Hotel Grand Riviera Princess — Hotel in Playa del Carmen

We stayed from 07/05/2025 - 21/05/2025 and it was honestly the best holiday we’ve had yet and have serious holiday blues from it. We took this holiday as I lost my dad and Nana and the stress of their estates left me exhausted. We wanted to celebrate our anniversary in peace and we definitely got that.||I’ll start off with the - and follow with the +||Negatives:|-There are people walking round daily with a monkey and parrot asking you to take pictures with them and it’s really sad to see. They do take no for an answer, except once where somewhat ended up snapping at them. We’d rather PAY extra to see the monkeys in the three or parrots flying round not stuck to someone’s arm for entertainment||-Tv in the room have very few channels and although it’s a smart Tv it cannot be connected to the Internet so for English people your stuck with 3/4 random channels which was a little annoying (We had one stormy day so had to spend the day in the room with little to do)||-The Ice cream parlour is for the family club only and there is only the shop to get ice cream from (they weren’t priced up so I dread to think the price when a normal $75pesos Electrolyte drink was $7usd (£5))and the price for day pass is not justifiable for just some ice cream. Was a bit of let down especially being you can’t just go in a buy the ice cream on in its own you have to have the wrist band, especially with how hot the country gets. We ended up walking to the nearby shops to buy there which is money that could’ve gone into the hotels tills.||-This one isn’t the hotels fault as such but there were not quiet pools. With half the resort being closed due to renovations we found a pool that was somewhat quiet until the last three days of the holiday where three different family’s turned up with Bluetooth speakers which quickly turned into a battle of who’s could go the loudest. Just self entitled selfishness, if you want to listen to your music just wear headphones. Why does everyone else have to listen to your crap? It’s cringe when you want peace and quiet but the rest of the pools had the entertainment teams so had music playing through hotel speakers. ||-The pool side snack bar which is currently being used for Mama Mia and another restaurant has a weird smell to it towards the bottom, the only way I can describe it is old rotten boiled cabbage, really of putting when trying to eat. |•Sports bar you have to ask serval people just to get the game you want on and seems to be done via a weird streaming site. ||Positives:|-The grounds are immaculate and see gardeners everyday cleaning the place up. ||-I know this isn’t a pro from most but for me the wildlife was amazing, we saw Coati, Agouti, Lizards, Iguanas and Deers galore. Only saw one baby raccoon to my dismay! It was amazing and I literally felt like a Disney princess. The coatis are very cheeky and will try and enter your room (via the balcony door so always keep it locked ) and take food from your bag so don’t leave food laying round and you’ll be fine.||-The staff go above and beyond for you, we didn’t tip the first afternoon we got the because we didn’t have small enough notes but can honestly say we didn’t notice a difference in treatment, they treat everyone with the utmost respect and like you’re royalty. We cannot fault any of the staff especially at the Lobby bar, made our evenings great.||-Food. I was dreading the food I’ll be honest, all inclusive are breading ground for stomach bugs and sickness. We didn’t get sick ONCE! The food was great and catered for everyone. We especially recommend the BBQ on the beach. It made the other half’s holiday being able to literally spend all afternoon eating tacos. And the product is really good. We ate like pigs but still managed to have lost weight by the time we came home.||-Little to no mosquitoes. Having been to Egypt and been eaten alive it’s somewhat given me a fear of mosquitoes. For the 2 weeks I was there I got bit 4 times and all on the same day I forgot to put repellent on. You can sit on your balcony in an evening and not have to worry about it. I didn’t see a single one.||-They do a shuttle bus into the nearest town where we spent a couples of days walking round -Check out 20th Avenue for authentic Tacos and the Chocolate Museum. 5th Avenue where they drop you off is a strip of scammers and liars (our first time there we’d barely lost the feel of the bus aircon before we got stopped ‘you don’t recognise me but I served you dinner at the resort come check out my family’s shop you don’t have to buy just look’ when asked he couldn’t tell us what resort we were staying at and we always try to learn the names of the people looking after us to which we didn’t recognise him. So be weary of that.)||-Shops nearby, 20 min walk to the left is a 7/11 and Oxxo and 25min walk to the right is a Gomart/petrol station. I got burnt the very first day and needed electrolytes but the shop on site wanted $14usd (£10) for 2 the Gomart had them for like $3usd (£2). We also managed to get a few ice creams too but had to eat them in the walk back due to the heat and humidity. The Gomart also have a hot counter which was great to take advantage of!||-The rooms were lovely and cleaned throughly daily. Fresh towels and bedding everyday, floors swept and mopped even the balcony was cleaned daily. The cleaning staff are the unsung heroes of that place. I forgot to put some of my jewellery in the safe a few times and left on the bedside table. Each time it was still there just moved slightly from the wiping the sides down. The other half forgot his phone one morning and left it charging and again, the room was spotless and his phone still there. So I feel very skeptical about the other reviews that state otherwise. ||-Pools had plenty of loungers to the point where we had one in the shade and one in the sun and there still plenty of empty. Sunbed saving also seemed nonexistent there, we didn’t see a single towel left by the pool at 7am. But I think that’s because there were so many of them.||-The beach looked amazing, we didn’t really get to see it all that much because we went during seaweed season and the smell was off putting but we’d go for the BBQ in the afternoon and take the food back to the pool. Or go down at night to look up at the stars and it was amazing.||-Restaurants were sooo easy to book, we used the app and found you can book same day. ||We went with the renovations fully underway and can honestly say it barely affected us, if at all. We’re honestly thinking of returning once both sides have been done to see the resort in its full glory. This place truly is paradise on earth!||Thank you to everyone at the Grand Rivera Princess hotel for making me feel like...

We have recently come back from a fab 10-day holiday to this hotel, and our first ever visit to Mexico from the UK. I was initially anxious about staying in such a big hotel, but the wonderful layout and look of this hotel is amazing and beautiful (no accommodation block is higher than 3 storeys in amongst tropical gardens): you feel like you are not surrounded constantly by lots of people, but enough not to make it interesting to people-watch lol. We loved the wildlife – an endless supply of coatis which are fab, cute, funny creatures I have never seen before, parrots, capybara, deer – and thankfully not one big ugly insect lol. The Plaza area is great with shops and entertainment. The walk through the complex – the Walk of the Gods – is truly amazing and breath-taking and quite enjoyable once you get used to the length of it lol. ||ACCOMMODATION: Our room was amazingly big (Junior Suite Deluxe Room 6131 - fab quite block) with an amazing bathroom (I love the toilet and showers being two separate rooms), and we loved the quietness but, for such a huge room, but there was no proper storage outside of the wardrobe, e.g. sets of drawers to put our clothes in. There is a small table and chairs and a sofa in the room which we had to use, as well as out closed suitcases, as places to empty our suitcases and put our clean but unworn clothes onto, so all our clothes were just placed around the room making it really scruffy looking and annoying….please get more sets of drawers put in the rooms. I had issues trying to plug in hair straighteners, other electrical appliances, and even the kettle and coffee machine behind the TV as the furniture that the TV is sitting in is right in front of all electrical plugs – so every time I used the kettle, I had to keep walking around the room with a hot kettle trying to find a spare plug to plug it in – not good from a health and safety point of view.||FOOD OPTIONS: You will never go hungry in this hotel……. the buffets are not something we have encountered in the UK (absolutely awesome), so they were interesting and exciting and had a huge amount of choice each day throughout each day – all fresh and regularly replenished. We did find, however and surprisingly, that a lot of the food did not really have much spice or taste that you would assume with Mexican food. We have eaten Mexican food here in the UK and its Spicy all the time! The food is definitely NOT 5, more a 4. There were ridiculous queueing systems which, without any notices of what you were queuing for, got confusing, caused arguments with people jumping queues without realising etc. You can end up queuing for the wrong thing, at the wrong end of a queue, etc – this needs to be sorted out with signage and a better system put in.|SPECIALIST RESTAURANTS: we had difficulty for the first few days in the hotel in getting a table at any of these restaurants. The bookings are done on the app with only 2 days availability : I don’t think during the whole 10 days, we managed to actually get a table at the time we would have liked – we had to always make do with whatever was left for us to take. They have a ridiculous system too where you book a table for a time, go to the restaurant front desk, check in, and then are asked to wait anywhere between 5-15 minutes (even when you are there early or on time) for them to escort each party into the restaurant, only to find that there are lots of empty tables (which were not on the app as available) – weird, crap, inefficient system, as you can end up, like us, waiting in “reception” there with about 15 other people, all hot and bothered and waiting to sit at your allocated timeslot – this needs to be more streamlined and a better system put in especially if you wanting to have dinner before a show in the theatre or to watch the life act, and especially when this hotel is full to capacity with potentially 3,000 guests!||ENTERTAINMENT: The entertainment on the whole was good and the theatre is great with amazing hotel dancers and entertainers putting on a show each night (they are pretty amazing), but we felt that the shows are more child-orientated and the theatre could be left open longer than 9.30 pm but with more adult-themed shows as the kids get lots of entertainment throughout the day and early evening anyway. The Michael Jackson evening was the best show of the whole holiday, so they should try and put on more tribute acts. What is the purpose of the silent disco – lots of adults looking stupid and better entertainment should be put on if you want this hotel to be a proper 5* (it is currently a very good 4). There was a repeat of the same entertainment acts in the Plaza so, if like us staying for 10 or 14 days, you see the same ole acts twice during your holiday doing the same routine with the same songs too ! There is definitely NOT enough seating in the Plaza area for the nightly entertainment – it is such a big space with limited seating which needs to be increased with the potential 2,000 – 3,000 guests staying at this big hotel.||POOLS & BEACH: The pools are awesome and great sizes for good quality swims. As usual, we would have had to go down to the pool at about 6.30/7.00 am to bag the chairs in the shade – so annoying – we could not be bothered to be pathetic and do this; we also had the same issue with the one time we went to the beach – no chairs available under any umbrellas at 9.00 am!! I feel very sorry for those with young children. We found the sea smelt of sewage which was off-putting. We also found the sea bed so rocky (big rocks and wood), that is was very hard getting into the sea and getting out of the sea without my partner lifting me out. Something needs to be done about that before an accident happens.||I would not rate this hotel as a 5 star, but a very good 4 for sure. I would recommend this hotel and hope to be back...

Renovations||Lets get this out the way - yes Renovations are ongoing at sunset side.|Yes, those highly negative reveiws and pictures are people atively taking the WORST shots and peaking through screens.|If you don't pay attention to it, you really don't notice.|Yes some noise if sitting close by with occasionaly power tool but you only notice if focussing upon it and the resort is huge so who can be far away from the works.|Sunset side should be finished by 1st November then switching to Riviera side.||Now, it seems many were not informed of the works prior to booking - hence Trip advisor and the like can be helpful as it helped us.|Our agent was the same - TUI. The renovations work was very much hidden in the small print along with local tax info and only when you had got through to the booking stage. It really should be up front and clear so people can make an informed opinion|and for it not to be a negative surprise.||Everything was open and functional. The only impact for us was nightly entertainment (see below)||Rooms|A little dated now - hence the Renovations but fully functional. We also got a free upgrade on arrival as it was our second year and well we were just being nice at checkin!|Very clean, cleaned daily, minibar stocked daily, fresh towels,linen daily,shower/bath products.|Tip : Point the hand held shower attachement outword - and set the diverter to use it.|Enjoy the Scream as your daughter goes for a shower and tuns it on....|Chukle in amusment to oneself at a job well done.||Wildlife|Deer,Monkeys,Coati,Iguanas the odd grass snake, coulourful birds.||So Coati, last year these were a bit of a meance - just too many of them and there was a poolside Burger/Taco Stand which just created the perfect environment for scavengers. I'm so PLEASED this has gone!! and so has the problem of the Coati going through the bins. Now they are once again cute and not a menace.|Some guests could still be mindul though, some were brining BBQ food back from the beach and leaving half eaten plates about - it just attracts scavaging type behaviours - the Food stuffs should remain in the designated areas imo.||Food/Drink|You are never too far from a bar with a wide selection including Branded spirits.|Tip - Take a Thermos style cup - keeps ya cocktails cold and means fewer trips to the bar and saves on washing up.||Buffets be they Breakfast/lunch/dinner. Wide selection with daily staples and also a daily theme. Service is impecable, your drinks never get to run dry.||Speciality Restaurants.|Some of these have been relocated due to the reonvations but the food is still just excellent and the service I feel has further improved from last year. Easy to book using the hotels own App.||Pools.|A little worn around the edges now - again hence the reonvations. Some pools were closed due to this but with the hotel running at less than half capacity it was no issue.|Team were out daily keeping them clean.||Beach.|Much talk of the Sagassum (sea weed) this year - it has been a longer season for it.|Yes it's unsightly, yes it smells a bit, yes I guess this could put you off if you are a beach lover. The Beach is ver shallow and you can be a good 100m out and only be waist deep. |BBQ for lunch and easy to reach bar.|Tip - Watershoes are recommended.||Entertainment.||There were live bands around the activity pools playing Reggae. Entertainment team providing activities without them hassling you; do as little or as much as you choose.||Unfortunately - the Evening entertainment was hit by the Renovations. The main Theatre is closed - so a small stage has been constructed temporarily. There were very few external shows, with much of the entertainment being performed by the in house staff - Whilst they work hard and were good if you're there for 2 weeks like us it's very repetitive. Clearly increased service around the plaza given the tiny temporary bar now, so many staff taking tableside orders.||What makes this place is the service, everyone is more than helpful and professional and equally you can have a good conversation and have fun.||Many shout outs over the years for their favourite waiters; we had one but also shout out to some others who are may often be overlooked.||Snack (Breafast/lunch) Restaurant - Host/Guest Greeting: Jocelyn.|She was great! So friendly and always smiling! She "Prayed for us" long story!!||Fleur/Miso Bar - Oteneil.|Always prepared our drinks with professionalism and flare.||Fleur - Ricardo.|We only saw him once, but during an incident (another long story!!) he was just Epic!|The most professional and dedication Ive seen for a long time.||Waiter - Raziel. In both the buffets and particularly the Speciality Restaurants.|He was just a great guy. Again very profesional, great to have a conversation/joke with and did everything to make our stay memorable.||Restuarant Floor Manager - I think? didn't catch his name though.||Has a great team, again professional, friendly, enthusiastic - kept putting us with Raziel even when we begged to go else where - What did we do to deserve that! :-)||Hopefully see you again when the reonvations are complete - hopefully things are not too "modern" and doesn't lose it's Character.||Overall Given the reonvations and the efforts made and the very limited impact it had on us - 5*||The food and Service is where it's at though - don't let this...