Ocean Eden Bay

Lovely hotel with friendly and helpful staff. The resort has 14 restaurants, but unfortunately the food quality was disappointing. When booking a hotel in Jamaica, I expected a better selection of authentic Jamaican cuisine, yet the main buffet offered very few local dishes. The resort does have a Jamaican restaurant, but when we planned to dine there on our final evening, we were told that only Privilege guests could make reservations. Everyone else had to either hope for availability or wait several hours. Had this policy been explained on arrival, we would have planned differently. Expecting to be able to enjoy Jamaican food while visiting Jamaica is not an unreasonable expectation. We also booked the adults-only area and were shown to the designated beach section, only to find it occupied by screaming children, which defeated the purpose of paying for an adults-only experience. Overall, the hotel itself is lovely and the staff are excellent, but the dining experience and the management of the adults-only facilities were disappointing.

Amenities were awesome, atmosphere was chill and inviting the staff were really easy to conversate, was a good stay! Will visit again!

What a wonderful, beautiful place. Staff are amazing 🤩 the staff are hard working and so helpful. Entertainment is great fun for all. Billy your entertainer is fantastic. The food is fresh and delicious with plenty of choice. I highly recommend this resort

Our anniversary trip to Ocean Bay Resort was deeply disappointing. We chose this destination to celebrate a milestone, but the experience fell far short of expectations. The butler service was consistently unresponsive, leaving us waiting for basic requests that never arrived. Even more frustrating was the lack of hot water; we endured freezing showers for three of our five days. For a resort that promises luxury and relaxation, this was an unacceptable failure in hospitality. We arrived hoping for a memorable romantic getaway, but instead, we left feeling neglected and frustrated. I would not recommend it to others, and we will not be returning to this property.

Overview: The resort is beautiful and the rooms are very well laid out. Also, some of the restaurants served decent a la carte meals. But in my opinion, that’s where it ends. The food was mediocre and very repetitive in the buffet – think potato patties every morning. The beach was mostly rocks except for a small area designated for the “priviledged” class. Our room had humidity issues as the sheets and floor stayed damp or wet the entire time with a sticky feel regardless of what temperature you set the air conditioning at (several other guests had the same issue). Most restaurants were not air conditioned – not even the disco or reception room for a destination wedding! And staff on the whole were quite bitter towards guests. This 5-star resort was more like a 3-star and I’m afraid I will not recommend it to anyone. THE ROOM – Although the layout is very good, beware of rooms on the bottom floor or the top 5th floor. There are many huge cockroaches everywhere, all over the resort, and I do not recommend getting a 1st floor room because of it. The room doors open into a hallway that is exposed to the outside areas and if you have a gap along the floor, which we did, you risk a few surprises in the night. The top floor is also not recommended. It has a better view, however it does not have a proper roof so you are exposed to rain and sun most of the day. And since there is no roof, you do not get a swing chair on the 5th floor. I also don’t recommend building 4 as it gets full afternoon/evening sun and it was impossible to use the balcony during that time. We changed rooms from 5th floor in building 4 to 3rd floor in building 3 and although we had humidity issues in that room, it had lots of afternoon shade and we were able to use the swing chair on the balcony. The humidity issues made our stay somewhat uncomfortable, however. The floors stayed wet all day when the staff mopped and I had to drag a towel around with my feet regularly to attempt to keep them dry. The sheets always felt sticky and damp and everything in my suitcase when I got home was still sticky and damp. The salty humid air condenses on everything in the room – although our first room did not seem to have this issue. The balcony chairs are designed for a cushion but none have them anymore so you will sit with a bar in your rear – we used couch cushions to remedy this. Room staff will not give you all the usual towels unless you tip. This may have just been our girl but I had to leave a note and $5 to get hand towels. Once I had to bring up a dry pool towel in order to shower – because nothing dries in the room. You must also leave tips for the mini-bar fellow if you want coffee. One last thing, I noticed that the swim-ups did not have loungers like in the photos. They had reclining chairs. Although the other resort for families appeared to have loungers. THE FOOD – The buffet was very small and basic with a repetitive menu. I could be spoiled because I’ve been on a few cruises but this resort food was not in the same ball park as cruise food (at least Celebrity Cruises). I also did not like that you had to interact with 3 staff members every time you went to the buffet, even if you just wanted a bit of fruit and a coffee. You have to check in with your name/room#, then you wait for another staff member to seat you, then you wait for your waitress to bring you coffee/tea or a drink and then you tip. If you want to bring something back to your room, make sure you bring ziplock bags with you. I was lucky to have one that I used to bring fruit back each day. They have nothing disposable, not even in the coffee shop. When we changed rooms I went to get 2 coffees and 2 sandwiches from the coffee shop while my partner waited at reception with the luggage (there is only one coffee shop for both resorts so expect a line) and is all she had was napkins so I had to balance everything and wait for someone to open the door for me – no trays, no bags, no paper plates. Air conditioning seems to be at a premium because they don’t often turn it on, not even in the disco. This was a destination wedding and they used “The Red Snapper” for the reception room and it was blistering hot in there. They did not even open the doors for cross ventilation. I felt so bad for the wedding party. Everyone ate quickly and we all went straight outside. The music was inside however, so the only dancers were the young ones, and they jumped in the pool right after. The food at the reception was sub-par and minimal so keep this in mind if you are thinking about a destination wedding here. We did find one restaurant that turned on the air conditioning regularly (the French Restaurant) so we ate there mostly and the food was very good. THE RESORT – The resort is absolutely beautiful - well maintained and nicely laid out. There is not much shade around the pool but if you go early you can usually nab one of the covered gazebos. We were down there around 7am and had no problem getting one. There are no umbrellas around the pool because it is so windy all the time. I brought a collapsible umbrella but it was impossible to use it either around the pool or on the balcony because of the strong wind. The beach is mostly rocks once you go in the water. I’ve heard this is common in Jamaica. There is only one section that is sandy to walk out but it’s reserved for “The Privileged” level. You can get loungers right beside it though and walk over in the water, although we did get some negative vibes from one couple. The rest of the beach is so rocky I actually saw one fellow drop down on his stomach and wade out using his hands until he could swim above the rocks. So make sure and bring water shoes but still be careful walking. My partner did not like how “The Privileged” areas made him feel. Around the pool this area is right in the middle on an upper level. We felt a little disheartened, like we didn’t deserve the good loungers or the better beach lol – even though our trip was close to $5,000 CDN. I was also disappointed that the lazy river, although short, got you completely soaked at several locations so I was not able to use it (I like to gently float around with my sunhat on, but that is not possible there). It’s great for kids though and the tubes are provided. A few staff were amazing of course, but overall most barely spoke to us and never smiled – they were almost robotic. One sad fellow really stood out because he was filling our drinking glasses at the wedding reception and he basically poured water all over the plates and all over the table, not being careful as he poured – but it honestly looked intentional. I’ve never seen that before. I don’t think staff are treated well at this resort, and it really shows through their attitudes. All in all, the resort is beautiful and has huge potential. But as it stands, I’m afraid we will never return. We both agreed that it was an expensive mistake to go - at least for us. Hope this has helped someone.