Grand Palladium Select White Sand Resort & Spa - All Inclusive

The food was not good because 99% was pork and alcohol and we can’t eat that

La Dalia and Tikkal Breakfast had nice variety and decent service. The Colonial, White Sand, and TRS areas were beautiful, the pools were wonderful, and the "hut" look around the whole campus transports you to that tropical feel you want when you're visiting a resort. There were a few workers who were very kind and answered a lot of questions. We had access to most areas around the campus, which was nice.

General food and service: The service during other meals at Dalia and Tikkal was lacking. We had to get up several times and find a worker to ask for drinks. Our first day at the White Sand pool, we had to hunt someone down to get drinks at the swim-up bar. The breakfast at Helios was a glorious spread, but there were flies everywhere and nothing was chilled. The rooms smelled like mildew. Booking problems: We had SIGNIFICANT problems booking the room through the Wedding planners for our friend's wedding. The trip was in August and we started this process in February. In February we were sent a link to use a credit card to pay, but we ended up trying 4 different credit cards and hours online with my credit cards to make sure it wasn't something on my end, but the link never worked. By May, nothing had worked, and I was getting extremely stressed about buying flights, so I booked on booking.com so I could ensure that my friend and I had a room. The Wedding planners charged us an extra $200 to enter the Wedding for not booking directly with them. 2 beds: Through booking.com we specifically booked a room with 2 beds, I wrote a note about 2 beds in the booking request. When I emailed the wedding folks about our change in how we booked, I reminded them that we wanted 2 beds. When we arrived I reminded them of 2 beds, and they didn't have that ready for us. We had to wait in the lobby only for them to let us know there was nothing available, so my first night I had to sleep on a pull-out couch. They were able to find a room for the remaining nights but we had to check out and check back in. When we went to check back in, I said, "2 beds, right?" and we were told to wait a minute. We ended up waiting an extra 1.5 hrs. They gave us massages and VIP access for having to wait but no acknowledgement of how stressful it was to book in the first place. I've been to other resorts on the Riviera Maya and this was definitely the worst.

Price/value

Lots of renovations Closed buffet areas Lots of workers Not enough variety of food Not good quality of food The property overall is big and confusing Confusing signage to find locations Not enough shuttle between places

Staff was very polite. Conciergerie is available until late if needed. Swimming pools were really good. Beach with seaweed cleaned regularly. Beach is private and away from vendors. Spa was really good. Gym facility was well equipped, clean and staff very polite. Hotel is enormous so many restaurants and places to visit during your stay. There are shuttles available for transportation to other hotel facilities.

Hotel app doesn't work well so all special dinners needed to be booked through conciergerie. Food quality wasn't good at all in most of the restaurants except in the Japanese Sumptuori restaurant which had teppanyaki culinary show. Seaweed is cleaned only on a portion of the beach located at the Colonial hotel.

huge rooms, very comfortable bed, lovely shower and jacuzzi bath

a bit dated, flannels had some stains on them

It was a beautiful place to look at

The restaurants were ridiculous. The good when we made reservations was horrible in taste and presentation. We ate at the buffet every day because it was the best option. They charge 15 dollars for room service at an all inclusive resort. Never heard of that. And room service did not clean my room or provide towels the entire stay. I had to call them to come provide towels and clean

the pools and lobby were nice

you can’t see the ocean from the rooms or pool and once you get to the beach it isn’t nice.