Before I start, I'd like to express that despite this being a slightly negative review, the complex itself is really very nice. We stayed at the grand and were instantly impressed with the easy check in and friendly staff. The foyer is very fancy as is the entire main building. Our room was spacious and clean, every room has its own whirlpool which we used a couple of times and is a nice feature. The balcony was spacious and had a pretty comfortable double bed on it. The beds were a little small being a standard double and they were also quite soft, which might be an issue for some. The bathroom is spacious and the shower nice.
The grounds of the complex are very well looked after and the grass is soft and luxurious. There are a number of wild animals that freely roam most areas, which we loved, there are raccoons that are pretty brave, you might see one or two stealing the left over room service plates if left outside the room door. There are also some delightfully cute animals called a coati these have huge stripy tails and you'll see them digging out ants around most of the pool areas. There are multiple signs warning of alligators but we didn't see any.
The water park is really good fun, there aren't huge numbers of slides, but the ones there are are good fun, they also have a flowrider which was great fun, not easy and can leave you with a few bumps and bruises, but it's worth the pain.
There are so many pools to choose from you lose count, especially as when staying in the grand you can use all the pools in both the Nizuc and Sunrise, i would avoid the main fun pool in the grand, it's a nice pool, but the entertainment is shocking, they play snippets of good songs but are forever blasting out sound effects that totally ruin the atmosphere, we were forced to abandon it on day two, the adults only pool is very cool and plays some great music, gets busy though, get there early. We never struggled for a sunbed and the hotel has a no reservation policy of sunbeds which is good.
The evening entertainment was really good, Britney Spears was great as were the magician and the mind reader, the stars of the show though were Micheal Jackson and the wonderful Smirk, the Halloween experience, it's just awesome, one of the best things we've done in ages.
The restaurants. This is where the review splits in two. If you're a meat eater you simply cannot go wrong, the steak restaurants are superb, there are loads of cuts to choose from and you can eat there anytime you please so long a you book, there are loads of other restaurants Mexican, Italian, burgers, grills, Japanese, Lebanese, pizza, the list goes on. BUT if you're a vegetarian you're likely to be very disappointed. The menus throughout the hotel have so many meat options, but so few veggie ones, my wife and daughter had to eat pasta nearly everyday as there were so few other dishes on offer.
The staff are generally brilliant, really smiley and friendly always really happy to help, there were a couple that really stood out, Martin in the buffet and the Cusco was such a nice guy who couldn't do enough as was Edwardo at the Cusco pool. All staff, but particularly these two were a credit to the resort.
All in all a great experience, but one that would have been made way better with a bit of of a tweak to the resorts vegetarian menus.
