Grand Riviera Princess All Suites and Spa Resort

FOOD:Very low quality! Furthermore, food was”recycled”, for which I don’t have a problem, when its done *PROPERLY* (e.g. yesterday’s seafood leftover will make great today’s seafood pizza). But chefs at this place lacking skills and creativity! Concrete examples: they never had neither fresh crepes nor pancakes!We’ve been with my wife in several places and having that option feels like basic standard. Not at this place! Another completely missing item-Pizza! Iberostar, Palladium, etc.-all Mexican resorts now have brick ovens and fresh pizza.Not at this place!While they did have pizza, quality of it “equates” to Gas Station Pizza!And as “cherry on the cake”-we were lied by one of the Chefs, that while walking thru main buffet was asked about pizza, and he came up with BS answer:”why would not you order pizza from our Italian Restaurant” And when we did ask about it one of the waiter - he looked at us as we were from Mars.Another area of incompetence:food layout and placings. During the dinner they placed yogurt next to watermelon and other “watery” deserts! And of course, half of the yogurt bowl was filled with watermelon juice! Service in buffer area subpar: numerous times we had to ask several times staff to get our drinks. Often, we were served not was ordered! Furthermore, once we were brought a beer, that we didn’t order, and that beer was placed right-next to my son, who is 6!! SERVICE:this resort is fairly large and yet they have only 1! shuttle.And after 5pm that shuttle becomes a bottle neck!It is not a long walk-about 10 min- from main lobby to the farthest section of resort where we stayed,but when you have small children it is “different story”.However, during the evenings, shuttle was always crowded and few times we almost had to “fight” for seats! KIDS CLUB was not free! There is a separate fee for KIDS CLUB! And another “cherry on-the-cake”: upon arriving home we found out that they OVERCHARGED our CC for cleaning fees! BTW: be aware, despite “”all inclusive”” resort they are charging cleaning fees(about $US1 per night ), however in our case for 10 nights we were charged $US25!

My partner ,children and I spent a lovely few days there recently. Alberto in the ChillOut restaurant literally couldn’t of been a better host . Very very good service from him and all the staff at this hotel.

We were at this resort in July for a 7 day vacation and wanted to express my disappointment with the resort. There was 7 of us and we had three rooms which we paid extra for the platinum package. Unfortunately the upgrade to platinum was a waste of money. All the so called perks were useless to us. We couldn’t go out on the balcony because the smell of seaweed was unbearable so the extra outside jacuzzi was worthless. Not to mention that the balcony view was awful staring into the unmanicured woods. The cement portion of the balcony was so old with two old lounge chairs and no table. Then broken down wood railing leading to a ugly wood floor deck. Just horrible. Next was the beach. I understand totally the seaweed problem but I have been other places that have workers out there all day long cleaning it up. We saw a few workers barely doing anything in the mornings and that was it. So again the platinum section of the beach was another waste of money. We went to Playa del Carmen 3 times during our stay and had to pay extra money for bus ride, chairs, umbrellas and food. Our maid service was terrible. We had to call for towels on several occasions. There was even a day that our garbage pails weren’t emptied. The liquor in the room was a joke. Plastic bottled liquor, never saw that before! Also we couldn’t get any name brand liquor unless we paid extra. Other rooms got nice little towels made into swans and other things with rose petals. We got nothing. There was no draws to put our clothes so kept them in our suitcases. The room itself needs an uplift very old and dingy looking with very poor lighting. Oh also the rooms need more electric outlets in more accessible places. The coffee maker just filled up with water and never brewed. The room service which was another platinum perk was not good at all. Long wait and terrible food. The restaurants were ok nothing great and in one of the restaurants the waiter was just miserable not to mention he didn’t like the fact that we didn’t want to buy a bottle of wine and asked for just the house wine. He didn’t seem to like that for some reason and it showed. Overall it was terrible vacation. We’ve traveled to so many hotels and this was by far the worst. It was a much anticipated vacation and one I really was looking forward to and now close to US $9,000 later I’m left still paying it off and not much good to say about anything. I’m home now back in New Jersey wishing I would have picked somewhere else because I feel like I didn’t get that vacation experience that I so badly needed. By the way I sent 3 emails since my return and not one response from anyone.

To start, my husband and I were at the resort in November, 8 months prior, for a 7 day stay. We travel every 4 months and enjoyed this resort enough for it to be out first resort to return to with our son, for a 10 day stay this August. We were sadly disappointed!! First of all, we were told we would have a chance of a upgrade at a discounted rate for being a returning customer, haha that was no where to be found. Now in November they upgraded us for the 7 day stay for $200US. The first day on check in we asked, it was gonna be a extra $1500 US for a simple upgrade, then 4 hours later when we could check in it went to $950 US. The next day when we met with the “WestJet” representative he was able to get it down to $300 US, but we were never able to find that same person at the counter and so we were %#*+ out of luck!! We were not looking for free, but a little kindness or positivity would have been nice. On the second day, the boys were wrestling and dads bracelet fell off in the pool, and when he went to go get a new one, they made my son go to the lobby to prove he still had his, cause “they knew what was going on...” so we did, and they gave him another bracelet, after of course trying to charge him $75 for a $1 bracelet. Not our fault it’s cheap and or was not fastened properly by the lobby staff. Pretty crappy to be accused of something!! The room was aright, not worth what we paid for, the food was decent, the LA carts are hard to get into, come back after 2....well on a resort of that size coming back at 2 is a waste of time! The snack bar was a hit or miss, out son likes to play pool for he was not 18, and they have a list of order there, but once again it mattered if you have $$ to slip to them or how loud you were, waste of time waiting for the most part. The only one staff member out of a 10 day stay that was worth remembering was Ada at the disco. She was fantastic. We are travelling again this December and we’re looking forward to returning to a familiar resort with more of our family members, but I can definitely say it will not be this one. A little attention to detail, some customer service, and being made to feel like you are a little appreciated for spending your hard earned money would have made this a memorable vacation and the desire to return.

This was our 5th trip to the Caribbean but our first to Mexico and I really would liked to have given an excellent review because we really like the resort overall but there were a few unfortunate things that were negative. At the outset I would say if you are planning to stay here I don't think you will be disappointed so go ahead and try it, I will attempt to explain what we didn't like from our personal experience and you can decide if it is something you can overlook? First off the Grand Princess is huge - it took ten minutes to walk from the beach to the lobby, our room was near the beach so every morning we had to trek up to the buffet for breakfast. Yes they do have a trolley that runs the length of the resort but it is usually a 15-20 minute wait. The temperature was 115 degrees with the humidity so we tried to keep our walking to a minimum. The service was great from check in to the restaurant, the bar, the pool, the cleaning staff, grounds and security. We had an issue with our safe and they sent a security man up within ten minutes and also gave us a follow up phone call to make sure everything was to our satisfaction. Our room was spotless and there were staff everywhere cleaning and repairing things around the resort. There was a good selection of food at the buffet and we found the A la cartes very decent. Overall we thought the food was very good. Yes there was seaweed at the beach but once you get in the swimming was fine. We vacation in the maritimes in the summer so we didn't find the smell overbad, it is tolerable (but can be kind of nasty). Anyhow the resort has no control over it anyways. The staff are good at looking after the pools, we saw them using a test kit a couple times a day and adding shock at night. The pools with the swim up bar were kind of sketchy at times but it mostly because some guests were treating it like a garbage can as opposed to a pool. At one point I found a wedge of lime at the bottom of the pool. Gross. Everything at the resort is efficient from what we experienced, check out was almost effortless. They really seem to understand that part of the tourist industry. Now the down side - we have been to Jamaica and Cuba for our last 3 trips and were sort of unsuspecting when we landed. When we came out to get the bus some lady (who looked like airport staff) brought us over to a guy (who looked like a official tourism rep) who tried to sell us all kinds of tours. If it is your first trip tell them thanks but no thanks and b line it for the front door and your bus! I realize this has nothing to do with the resort but it is the preamble to the next part. Once we checked in we were approached by a guy who (again) we thought was a hotel rep. He said he would answer our questions and look after us for the week. We sat down with him and had a drink under the impression that he was going to explain the resort to us. Very quickly we realized this was for a timeshare deal and he asked us to go for breakfast the next morning and they would show us around the Platinum area a bit and he would get a small commision and that they would give us a hundred dollar gift card to spend at the resort. We wanted to see the Platinum side anyways and since it was only 90 minutes of our time we conceded. We had breakfast at the Chill Out by the Platinum area on the beach and listened to the spiel and then they tried to sell us a 40000 dollar timeshare-type vacation deal. We said we weren't interested so they kept coming down in price and just kept sending different people over to try and talk us into buying something. Obviously we didn't want to buy anything and I had to get blunt with them to let them know it was time to wrap things up. The whole affair left a bad taste in our mouth, yes we did agree to look but we said no. Everytime we went to the buffet or lobby they would start a conversation to try and reel us in again. I finally had to be rude which is something I prefer not to do. We finally resorted to finding alternate routes to avoid the situation. While it didn't ruin our trip it was certainly aggravating, I think most people are looking to relax on their vacation with a minimum amount of harassment. I asked around and the consensus was that it's the norm in Mexico and if it's something that doesn't bother you then no worries, as for us - we hate it! Getting back to the resort, we thought it was beautiful and huge, so keep that in mind before you book. It is a little bigger than we prefer but again it's personal preference, we're glad we tried it but will stick to something smaller. Despite the size we did feel we received great personal service. Having said all that, what people really want to hear in a review is "Do you recommend it?" in which case I can confidently say I don't think you will regret it!