Grand Palladium White Sand Resort & Spa reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

4.0 Very Good

  • Cleanliness 4.5
  • Location 4.5
  • Rooms 4.0
  • Service 4.0
  • Value 4.0

7299 TripAdvisor reviews

TripAdvisor users rated this property 1 out of 5

Ongoing construction and room cleanliness

D K (San Francisco, California) on Dec 06, 2024

Beware of the reconstruction of the entire pool area. There is constant construction noise and they put you in rooms that face ugly construction fences. Of course, they will not warn you about this ahead of time. Also, cleanliness of the rooms is suspect. We even sent them photos of huge amounts of dust on our bed headboard, and they did not take care of it during our entire week-long stay. Pretty poor.

TripAdvisor users rated this property 5 out of 5

Another Great Stay at Palladium

wendyi (Calgary, Canada) on Dec 05, 2024

Sitting in the airport waiting to fly home so figured I’d write my review. This was our 7th time visiting GP. We were in building 59 White sand section. We were aware of renovations taking place at White Sand and had no issues with it. We don’t typically hang out at the white sand pool anyways as we prefer the livelier atmosphere at the colonial pool so it really didn’t affect us. It was a bit of a further walk to the lobby as the short cuts were blocked off by the construction but we didn’t mind the walk, if you wanted a lift there were tons of carts around to take you. Overall food was good and as expected for a budget friendly all inclusive. Our favourite buffet was LaDahlia. It’s a bit smaller and not as much selection but it’s not near as busy as Colonial. For a la carts this trip we did tennpanaki, Brazilian, Italian and Argentinian. The best food was at the Argentinian but the service there was bad. We waited an hour for our appetizers. The best a la cart service we got was at the Italian restaurant, our server,Hipolito, was so attentive and so nice. Best cocktails were of course from Jedi at Churchill’s and best lobby coffees were from the white sand lobby. We arrived on the 25th and although we were there for American Thanksgiving the resort never felt overly busy. We had no issues finding chairs together even in the shade. The towel game wasn’t being played here. Still tons of wildlife. We were lucky enough to see the monkeys again this trip. If you see my buddy “Freddy” the cat that lives outside building 59 give him a treat for me. We’ve been buddies for a couple of years now and he’s always there to greet me and follows me back to my room most nights, we don’t let him in our room but he does try. Our room was cleaned daily and we always had lots of towels and a full fridge. No issues at all with our building or room except the power flickered off a few times on two separate nights. Service was great all around. From Ernesto at the concierge desk who helped us book a birthday reservation for our friends, to Jedi and Fernanda my favourite bartenders at Churchill’s. Also our server at the pool I feel terrible I cannot remember her name. She was great she had the mojitos coming everyday! Other shootouts to Hector at the Japanese restaurant and Hipolito at the Italian restaurant. At LaDali Kathya greeted us each morning with a huge smile and was always so welcoming and our waiter, unfortunately I cannot remember his name I think it was Eugene or very similar to that. He was always chatty and aided us with our mediocre Spanish by teaching us a new word or saying everytime he waited on us. We also spent a day at the spa. We had a couples massage with Syndie and Carmen and they were so good and we spent most of the day at the hydrotherapy/ pool area and lounging in the hammocks. Highly recommend it. It was very relaxing. Overall it was another great trip. Not 100% perfect but nothing is. We are already planning trip #8!

TripAdvisor users rated this property 5 out of 5

The sole reason I will be coming back.

Charles E (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) on Dec 04, 2024

Amazing service at the Bahia and La Paisana bar by Alexis and Michael. I made it a point to only drink at their bar. They are amazing here and the food is very good. They treated my son like one of their own and made him non alcoholic drinks to make him feel special.

TripAdvisor users rated this property 1 out of 5

PEOR HOTEL Y EXPERIENCIA.. NO VAYAN

alejandra b on Dec 04, 2024

La peor experiencia en un todo incluido!!!!! Cuando llegas no te dicen que todo en este hotel está cerrado. Te mandan a la piscina en Kantenah que está COMPLETAMENTE llena por sus propios huéspedes… si estás celebrando algo olvídate, Concierge nunca te dará un servicio adecuado.. Solicité una amenidad complementaria y por 4 dias seguidos tuvieron el cinismo de decir que estaba agendada para esa tarde…nunca llegó a mi habitación. Ah ni siquiera intentes conseguir una reserva en ningún restaurante “a la carta”.. es imposible… los restaurantes buffet LLENISIMOS que la fila le daba la vuelta a las esquinas parece mercado o nose… Alexa de recepción primero con una no muy buena actitud me dio una “solución” con todos los inconvenientes, era hacer el check out a las 2pm… así que fui a la playa y cuando regresé a mi habitación (a las 12:40 más o menos) OH SORPRESA.. NO PUEDO ENTRAR así que tuvimos que caminar de vuelta OTRA VEZ a recepción para pedir algo que se suponía que sería una solución a sus problemas... al final ni siquiera pudimos disfrutar de nuestras 2 horas adicionales porque todo se arruinó con su incapacidad para abordar o manejar la situación. NUNCA VOLVERÍA, no les importa la atención a los huespedes(porque platicando con otros que conocimos de Inglaterra opinaron lo mismo!) . Solo le agradeceré a HUMBERTO en el restaurante porque fue el único que atendió felizmente a sus huéspedes... 4 días de "escapada" se convirtieron en una experiencia realmente horrible aquí. No vayan. —— worst experience in an all inclusive!!!!! When you arrive they dont tell you that everything in this hotel is closed. They send you to the pool at Kantenah which is COMPLETELY full by their own guests… if you are celebrating something forget about it, concierge will never give you a proper service.. I requested ª complementary amenity and they told me 3 days in a row that it was arranged and was going to be delivered at Noon… it never arrived to my room and they has the audacity to tell me each single day that that day was going to be delivered.. omg dont even try to get a reservation at any “a la carte” restaurant.. it’s impossible… but they dont mind having a queue that goes around the corner like you where in a market or idk… Alexa from front desk gave me a “resolution” with all the inconveniences, it was getting a late checkout until 2pm.. so I went to the beach and when I go back to my room (at 12:40 ish) OH SURPRISE.. I CANNOT ENTER so I we have to walk back ONCE AGAIN to reception to ask for something that was supposed to be a resolution to their problems……… at the end we couldn’t even enjoy our 2 extra ours cause everything was ruined with their in capability to adress or manage the situation!!! WOULD NEVER GO BACK they dont care about their guest I will just thank to HUMBERTO at yhe restaurant because he was the only one who happily serves to their guest …. 4 days “getaway” became a truly awful experience here. Dont go.

TripAdvisor users rated this property 3 out of 5

**** UK Visitors **** Honest review.

intruder3906 (West Yorkshire, United Kingdom) on Dec 04, 2024

This was our 5th visit to this fine resort but 1st since covid.. What a difference a pandemic makes.. We always book a junior suite with whirlpool bath and kingsize bed anywhere BUT ground floor, on our last visit in 2020 after check-in the bell boy took us to our room.. ground floor, disabled room, single beds and no whirlpool bath !! they did after much arguing give us the room we wanted, so this visit we were ready for a nice room but once again they tried to fob us off with a room with 2 x single beds and an already made up sofa bed !! why do they try this on with us again ?? Once again after an exhausting 18 hours traveling all we wanted to do was shower and rest but yet after another 2 hours messing about we did get the room we booked ... Not a good start.. After staying up as long as we could to aclimatise we hit the sack around 11pm, to be then woken up by a group of Canadians at 2am deciding to continue partying on there balcony in the room above us until 5am.. we also had next door neighbours partying until 3am.. This happened 3 nights running then thankfully they went home... That sorted now the resort itself had renovations going on to the pool and lake at white sands which I have to say didnt affect anything except we lost an ala carte restaurant... The lobby bars at all 3 resorts were good, especially at the Kantenah and the drinks were excellent but service very very slow compared to previous visits. Ala carte restaurants now have to be booked via an app (which rarely worked) and mainly the concierge who told us the app rarely worked so every morning we queued to to book restaurants.. Last visit you could just rock up and wait for a table.. not now... We did visit all available ala cartes over the 2 weeks and had some ok food and some not very nice food but the difference since previous visits was incredible.. Portofino the italian restaurant first week was really nice, perfectly cooked ribeye steak service 10/10, but 2nd visit the ribeye had a large bone !! and the rest was grissle, to add to that we had the waiter who was the Mexican hide and seek world champion, and after the initial 10mm of wine he poured into our glass that was it until we went to find him to ask for another "Splash" Most peoples favourite the Brazilian was ok, no vegetables this year just your starter and then the meat, they had sausage , beef, cremated chicken, brisket and i think pork.. after having a sample of each the waiter told us that was the last visit !! so what are the green and red indicators for ? The meat was very poor quality and lots of fat and grissle, the cremated chicken was just that cremated when i said to the waiter are you kidding me he just shrugged... so much different before covid. I wont bore you with the details of the other restaurants other than to say the Buffet was by far the best food, but the queues after 8am or 8pm were ridiculous and at least an hour wait for either sitting.. Most ala cartes were half empty as you walk past and we were told by one of the very few English speakers that most found other jobs with other hotels once layed off during covid so what we had now was alot of trainees, and alot less staff due to the renovations and because of that they were taking less guests per evening hence the concierge/app only bookings. The pools are fantastic and not overcrowded as many suspected, fantastic for families as this looks to be the direction the hotel is going after the transformation of the Kantenah and rumours amongst staff is that more family orientated changes are on the way.. The secret pool or quiet pool is where you can get away and read or relax, which we did a few times, until the mob handed groups arrive once they have got up and decided this would be ther place to party for the afternoon and the peace is then shattered..poor barman could do nothing except feed them tray after tray of drinks so they didnt have to move from blocking the steps to the pool where they perched for the afternoon. fortunately this only happened a few times.. The beach has now lost quite alot of sand and is strewn with rocks which makes it difficult to navigate a nice walk in the surf, the best part is in front of the kantenah if you wish to get in the sea and swim, beautiful warm water and far less rocks than colonial or white sands.. Saw the monkeys and a large array of wildlife which we love to see and the flamingoes are beautiful.. On the whole this much needed break was ok at best, we expected it to be like it was on our last 4 visits but sadly it fell way short, they wont be another visit from us but having stayed at most other resorts on the Mayan Riviera I can honestly say the Palladium is still the best but definately no where near a 5 star anymore. Please feel free to message me any questions for an honest answer but bear in mind we are from the UK and you will get that perspective..

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