Bahia Principe Grand Tulum — Hotel in Quintana Roo

We travelled as a family of x2 adults and 1 child (age 11) to Bahia Principe Grand Tulum and we can honestly say we had an amazing two weeks here.||Our room was a junior suite-one of the older, more dated rooms. The old furniture didn't bother us as we weren't in the room for long. It was a spacious, clean room with plenty of storage space and good comfy beds. The private bathroom (the newer rooms have open plan bathrooms which wouldn't be for us!) always had hot water and the minibar in the room was stocked daily with water, beer and fizzy drinks (we left a note to swap out the fizzy drinks for extra water which was obliged). There was a lack of plug sockets in the room for charging devices, using hair straighteners etc but we managed fine. We were allocated a room close to the main lobby, entertainment and pools but if we went to bed early we didn't find the room noisy. The big let down to the room was the air con sadly. It didn't have nearly enough power and at night the room could feel very warm, we did ask them to look at it but it didn't improve throughout our stay. ||We had checked in via the Bahia app 10 days prior to travelling and I'm glad we did as we managed to book into the al-a-carte restaurants 6 out of our 7 allocations. We got the Mexican twice, Brazilian twice and Indian twice (it closed for roof renovation on our 2nd night eating there). We didn't like the menu for the gourmet restaurant (as I have a fish allergy and don't eat red meat so it would've been pointless going there!) and we were unable to book into any of the restaurants at Coba. We enjoyed all 3 of the restaurants and the different experiences they provided. The food was amazing in all 3 and we never felt the need to pay for upgraded drinks as the AI drinks on offer were good enough. Hubby enjoyed the local beer and I liked the house red wine. The main buffet restaurant was also of good quality for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The food was similar each night but there was so much choice you could have something completely different each evening. Our only issue about the buffet restaurant was how slow service and table clearing was. Getting a drink took forever, especially at breakfast. They should consider allowing self serve for water/juice/coffee at breakfast. Some mornings the service was so slow we didn't always get the drinks we asked for. The staff do work hard that is clear but maybe more staff are needed. There are several snack options at lunch, we tried the food truck (11 year old loved the buffalo hot wings!) and the snack bar next to the main pool. Portions are small so we would always just double up if we felt we needed to. ||There are several places to get drinks around the resort, we mainly used the swim up bar (this could get very busy and only ever had one person serving-this needs increased for sure) sports bar and top bar from the main pool. There were some self serve areas for fizzy drinks, water, hot drinks and beer, although these could be hit and miss if they were working or not. We enjoyed trying the different cocktails and mocktails, if there wasn't a cocktail on the list you could ask and they would make it for you. Again we would say service getting drinks was slow and there definitely needed to be more staff to accommodate the number of guests. We did tip if we felt we'd had good service but that didn't really seem to make a difference either way to be honest. ||Entertainment in the resort was constant however our 11 year old didn't go the kids club and she wasn't impressed by the teens club as they weren't allowed to have a drink in there at all. The room was pretty hot on an evening so she wasn't fussed about going in. If there was something we fancied in the day we would join in but there wasn't any pressure from the entertainment team to do so. Evening entertainment is on a 1 week rolling programme. We did pay to go to the Origen show (we paid for premium tickets and felt it was worth it as the show was good) we also paid to go to the Fiesta Mexicana and wished we hadn't of bothered-the food was terrible, nowhere near enough, only fish, beef and pork tacos or chocolate crepes, and huge queues to get it, drinks service non existent and queues at the various bars, the games were good according to our 11 year old and the show was only ok we thought. We also watched the fab Urban show put on in the hotel. As well as the shows we also did the silent discos and daytime pool foam party; both of which we all absolutely loved! ||The beach was suffering from a lot of sargassum when we were there which meant the advertised free watersports didn't really happen, which was slightly disappointing as our 11 year old was looking forward to paddle boarding. She was also unable to use the hotel waterpark as the height limit for the slides was 120cm-this should be made more clear on the website as again she was disappointed she couldn't access the slides etc. We did pay to go parasailing from the scubaquatic centre in the resort, the cost was quite reasonable for this we felt. The saving grace was that inflatables were allowed in all of the pools. The hotel had a little stall full of these so we paid £32 (eek!!) for her to have an inflatable to play on. All of the wee shops on site were very expensive (£8 for a bag of crisps!) the Hacienda Dona Isabel (the commercial centre attached to the hotel) was slightly more reasonable but still expensive we felt. You could barter but not by a lot at all. Mosquito spray was expensive in resort but was definitely needed. I had taken the 'OK' spray and didn't get any bites but hubby who didn't use any spray was covered in bites, as were lots of people we saw. ||The best thing about the resort was how beautifully maintained it was and the wildlife. Our 11 year old absolutely loved seeing all the creatures just roaming around. There were hummingbirds, pelicans, giant hermit crabs the size of a tennis ball (!) lizards, iguanas, coatis, agoutis and raccoons. We even saw a peccary and a paca too! We also enjoyed reading about the conservation of the different nesting turtles on the beach. Our 11 year old also loved being able to hitch a ride on the golf buggies, it was nice to get some breeze on you as you zipped round the resort! ||All in all we had an amazing two weeks at Tulum. There are definitely some areas for improvement, however it didn't affect our overall enjoyment of the resort. We do like to try different places/hotels etc but we would definitely recommend this hotel to our friends and family for definite. Thank you Tulum for a fantastic...

We thoroughly enjoyed our family vacation here. The beautiful lobby welcomes you to a beautiful resort with almost endless options for fun and relaxing. The grounds are well kept and the kids loved seeing wildlife everywhere. Coatis - a cousin of raccoons, along with agoutis (a large guinea pig-looking animal), iguanas and raccoons are common along the meandering walkways. Our 2 two bedroom was near the kids pool on the south side of the property, closer to the Akumal resort. We highly recommend staying near here if you have kids. There are 3 different pool options and the largest is good for adults too. A snack restaurant, bar, playground, and serve-yourself beer taps are all immediately nearby. We never had a problem finding chairs even though the resort was full.

We were also closer to the better swimming beach to the south where the breakers stop the waves. There, the snorkling exceeded our expectations. While the coral heads are bleached out or dead [yes, sad), we were delighted with seeing at least a dozen species of reef fish.

Being where we were (villa 23), the walk to the central building where the buffet is, took about 10 minutes with the kids. You can catch electric trolleys that zoom all over the resort too, but it's hit or miss if one will come by exactly when you want it to. We actually didn't mind the walking back and forth for many meals because....

The food was top notch and the walking was a saving grace from how much we ate!. Highly impressed with the huge selection and quality of items at the buffet, Yukatan. It's overwhelming, actually - after a couple times we developed a strategy for what to get. There's simply too much to list - you can expect many different, yummy options to choose from. We often arrived late at breakfast and despite being one of the last patrons, food was still well-stocked and fresh. As for alacarte restaurants [reservation required), Tequilas was our favorite. It's also a buffet, yet smaller and more tailored around Latin food. Having spent much time in Mexico and the southwest U.S., I'll go so far as to say that a poblano y pollo crema taco, along with their birria (goat) tacos were some of the best I've ever had. Book restaurants as soon as you can, usually 10 days before arrival.

Our room was a 2 bedroom and we found it perfectly adequate. We had partial views of the ocean and they kept the fridge stocked with beer, water and soft drinks (I put a dollar in the fridge each day and upon return would always find it extra stocked. We spent We definitely recommend using the room safes, as we had a minor issue that is hopefully being resolved.

Our kids did not utilize the kids club, but it looked great and we saw them parading around every now and then.

Getting off campus isn't super easy, but worth it to see the surrounding area. The resort charges exorbitant fees to let a taxi in to the reception area. We recommend taking a trolley to the highway and flagging down a collectivo if you are going to Tulum or elsewhere along the highway. We hired a taxi driver for 2 trips. For one, we paid to be picked up at the reception and it cost $130 for 2 hours (6 ppl). The second time, we met them at the highway and it cost $100 for about the same time. Collectivos will charge a small fraction of that but won't take you away from the main highway route. We did WALK to Actun Chen, a wonderful Cenote nearby on the other side of the highway. It was great and only took about 20 min to get to with the kids.

We did walk through the sister resorts Akumal and Coba and while we didn't get the full experience, felt good about our choice with Grand Tulum. We had family at Luxury Akumal and while their room was nicer, we didn't sense much other benefit - they usually came to us.

The reason we take a stsr off our review is our big disappointment with resort continuing to operate its dolphinarium. Mexico passed a law banning them a few years back and while it's a complicated situation it seemed the resort was continuing to operate...

Well, overall a bit underwhelming for a 5 star resort.

Airport Transfers - If you're flying into Talum airport rather than cancun, you'll have the pleasure of taking a cab for +- 160$ US each way. From cancun airport, the airport transfer for 2 people would have been $110 round trip by shuttle. So keep this in mind when looking at flights. We found "Tulum Transport Company" to be the best way to get back to Tulum Airport. Private transfer was $118 US (Zone 3). They were 10 minutes early and easy to deal with.

Food - food is inconsistent. All inclusive essentially means the buffet and x amount of a la carte dinners based on the duration of your stay. Our first day, the buffet tasted pretty much like 7-11 food. 2nd day, it improved. 3rd day it was actually good. Then it dropped off again. Buffet food labeling is a bit of a miss. All in all, far below the 5 star quality i was expecting. Resort uses pepsi products. Note that Mexican Pepsi is also sweetened with cane sugar like Mexican coke rather than the horrible high fructose corn syrup in the US, so no issues there. Surprisingly, some nice soft tacos are hard to come by. The beach truck has the best, but we have experienced a 45 minute wait twice. No real coffee shop on sight - There are 2 machines. No room service offered. No coronas or modelos on site. Pretty much, you have the included dosequis or you can pay for Amstel.

Food UPDATE: tequila restaurant is absolutely fantastic. Best food we've had at this resort by far.

Entertainment - the resort shines in the Entertainment category. All the shows offered are very well done and on par or better than other 5 star resorts i stayed.

Service - Underwhelming. While the majority of the staff is friendly, room cleaning and towel service is great, I found the bar staff and front desk to be fairly disinterested on average. Front desk is a bit hit or miss and some associates are very helpful and others not so much. The wait staff at the buffet tries, but you can tell they're short staffed. Wait staff at the a la carte restaurants is excellent.

Shops - like most resorts, the on site shops are expensive (bag of chips is $10 for example, cheap sunglasses $45 etc). There is a collection of Mexican street vendors within a SAFE and beautiful 5 min walk, as well as a convenient store (Oxxo I believe) which we found to be a much better alternative to the resort ($5 for chips, 4 for cigarettes, 15-20 for sunglasses). You'll pass the street vendors on your way in, inside the gated property. There's alot of them essentially in large tents. The whole area there is brightly lit after dark and has a great atmosphere. Great place for souvenirs (we went 4 times). Pretty much all the vendors take pesos or USD, many also accepting card and apple pay. Note that prices aren't set in stone and pricing varies between vendors, so feel free to haggle.

Safety - very safe, zero concerns. You can freely move around between 3 resorts on the same very large, gated property. Walk or hitch a ride on a golf cart.

Other - no dedicated smoking section, and many people smoke pretty much wherever (walkways, beach, even in some common indoor areas without much consideration - note they are semi open walled. Reason i mention this is that while I'm a smoker, my pregnant wife is not and it bothers her significantly.

Overall ground staff - everyone you encounter while walking around the resort is very very friendly.

Grounds and Scenery: the resort looks quite beautiful with lots of greenery and is very well maintained. You can tell they put alot of work in. Everything is very clean. Bonus points for iguanas and Mexican raccoons. Note, they don't bother you, they're just there.

Bahia principe off-site customer service: second to none. Great...