TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

We stayed here for a quick little 4 night trip for a friends birthday. He picked this hotel and was I very hesitant before getting here since we normally stay with a different chain when traveling the Caribbean. I am overall pleased with the entire resort. We stayed in the Platinum building, top floor ocean view(room 5220). I prepaid to get this room because I wanted to have the ocean view. The beach was a short walk away along with one of the main pools and the platinum pool. On the first night, we met Uriel, who is one of the shuttle drivers that take you up to the main lobby where the restaurants and shops are. He is 10/10 amazing. If you have the pleasure of meeting him, please take care of him. He remembered my name after the first night as for the remainder of the trip. The other big shout out I wanted to give was to Lupita in the platinum section of the beach. This girl MET your energy 24/7 and had our whole group laughing every time she came by. She was very attentive. Our room was okay for the short stay we were here. I will say outlets are limited. We also requested a king bed, and when we got to the room it was 2 doubles and they wound up just pushing the beds together. The beds themselves are a little hard , and the pillows are small. So if you love pillows I would suggest asking for more. In terms of food— Breakfast- we mainly ate at Snack Riviera since it was right next to our building so I can only speak for this one. It was your typical breakfast buffet. To me options kinda seemed limited. And we would get there not long after open and a lot of the food tasted stale. We mainly just opted to getting fresh made omlets. For dinner we dined at miso, one of the buffets, and Mama Mia. We also had a black and white dinner for staying in the platinum area. All our dinners were delicious and I have NO complaints. We left so full we didn’t usually make it an hour before going to the room and going to bed. Overall our stay and the hotel was not that bad. If you keep an open mind and try everything out, and not compare to other places you WILL have a great time just like we all did. Oh PS. The hotel surprised me with a little belated birthday present (champagne and cake). It honestly made my whole trip.

We stayed in a Villa laguna suite on the Grand Riviera side of the Princess resort from Dec 28/24 to Jan 07/25. I use a wheelchair so this review will be somewhat from an accessibility perspective. When we arrived at the resort the check -in was to the right in the lobby and the lobby bar was to the left and the grand staircase was in the middle leading down to the resort grounds and lower- level shops and buffets. There is an elevator to the left behind the lobby bar at the back of the building. This is a large resort, almost a kilometer from the front lobby to the beach but the pathways throughout the resort are smooth and easy to navigate in a wheelchair with one exception, the second wooden bridge on the center pathway. I could go around on the access road at the back of the buildings but I had help to overcome the ridge on the bridge approach so there was no need. The villa suites are very spacious with a large balcony. I requested and was assigned a ground floor room due to my wheelchair (to my knowledge there are no rooms specifically set up for wheelchairs in the Villas, but I may be wrong). The room had a private outdoor shower and a separate room for the toilet. There's a jacuzzi tub in the room and two sinks, one on either side of the shower entry doors. The room was an ideal size for me and my chair but there is about a 7" step down to access the shower from the room and the shower itself has 5" curb around it which you need to step over. There are no grab bars or supports in place to assist anyone with balance issues. I am lucky enough to be able to get out of my chair and walk a few feet so I could access the shower. Stepping over the curb was tricky but I stayed close to the wall for support. The water was hot, and pressure was good from the rain shower and attached wand. The whole room is open concept, so privacy is limited to the toilet closet. The balcony had a ridge and step-down at the sliding door entry so I could not wheel out there without help but I could walk onto the balcony. For someone confined to a wheelchair it would be better to first inquire at the hotel about wheelchair accessibility rooms before booking. The Villa guests are top tier guests and have full access to all the resort amenities including all the platinum facilities, reserved areas and premium liquors. Villa guests get a complimentary spa visit/massage and complimentary daily table service breakfasts at the beachside Chillout restaurant which was very nice. The Chillout restaurant is privately run, independent from the resort, and offers meals at menu prices (Only Villa guests get the free breakfasts) and a beach club with day loungers with bar service. We enquired and the beach club was $25USD per person per day. That gives you a beach lounger and bar service. The meals are extra. It was explained to me that if you had a diner there and spent at least $60USD per person, that person gets the use of the beach club facilities free. But I could have misunderstood. Incidentally, the breakfasts were very good. We did not have any other meals there, nor did we use the beach club. The Beach club may be a cut above in terms of service but the exclusive platinum area on the beach also had lounger bar service and comfortable loungers for platinum/Villa guests only. There are many pools to choose from depending on what you are looking for. Throughout the resort there are quiet areas, noisy areas, children's areas and secluded areas. I recommend googling Grand Riviera Princes resort map to get a good view of the resort layout. I cannot comment on the lounger availability or saving culture because we stayed at the Vill pool. But during our walk throughs we always saw some available loungers but not in the best locations. The early bird rule applies here. The Villas are adult only accommodations and come with an exclusive adult only pool with bar and concierge service. The villa pool is restricted to Villa guests and is surrounded with loungers and palapa beds. The beds require reserving at the concierge kiosk at the pool. We loved this pool. There are only 12 Villas with 4 units each (2 up and 2 down) so the guest total, at full occupancy could not exceed 96. During our stay there was never more than 30-40 people there. The villa pool was never crowded, and fellow guests were very friendly. I also enjoyed not having to run down early in the morning to the pool to reserve a lounger. There were always loungers available no matter what time of day you showed up. The bar served premium liquor and beer. There was no swim-up bar but there was no need. The poolside service was excellent. The server would make sure that your glass was never empty for too long. The concierge was also very attentive, always stopping by to ask if he could be of service in any way. There is also an afternoon sandwich and snack cart that comes around. And the buffet was not too far away if you wanted something more substantial. We had a few meals at the buffets. Pretty standard fair and nothing to write home about. If you are a foody then all-inclusives are really not for you. There are many a-la-cart restaurants to choose from. You must reserve a time either using the princess app (which you can download and use, once you have a room number assigned) or by using the concierge service. We tried most of them. The food was OK. Not spectacular by any means but again this is an all-inclusive resort. We did prefer the a-la-carts off the lobby. There was at least some ambience there. The snack buffets down toward the beach were lunch buffets converted to speciality restaurants in the evening but had no ambience whatsoever. They were a buffet cafeteria by day and a noisy cafeteria by night. The only difference was tablecloths and table service. The listed dress codes are not enforced so you get a nicely dressed older guests (men in pants, bermuda shorts, shoes and ladies in dresses etc.) to t-shirt and flip flop wearing younger guests. Oh well. It's the same thing at most all-inclusives I have been to except for the higher end and smaller adults only ones. Wifi at the resort is hit and miss. Some areas have better reception than others. It can be frustrating on video calls or trying to work on-line. I suggest an e-sim is the better way to go if you want reliable, consistent access to the internet etc. By Mexican law, smoking and vaping is prohibited at the resort outside the designated smoking stations. However, you are always going to get guests who light up wherever they feel like it. If the smoke bothers you, you have three choices. Move, ask the person to stop or ask security to talk to the individual. While we were there, smokers were few and far between. There is a premium area on the beach for premium and villa guests with lounger side bar service but to get loungers under palapas you have to get down there early. The beach is so-so. It has a steep entry but once in the water there are sandbars to enjoy. The beach is also not very wide, so it is a short hop from the lounger to the water. The resort kept the beach clean from seaweed. There is a main square outside the lobby buffets where all the entertainment takes place. There is also an excellent spa, gym and theatre with nightly shows. There are bars everywhere. One of the more popular ones was the sports bar on the sunset side of the resort. I watched football there and had a great grilled panini ham and cheese. The resort does have a scheduled and reasonably priced shuttle to and from Playa Del Carmen. Taxis is a little expensive for the short distance, but you do get to the exact spot you want to go to. The shops in the resort are very, very expensive. If you wanted to buy some clothes, souvenirs, jewelry or even need some meds, suntan lotion, pepto, it would be cheaper in the long run to take a taxi to the Americas mall or Walmart in playa. Finally, I have to say that our stay in the Villas was a very relaxing and enjoyable experience. The exclusive adult pool was ideal for us with great bar service and never crowded. The Villa rooms were clean and very comfortable. The meals in the a-la-carts were OK and the drinks were acceptable. The concierge service was excellent. A note of warning though, if you decide to stay at this resort be prepared for a lot of walking, particularly if you stay in the Villa suites and enjoy the beach more than the pool. It is nearly a kilometer from the Villas to the beach. You can however walk to the outside perimiter road around the resort to catch a shuttle.

Fabulous room for 2 adults and one 16yr old Boy Plenty of room and cleaned everyday ! Food was marvellous plenty to go around , Staff couldn’t have been more kind and hard working , Hotel is massive so if you do not like walking to far then this isn’t the place for you ! It’s a mile from the reception to the beach ! Obviously in between the walks are Beautiful gardens as are the pools !! Downside I will never ever go back in mid July , Big mistake as the hotel was FULL to the brim our mistake , It was more like Blackpool With hundreds of people , Having to avoid people while not trying to bump into them while swimming is difficult or or laying next to your neighbour on the loungers !going to the restaurant was the same , If you do not like crowded spaces then don’t go in July !!

Am now back in the UK after spending Christmas and New Year here. I had many negative reviews and was a little worried, but all in all I felt the hotel provided very good service. Many reviews comment about the great wild life and I will just add to this by saying how lovely it was to see the monkeys swinging from the trees as I walked around the resort. The buffet restaurants offer a wide selection and also have daily themes - Italian, Caribbean, Oriental, Spanish etc. There is a wide choice of different a la carte restaurants but the food in these is good, not brilliant. If you think of them less as a la carte and more of them as Speciality or Themed, then you are less likely to be disappointed. The service in these restaurants is exceptionally good though. I found the daytime entertainment to be limited to the usual bingo, aerobics etc, but the evening shows, live singers, and bands were produced to a very high standard. As a solo traveller I found the sheer size of the resort a little daunting and it took a while to find my way around. Tipping is the norm’ so take plenty of small currency notes. I do feel the need to comment on one of the hotel practices that was very annoying and verging on bribery - if you wanted a decent table at the Plaza in the evening then this could only be done if you purchased a 150 USD bottle of wine! Not good in my opinion!! Other than that was very pleased by the service and facilities.

Our family of five spent a week at this resort and enjoyed our stay. There were some minor niggles, that cost the review a star but overall we would happily go back. The Good The resort looks impressive. The wild life was cool (monkeys, coati, deer, iguanas, a raccoon) The food at the buffets was good, you could always find something you liked. The taco stand by one of the pools was good. The gym was pretty good. Good variety of equipment, though some were out of service. Our room was very nice. The bed was comfortable and the shower was good. The pools and the beach were good. Most of the drinks were tasty and reasonably strong. I favoured the lime margaritas on the rocks. My wife and daughter really enjoyed the mango margaritas. The Niggles Housekeeping was inconsistent. On one or two occasions, towels weren’t replaced or the mini bar wasn’t restocked. A call to reception did get these fixed quickly. Sort of tied to the above, the “Do Not Disturb/Please Make Up the Room” sign fell off our door handle really easily, which meant that it was ineffective at times. I found the poolside pina coladas to be bland. The pina colada I had at the specialty restaurant was much better.