The “presentation” that they claim will take only one hour last the entire day. They start with taking you to break fast to lower your guard, loosening you up a bit. Then they show you the privilege side and Finally you are back at the office and now speaking with a supervisor whose entire goal is to misrepresent the fact and information of their membership in order to manipulate you into purchasing a membership.

What they do not tell you is that it is a timeshare in deed. If that isn’t working they call in the big guns, an American manager - there is a reason to why the manager is American and not from the Islands of which you are vacationing in. If they are successful in manipulating you into purchasing the membership they hurry you through paperwork and skip over reasonable questions or doubts you may have merely explains the depth of the situation. They also serve you alcohol before having you sign the documents. By the time of signing you are already inebriated, hungry and tired.

At first they seem so helpful and present it as though someone from the club will alway be able to help you or at least try to. WRONG!! They only time I am able to communicate with anyone from the club in a timely manner is when my payments are due. They provide numbers that aren’t connected. I am not even able to leave messages. A big red flag for me is that I can’t even make payments online. Someone always calling me to make my payments and with all the phone scans that’s going on in the islands I am very reluctant to give my info over the phone. After having already made payment arrangements with one of their reps I supposed,a few days earlier, I was disappointed to later receive a call from the club requesting payment and they had now recorded of the information that should have been noted to my account. I’d had enough after 2 weeks of me trying to reach a manager because I was unable to make a reservation. I have never used the membership and this would have been my first time doing so. I was upset and asked to cancel the membership but in the effort to prevent me from doing so because they did not want it to be recorded that the cancellation is due to poor services, they started making an effort to assist.

It still ended with me asking for a cancellation and a refund. Initially I paid more than half the amount of the membership and now they are refusing to refund me anything though I’ve not used any of the weeks nor did I use the “free trip” certificates. I am still not able speak with anyone on the phone concerning this matter. They completed refuse to communicate with me outside of emails. They are trying to force me into signing a cancellation agreement that forfeit my rights to a refund.

They also withdrew funds from my account without my authorization.

The hotel was beautiful lovely and clean. Rooms were large with four poster beds we also had a whirlpool bath and a large walk in shower. The mini bar was well stocked also supplied you with all your toiletries.

The dining room had a great variety of food which was delicious and the restaurants they were great had no problems booking them.

The pools were gorgeous with the swim up bars and entertainment there all day long. The staff were friendly and helpful. I would certainly return to this same hotel again.

we stayed here for two weeks and had the best holiday! The hotel was better than we thought and we could not fault it in any way. the staff were very friendly, we found our maid to be exta nice and helpful and we did not tip her until the end of the holiday and she still cleaned our room to a high standard every day.

Try the italian restaurant, it was gorgeous.

if you are visiting jamaica then dunns river fall is a must. please do not listen to the bad reviews that some people are leaving on here, I guess theres just no pleasing some people! I would not hesitate to go back and have already priced for next year! yeah mon!!!!

We had a great stay at the Bahia but points made above are valid. You are in the middle of nowhere but thats what we wanted.One of the beaches was rocky and good for snorkelling the other more sandy and good for sunbathing. Good choice of food however some evenings it was luke warm but we did notice that there wasnt alot of people eating that night. We got in all the other restaurants as we booked a week in advance the Mikado was the best you have the food cooked in front of you. We had no problems getting beds by the pool or sea but the super comfy ones had gone as we didnt get up very early.We used the safety deposit box but thought $6 anight a tad expensive and our key did deactivate after a week.We heard other people with problems but we had none.The corridors did need cleaning more regulary and apart from the made swapping our towels at 8 in the morning a few days service was ok. It was only on the weekend before we flew home when the hotel became busy did we have to start queing for anything and bewarned they are still to open one half of it and its rumoured to then be the biggest in Jamaica...yeahman!!!

7-21 September 2008

Room 17315

This was our first time to Jamaica and although the hotel was a bit far from the airport (1hr 15mins) we were very happy with the hotel.

They had an efficient check in service and a guy to take the bags to our room for us.

The room was huge with a balcony looking out to sea where we saw lovely sunsets. There was a large four poster bed and a jacuzzi bath. The mini bar was complimentary and restocked everyday. Make sure you use the safety deposit boxes as we had a packet of chocolate m&m's lifted. ($6 dollars per night)

The heated pool was huge and we always found a sunbed around the corner away from the pool bar area. The pool bar service was slow and the area generally noisy due to loud music.

The main buffet restaurant had plenty of choice although on some days the food was quite cold. Drinks service was quite slow and on one occasion we actually had finished eating by the time we had our drinks.

Booked into the Grill restaurant twice. Although portions were very small the food was excellent.

We did have a leak from our toilet one day and this was fixed very quickly.

Room key has to be reet every week so expect your key to stop working and prepare yourself for a walk to reception for it to be reset.

Overall a very nice hotel.

I booked this as a five star hotel. They must be having a laugh. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS HOTEL!
We were flooded, toilet overflowed and they took 45 mins to send a guy with a plundger, it should have been a life jacket. It flooded the corridor and the room below. Management are all Spanish and are hopeless. It took them 2 hours to send maintance after they got the water stopped, they had to get a industrial floor cleaner, which had a drum to suck out the water, I wont tell how long that took. They then took another 24 hours to clean the carpet in the hallway (which was left to smell). Now let me tell you about the food was awful, poor quality and barely warm. Not what you would get in a 5 star. Hallways are unkept and need a good clean. The Entertainment is rubbish. I Should also say that after a full days travel we were made to wait for check in as they had cancelled our room and did not have one ready at 4pm!.
Claims to have 4 restaurants/ snack bar and buffet, forgets to tell you that they only open 2 out of the 4 restaurants at a time, so you need to be in the Q to get a reservation and when you do get in, its only half full. You are also made to feel you should be grateful for getting it - OOPS perhaps they forget that guests are paying for 5 STAR.
I really cant say any more. I have travelled the world and have had amazing experiences in real 5 star properties. If you want a wonderful time in Jamaica please do yourself a favour and think very carefully about booking this self rated Hole.

I read the bad reviews before I went, but always feel you should make your own mind up. I went and I have made my mind up. They were right it is BAD!!!!!
1/ It is NOT 5 STAR
2/ It has low standards of food, not gourmet as you would expect in 5 star.
3/ Rubbish Entertainment
4/ Poor management
After this experience I would not book a gran bahia again.
Getting into one of the restaurants is like trying to get a dinner date with the queen. Then when you get one they mess it up, you turn up at the time you are given to be told you dont have a reservation. They do it all the time.
The Buffet is poor quality, its okay if you have never stayed 5 star before, but if you have then its awful.
Management do not want to help or take feed back and the tension between management and jamiacan staff is VERY OBVIOUS
My advice to anyone who is thinking of going to this hotel - DON'T
Anyone who has booked it, poor you

I travelled to Jamaica with my partner with Thomson Holidays for a 7 day stay at The Gran Bahia Principe on 1st July 2008.

After reading several of the reviews on this site I have to say some of them are completely unfair.

Upon arrival at the hotel I was pleasantly suprised but a beautiful clean hotel, efficient check in process, and fantastic room we were given. We were in block 18 on the 3rd floor and had a stunning view over the bay, I was thrilled. Our room was huge and had a beautiful four poster bed, clean and spacious bathroom including jacuzzi bath, and lovely shower. We had a fully stocked (complimentary) mini bar which was refilled almost daily.

The pool is huge! It was very busy around the pool bar area but if you walk round, the other end is usually very quiet and you can always get a sun bed and shade if required, we much preferred this area. My only complaint regarding the pool area is that they allow people to reserve sunbeds (although they have a sign up saying its forbidden?) and some people literally left their towels on the beds all day and didn't return to collect them. Seems a bit unfair.

We only dined in the main buffet restaurant, Orchid, purely because we never got round to booking into the others, and we thought it was fine. Some days there was more to choose from than others, but overall I was impressed. I am a very fussy eater and I found something to eat every day, and most days I really enjoyed the food. The service can be slow with regards to drinks but as the Jamaicans would say - relax mon!!!! The beach snack bar was good too.

My partner and I both had massages at the Spa which were lovely and very relaxing, I would definitely recommend a visit.

The night time entertainment on the terrace was good, the live singer was fantastic! The drinks service is very, very slow but in the end we decided it was much easier to just get up and go to the bar, which we did. This wasn't a big deal for us but then we are fairly easy going.

Report on the Gran Bahia Principe in Runaway Bay Jamaica

Guest room 18322
Period of stay 2nd to 15th June 2008

The hotel is supposed to be a five star - it is definitely NOT

Issues arising

1 Room key duplicate given to other guests - they were able to enter our room unannounced.
Report filed with hotel security but no resolution.
Our key 7 days later then mysteriously ceased to work and WE could not get in.
This happened on the 3rd June and AGAIN on 13th June - different people each time
2 Repeated daily requests to housekeeping for towels etc
3 Room internal floors not cleaned regularly
4 Cockroaches in room which we dealt with ourselves
5 Service quality in speciality fish restaurant non-existent - we walked out after waiting too long
6 Service quality in normal buffet restaurant also slow for drinks and tables- we filled out our own drinks several times and found our own tables.
On one morning 40 meter queue to get in for breakfast
Hotel not yet fully built so trying to get by on smaller facilities with poor food selection. Try the Bread Pudding- it is on EVERY MENU
7 Sun beds supposed not to be reserved - we saw evidence of several being "reserved" with towels 10.00pm the previous day so several times we used the beds on the beach itself
8 Heavy water leaks in main fabric of the building - these are in several places but largest in public area of the Daiquiri Bar near main reception Leaks near main reception also
9 3 days before we left we had a huge water leak through the electrics from upstairs bathroom Supposed to be fixed and confirmed as safe and ok but not so - unsafe to use the shower at all Housekeeping and cleaning also requested but took over 24 hours to finally arrive
Discussions with hotel manager finally got maintenance guys to arrive. - it was the "pool technician" - I saw him later that day + he agreed risk on electrics - he started to dry it out in the ceiling but not able to go back and finish since only his supervisor has the room key
Still not fully resolved and signed off as safe For us the shower is simply out of bounds. !
10 Talked to T Cook rep - Patrick and seeing him 9.00am Friday 13th to discuss alternatives he confirmed that room was now safe but also said he had great problems in getting any answers at all on this from anyone
11 Offered other room by hotel but this was facing the commercial centre where the shows were held every night and was refused
12 Was this an isolated instance? NO - Whilst waiting for Customer Services we spoke with another guest - exactly same plumbing / leaks of toilet water from above
13. Finally reported second entry to local Police and logged the incident- especially after the

We have travelled the caribbean for several years and I can say that this is the worst hotel we have stayed in.
1. I went down to reception three times to report that we had no plug for the wash hand basin. We never got one and the staff were not interested.
2. The internal bar by reception was a waste of time as the bar staff were only interested in serving quests who tip them first, being first in the que ment nothing.
3. We were quite often shown to tables in the dinning room that were not set and we waited up to 15 minutes for this to happen. Some times it was faster to fetch knives and forks our selves.
4. The card key to our room was cancelled several times and we had to get it re calibrated.
5. The evening shows were rubbish and a waste of time.
6. Recreational items were none exsistant unless you were lucky enough to get a sun bed by the pool. To do this you needed to be by the pool before 7am.
7. The food in the dinning room all though it was very good was mostly cold.
8. The only good thing that I can say about this hotel was that we had a very good maid service, some thing our friends did not have.
9. This hotel is massive with more building going on, they can not cope with guests now, when it is fully open it will be a nightmare. I would not reccomend this hotel to any one