TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

We arrived on 30th August from UK for a 10 night stay. It's our second visit to this hotel. We have previously stayed in grand Palladium Punta Cana twice and also the one in Costa Mujeres. We love this brand. It has everything you could wish for on holiday. We stayed in Kantenah non FS room. Our kids in a room next door. I had previously emailed the hotel as I wanted a quiet room, it was our honeymoon, so hoped for a king bed. Unfortunately we didn't get one but the son's did lol. We could have changed rooms with them but the door bracelet wouldn't have worked. We were contacted by TUI beforehand to mention the work in white sands. As we'd been here before we realised that it's quite far from Kantenah so decided to stick with our booking. So glad we did. We saw nothing of the work, we went up to white sands for a couple of a la carte restaurants, it was all sheeted off , so no work could be seen. Our room was lovely, mini bar stocked with beers every time we drank them. Didn't have any of the pop. Weirdly only one snickers,a bag of crisps and nuts. So had to them. ?? The hotel grounds were beautiful. The beach beautiful with hardly any seaweed at all. We walk the beach right up-to the TUI blue and the beach at grand palladium was the best. Buffet restaurant we used mainly Hacienda, Ricardo was out waiter on a few occasions and he's amazing ?? Ala carte restaurants we tried were Argentinian, Brazilian, (ok but not our favourite) Adelita Mexican was closed for refurbishment but they had moved it to the beach, it was a gorgeous setting, food and service was good, even when gale force winds arrived out of nowhere, the staff were great at organising everything. Italian, well we loved the service in there and the food we all had was good also, so we went 3 times. Cocktails we found were a bit hit and miss, made different at each bar and depending on who made them. Beer was good for the most part. Better in sports bar. The pool at colonial is large, too deep for most people to stand . Impossible for me at 5.ft3 loads of sunbeds and the water was clean and good temperature. Weather was mostly great apart from a few downpours mainly on afternoon. Night time we always seemed too tired to stay out late , but we did see one or 2 shows , very good. The jersey boys were good also. One night they had a Mexican evening with stalls, food and a motorised bull . It was lovely. Didn't like the horse they brought on though, it looked like it was going to flake out. It's tongue was hanging out poor thing. All in all we had a fabulous holiday. Didn't want to leave. I Could go on and on but you'd only get bored ?? hope you all enjoy it as much as we all did.

Wow! Where do I start. The show was amazing. The food was delicious. The show was done by Efrain - “woop woop” if you know, you know! What a pleasant funny and entertaining man. Made everyone laugh and feel at ease. Jesus our server was absolutely lovely and ensured we were as comfortable and our glasses were never empty! Introduced himself to everyone at our table and was lovely, helpful and such a lovely person. The food, wow. Fried rice, and meats was gorgeous. Really high recommended. Thank you so much to you all - beautiful evening x x

Very Mixed bag of a Hotel Resort Positives The Hotel Grounds are lovely, large and very picturesque, We averaged 25k steps per day. The main pool is huge and the beach is a short walk with showers all around. The renewed Rooms in Kantenah are to a finished to a high standard but do have questionable plus and shower control placements. (You have to step in to the bath to turn it on/off) Most of the staff are lovely and helpful Negatives Hotel shop is extortionate, a snickers was $10 and Sun cream can be up to $40 for a small tube. There are no towns or shops close so they know you have to pay if you forget anything. Food is mediocre at best, all seems to be from a central Kitchen. Buffet food is the same as whichever of the Restaurants that are open on the day, With Restaurant food just being re presented buffet food for the most part with few exceptions. Management is awful, No information is given on facility closures which can happen randomly, While we were on holiday almost all of Whitesands was closed with loud construction work, The main buffet closed and the secondary lunch buffet then also closed. The Spa had work going on which was also very loud. We were advised of work and some closures a month before the trip but found many more once we arrived, We were advised they were a minimum and would not impact our stay much, This was a flat out lie Works are major and loud as stated and clearly viable with many workmen/vehicles around. Some of the staff will literally ignore you or actively make snide comments in Spanish,, Fortunately this seems to be the minority mainly pool bar and sports bar. Overall the Hotel is currently not good value for money and I would avoid if you can, While not awful you will find much better options in the same price range.

We just came back from this hotel a few days and I would go back tomorrow if I could as it has been amazing from the beginning to the end. I have a few special mentions for the team at the Kids club and I want to say to each and one of them thank you so much, you made my daughter's holiday and birthday great and special! Thank you Emma, Brian, Jessi, Karen, Lorenia, Gaby, Maggie, Alejandro. They made her birthday special by singing to her and bringing her gifts. They were always joyfull and nothing was too much for them, I totally appreciate their hard work! Moreover, I want to mention the housekeeping team which are so lovely and talented ?? thank you Yacdaly and Wilma (room 4516) who made our stay even more pleasant by making swans and monkeys our of towels on my daughter's bed and they also brought flowers and leaves and arranged them so nicely on the bed! Thank you ?? The restaurants that we liked the most were the following:La Hacienda ( thank you so much to Ricardo Avila and Juan Carlos Tamay- great customer service, you are a super asset for the company, you have been absolutely great), The Japanese, The Argentinian and the Thai. We didn't like the Brazilian too much as there was too much meat with no vegetables (just not my cup of tea). We stayed in Kantenah which was the best out of the 3 resorts at the time as white sands was closed for renovation and Colonial didn't have same facilities and was not so close to restaurants as the other 2. This was the best holiday of my life so far and I would recommend this hotel to anyone, I couldn't find a fault. The shops within the complex are ridiculously expensive and the stuff are just oblivious when you ask a question, but this didn't affect my stay. The beach is out of this world and the sea water was really warm and calm. We had a trip to Tulum one of the days where we swam with the turtles, swam in a cenote and visited Tulum itself- this was booked at the hotel with a lovely lady called Carmen and it was $380 for 2 adults and a 7 years old child. Also, the staff at the Sports bar were really nice and there is this lady (I believe her name was Carmela) which ran after me as I forgot something on the table) - she is one of the most genuine persons I've ever seen and she gave me a really nice vibe, she was lovely! Thank you, great customer service

Do not be put off by bad reviews. We had the most wonderful holiday here for 7 days. The whole journey from leaving Manchester to arriving in our room was a breeze. Check in was prompt and easy. The room was clean, very modern and the bathroom was decent size with a huge shower and bath. The room was cleaned daily and the mini bar stocked up. There were so many staff all over the hotel, always cleaning and helping guests. Yes it was busy and we had to wait at times to be seated to eat, but that’s normal for such a large hotel. The golf carts were great to get about the three hotels. The beach was gorgeous, if you’re a fan of snorkelling…..don’t forget to bring your kit as just off the beach is great to see some marine life. The hotel shop is an absolute rip off so don’t forget your essentials! You can however get a taxi into playa del carmen, they will drop you for 3 hours and pick you back up. It’s worth the trip as its such a lovely place (just avoid walking down by the beach the smell is still in my nostrils due to the seaweed). The pool is clean and well maintained and the staff put on lots of regular games/water aerobics etc. The swim up bar can get quite busy though. Onto the food. The buffet was a good selection, always fresh and staff checking temperatures on cold items etc to ensure they are fresh. It did however get a little repetitive with eating in there most days, but all in all very good. We only took advantage of 2 al la cartes…….I unfortunately found a hair in my steak which put me off, but if that’s the only down side of a week in Mexico…..I’m happy. So in a nutshell….we had a great experience and I would definitely go back to this hotel.