Grand Residences Riviera Cancun - All Inclusive — Hotel in Puerto Morelos

We do not recommend booking here. Pros and cons: Pros: Ride to the hotel was booked from the airport, process was very smooth. Nice, roomy SUV and driver was friendly. Check in was easy and we got a tour of the hotel.

Hotel and facilities were good quality. Pool was always clean. Beach was set up with chairs, umbrellas, and towels, with beachside service for ordering drinks and snacks.

Wait staff were very attentive, friendly, and accommodating. I added a tip for all of our meals—in addition to the service fee included as part of the all-inclusive price—because we always received good service.

Drink selection was good. Lots of top shelf liquor as well as beer, etc. It’s a shame we aren’t big drinkers.

Cons: Food was mediocre, which was really disappointing because we booked this place for the food selection. The first night, my girlfriend got violently sick, probably from the dinner we had.

A few of the dishes were particularly bad. We got Tres Leches—a traditional desert—which came in a jar with pieces of fruit jelly on top. We also got ceviche on the beach which looked a little scary, but it was apparent that it had been cooked beforehand. At least we weren’t worried about food poisoning…

There were rotating international dinner themes, all of which were just ok. The French night was probably the best—we ordered steaks. There was live music that night as well, but they weren't very good. We appreciated the effort though. Relatedly, the wine selection was limited. They offered only 2 reds. The Merlot was pretty decent. The Cabernet was bad.

Nothing was great. The food was pre-prepared and the ingredients were used across multiple dishes. I feel bad commenting on this because it’s probably near impossible to cook everything fresh to order, but this place touts itself as a 5-star resort, so this aspect of our experience was disappointing.

In a particularly obnoxious incident, on the third morning we were awoken by a phone call from the concierge at 9:00 am. He asked us about our plans for the day. When we seemed unsure, he offered us a free couples massage if we came down to enter into a raffle. When we got to the lobby, we were asked a series of personal questions—how old are we; how long have we been dating; what’s our job; where do we live, etc. At this point we began to feel uncomfortable but before we knew it we were whisked upstairs for a 90 minute sales pitch for timeshare properties at the hotel. Thank God my girlfriend spoke Spanish and got us out of there before we signed anything and sat through the presentation, but only after the 'salesman' got extremely defensive when we tried to leave—he kept directing his questions to me (in Spanish) knowing that I couldn't really understand, which also felt deliberately disrespectful to my girlfriend. He was acting as if he was above speaking with a woman. It was just a very sleazy bait and switch move and we felt uneasy the rest of the day. And it goes without saying, we were never actually offered the free massage.

After that ordeal, we felt uncomfortable with scheduling any sort of excursion through the concierge service. Though, given that this resort is a bit further down the coast from Cancun, there wasn’t a ton to do in the direct vicinity anyway. If we had stayed longer we may have planned to visit Tulum or Playa del Carmen.

On one occasion, my girlfriend called the front desk to ask whether we could use their laundry service. She was transferred and then hung up on. She called again thinking it was a mistake; she was hung up on again. Just a bizarre interaction that felt personal after the whole timeshare pitch incident from the day before.

We were told that the items in the fridge were part of the all-inclusive deal and would be restocked daily. The fridge was never restocked other than replacing a couple of sodas we drank.

Overall, we enjoyed our time sitting out and reading on the beach for a few days, but it was an average experience and we’d definitely look elsewhere for accommodations if we decided to visit...

Update: The reply from Grand Residences is full of b.s. and deflection, including a MASSIVE LIE about the disruption to alcohol service around the pool during our stay. That reply is absolutely FALSE - the disruption was not a simple issue of time of day. It was literally a 100% full denial to serve alcohol around the pool on May 31st and June 1st due to elections in the area; guests were told 1 day prior. Photo attached.

I begged my husband for two years to return to Grand Residences, and the trip was nothing but disappointment after disappointment. This was our 5th Wedding Anniversary trip and it was absolutely ruined.

1. Staff kept disrupting our stay with repeated mistakes of ringing our suite when they should have been ringing the bell of another suite. I had to call to complain.
2. Maintenance had to be requested more than one time to fix things in the suite that should have already been fixed.
3. Pool side staff gave excessive favortism to time share owners and neglected everyone else for extensive amounts of time. I had to get up more than once to go request assistance from a pool boy or flag down a waiter - even had to walk down to Heaven Beach Bar to ask where my husband's hamburger was when it hadn't arrived after 30 minutes.
4. Time share owners air very nasty grievances about GR to non-time share owners. We were told that GR has been losing money for years and that Royal Resorts must take money from other properties just to keep GR afloat and operting. That staff has been cut back and that's why service has declined and takes forever (Armando refutes this, but there definitely seems to be a lack of staff). If it's not lack of staff, it's lack of care for anyone who isn't a time share holder. Supposedly time share owners are taking Royal Resorts to court over the guests who come as "points people," and the time share owners hate the points people because they come for free, lower the quality of clientele, and never return after their freebie stay. The promises of building the expansion phase of rooms and another restaurant is a constant lie at the time share presentations, and it has been a lie for over ten years. I don't see why we should continue to frequent GR and potentially become time share owners in the future if the property is going downhill.
5. The restrictions of alcohol service around the pool for two days which violated the all-inclusive package that we paid for. If there is to be a federally mandated disruption to services that will diminish the package being booked, IT MUST BE LEGALLY EXPLAINED ON THE WEBSITE AND EXPLAINED AT TIME OF BOOKING! It was lack of transparency and deception, and just expecting guests to suck it up and accept that they would not be receiving what they paid for. That is purposeful fraudulence!
6. GR knew of incoming bad weather and did not have maintenance prepare the property or the rooftop patios of the penthouses. At 3:45am of our last night, the bad weather caused patio furntiure above us to slam around and continually get worse for hours. I have phone recordings of the slamming. We were entirely unable to sleep and I had to call twice to complain. They had nothing but pathetic excuses about "shift change" and it took them 50 mins to rectify the slamming - which was finally done at 7:15am, and entirely pointless in trying to get a night's sleep before we were scheduled to checkout and fly back home.
7. After receiving nearly $3,000 for an all-inclusive booking, they still had the audacity to expect us to pay nearly $400 of final room charges at time of checkout (an off-site excursion, purchases in the market, and tips to staff). Although we kept hearing the words, "We want to make this up to you," "How can we make this up to you?" there literally was NO offer to make it up to us, not even waving the final room charges as a show of remorse. Just a distasteful offer that they would "make it up to us" if we decide to give them another opportunity in the future. They just want their money and they'll give you lip service with no follow...

I was so excited and just all around prepared for this resort because I knew it was top notch and everyone just said the most wonderful things about the resort. Check in was smooth. We decided upon arrival that we wanted to upgrade to a nicer room and the front desk accommodated our request. Our first lunch was outstanding. Maybe it was because we were hungry but either way it was fantastic. I will point out that EVERY SINGLE PERSON in each of the restaurants and bars go above and beyond the call of duty. Jose & Emanuela (I hope I spelled that correct) were perfection. They met us on day one and greeted us by name for the rest of the trip even when we didn't eat in their respective dining stations, which was fantastic. Our room was in the 500 building (529 master suite with a rooftop pool and hot tub). When I say this was the best room ever it truly was. The best views of the entire ocean at every corner. We could have sat out there all day and slept in the chairs all night if we could have. My husband and I were happy at our very own pool and hot tub that we stayed there most of our days until we felt like leaving. We used room service for most our meals except breakfast and one lunches and one dinner. All the food we did have the pleasure to eat was fantastic. We met with the Food and Beverage Manager as well as the head chef one day for a private dinner for my husband’s birthday. Both gentlemen went above and beyond the call of duty for us and the food was exceptional. I feel horrible I didn’t remember their names but those two men were amazing. Kudos to both of them. The only negative was our room on the last night. We needed to move to another room the last night since our upgraded room was rented on Saturday night. Moving to the 2nd room was seamless and easy and we didn’t mind since it was our last full day and we were going into town for the day. This is where the only problem we had came from. We were in 301 the master suite and unfortunately we had bugs. Not one or even ten or twenty, hundreds of them coming from our vent at the stove and all over the kitchen countertops. My husband and I never thought to check this room because we were sold on the cleanliness of the resort since check in so why would think anything could happen. We were wrong. We called down to the front desk and they apologized and sent up the manager on duty Alejandro and a security guard Daniel. Alejandro made it seem like the bugs were just there due to it being Mexico or because of the fruit the resort had on the table. As soon as we moved the exhaust fan hundreds of bugs came out. Even Daniel’s eyes started to bug out. It was disgusting and we both questioned if the room was actually cleaned in the first place. This was supposed to be our original room too so that was very concerning. Alejandro seemed as if this was messing up his night and could care less. He told us to call Caesar who is his boss the next morning when we were at the airport to let him know about what happened if we wanted any compensation back. Daniel cleaned the entire counter top and most of the kitchen. I felt so bad for him because I am sure he didn’t think he was going to do that on his shift. Alejandro just stood there and barely said a word to us. We chose not to switch rooms since we were leaving in a matter of hours. The bugs which were ants with wings never really stopped coming from the hood of the stove. Our guess was whoever used the stove prior to us coming never cleaned the area and the infestation happened. Luckily we only had the room for a night but I wouldn’t recommend Alejandro for a management position. He definitely didn’t try and help the situation not one bit. I will add my husband did speak with Cesar a few times the day we left and the day after and he was helpful and pleasant. He cleared up a lot of things for us and for that we are grateful. However Alejandro never told him what happened the night before as he promised us...