We got married at Breezes 11 years ago and went back to renew our vows. I would definitely recommend it to anyone. Just remember your in Jamaica and on vacation and you will have a great time.

The airport shuttle was fairly quick. It seemed like it was there in no time once we got through customs. The driver stopped for refreshments about half way to Breezes, which wasn't a big deal. It gave me a chance to have a couple Red Stripes. Our room was ready immediately upon our arrival, which was about 2:00 p.m.

The food is good, but not great. There was more Jamaican food on the buffet 11 years ago. You can get the Jamaican meat patties (beef or chicken) which are really good at the grille near the beach though. They have some theme nights like "beach party night" and "dinner by the pool" when the food was better. There was plenty of it though and the selection was alright. I heard a guy complaining because breakfast was supposed to start at 7:00 am but wasn't ready until 7:05 am. This guy probably shouldn't have gone there. We stayed for 7 nights and didn't get tired of the food, but I could see if you stayed for 2 or 3 weeks you might get tired of it.

We didn't take part in the parties or activiries so I can't comment on them. We were there to enjoy the beach and each other. We went outside the resort and walked into town. We felt safe and never felt like we were in danger. We met a local who took us back to his house and showed us how they live. We met his mom who was really nice. All the hotel workers were really nice too. Our room was cleaned daily and the maid always had fresh linens and towels if we wanted them.

I am planning to go back in July and about every other month after that. I am definitely hooked on Breezes Runaway Bay and recommend it to all my friends.

After months of reviewing trip advisor like most, I looked forward to my trip to breezes. Some reviews were a little scary, but most very positive. This is the place where my husband and I were going to get married so I was very nervous. After I booked I thought I probablly should have planned and had my wedding at home, because I am a very particular person...

Anywho lets start the review..

There were more positives than negatives. The only negative thing I can say about the resort is that check-in was horrible...My husband and I had 45 guests arriving to the resort within a two day time span. I requested an early check in and was told that if the rooms were ready then they could check-in...fair enough..checkin was at 3pm and my guests were not only not able to check in early but some of the rooms were not avaiable until 4:30pm ! This trip was booked back in Sept. so I felt there was no need for this type of delay and my g-ma who light was delayed and she arrived a day after her original arrival date, was told that her room wasn't ready! That was very irritating and kinda stressed me out that my guests rooms weren't available...

Once everyone was checked in...the resort was WONDERUL...the staff was great, the lawns wel manicured daily, very clean rooms (we had a suite with a pool) it was magnificient and the shower was to die for...The resort was great especially if you just want to relax and be pampered.

My favorite part of the resort was the SPA...ladies you must visit the spa...it was amazing...it was the best spa package I ever had ..and I have had a quite a few! The SPA department should win an award...

The Japanese resturant was nice! Althought the food was just "okay" to me...I have eated at several japanese steak houses and it can't compare to the states..but some of the chefs seemed better than others...but the resturant was pretty inside and out..

The Italian was great to me, however many people in my group said it was okay..I thought it was delish!

The buffet was usually good...it always had something i'd like...

My absoulute favorite resturant was the STARLIGHT Grill...It was sooooo good! We ate there three of the nights that we were there..my husband wanted seconds...I loved the mongolian grill...I wish it were open in the afternoon though!

Now for the good part. Our wedding..I originally wanted to have our wedding in the garden, but once i saw the beach...i fell in love and changed the location! Our wedding had a few kinks, but overall was beautiful...it was a lovely day and most of my guests said that it was the best wedding they ever been too! The DJ was great...and Keisha the wedding coordinator was very helpful...Sandra was also very helpul and helped make our stay memorable...she went above and beyond and brought fruit trays for the wedding party to our rooms, made sure my guests were happy, and was just a sweet person in general! That was "my girl" during the trip!

Oh yeah, I am very scared of bugs and at night I thought that there would be mosiqtoes, however the resort plays this music it kind of sounds like crickets at night, but its not. This music keeps the bugs out..I only saw one or two mosiqtoes during my entire trip! :) I was soooo happy!

Entertainment at the resort was okay in the daytime, ay night the house band was cool and other acts as well...

Overall I enjoyed myself and my wedding was great! Jamaica is a very poor country from my perspective and I took a horseback ride through one of the many commuinites and it was too much for me...I knew people were poor but not like this...it is a reminder that we are blessed here in the states..the resort made you feel like the whole island was rich, but it just wasn't so...by the way I had no clue I was going to be horseback riding in that community...Jamaica is a 3rd world country and the people who work there work very hard from what I saw. The employees at the resort worked long and very hard and continued to keep a smile on their faces. I felt sad knowing that some had to go back to shacks without running water...

I know I am getting off topic so i'll wrap it up with this ...Breezes is beautiful and the resort was great...the Jamaican people are a beautiful people that work hard...and if I enjoyed my stay at the resort...thanks to Shauna, Keisha, Sandra, and a couple of folks who's names I didn't catch...The watersports guy who checked our rooms for clorine ..he was nice and Damian...they were all great folks...

I hoped this review helped and I apologize for the length of it..we were there for 8 days so I had a lot to write about... :)

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.