For background, I along with 5 members of my family (27,27,33, 34, 47, 62 y/old) went to Breezes Runaway Bay for a trip in late June 2008 and the primary purpose was to get some diving experience prior to a larger dive trip to Austrailia. The all inclusive allowed us to better plan our budgets and take a long weekend trip -4 nights/5 days. We were all reasonably well traveled internationally but this was only either the 1st or 2nd all inclusive experience for all of us. We contacted superclubs directly after finding it on the internet. This resort would be a really good place for family to meet for a relaxing get together but for water sports our experience has been better in other places when we paid specifically for it.

POSITIVES include: food, most staff, mixed drinks, well maintained grounds, decent beach, weather despite the beginning of hurricane season (June 26-30)

NEGATIVES include: shuttle, tipping expected by some in advance of good service, infinity pool, unsophisticated and inefficient, aggressive tourism industry, diving staff

SUGGESTIONS FOR RESORT include: fix pool filter, add room refrigerators, open restaurant reservations a bit, add a boat dock, add more sunset cruises even if at a cost, prohibit tips not left at the front desk for specific staff

FOOD
Generally the food was better than expected. The buffet was fresh and has a made to order omelet station or pasta station. The watermelon was bad but the pineapple which looked bland, tasted awesome. I discovered the ice cream (which is grainy and tasted more homemade- grape nut was good) and coconut cookies on the last day. The buffet gets a little boring after several days so make reservations for other dining experiences. My sister really enjoyed the hot tea selection at the buffet every morning.

Pastafari is a fine dining experience that does not match the name which sounds like casual italian but is in fact steak and fish. The resort does this obnoxious pretentious thing with respect to making reservations, persumably to foster an exclusivity feel, but the food and service was nice. An aquaintance of ours was turned away because they enforce the dress code. He was dressed nicer than us in a silk shirt and dress shorts but technically shorts are not allowed and they turned him and his wife away. Make reservations at least a day in advance. I got the "last" 6:30 time slot but when we were there only 5 of approximately 30 tables were occupied the entire night. My brother's favorite part was that the 2 hour dining experience including bread, wine, salad bar, entree, coffee and desert courses in a very cold air conditioned environment.

The Japanese restaurant requires reservations also but I recommend trying it. The chicken was the best chicken at the resort. It is cooked in front of you but was a little hot because our hood was not on. Like Pastafari, Munhasan was never completely occupied.

Mid day choice is limited to Reggae Cafe which is pretty gross except for the jerk chicken and a passion drink the server made. The ketchup is different, very sweet and pinkish colored. Only one of six of us liked it.

STAFF
Housekeeping staff was great! rooms were average. Small fridge with sode or water would have been a nice addition as other all inclusives have. We had standard rooms. Reviews about the night club being loud are accurate.

Most of the waitstaff was great as well. It is so nice to not have to walk around with your purse. The only exception on the food and beverage staff is the large bar on the Saturday night we were there. They were not busy but we were essentially ignored by 3 servers for about 10-15 minutes and another guy came up and one of the servers was on him like flies on cow dung and his wife told me that you have to tip them in advance "a little goes a long way". That just rubbed me wrong because I tip for good service after not before and here I expected to do it at the end of the week, not the beginning in order to be assured service. This attitude was limited to only a couple people; most were very attentive and pleasant.

NEGATIVES
Most of the negatives are best explained by the phase "you get what you pay for" or are not specifically related to the resort, but rather the Jamaica tourism industry generally. For example:

The shuttle experience is as many others have said. In addition, I would add that the reason they schedule your return shuttle 2 hours earlier than you would think you need to go is because they stop at several other resorts for pick ups. We pushed our shuttle time back an hour I(at our own risk) and almost missed our flight. If you fly SPIRIT airlines, you need much more time than you think because they were incredibably understaffed, particularly in Jamaica.

We hired a driver authorized by the resort, cab was a van and was nice a/c- Juta tours I think- but he stopped for like $3 worth of gas which was weird and probably some kick back or drug pick up thing. Anyway it cost $20 per person to go to Dunns River Falls ($15) and shopping which was a disappointment because the Dunns River Falls is not the natural water falls that we expected but rather a very large example of a backyard swimming pool waterfall made of gunite or something. The positive of course is the rocks were not slippery as a natural rock water wall would be but I almost expected a waterslide at the end of it. We expected it to be very touristy but we were disappointed mostly because we thought it was NATURAL. The shopping trip included the driver steering us only to overpriced stores in which he got a cut of what we purchased, (my uncle actually saw him go back in to get his cut at one place). He got downright beligerant with me when I refused to rent $3.00 water socks for $5.00 chosing instead to "risk" wearing my Tevas instead. After I saw and walked up the falls, I would have been really pissed to have rented shoes to walk up a fake waterfall that wasn't slippery. Some people were doing it barefoot. The water was cold, clean and felt awesome. It was real water :) Generally I expected a more sophisticated tourism industry in a place like Jamaica but found all the little schemes we had experienced in places like Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Morroco and other places with less advanced tourism industries.

DIVING
We did three dives while we were there. The first was the canyon wall (70 foot dive) and much of the coral is dead or dying but there are still some interesting things to see and some live coral. The second was a wreck dive- ship which has been there for long while because there are things growing on it and a partial plane which hasn't but that we were allowed to swim through. The third was a dive along the reef near the wall (40 foot dive) and we saw two sea turtles. This was the highlight of the dives for me. Generally the dive staff was not as efficient as you would expect since they presumably do it almost every day. They were the most efficient at getting their own equipment back. Checking out the equipment we needed and swimming to the reef (about 150 yards away) without someone was not allowed. On other dive trips at other places, the dive staff lifts your tank down the line as each person enters the water, or they have us do back entry from the boat. Here they hold your hand and watch people flounder. One of the three seemed so stoned or stupid (called snoop dog) he just needed to get out of the way and let us do it ourselves. George seemed to know what he was doing but was a bit impatient with some people that were not as experienced. Eby was friendly enough but stuck to my uncle only because of the tip expectation thing. My aunt could have used his assistance more than my uncle. They have everyone surface after the dive and sit on top of the water while everyone gets their equipment off in the water which took 20+ minutes for the people we were with. For those with a seasick problem it would have been nicer to have people surface in pairs or something. They made those of us with weight integrated bcs pull our weight and hand it up to the boat, rather than just lifting it all up which would have been more efficient. I was only wearing 10 lbs.

POOL
Finally, I can not end this review without sharing the stinky swimsuit advisory. The infinity pool (swim up bar pool) is beautiful but the water was a little cloudy , presumably from sunscreen and stuff and a couple people, including me, mentioned it to management. It took us three days to figure out that it was the articles of clothing tha thad been submerged in this pool, rather than those from ocean or other pools, (whether rinsed out or not) that was making all of our rooms smell like really stinky feet. It is so disgusting and funny at the same time. Because the grounds, while older are very well maintained, I would expect that they would have the filter system fixed by the time you visit.

OTHER REVIEWS
The other reviews are right on about the people in the ocean selling "shells" and asking you to visit the off resort "shops", people at the airport trying to sell weed, and the security system at the resort. It is nice to know the resort is keeping track of your room number when you leave.

GENERAL
The grounds are nice and this resort is a great place to go for a relaxing type vacation. The cabanas are nice and they were abundant at the middle pool, only three at the infinity pool so if you want one of these get there early. The sand is soft, there are many louge chairs near the beach. The circus training is not open on Sundays. There is only one kind of beer. The mixed drinks are great and they don't skimp on alcohol. The buffet is pool side on Fridays and is nice althouth light was limited. Friday is the only day a sunset cruise is offered. This is not a great social singles resort or super luxurious but it would be a nice place for a family or group of friends to converge for a relaxing get together. All things taken together- room, food, dining, drink and activities included, even though we are only moderate drinkers, we probably got our money's worth from our experience. It was not a steal but we didn't get ripped off either. It is a secure resort experience. We enjoyed our trip, had a lot of fun and laughs but will probably discover another carribean island we have not yet been to rather than coming back to Jamaica. If we come to Jamaica for vacation (rather than diving) we would consider this resort again.

This has got to be the greatest place on earth. I've been to this resort 10 times and I'm headed back in August 2008 for my eleventh time. The seven million dollar renovation is over the top.

I will preface this review by saying we are very experienced travellers, taking 6-8 International vacations a year, many of them to Mexico or the Caribbean as well as Europe.
We were referred to this hotel by good friends and decided to try it for 10 days. From the time we arrived in MBJ airport to the time we left, we were overawed with the kindness and friendliness of the staff.

On arriving at the resort, Omar the bellman took our luggage, directed us to check in, and brought us a cold drink. Check in was easy and courteous. Our room was in building 2 on the ground floor which I had requested. Flowers on the bed and a lovely towel arrangement greeted us. After unpacking I took a walk down to the pool bar and was amazed to see that all liquors were Top Shelf. I knew I was going to enjoy myself.

Monday night is the Beach Party, food was excellent and delicious. We only ate at the buffets and the Reggae Cafe but both were good, especially the Reggae Cafe where I ate Jamaican Patties every day!!
All of the bars were good, great staff, especially LaShane at the pool bar, and Patricia at the lobby bar.
The Entertainment crew are some of the hardest working young people I have ever encountered, Kudos to Jason, Omar and Chris as well as their staff. Games and activities were a lot of fun and are continuous from early morning till midnight. We didn`t go to the disco but heard it was fun too.

The grounds of this resort are beautiful and kept immaculate. Towels for the pool and beach are available at the towel hut, go early to get one as they seem to run out in the afternoon.
I would be remiss if I didn`t mention the wonderful Guest services manager, Sandra Holness. What an amazing young lady, nothing was too much trouble for her and she always had a smile and a kind word. Also Elke Macdonald who works part time to help the German guests. Both of these ladies made for a wonderful experience for us.

We will definitely be returning to Breezes in the near future.

Our stay at Runaway Bay was not at good. First we got there and the rooms were not ready. Some of us did not get rooms until 7:00 pm that night. Computers went down so they had to walk to each room to see if they were clean and escort you to a room one by one. Then when we finally got in the rooms we did not have wash clothes, towels or anything . The entire time we were there we continue to ask housekeeping and front desk for towels and they would bring them at 9:00 pm yes I said 9:00 pm at night. One day we never got them at all after 3 calls to the front desk. I finally had to walk to the pool and get towels. And still we had no face clothes. Management said they were having problems with the new towel serve, I never been to a hotel that did not have enought towels to replace the dirty ones.... Food was good, entertainment was okay not the best. But due to the service with housekeeping I would not recommend this hotel to anyone.