Our family (my husband, two daughters age 5 and 8 and myself) just spent a week at Blau Colonial, June 3-10 2006. We were quite disappointed. I understand it’s not peak season for the resort, but we have already been to Cuba, to a 4 star resort, this time of year (Iberostar – Cayo Guillermo, last year) and had a wonderful time, can’t even compare it to Blau, as if it were not at all the same category.
Blau Colonial:
First of all, let me get al the positive things out of the way. The beach is beautiful, clean, and wide, water clear and surprisingly deep close to the shore. On the other hand, the beach towels, chaises and cabanas are literally falling apart. All that’s left of the cabanas (the beach and the poolside as well) is the construction. There are no palm branches on top, so they’re pretty useless when it comes to shade (or protecting you in case of rain).
The room:
The room and the bathroom were very nice (we had booked a standard room), very spacious, clean, comfortable and in working order. However, the promised bathrobes, slippers, ironing table were not there (no big deal, who wants to iron on vacation anyway) and all “the fully stocked mini bar” really is three cans in your mini fridge, and if you wanted them replaced you had to call a certain phone number between 10:00 and 13:00 (when you normally wouldn’t be in the room).
Food & drinks: The food was OK, not as many choices as we have seen elsewhere, but what was there was decent. A la carte restaurants were nice too. Piano bar was not open.
The drinks were really small, and they’d fill that already small cup halfway with ice. I had asked for a margarita, a daiquiri, a mai tai, and was told every time “We don’t make those” WTF?!
Kids Club:
The kids’ club literally had no activities; it may have as well not been there. Zero, zip, nada.
Entertainment: The entertainment, especially during the day, was almost non-existent. Those few animators that were there completely lacked enthusiasm, you could see them hang out near pool bar, play table tennis, take a dip in the pool, watch TV, sometimes even drink or smoke on poolside chaises, as if they were on vacation. They didn’t even have uniforms, they wore swim trunks.
When I read one day there was going to be a beach party11:00-2:00, I was glad. At Iberostar, they would do that, bring music, organize games and dancing, set out a mini buffet and bar, used to be fun. Not at Blau, their beach party was at 11 at night. Obviously, the families were not as important guests as young partying bunch.
Arrival:
Upon our arrival, at about 22:30, we were pretty much left alone trying in the dark to find out where the reception area was, nobody was there to greet us (at Iberostar they’d greet us with a welcome cocktail, non alcoholic, very refreshing for a tired traveler). Reception area was dark; gentleman there was not very helpful. We had requested a room on a superior level when we booked, but they gave us one on street level (and yes, it’s a street, we had cars and buses pass in front of our door at all times of day and night, couldn’t let the kids leave the room on their own, there was traffic, not to mention the noise) and refused to give us different room at that time. As well, we were not given beach towel voucher, or the key to the safe, I quote “Come back tomorrow, if I did that for everyone tonight, I’d have to be here till 1!”
We constantly had to ask questions: Generally, the information we’d find useful was really hard to get and was never volunteered. We constantly had to ask questions, and way too often the answer was “I don’t know”, “Go ask there” or “It’s written over there”. And then: – The operating hours for a lot of services mean nothing – The doors must be very thin, we’d often be awaken by guests returning to their rooms under influence – The advertised “15 min from the airport” is really a lot more when your bus goes to two different hotels first – We wanted to take a kayak and were asked for two pesos “deposit”
– Service got a lot worse when soccer championship started, you could stay at the bar for a long time before somebody would come to serve you, they’d be watching TV.
Conclusion:
I’m sure young people enjoy that kind of atmosphere, most of them were drinking all day, walking around with half gallon mini kegs, and seemed quite happy. Overall, we would never return to Blau nor would we ever recommend it to anyone. For the same price you can get so much better service elsewhere.