Labranda Blue Bay Resort

Our family (2 adults, 7, 4 and infant) had a great time at Blue Bay, our sons said it was the best holiday ever and we’re fairly in agreement.

We arrived in the early hours after quite a long delay and were put in the wrong room (main building), after waiting for a while to get this corrected at the time we agreed to stay put for the night. The next day we spoke to the jet2 rep and management and were given our booked room (superior family room) and so our perspective may explain the love or hate it reviews!

Loves: -our issue with the room was sorted fairly quickly -the room was lovely and comfortable, cleaned every day and new bath and pools towels. We found it quite spacious even with the travel cot. -Pools were fun and lots of choice of activities. Our kids loved the water park. Animators encouraged our eldest son to join water polo etc which he ended up loving and did each day. -footsteps to a lovely beach. Could be a bit rough with the breeze but our kids loved this as they could body board. Pebbly so bring beach shoes but nice incline in so even the baby could enjoy.

• all resort staff that we spoke to were friendly and couldn’t do enough to help. We particularly loved meeting Eleni from the restaurants and our baby daughter Elena loved having a cuddle with her and it was just always a pleasure to have a quick chat (we meant to say goodbye, we hope you can pass on just the lovely little touch she added to our holiday) . We found the restaurant staff across the resort particularly lovely, professional, hard working in general. I couldn’t fathom how reviews say staff were rude 🤷‍♀️
• staff are constantly managing the upkeep of the resort and as a result it was clean, tidy and a nice place to be.
• The animators were friendly, enthusiastic and so hard working. Mini disco was cute, also nice that they warm the kids up with games first.
• little touches like the mini bar and being able to go to the à la carte restaurants (Italian, indican and Asian were are favourites) every night elevated the stay but our sons also loved the buffet.

-breakfast by the- our favourite thing here, amazing setting, lovely breakfast and by the end of the week really personal touches (knowing who was going to order what, where we might like to sit etc) -lifeguards- friendly but very vigilant, felt incredibly safe.

• good food options, buffet has some nice fresh options too (e.g. a fresh smoothie, gyros or tiramisu made at the station). It’s AI though and so obviously large scale cooking.

-our sons LOVED the mocktails and got Blue Moons every night with the friends they had made (white t shirts didn’t love that as much!)

Could be betters…

• adult drink options were a bit limited- would be great to have a standard mojito or something on ai.
• our first room in the main building was quite dated, though clean but just a bit meh. Maybe I wouldn’t have minded if that is what I booked but our whole holiday vibe changed once we were in our nicer room- it went from meh to amazing!
• evening entertainment, although good individually, was quite repetitive being singers every night. This wasn’t great for kids really and could have gone with some magic, circus style or acrobats etc. as a result kids (including our own) could end up a bit feral in the park and high on blue moons (a pool between made this a bit of a challenge).

The main one:

• I found Peter De Beer (who to be fair doesn’t work for the hotel but is an invited hanger on) highly problematic. He repeatedly appeared to be filming kids dancing in the mini disco, was objectively letchy with the young animators (think old guy arm around waist under ribs type letchy, beckoning them over with a single finger call) it was just really gross to watch. Safeguarding wise, kids see hotel staff, particularly animators as safe people and he was essentially posing as one (stood by the merch table, drink by the dj booth and there every night with the animators) and I wouldn’t feel comfortable with him around my children so I certainly wouldn’t want them to think he was part of the team. Whether he had ill intentions, his behaviour was inappropriate and controlling of young adult females who may not feel the ability to say no given that they are working a front of house role. I feel quite strongly (and spoke to the lead animator about this) that management need to ask him to leave.

I will never go back. Planes fly very low over the hotel constantly (even during the night), which wakes you up from your night's sleep, and during the day your conversations are interrupted. Every day I saw dirty cutlery, cups, glasses and/or plates at the main restaurant. In several places we were turned away when we wanted to ask for ice cream (we had all inclusive), and were referred to the main restaurant. However, you have to wear clothes there - not just a swimsuit. So you have to interrupt your trip to the pool, change clothes and take a seat in the large restaurant with 200 other guests. You are not allowed to bring your ice cream out of this restaurant. There is loud club music almost everywhere in the hotel, which in no way harmonizes with all the families with children who have checked in. There are leaves, insects and - from time to time - garbage floating around in some of the pools at the hotel. Ew . in addition, the cleaning staff never locked after themselves, so our front door to our hotel room was open every day. completely crazy! the reception apologized, but told us that it was not their responsibility that their employees locked themselves. no, it was really not a good stay. I would recommend everyone to stay away

I went to the spa and was treated by Katerina. The experience was wonderful and she was extremely professional. I had the cretan body scrub with Aloe Vera and a manicure - would highly recommend.