Bahia Principe Grand Coba — Hotel in Quintana Roo

The management staff and transfer ruined my entire stay. They don't care about their customers at all. I've never experience anything like this in all my years travelling. This is a long one folks, I do apologize but I want to make sure people do not let this happen to them when going here. At the end of the long winded rant, I will review the actual hotel. |I booked my hotel transfer through the hotel, I email the hotel. I was assured that transport was offered and available. I provide all the info that was needed, the payment went through and came off my credit card. I was also provide a confirmation email with details about where and how to meet the driver. I arrived in Cancun on Apr. 26th, 2025 and to my surprise I had no transportation to my hotel. We meet the drivers from Coming2 (the hotel transport company), they told us we were not on their list, they even showed us our booking and it showed cancelled. The man even told us to take a picture so we had proof. We were left stranded at the airport. It was getting late in the evening and we were left with no choice but to take a taxi! I had to pay $298.86 CAD for a taxi, when I had already paid for an airport transfer! We arrived at the resort late, our check in was already done online so it was pretty smooth other than they tried to put us in a 1 king bed room when I book 2 standard beds. From the very minute that we were able to do our check in on the app. all the al a carts were full and guests services said they couldn't do anything about it, we were never able to book any dinners. Normally this wouldn't have mattered as much, but since the taxi took all my spending money, I wasn't even able to leave the resort and do anything else. We weren't provided with a bottle in our room that our booking said we would have. When we mentioned it, they brought us a bottle with a ripped and torn label that looked very old and gross. We left it there and didn't open it. The next morning, I spoke to guest services about my airport transfer as I was extremely worried we wouldn't have a ride to the airport when it was time to leave. Guest services said they wouldn't help us because the transportation was a different company and not through the resort. Well, ALL of my communication has been only with the resort so that makes no sense at all. We went over and spoke to a rep with Comin2, we called someone on his phone and let me speak with them. The lady I spoke with confirmed on the phone that our reservation was not cancelled and that this issue would be corrected and I would be refunded for the taxi. She sent me an email while still on the phone and said to submit my taxi receipt to the email, which I did. She also said that she would be calling me back. We did not leave the resort and I had to leave my phone on (adding additional international charges to my bill, when I could have left it off), waiting for her to call. No one called. Next day, same thing, left my phone all day, no one called. I even emailed that same email 3 more times asking for someone to acknowledge it, no one did. On our last day, Wed. Apr. 30th, I went to the booth again at 9am and asked them to confirm what time our pick up was at. Once again, we were not on the list. I explained the whole situation again to the man (David), David made a phone call, put it on speaker phone and the man on the phone said " your transportation is not cancelled, you will be picked up by Amstar, as soon as he said that, David took the phone and spoke in Spanish. I don't know what was said after they spoke because David hung up the phone. David said there was a mistake in the system and the booking from Coming 2 did not go through their system but don't worry he will fix it. He could not give me any other information, he said he would call me or what's app me when he had more info. A few hours went by and I had not heard anything. I went back, he said he needed more info from me (why he didn't call or whats app me like he said he would, I don't know). I gave him all my info again, my flight number, departure time, everything. He still couldn't give me any info he said come back later. I explained this was our last day, I spent the entire trip dealing with this, we haven't gone anywhere or been able to do anything and I didn't want to spend my last day stuck doing this all day, he said there was nothing he could do, he had to wait until his office gave him information and I had to come back. I went back to guest services and asked for a manager, the lady kept explaining that there was nothing they could do and the manager was just going to tell me the same thing. I still insisted on speaking to a manager. She told me to come back at 11:30. I came back, the manager "Cynthia" came out, immediately she was not polite at all. I said " Hi, how are you", she responded with "yes, I remember you and I told you to speak to those guys, we cant help you". I explained that I had spent my entire vacation dealing with this and trying to make sure I wasn't sure I wasn't stranded at 3am when I needed to leave and no one would help us. I explained that they had taken my money for my transfer, I spent all my extra money on the taxi, wasn't able to do any of the things we planned because of that, I had no money for taxi back to the airport, some one here needs to do something. She said " what do you want from us, we cant do anything it is not the hotels problem". I had to ask her to stop speaking over me, I had to tell her that if she would listen to what I was saying she would realize that all the things she was saying to me was inappropriate and wrong, I showed her the emails from the hotel for the transfer and the email sent to me for the taxi receipt. She then went over to talk to David and of course they spoke in Spanish so I couldn't understand them, she said" he told me he didn't give you that email", which I stated again, you wont listen to anything I have said to you, I did not say he gave me this email, it was the rep two days ago, had you of looked at the email I was showing you, you would have seen that. David told her it was their fault and not something that I had done, she then said she bring the information about my transfer to my room once they had it and after the amount of times she told me the resort has nothing to do with this, we cant help you, she wrote an email on a piece of paper and told me to submit my taxi receipt to that email, it was customerservice for Bahia!!! Because I had lost all trust in their staff, I did not wait for them to bring me anything. I went back three more times and was still given no information. I knew Davis was finished at 5pm, so from 4:30-5pm I sat at his station waiting. Finally at 5pm he looked at me and said "3:20".... I said what is that? He said " your pick up time". My friend asked him for a confirmation and a name and he said no, you have my name and I am confirming. We said, we weren't excepting that after dealing with this for 5 days, ruining our entire trip dealing with this and speaking with multiple people and getting no answers. He finally agreed to let us take a picture of the confirmation and the confirmation was our ENTIRE BOOKING! From when we arrived to when we were leaving. David acted like he was doing us a favor by figuring this all out when really it was these companies mistake not ours. I truly believe that I had I not of been so forward with him on our last day, we would not have had a transfer home and we would have been stuck there. This was a terribly disappointing trip, I will return to Mexico but never to another Bahia. Now, the resort itself, the rooms are very spacious and a great size, but they are damp. The beds are damp, your cloths will be damp. Housekeeping was wonderful, the buffet staff, the bar staff, pool staff, and front desk are wonderful. Guest services, Management (Cynthia), and Transportation services are terrible. The buffet food was fine, some of it was very good and some was standard, you wont starve by any means. The grounds are clean, the pool is great. The only entertainment we saw was the rock show and it was good. Unfortunately, my entire stay was over shadowed by all this so I cannot give a fair review on anything else here. I am back now and still getting no response from any of the emails I was given and my next step is speaking with credit card company and fighting all of these charges. With all of the proof I have collected from emails, to the recorded phone calls and pictures of the staff...

I guess there is no option for Zero stars because if there was that is exactly what I would give this resort. I am confused by the people reviewing it and saying anything above 2 stars. We are not unrealistic people or picky but wow.

One of the main issues was the food. The food was beyond disgusting, we felt like everything was reheated, old, tasteless and hard to get down. By the end of the trip we didn't think we could eat another bite. We do not expect gourmet food by any means and do not eat anything exotic but even the standard food (pizza, nachos, fries, pasta, etc) was terrible. To make it worse when we arrived we went to check the availability of booking a restaurant (A La Cartes) or two for our stay. Every restaurant was booked for our entire stay so we were unable to book anything. . Often we would go for meals and sit there for 15 minutes before we could get cutlery or a drink of water ordered. I think they are understaffed because the staff were running around non stop.

Our room was in very rough shape. The beds were hard as rock, dirty and very dated. The mini fridge was properly refilled for maybe half our stay. The towels were half replaced every day, we sometimes had face clothes and sometimes did not. We would often not have our empty kleenex box replaced. We were shocked at the lack of effort made by the cleaning staff. Very half assed work. Another note (I do have a video on my phone to show) but there was a room on our floor where staff kept their cleaning supplies, linen etc). Never was the door closed or locked. If someone walked in (like a kid) they could have gone down the linen shoot which went down 3 stories). Shocking.

When we were dropped off at our room when we arrived the first night it was just after 3 am. Our bellboy brought us outside our villa, emptied our luggage on the ground and said we are on the third floor and laughed saying there is no elevator and took off. So I had the pleasure of dragging all our luggage up. When we went to leave it was pouring rain in the morning and when the cart driver arrived he loaded up our stuff. The cart had no sides on it and the seats we got to sit on were soaked.

I'd also like to mention that the cart drivers are absolute maniacs. They just rip around the resort brushing past walkers. The stress of having kids here knowing the drivers could have cared less was scary. They had no intention of stopping if a kid happened to run in front of it. Unreal drivers. Even being on a cart you held on for dear life.

All of the pool chairs were in terrible condition, never cleaned and often covered in bird crap. Never once saw anyone cleaning the pool decks or chairs.

Caution tape all over the place warning of different issues and never saw anything fixed while we were there. Clearly this place is severely understaffed. My wife noted that the one female washroom was missing a door knob and people could see straight in so it was often jammed with paper towels for privacy. It was like this the entire stay with no signs of any effort to repair it.

We went to 4 evening shows in the Theatre and although the shows were quite good the condition of the theatre was revolting. There was bird or bat shit (or both) absolutely everywhere. All the chairs had it on it, the ground was covered, the stairs were literally disintegrating. More than once I got up and bird crap on my clothes. We would have to strategically decide where to sit so we didn't sit in bird poo.

The resort grounds were in terrible shape. There were huge holes all over the place in the grass, many ground covers (like ones for sprinkler systems etc) did not have covers. The walk ways were crumbling and it's shocking that ankles are being broken daily here.

It took us most of the trip to figure out the beach. Once we did we spent 2 mid mornings down there. The trolly drive (although scary drivers) was ok. The beach is very small and we had little option with our resort to what we can do or use. Note there is also no food available at the beach.

Do...

Honest review in short, this was an amazing experience and I would gladly stay here again. The staff, the food, and the entertainment were all great. Now for a little more detail. The CHECK IN experience online was a bit complicated. After having read other reviews, i knew it was important to check in 10 days prior in order to book reservations for the ala carte restaurants. The initial code given in my receipt didn't show my reservation on the app. After a couple of days of sending emails and making phone calls we got that sorted out. The STAFF (including the wait staff and entertainment) were all fantastic. My kids and I were shocked that every single person we gave our name to remembered us after the first meeting. you get the feeling like they have known you for years. Our ROOM was average and included two twin beds and a single futon style bed which worked out perfectly for myself and my two kids. there was a mini bar and coffee/tea station stocked daily. We had a walk in rain style shower and plenty of sink counter space in the bathroom. Our room even had a dehumidifier which was nice but had to be emptied every 8 hours or so but well worth the small inconvenience to have a dryer and cooler room. The beds were comfy enough and our rooms were clean and set up well. A couple of personal preferences I recommend for traveling to anywhere not just here, bring an extension cord with multiple outlets as many times there are either not enough plug ins or they are inconveniently located in the room. Also, we purchased 40 foldable hangers on amazon that packed nicely in our luggage, and I was glad we did because there were only about ten hangers in a big closet The FOOD...wow. The first time we walked into the buffet dining area, I thought we might be in the wrong spot. The wait staff all had pressed white aprons, tables had linin table clothes and linin napkins, wine glasses on the tables and cocktail of the day table waiting upon entry. The buffet itself had fantastic food options including fruit, dairy products, bread assortments, and plenty of delicious protein options as well as a variety of local cuisine. It was certainly better than most all-inclusive restaurant buffets we have been to in the past. As far as the ala carte restaurants I was so worried about booking, they were ....meh. They were nice experiences, but I didn't think the food was anything special to be honest. I was much happier at the buffet where I was able to pick delicious options and didn't have to worry about making reservations. The ENTERTAINMENT was pretty decent. We went to a magic show, a rock concert, and a circus in the main theatre (open air) and went to several karaoke and dance parties at the courtyard area. All were pretty fun and entertaining for both kids and adults. The PROPERTY had beautiful flora and was kept very clean at all times. The pools were nice and always had some form of entertainment happening. We personally never had a problem finding chairs in the shade, but I had heard this was a problem at the other two associated resorts (Tulum and Akumal). The beach has its issues with seaweed but it's not as bad as i have seen at other resorts in Mexico due to the small wave breaker they have so that was nice. It was a great area to snorkel due to the large assortment and high volume of fish in the area. Be advised though, bring your own snorkel, mask, and swim shoes. Like many of the beaches in the area, there are a lot of rocks that can hurt your feet and you only get one hour of snorkeling per day from the little beach activity station. As stated above, this resort beat all of my expectations after dealing with the online check in process and we will most certainly return. I would recommend this resort for families with kids of any age, looking for a great value resort with wonderful food and extremely accommodating staff that wants to make your vacation a...