desk and security office to confirm the request was made from our room. That is 1.5 hours I had to stay in my room and wait, and nearly missing out on breakfast. It took the person 2 minutes to actually resolve the problem. Because we were staying for such a short period of time, we called on room service only once. I don’t believe in wasting resources if we don’t need to after all, we are adults and can use a tower more than once. The cleaning person did tidy up our room, but it is when we went to take a shower we noticed the used towels were removed and never replenished with fresh ones. Bahia has a policy (at least in Jamaica) that dinner reservations will be kept for 5 minutes, and here we are calling front desk and waiting on towels to be brought in so we can get ready for dinner. Later that night when we went to bed we realized that our bed sheet has been removed but not replaced so we had to sleep on a mattress cover, this is not acceptable. As I mentioned earlier, we have travelled quite a bit and in the years of my travels this is the first time I feel obligated to voice my experience and concerns. No resort is perfect and no resort can please 100% of its guests and we understand that. We also aren’t difficult guests, in fact we usually befriend the staff, and speak with the resort managers to praise them on job well done. The kicker is, we couldn’t even find the Luxury Runaway Bay manager be it at the restaurants or on the grounds. There was a young man who took a quality survey by the pool one day, but we weren’t contacted during our stay regarding the issues we raised to him so I assume it didn’t go anywhere. I do want to finish saying this, the resort has beautiful grounds and the staff is friendly but services need improvement and I will do more extensive research before staying at a Bahia resort again and so should you dear reader.
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Apr 30, 2020
Fantastic
We stayed for 2 weeks arriving a few days before Christmas 2019. This was our fourth visit to Jamaica but first stay at this hotel. We usually stay in Montego Bay so don’t usually have much of a journey from airport to hotel but we enjoyed the journey. CHECK IN Our transfer was included with TUI (travelled from UK), all went well on journey to hotel. On arrival we received a welcome drink, check in was very quick the reception staff were very friendly and professional. We were then shown to our room. ROOM We were impressed by our room very spacious and clean. Our room looked over the pool with a sea view, balcony was a good size. Bed was very comfortable, lots of storage space, seating area with desk, sofa and table with chairs. TV in room worked well with a wide range of channels we enjoy watching a bit of TV while getting ready. Safe worked well you do need to activate with your room key and create your own code, Bathroom very clean and spacious. MINI BAR: mini bar with red stripe, variety of sodas, water, bottle of Appleton rum and Sky vodka. Banana chips and coffee making facilities. Mini bar was restocked regularly. HOUSEKEEPING: Excellent, housekeeping staff were very friendly and professional. ROOM SERVICE We used room service twice for breakfast and once for dinner. Menu isn’t huge but this wasn’t an issue for us. We enjoyed breakfast on both occasions, we ordered burgers for dinner which were good. Delivery of room service was quick. POOLS I had been concerned before travel as I had read about the poolside being very slippery, thankfully this was not an issue. Pools were clean with poolside entertainment at main pool. Lots of sun beds we never had a problem getting a bed. BEACHES I am usually more a pool person but I really enjoyed the beach areas at this hotel, the water was very calm and not too deep which fir me personally was ideal. We particularly enjoyed the luxury beach as there were lots of tropical fish. Beaches very clean and well staffed by hotel. Sometimes more difficult to get a subbed at beach but staff were on hand to help if needed. ENTERTAINMENT As we were staying on a Luxury Adult only part of hotel we could access entertainment on both sides of hotel. We did enjoy the evening performances we always love the Silver Birds Steel Band when visiting Jamaica, once again fantastic. We also really enjoyed the aqua ballet and had a great view of this show from our balcony. On occasions evening shows did get repetitive during our stay the African Show was on 5 Times!!!!! Thankfully as hotel is so big lots of different things going on. In luxury lobby live pianist each night, live bands at outdoor bar on Grand side. There is also the village based on the Grand side which has a nightclub, casino and live entertainment. Entertainment team provide range of activities during the day and evening. The team did a great job over Christmas events and New Year’s Eve. We also loved the beach parties. RESTRAUNTS JAZMIN BUFFET: On the whole we were impressed by variety of food, breakfast was very good. Sometimes a bit of a wait to get served for a drink. PICASSO: very nice RODIZIO Brazilian Steakhouse: one of our favourites, service excellent. DOLCE VITA: Just okay DON PABLO: fantastic, excellent service, one of our favourites MIKADO: Good food, nice night of entertainment with live cooking KNIFE: This opened during our stay but we didn’t visit. We also enjoyed the poolside restaurant for lunch. We booked our Al Carte restraunts about a week in advance. We enjoyed the gala nights for dinner at Christmas and new year staff worked hard during these events. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t great at Christmas Eve and some events were cancelled. BARS Lots of bars throughout both Luxury & Grand sides of hotel. We really enjoyed the luxury lobby bar, luxury beach bar, the sunset bar which is located behind the Italian restraunt, outdoor bar on grand side and sports bar. Bars were well stocked and bar servers very friendly. Loved top selfs spirits on luxury side. HOTEL GROUNDS This is a huge hotel but we have stayed in bigger in Dominican so we enjoy this element of having different areas to explore. Hotel grounds are beautiful very picturesque. We really like that throughout both sides of hotel there are numerous areas to sit and relax both indoors and outdoors. EXCURSIONS During our stay we visited Marth Brae Rafting, always a favourite of ours. Port Antiona this was our first visit to this part of the island, stunning. We did shopping excursion with hotel to Ocho Rios. We love Jamaica and love to explore when we visit. SPECIAL OCCASIONS During our stay it was my birthday and hotel did a great job to make my day special. The night before my birthday we came back to room and it had been decorated. On morning of my birthday staff sang happy birthday and made me a breakfast cocktail. Hotel left a birthday message in room along with a bottle of fizz. TUI REPS Travelling from UK we usually use TUI travel company. Once again our travel reps were fantastic and very helpful, informative. We didn’t have any issues during our stay. We knew one of the reps Keron as he previously worked at a hotel we visited before, it was lovely to see him again. Overall we had a fantastic holiday, we will definitely visit this hotel again.
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Apr 18, 2020
Great getaway
My friends and I decided to visited the property for a weekend getaway ,we found it to be among the best in the country I would like to make mention of some of the wonderful staffs that we come across while on our vacation the Deputy manager Jodan Bowen ,Daviece from the front desk ,simone the Butler our Housekeeper patricia ,the amazing bar staffs ,restaurant manager Marva they were all amazing while we were there, its truly a great place on earth .