Grand Riviera Maya Princess - Mexico - Caribbean

Just arrived back from a two week stay at the Grand Riviera Maya Princess resort in Mexico, overall an enjoyable holiday.

On arrival the first thing you notice is the building site, leading down to the main reception gate. Don’t be put off by this as you soon realise the sheer scale of this hotel, & that there is no chance of any interuptions. This is without doubt one of the biggest hotels I have stayed in. To walk from the reception area to the beach could take you a good ten minutes. If the Mexican heat was taking it’s toll there were golf buggies you could hitch a ride on.

The hotel is kept very clean, with cleaning staff apparently on hand 24 hours a day. The same can be said of your room, cleaned every day & the mini bar was re-stocked without fail. The rooms were modern in style with a big bathroom, walk-in shower, seperate toilet along with a jacuzzi style bath (which the kids loved). Two double beds, hard but comfortable, with a two seater sofa & walk in wardrobe. The room comes with a balcony or terrace area, & a seperate insect cover for your patio doors. The room had a 26 inch LCD TV, but be warned there is a limited choice for English speakers, just a couple of English film channels.

The food was great, but repetative, they seem to cater everything for people only staying seven days. In the main this was the case, as most of the guests were either American or Canadian. You could not fault the quality of the food, great steaks that filled your plate on their own, good choice of salads & vegetarians were well catered for. The food however could sometimes be luke warm. For kids each evening was the same, burgers, hot dogs, chicken nuggets & sometimes pizza & french fries.

The nights were as in most All-Inclusive resorts, themed: the Chinese night was especially good, & if you fancy something different on Mexican evening you could try chicken with mole! Lunchtimes again were good, various pasta dishes & more kids favourites. Scattered around the hotel were hot dog carts, & on the bar areas around the pool were ice cream machines. Also located around & about were coffee containers, & in the evening there was a boozy coffee stand, which drew many admirers for the flaming alcohol being poured onto the coffee & cream. If you wanted freshly prepared snacks like burgers etc, the American sports bar was available 24 hours.

The hotel was situated on a nice stretch of white sandy beach. The sea itself was surprisingly choppy at times, & the walk in is dodgy if you don’t own a pair of beach shoes, as it is very rocky underfoot. As you walk in there is a shelf so be prepared for a quick drop of a couple of feet or so but once in you can walk out some distance before the water gets waist high. Also, the area for use is marked with buoys so no fear of going to far.

Another good point about the hotel is the number of life guards, they were everywhere. If you enter the sea in front of the lifeguard station & continue out 30 or so yards there are some great snorkelling areas, with plenty of colourful fish - while we were there turtles also came onto the beach.

The pools are big & very warm, with jacuzzi pools place around the site. The deepest pool depth I came across was 4ft so not to bad for kids, but steps were not that common so you had to heave yourself out. One complaint with the pools was that because of the size of the place some areas would not get cleaned that often, resulting in grass & some suicidal insects left floating. Around the pool during the day would be mainly adult activities such as beer drinking contests & tequila volleyball.

The staff were always smiling & helpful, & also very laid back. Felix & Javier who worked in the pool bar around the main activity pool were great fun, & always made the kids laugh, if you like your cocktails then a Felix special can be recommended as well as a “banana monkey” (baileys based), beer was Corona, very nice, and if spirits are your thing, all the well known brands are there, not just the local stuff.

The animation team were an energetic bunch, always on the go. They tried their hardest during the day but at times it was just too hot to be messing around out of the pool. The evening entertainment is again on a weekly loop, so if you see it all in week one you may be slightly bored in the evenings during your second week. The team put on shows, which in the main were miming to pop hits or broadway songs, but the Grease show was good. In the main plaza most nights were traditional Mexican bands & a trio playing a selection of easy listening material, great sax player.

I would definitely visit here again, but probably without young kids. There is a kid’s club, but again the activities seemed to be the same each day. We were supposed to be going to the holiday village at Cozumel, & this was offered as the next best thing, but it fell short in that area.

We did the dolphin trip, however for 4 of us through First Choice it was going to cost just under $900. Instead we went to see the tour operator in the hotel, Best Day travel. Here we got the dolphin experience & all day in the Cancun “wet n wild” waterpark for $360. Be warned though if you do a dolphin swim or experience, the cost of dvd or pictures is high. We had the dvd which cost $60 & lasts only 9 minutes.

Our time at the Grand Riviera Maya Princess was enjoyable, but the hotel was only half open, with numerous restaraunts shut due to staff shortages post swine flu. Also despite being only half open & 40% populated the restaraunts did struggle to keep up with demand at times. It would be interesting to see how it would cope if all 1500+ rooms were open.