TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

Amazing experience. Such good food and wine.

Excellent family experience watching the food cooked by Reynaldo in front of us. Exciting and interesting. Great selection of food.

Beautiful location, they've thought of every detail. You can be as relaxed or busy as you want. Danny Boy, Joy, Carolina and many others made the experience memorable. As did the spider monkeys and coatis!

We stayed here as a family having booked through TUI, where the hotel was marketed as a Platinum property. We paid a substantial amount for the holiday and therefore arrived expecting a genuinely premium experience. There were certainly some positives, but overall the hotel fell well short of those expectations. The biggest issue for us was the seaweed and, more importantly, the smell. We knew before booking that there was a seaweed problem and accepted that this might make the beach unattractive or unsuitable for swimming. What we hadn't appreciated was the extent to which the resulting odour would affect the wider resort. During our stay, the smell was regularly noticeable around the pools, immediately outside restaurants, around the lobby and in other communal areas – not simply on the beach. On one occasion the hotel even moved a restaurant service because of it. This materially affected our enjoyment of the resort. If you're considering booking during seaweed season, I would strongly recommend researching this aspect rather than assuming, as we did, that it is principally a beach issue. Our second major frustration was the persistent sales activity. We were repeatedly approached by different members of staff encouraging us to attend a presentation relating to membership/access to other hotels in the group. Mentioning it once or twice would have been absolutely fine. Being repeatedly approached after declining became intrusive and irritating. You shouldn't have to spend an expensive family holiday repeatedly saying no to sales pitches. There also seemed to be a very noticeable two-tier experience between members and other guests. I have no issue with a membership programme providing additional benefits, but the distinction was sufficiently visible that, despite having paid a premium price for the holiday, we sometimes felt we were receiving the secondary version of the hotel experience. Service was inconsistent. The food was generally average, although some of the à la carte restaurants were very good. Room service on one occasion was around an hour late. More disappointingly, our room was not cleaned at all one day. We chased housekeeping several times without success and eventually had to escalate to a supervisor before anything happened. There was also an unfortunate issue with our rooms. When booking through TUI we were invited to make three requests, one of which was adjoining rooms for our family. We fully understood that requests were not guaranteed. However, on arrival we were told that adjoining rooms were available but would cost approximately £700 extra for our stay. We had not been made aware when making the request that fulfilling it could involve such a substantial additional charge. To be balanced, there were positives. Our high-floor room request was accommodated, some of the à la carte dining was good, and we encountered individual members of staff who were friendly and helpful. But taken as a whole, this did not feel like the premium experience we thought we had purchased. The combination of the pervasive seaweed odour, repeated sales approaches, inconsistent service and obvious membership/non-membership distinction detracted significantly from the holiday. If we'd paid considerably less and booked this as a standard large all-inclusive resort, I might assess it differently. But we booked and paid for what TUI marketed as a Platinum hotel, and against that expectation I don't think the experience measured up. My main advice to prospective guests would be to research the seaweed situation carefully, understand that its impact can extend well beyond the beach, and be prepared for frequent approaches about the hotel's membership programme.

Omar the chef and José the waiter are the real deal…Banging food…an experience not to forget…Grand Sirenis has upped their standards once against n.