Grand Fiesta Americana Coral Beach Cancún All Inclusive Spa & Resort — Hotel in Cancún

I have stayed at GFACB twice previously and twice again this month so I consider myself a fan and a proper expert by now. :)

This is a quality resort, family luxury. The photos don't seem so impressive because it's old & a little dated in decor. But once you get here and you experience the people, the quality of food, & that TEAL BLUE WATER you'll understand why they charge a premium to stay here. The resort has a lot of repeat guests for a reason.

*The GOOD

The bellstaff provided me with the most lovely welcome. Mauricio showed me my room & explained the details and stayed to chat a bit. That kid is going places.

The food here is excellent. I love how they have two concepts for each cuisine downstairs: Asian (teppanyaki) with reservations inside the restaurant and sushi without reservations outside....etc. I loved the steakhouse (x2), the Italian, the Mexican especially. Shout-out to the following food service staff: ABIGIAL (buffet) RONAULDO - JOSUE - ANGEL (Tori) MIGUEL - ELIAS - ANA - FRANSISCO/Paco (Chianti), VALERIA - RAMSES - DIEGO - MICHEL (steakhouse) FERNANDO & CARLOS (Isla Contoy) especially AZAEL (La Joya) for one of the most beautiful and memorable meals I've had at a resort.

The beach and water are stunning! They have jetskis out in the water and I could watch them all day long. The fresh flowers in the lobby are beautiful.

I love the entertainment during dinner (sax player, dancers, mariachi!)

Housekeeping is perfect and turndown service is nice. I love that they have snacks in the mini-bar.

I asked for Abigail's section in the buffet & they remembered when I came back to stay again a week later and offered to seat me there. That was impressive! Abigail remembered my name even after the time apart and greeted me with a smile.

(Breakfast buffet is delish. Tourists are gross!)

They have both Coke and Pepsi. I don't think I've ever seen that before. More importantly they have a coffee shop and ISMARELDA knows how to draw a Snoopy in chocolate sauce.

I love that the restaurant choices are on a huge "newspaper" instead of an app.

DID I mention the VIEWSSSS?!

The BAD

Service is a little "off" & extremely slow. Once at breakfast and once at lunch I left the buffet without having received my beverage (even water). Lunch at Na Kaax & Isla Contoy are super slow. One day it took us almost 2 hours for lunch at Isla Contoy and we didn't have a morsel of food for the first hour. Steakhouse was so good but so slow.

I cannot stress enough how GOOD all of the food is. Some of the dinners had a drink of the day or welcome cocktail.

Nighttime entertainment is scattered around the resort rather than in a theater. The noise really carries and it is VERY noisy in your room if you want to sleep anytime before 11pm. Karaoke could be fun but during my stay anyway it was all in Spanish.

This is a kid friendly resort: LOTS of kids and not necessarily well-behaved kids. I saw three tweens literally wrestling on the floor next to the dinner table (while mom and dad scrolled their phones), screaming toddlers all over, kids running in circles in the halls & around the dinner table. To be fair it's late August and Americans are in school so these seem to be local families. Not that US kids can't be BRATS but this is a circus.

I had a couple of issues with mechanical in my room. The first toilet had a push button which required super-strength to flush. I had big water leaks in my second room (twice) but the maintenance people were super-responsive and handled them immediately. The age of the resort really shows in these ways but they were minor in the scheme of things.

The guy who answers the room service phone seems to hate people but the spaghetti is worth the call. Room service delivery people are lovely and polite and prompt.

This resort has one of the best kids' clubs in the region. I didn't need it this time but if you are traveling with kids you'll be delighted. As much as I love love love this resort and feel at home here I think next time I'm traveling without kids I'll go...

BEWARE. This is NOT a 5 star hotel.

The website images are misleading and the hotel is under serious disrepair. The front desk staff is quite rude.

Do NOT waste your money. This hotel has done an effective job of being on “best of” as opposed to delivering quality service. Many other all inclusive are higher end and a better experience for families.

This has been a disaster from the start. Our flight was CANCELLED on 12/24. We called the hotel to tell them that we couldn’t get there until 12/26. We spoke to the manager (Antonio) even. He wouldnt move our dates by two days. (Mind you I called separately to ask if they had availability and they did) The manager actually hung up on us while we were calling him from the airport to explain the situation. We were going to stay the exact same amount of time just two days later. They made us book a separate reservation to cover the two extended days and wouldn’t refund the two days we missed due to American Airlines Christmas Eve disaster. We will have to file a claim with our credit card company to get refunded. They has the ability and availability, but wouldn’t. I understand the need to maximize revenue for a business, but bad experiences and disenchanted customers affect businesses much more…

We should have just booked a different hotel. When checking in my two toddlers were in full blown tantrums from being hungry and tired. The person up front told me he couldn’t get us into a room because my husband wasn’t there yet (stuck at airport). After I broke down crying with two babies they finally said I could check in. The room was a disaster. (Room 455). Beware for anyone getting booked on the 4th floor.

We got to our room and there was paint dripping from the ceiling. The whole place smelled of paint fumes so strong and I have two young kids with me. It’s been storming here the whole time and they have rugs lining the halls due to the ceilings leaking. The phone in the room was broken so I couldn’t even get a call to front desk.

We finally moved rooms (which they told me at check in weren’t available) and it hasn’t been much better. The door to our bathroom doesn’t close. Everything feels damp in our room. The room doesn’t get cold. The minibar is a joke-It has two bags of stale plain lays chips and a pack of Oreos. The elevator sounds like you’re going to plummet to the floor.

The service is seriously slacking compared to other all inclusive hotels. The food is sub par. There is a buffet that’s open early but the facility is old and dirty. (Picture of how dusty the railings were) The railings that my kids were holding were dusty and had hair on it. The whole hotel is in need of upgrades. The pool is cracking. I just feel like it wasn’t clean compared to hotels with the rating it has. Not sure how it has a nice rating.

You can’t get anyone to get you anything besides bottle water by pool if you’re lucky enough to find someone working before 9:00 ish. They say food and drink service opens at 11:00. When 11:00 hits they will say 11:30. Same with the restaurant by the pool they say 12:00 then they say 12:15 ect. It’s difficult to get reservations to the restaurants. Maybe due to holiday season but only late times with two young kids isn’t doable.

Not good for super young kids (toddler age) the kids club is for older kids. Doesn’t open until 11:00. Do they have kids??? We’ve lived 3 lives before 11:00. Then they said you can join younger kids (under 3) at the kids area from 10:00-1:00. Kids had fun so that was the first positive but again the outdoor area didn’t feel clean. Many of the photos online are inaccurate and outdated, the hotel has said that the hurricane caused damage, but has yet to update what people are reserving. Some items just don’t exist anymore (Splashpad for littles as an example).

pros: the beach area (while small) is beautiful sand. Some of the hotel staff is friendly(which is expected at the very least) and food service is relatively fast once you’re able to order- but that’s about it. Do yourself a favor and...

This property is NOT a 5 star. It’s more of a 3.5-4 with some elements of a 4.5 star. For reference, we always stay at the Fairmont, Mayakoba and thought we would try something different this time as we booked the trip a week before. We also have a four year-old son and read great reviews about the kids club and various kid friendly activities throughout the resort. I understood that the property was not brand new, but reviews said it was well maintained. I feel that we went in with realistic expectations.

Before the vacation even began, my husband, noticed that we were charged twice for the hotel on our credit card. They did a duplicate transaction for the exact same amount of $2083. Our bank Chase flagged the transactions and eventually reversed one. I went as far as contacting the hotel two days before our arrival to confirm everything looks good on their end, the person from the call centre reservation department confirmed this. We booked the hotel directly from their website . Upon landing in Cancun, my husband received an email from the hotel saying our reservation was canceled! Not a great way to start off a vacation especially at a new property. I spent the next 45 minutes on the phone with their call centre reservation department but They kept telling me we cancelled it!!! How could I even cancel a reservation that was paid in full in advance and non-Cancellable?! Eventually, the phone cut out and no one called me back. We were not greeted by the front desk in a very helpful manner. We even showed them our credit card transactions from our banking app to prove what happened. I spent the following hour up at the front desk, trying to deal with this. They were telling us the same thing that we cancelled it and had no notification of our payment. I have attached a screenshot of my credit card transactions to show what they did and that the bank rebilled it allowing one to go through. They eventually said that if we paid a deposit, they would give us a room key and try to figure out what happened. I complained and expressed my frustration so they did give us an upgrade to a bigger room which we were appreciative of. I thought it was warranted considering it’s not the way anyone wants to start this experience.

Later that afternoon/evening, our key cards were cancelled and someone was power calling my husband’s phone from the front desk. Upon arrival he demanded that we pay the full amount plus $100 US more if we want to stay at the hotel. They kept claiming that they didn’t get the money from our bank which felt like a major scam! So now we are paying $100 US more for the entire transaction. At that point I was over it so paid it and thought I would have to call my bank back again and get them to cancel the rebill they allowed to go through. Based on this experience alone, I would never return here or book anything with this hotel chain again. One would think that the hotels website is most legitimate and the best place to book, but I guess not.

Service- really good considering I don’t believe it to be a true five star. Staff does work very hard. I would like to say that Samuel, the server in the beach area was superb and did an exceptional job! He always made sure we had cold water and often came to check on us throughout the day. Everytime I saw him, he was always working very hard. We appreciated Ricardo helping to set up an umbrella for us everyday. It didn’t seem that a lot of people here were tipping. When someone works really hard the least people can do is give them something extra which we always did. But we saw some people acting very demanding and entitled to the staff when asking for things.

Food- was not five star, I will be generous and say it’s closer to 4 star. We stayed 5 nights and were sick of it by the 3rd or 4th day. The buffet has too many options that are not good quality. The drinks were ok.

Crowd is very mixed & “all inclusive ish”. There were some drunks at the kid friendly pool swim up bar towards the end of the day. Not my vibe.

Beach was nice! Rooms...