Grand Riviera Princess All Suites Resort & Spa
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Travel Blogs from Playa del Carmen
Tourist Tat Part 1
So we leave Belize and head on a bus to Mexico, we take the express right to Cancun, stay a night or two and head down to Playa del Carmen. Our hotel is nice, cheap and basic but clean and comfortable. It has a pool which we don't use and free wifi and a huge book exchange that we do.
Playa del Carmen isn’t my favourite place, its …
[GOOD] Yo No Sé Mañana
... socialising as I don't want to say no to anything; given that I've just moved here, I need to make as many friends as I can, and try to keep them... Our Security guards at both entrances must honestly think we are crazy English sluts what with the number of different cars/people they have seen driving us in and out of our residential. Pretty funny waving at them and saying goodbye to them each time with a cheeky smile. ...
The Hostel Business
... br>
The one advantage of having the Americans in town was that there was a Starbucks. So we duly sat down in an air conditioned glass house whilst the sun baked the living lobsters lounging on the beach and relaxed talking about dreams and possibilities. It’s great to have time to relate.
Lesson of the day: You really do not have to put up with things that you don’t like.
Book of the day: How to Beat the Americans at Their Own Game by Ivor ...
Whale Sharks at last!!!
... who's idea this was (I'm going to say mine...ahem), but it was a great idea. Not only is Playa del Carmen a lovely town with shops and restaurants and pedestrian streets, it also has nightlife, an incredible beach and, most importantly, a guarantee of whale shark sightings!!
And oh my god were they worth waiting for! 6 weeks up the caribbean coast and i've been disappointed at every turn, but here they were, and out in force! Dozens of ...
Cozuhell
... that day. We had the entire park to ourselves! That would be like closing disney and saying have fun. We did. We had a private sea lion show... SInce I was the only female willing audience member I got to hug a male sea lion. We had a private dolphin tour. We got to use the lagoon and the sea all to ourselves. I even swam out (far!) to see the Jesus Christ and virgin Mary Statue. Amazing! We had the swimming pool as ...
Location
Amenities
- Swimming pool
- Beach
- Restaurant
- Room service
- Business Services
- Wheelchair accessibility
Historical Traveler Reviews Grand Riviera Princess All Suites Resort & Spa Playa del Carmen
NIGHTMARE VACATION
HORRIBLE! We were there during Dec 13-20This resort is not even close to ready for hosting guests! There are problems galore! To list a few we encountered....
1) Mosquito INFESTED! I have over 60 bites on my legs that are now swollen, bruised, itching and burns. There are fountains in front of your rooms that are not operational and acts as breeding grounds for them. Your rooms are cleaned with the doors open, there is no pesticide anywhere nor do they fumigate like other resorts. We went through 2 full bottles of repellent and were attacked so badly that i now have to go to the doctor's now that I'm home.
2) No air conditioning - which means you can't sleep with sheets but then you'll be eaten alive in your room
3) mini fridge - empty......everyday until the day before we left, they decided to come at 8am to fill it!!!!!!
4) Room REEKS like urine
5) don't expect to use the jacuzzi tub unless you want to bate in yellow water with a layer for redish rusty film
6) Staff was NON RESPONSIVE and inexperienced. They would definitely not be able to handle the the resort a full capacity...they couldn't even handle 1/4 of it filled.
7) Asked to be relocated and even offered to pay for an upgrade was told there were no other rooms available...although new guests were checking in.
8) Housekeeping did not have keys to your rooms and so unless they caught you coming in and out - they were not cleaned...and to me it just seems shady that you have to let them in...
9) Unless you enjoy walking A LOT don't book this resort - they do not have the advertised transportation within the resort ready and so the rooms that are available to the lobby is a good 17 minute hike ONE WAY!!! All the restaurants/bars that are available during the evening are also all located there.
10) Beach is nice, but there are not huts or anything for shade and so unless you plan on roasting you're better off spending your time at the pools...which were filthy by the time were were leaving as i don't think they were filtering the water.
On a more positive note....the food is GREAT! That's about it.
Discussed! Very discussed! Stay away!
The hotel is not ready completely...
Here are our experiences:
1.The stuff is not trained at all and just few speak English.
2. No air conditioning in the many rooms. We were relocated 3 times.
3. No water in some rooms.
4. Mosquitoes everywhere.
5. Rooms are not serviced sometimes. (Bring your spare towels)
6. TV satellite sometimes does not work.
6. Resort is for 1000 people we were there when it was occupied with 300. It will be like a Zoo when they fill it to full capacity. They can't handle 1/3 of it. You will not see the ocean when they full and will be standing in the pool shoulder to shoulder....
7. Only one bar at the beach and expect to wait upto 1 hour for the drink in the line up.
8. The 2 bars at pools are servicing the restaurants at the same time and bartender does not go pool level to you for a long time.
9. The stuff is very rude, when you call service desk and do not do anything about your service calls. THe just forget about you.
10. When you call your representative they just say sorry and blame hotel, When you talk to hotel management they blame on your provider that they told them that they have problems.
Can write more but do not want to waste my time...already wasted - money and my family time.
......etc. etc, etc
Very disappointed. Thanks Princess Hotels for ruining our vacation...
Yikes! Nightmare!!
Wow! Just got back from this resort last night and I am left speechless..not in a good way! So many things wrong with this resort, where can I begin? First with the massive mosquito invasion...stagnant pools and fountains of water with no pesticide spraying..totally unacceptable! I am covered in bites from my head to my toe including my face...just in time for christmas! Nothing ever done about this...we eventually plugged all of the vents in our room with toilet paper to prevent them from coming in! The staff in the restaraunts and bars were awesome! Not much can be said for the reception staff and concierge! Awful! Our door to our room was broken for 5/7 days of the vacation...that meant we had to leave our screen door open and access the room from our pool (we had a swim up suite) I was promised time and time again this would be fixed by the rude front desk workers! Mini bar was filled on our last day of the vacation at 8am...not entirely appropriate! As well, our room was not cleaned for the majority of the trip with a few days it being cleaned at 7 or 8 at night...scary considering the resort is nowhere at full capacity! I guess I am even more ticked because no resolution was given at the hotel..I found out that some of the couples that moved resorts were acutally already given their voucher for a free week! Lets just say that I have already been in touch with conquest vacations and the princess chain! I highly recommend to stay AWAY from this resort until atleast 6 months from now...its just a shame they had to ruin so many vacations because they were money grabbing during christmas holidays!~!
Not Allowed To Go
We were booked to go out on Dec22/07 for one week. Because of all the problems, our carrier (Air Transat) will not allow us to go to the Grand Riviera Princess now. Instead they have offered us full refunds, or a stay at the Barcelo Colonial (not my favorite place).
I'm really sad right now that these Princess people haven't got it right for opening. I will never book another Princess hotel again because of it.
They ruined my Xmas trip :(
Very Nice Hotel
We have just returned from our Holidays at the Gran Riviera Princess and we have had an excellent holiday. We did expect more problems in the hotel as you can normally expect in a brand new (openingday was 10-12-2007) complex. And ofcourse there were some problems, but the complete staff is doing everything to solve any problem that may rise. They are working very hard to give the customer what they have been promised.
Our feeling is that when these little "opening"problems" will be completely solved, it will be the best Princess Hotel within the complete chain.
Stay Away!!! Stay Away!!!!
STAY AWAY!!!! STAY AWAY!!! STAY AWAY!!!! This resort is under construction it is an embarrassment. The Princess Hotel chain should be embarrassed to call this `place a Princess Hotel. We are presently stuck here please pray for us. We paid extra for Platinum Service which simply does not exist. There is no such thing as Platinum Service or any kind of Service...it simply does not exist. We just waited one hour and ten minutes in the French Restaurant or was it the Swiss restaurant???No one around here knows it is unbelievable. There was no air conditioning for three days, no such thing as turn down service, no such thing as a Platinum area on the beach, the 41" T.V. is actually 26" there is no premium liquor and the service is soooooo inconsistent that it is completely beyond belief. Tonight we just returned to our room to find a sheet and one blanket on it....that´s right it wasnt even made and there was no top blanket. We have spent over $ 120.00 in tips in just three nights and this is the type of disgusting service that we have received and this is just to summarize some of the issues we have faced. Believe me we are not alone, I cannot count the number of people that have been complaining and families that have been distraught over the past couple of days. I have never ever experienced anything like this in the many many many years that we have been travelling. This resort has great potential and I am sure that it will ultimately be a great place to visit but not now or any time in the immediate future would I recommend this place to anyone. I feel morally and ethically obliged to be forthright with you regarding the present frustrating, sad, deplorable, unbelieveable state of the Grand Rivieria Princess and I would be willing to immediately discuss my concerns with anyone from Redtag.ca, Conquest Vacations or the Princess Hotel Chain but of course they presently have no time to respond to my complaints.