Bahia Principe Explore Coba

We had a really good holiday and I would return, but price matters massively. We paid around £100 per person per day all-inclusive. At that price: 4/5 and excellent value. If I'd paid premium five-star prices for exactly the same holiday: 3/5. QUICK REVIEW 🏨 Hotel & grounds — 4.5/5 - Beautiful, very clean resort. - Wildlife around the hotel is brilliant and really adds to it. - Huge complex, but the little carts/trains make getting around easy. - Wi-Fi was excellent everywhere we used it. 🛏️ Rooms — 4/5 - Definitely dated. - BUT absolutely massive. - Personally, I'd take a huge dated room over a tiny modern one. - Air conditioning worked well. - Room cleaned and fridge restocked daily when we weren't in there. - No real noise problems where we stayed. 🏊 Pools — 4/5 - Two really good, very clean pools. - Plenty of loungers when we went down after breakfast. - We could normally find an umbrella/shade. - No shade actually IN the pools. - Pool water was incredibly warm — basically a bath. - In 35–37°C heat, you really have to watch the sun. 🏖️ Beach — 5/5 - Beautiful little beach. - Shallow and felt very safe for the kids. - Definitely take a snorkel — small reef with loads of colourful fish. - Free hour of water activities available, BUT it's around a 10-minute walk further along the beach. - They also asked us for ID, which we hadn't taken with us. 🍹 Drinks — 5/5 - Probably the best cocktails I've had at an all-inclusive. - Wine was decent. - Rum was good. - Ask for a Miami Vice even though it isn't on the menu. Dangerous 😂 - When the hotel got busy, though, the bars could be five people deep. 🍽️ À la carte restaurants — 5/5 - Excellent. - Brazilian was very good. - Teppanyaki was absolutely brilliant and our favourite meal of the holiday. - Three à la cartes during our seven-night stay felt fair. - The app wasn't great, so we emailed instead. - They booked exactly what we wanted with no hassle. 🥓 Main buffet — 2/5 - Easily the weakest part for me. - Decent food constantly seemed to run out. - Bacon is a perfect example: one tray disappears, then everyone waits for more. - This became much worse when the hotel was busy. - Very strange lack of basic food such as fries. - If you've got a very plain/"beige" eater, this is worth knowing. - Our son basically needs simple things like plain spaghetti and fries and options were surprisingly limited. 🍔 Snack bar — 3.5/5 - Generally decent food. - Getting basic fries sometimes felt like a negotiation, which got annoying. - Otherwise absolutely fine. 👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 Families — 4/5 - Our boys enjoyed themselves. - Pools and beach are good for families. - There is a kids' club, although ours weren't interested. - No water park at Coba. - Plain eaters may struggle more than you'd expect at a big family all-inclusive. 👩‍💼 Staff — 5/5 - One of the best parts of the hotel. - Waiters, waitresses and bar staff were fantastic. - People generally seemed genuinely friendly rather than just being nice because it's their job. - Kitchen/buffet staff were the only area where our experience wasn't as good. ⚠️ THE BIGGEST NEGATIVE — COBA FEELS LIKE THE ENTRY-LEVEL HOTEL This was probably my biggest issue. Coba is part of a massive Bahia Principe complex, but Coba guests have much more restricted access to the other hotels/facilities, while guests staying at some of the other hotels have much broader access. It left me feeling a bit trapped. At times Coba felt almost like the "this is what you could have had" hotel. There's also a lot of upselling: - Parties - Premium lobster/tomahawk meals - Privilege Club - Upgrades/access to other facilities It started to feel more like the cruise-ship model: buy the basic package, then lots of extras are available for more money. That's not terrible considering the price we paid, but it doesn't exactly scream premium five-star resort. 👥 HOW BUSY IS IT? This completely changed our experience. First few days: brilliant. Quiet, relaxed, chilled. We could sit with the family, have some food and wine and actually hear ourselves think. Thursday–Sunday: completely different hotel. A large influx of weekend guests arrived and suddenly: - Buffet much busier - Bars five deep - More queues - Much noisier - Far less relaxing Some people will love that atmosphere. I absolutely don't. I'd rather have average food at a quiet hotel than amazing food somewhere rammed with people. We did travel out of season, so obviously occupancy will vary. 🎭 ENTERTAINMENT — N/A FOR US We didn't really use it. It was extremely hot in the evenings and the entertainment didn't particularly appeal to us, so it wouldn't be fair for me to score it properly. 💰 WOULD I GO BACK? At £100 per person per day? YES. At that price, I think Coba represents very good value for money. Would I pay premium five-star prices for it? No. If I returned to the Bahia Principe complex, I'd probably pay a little more and stay at one of the other hotels that gives you broader access to the whole resort. FINAL SCORES Value for money: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5/5 Hotel & grounds: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5 Staff: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5/5 Drinks: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5/5 À la carte food: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5/5 Buffet: ⭐⭐ 2/5 Beach: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5/5 Pools: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5 As a premium "five-star": ⭐⭐⭐ 3/5 OVERALL: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5 Great holiday at the right price. Just know what you're buying.

Room smell of mould..staff member supplied humidifier but it kept cutting out so left balcony door open the 10days of our holiday.. apartment blocks to the right of reception block 19 onwards badly need attention... buildings crumbling..you can see metal reinforcing where concretes fell off...also had to upgrade costing £200 to access other 3 resorts within Bahia Principe...food good..staff friendly..understaffed..waiting at bars too long

We stayed for a week mid-august and I hope that the little bumps that we encounter were due to it being low season and not because of the merger with Hyatt. This was not our first stay at Bahia Coba - 3rd time in ten years. As usual the people working there were very nice, grounds well kept, room clean and good food. But the resort needs some love (and renovations) and here are a couple of things that bothered us. - Room needs repair and update. 2 out of the 4 drawers that we had in our room had issues, one the knob keep coming off and the other had trouble opening/closing. Electrical outlets are not well positionned for todays need, you need the long charging cable or an extension cord or your device will be charging on the floor. - Buffet was extremely repetitive, alway the same choices of protein at the grilling station (chicken, beef, pork, calamari and fish steak). In the actual buffet trays there were no meat dish witch meant you only have the grilling station and sometimes it could empty pretty fast and would take time to refill has they can’t go faster then the cooking time for said meat. We did not have any shrimp all week which to me seemed weird and no smoked salmon at breakfast. Also there was no pasta station for lunch and dinner, but the egg stations was open and running in the morning - Kid buffet had the same 3 choices every day: Hot-dog, hamburger, and pasta. No chicken nugget, no fish sticks and no fries - the only place that we saw fries available was the Piscis pool snack for lunch - Kids waterpark they added rubber mats and the end of each slide which is a big plus since the kids would scratch themself when coming off of the slides when we came 3 years ago. But it needs a maintenance and a coat of paint for sure. The concrete is starting to peel off in some places Every hotel of this resort has been renovated, so I hope they will do Coba sooner than later. And again I sure hope that the things that I missed (especially at the buffet) are not because they lowered the quality/diversity of food offered because of the merger, but were due to low season As for the beach, it was the sargassum season, they have a team dedicated to cleaning the shores, it is a neverending battle as some days it kept on accumulating and they kept on racking and removing. It really depends on the day.

Excellent resort. We stayed at Explore Coba for two weeks for our summer holiday. We couldn’t have asked for any more. The service we received was epic. The staff, food, entertainment and overall experience were fantastic. Special thanks to a few members of staff that went above and beyond. Eder, the entertainment boss and his team. Wilder, the pool barman. Arron and Ernesto the evening barmen. What a great holiday and we look forward to visiting again. Thanks team Coba, keep up the good work!

This was my second stay at Bahia, and I returned because my first visit was genuinely wonderful. Unfortunately, this experience was very different. Guests can no longer access the resort restaurants—only the buffet, which had long lines, overwhelmed staff, and food that disappeared almost immediately. The room’s Wi-Fi was extremely limited, and the entertainment felt noticeably reduced. Last time, there was a full team of 4–5 members running activities and engaging with guests; this time, there were only 1–2, and the overall energy was not the same. A staff member shared that hundreds of employees were laid off after Hyatt took over, and many new policies were put in place. The workers themselves remain kind, hardworking, and welcoming—they are not the issue. But the changes have significantly impacted the guest experience. Because of this, I would not return to this resort, nor would I recommend it.