Recently we found ourselves back in the Bahia Principe Luxury Runaway Bay resort in Jamaica.

This was to be our last long haul vacation under our Bahia Principe privilege club membership, and our second visit to this Jamaican resort (although the first as a Privilege Club member – confused?)

Ok we joined their Privilege Club during our first stay ten years ago, when of course we didn’t get a chance to sample the club perks, so we thought we would come back and check it out properly.

This short review doesn’t attempt to cover the privilege club, as not much as changed.   We loved the interaction with the staff in Mexico at the Bahia Principle Riviera Maya complex, but to be honest we found the Jamaican PC lounge and concierge staff to be less friendly and accommodating  – or maybe they had already formed a somewhat negative opinion of me from my pre-travel emails where I laid out in some detail our needs for the trip! 

One large noticable change was the introduction by the main hotel operators of some improved perks for non- PC members staying in the luxury side of the resort, which more or less made the club membership redundant.

Anyway, enough of that.

Going back to the hotel complex.  When we were there last time the luxury side was just under construction and so it has been open a few years by the time we arrived for our return visit.

On first glance, the suites were styled in an identical fashion to the Mexico luxury suites and that was nice, as we immediately felt right at home.  Rather than carpeting in the common areas, these were tiled with glossy tiles which became very slippery when wet from cleaning, early morning condensation / dew or after a heavy downpour which inevitably rained into the corridors due to the open plan nature.  Apart from that, the new part of the hotel was standing up to the volume of guests.

Where the luxury building connected to the older original side of the hotel, there were more obvious signs of wear and general decay, including a dirty hall corridor carpet that local contractors were trying to clean up, and that had featured in a lot of reviews on social media.

The pools and bars were all as before, but the ethos of the resort had changed from a classy sophisticated place to relax in ultimate luxury to a bit of a party hotel.  Our suite overlooked the luxury pool and walk up bar, and it was quite a noisy affair with the local DJ and his more or less continuous reggaeton playlist.   But in fairness there were quite a few younger couples who seemed to like the new rowdy’ish ethos, and the foam party on Friday afternoons was a big hit.   Unfortunately for us, with our balcony directly facing the bar and disco area, and there was no getting away from the loud pounding beat – or the very strong odour of weed emanating from the sitting are directly below us.

The restaurants had altered slightly since our first stay, and we can happily report that all of the food we tasted was of good quality.

We didn’t partake in any of the entertainment from the main hotel’s daily programme, and we also noted that the casino had been closed since our last stay.

One thing to note was that we travelled out to Jamaica in late September which was the start of the hurricane season and we did dodge Hurricane Ian and get a couple of bad tropical storms as consequence, so do your research carefully before booking.

Personally, I still prefer the Riviera Maya resort which we reviewed here.

Why don’t you pop across to our youtube channel where you will find an extensive video list from both resorts?