Grand Panama Beach Resort by Emerald View Resorts — Hotel in Panama City Beach

In all honesty, I wish I could put NEGATIVE stars. My family and I have been staying at the Grand Panama Beach Resort for the past 4 years. It WAS our go to place, but not anymore. After this year we will be finding a new place to spend our summer vacations. There are many reasons that contribute to this decision. First thing, we arrived around 1:30-2:00 like we usually do on check in day. We always do this and collect our parking passes and wrist bands for the pool and swim until around 4:00 when it’s time to check in. (Check in times can range any where between between 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm ..which we are well aware of) We spent a few hours at the pool then received a notification on the hospitality app around 4:03 saying our code was ready.. there was no code attached to this notification. So we waited a little longer before we called customer service to check on it. At around 5:15 we began calling the customer service number that is found on the hospitality app. After multiple attempts we could not reach anyone. So we waited around a little longer and tried a few more times. After numerous attempts we finally got someone on the phone. Apparently the reasoning behind us not receiving our code yet was because “no one showed up for work to clean the rooms and they had 100 check outs and 100 check ins to take care of.” Which of course we completely understand. But what I DON’T UNDERSTAND is the rudeness and smart remarks made by the customer service reps who are answering your phones!!!! So we wait around for another two hours and finally after calling the number another 20 times , we got someone on the phone... AT 7:30 PM we received the code to our room . (Check in times are between 4:00-6:00) So we head up to our room at 7:30 after having 3 kids and pregnant woman out in the heat for 5.5 hours AFTER a 6 hour drive. As I said before we understand stuff happens. We understand that being short staffed is a thing. We understand there are mix ups. No one is perfect and stuff happens. SO ... we finally get to our room.. as soon as we open the door we’re greeted by dirty linen piled knee high in front of the washer and dryer.. there’s trash everywhere throughout the room. Sand EVERYWHERE (not the normal small amount of sand that’s damn near impossible to get up) THERE’S PILES OF SAND THROUGHOUT THE ROOM. Neither of the beds are made. Both bunk beds have dirty sheets. The pull out couch still has the dirty sheets on it pulled off and folded up in the pull out couch. Dishes are still dirty in the dish washer. Groceries from the previous occupants are still on the counters and in the refrigerator. Tv stand and end table filthy. Sand all in the bath tub. Kitchen table dirty. Hair all over the master bathroom. Stove was disgusting. We immediately call the customer service number. Of course we had to call 10+ times to get someone on the phone. Once we got someone we were explaining the problem. My husband was explaining to the lady that we spent over $3000 and to come into a room that way was ridiculous. She rudely says “no you didn’t.” Which really didn’t sit right with me. She then tried to take it back and said “I wasn’t talking to you” when she clearly was. We all decide to leave and go grab food while house keeping came in to get the room clean. We arrived back at the room around 10:15 and housekeeping was still there cleaning. We didn’t get settled into our room until after 11:00. There was a plumbing problem in the master room. We had to flush the toilet multiple times to get the tissue down. After spending over $2100 for a condo, $700 for a rental car, $120 on gas and $200 on groceries and tissue for the stay we were extremely upset with all the issues we encountered and how we were treated. We will definitely find somewhere else to stay. I would rather pay extra and lose the discount than to deal with...

Let me start by saying that I NEVER leave reviews...but feel this one is necessary...so please continue to read...I am going to address the resort and then the specific condo. I will begin with the 20.00 fee that you have to pay to park...but they fail to mention that you have two entire towers of people splitting parking...so good luck when you leave and need a spot upon return. It literally kept us in the room most evenings bc we didn't want the hassle of fighting to park again. The resort offers two umbrellas around the entire pool...so good luck finding shade from the heat. Be prepared to wait extensive amounts of time on the three elevators offered in tower one...and if you use them first thing in the morning, you will be riding with the housekeepers who drag garbage cans and bags of garbage on and off the elevators with you. The bathrooms around the pool have no ventilation so it feels like you are suffocating while using the restroom...and ill mention that i walked in to the women's restroom to find a man working on the toilets (wouldn't flush) and didn't have a sign or tape to let me know he was occupying the WOMEN'S restroom. Ridiculous!! But now onto the condo...which could have easily made up for all that I've mentioned with the very basics....but even that was too much to ask. Our condo, 1104, had a washer and dryer combo that we used to wash sand from our clothes. The problem being, the dryer made such a loud squealing noise we couldn't use it without waking up the entire floor. I called maintenance who sent someone up to look and stated he would be back to fix it...FIVE DAYS passed and nobody ever came back. I called them every day asking for them to come and nothing more than empty promises of call backs and no shows. The condo smelled of must and rotten food (partly from garbage disposal). Outlets either didn't work or sparked when plugging electronics in. Good luck finding lightbulbs for the ones missing in the lamps. The patio furniture on the balcony has definitely seen it's better days...and was lacking. There were three chairs to go with the entire table set and were broken down. The main sliding door was broken and wouldn't latch, so the hot air seeped in all day/night. The curtain rod was hanging out of the wall in the master bedroom and made it tricky to slide the door open without pulling it down. The master bed has probably been used for a decade by the looks and feel. You hear and feel springs pop as you lay down or roll over. There is one very thin comforter (probably used to be a down comforter 10 years ago) and nothing more. We literally went and got blankets out of our vehicle to cover up with at night. And...as if this all wasn't enough...EVERY SINGLE BED including the couch bed...had sand in the sheets before we ever laid down...which led to question if the sheets were clean. Again, us washing would keep the floor awake, so i mentioned on my call Panhandle. I was told i would have extra linens brought up...NOBODY came. Now, let me make this clear...i called every day that i was there and made them aware of everything...and nothing was done. I have followed up since returning home, in hopes of some type of reimbursement after this fiasco, but have been waiting 6 days for a call back...with multiple messages left. Again, i'm not the type to leave reviews...but it is my hope that this initiates some changes...or if nothing else...saves someone from wasting their vacation...

Disappointed in quite a few aspects of our time at Grand Panama. Let me expound: Upon arrival (the verbiage in our contract says "check-in is at 4 PM") We were told upon arrival that check-in "begins" at 4 pm but our room may not be ready until 6 PM. Difficult to have a car full of 5 kids & plan your 6 hour trip to arrive as close to 4 as possible to then hear you may need to sit & wait for another hour or two until the room is actually ready. I waited in the check in for 45 mins and then we waited another 45 mins for our room to be finished. So, we were able to get in our room at 5:30.

I'm not sure the actual numbers so this is just an exaggerated statement, but it seems this condo has 400 units but only 200 parking spaces. Finding a place to park often times would take 10+ minutes & a pretty good walk.

It also appears that Grand Panama has 400 units but only a dozen or so luggage carts. Couple this with the difficult parking & the hr and a half wait before check-in makes a less than stellar start to our vacation.

The next part of the adventure are the elevators. In their defense, I believe every large condo has similar issues regarding easily getting up & down to & from your room. Ways I wish Grand Panama would look to improve this would be to have temperature controlled elevators (these elevators were extremely warm & stagnant). In addition, the waiting area for the elevators were also extremely warm - box fans or ceiling fans would make a HUGE difference.

The cleaning crew used for our specific condo needs to be audited/secret shopped. I am positive multiple corners were cut & our unit was a 5 out of 10 if 10 is perfectly clean. Two of the beds (one being the master) had clearly uncleaned comforters that were pretty gross. The master comforter had 4-5 white stains on it that I prayed were sunblock that had dripped during application. Another comforter (kids bunk bed) had a terrible smell of vomit & had to be washed before our kids could sleep on it. The bedding on the pull out couch was so bad we just removed it completely & washed all of it - in addition, when we pulled the sofa bed out we found a very nice Samsung tablet lying under the couch. We plugged the tablet in to charge so we could potentially locate the owner & let them know we found their tablet. We were able to get the owner's phone number & gave her a call. We fully expected her to be the most recent rental before us - however she said her stay was 40+ days ago and she had called Grand Panama and left a message letting them know she left it and never got a call back. (We mailed it to her ourselves.) That means no one had opened & cleaned behind, under, or replaced sheets on this pull out bed for WEEKS and people had obviously stayed there since we had to wait outside the room for them to finish "cleaning" it.

Minor issue, but why does the condo not have a dust pan in the closet? There was a broom but not dust pan. Seems like a silly thing not to have available.

Many nights we found ourselves staying at the condo because of how awful the elevators, & parking would be if we went out. Reserved parking for each unit would be AMAZING & is what we've experienced with other condos in the past.

Overall there were many issues that would keep us from ever staying at the Grand...