Moon Palace The Grand Cancun

Overall: From the moment you arrive until after you have already left, you are constantly being sold on the timeshare or addons. This definitely erodes from any feeling of relaxation or vacation. Checkin: Takes over an hour to get to your room. After arriving they take your bags and give you tickets at bellhop, then you check in at the front desk which includes talking to 2 different people trying to sell you on other room options. After that is done, you are sent to speak to a "concierge" to show you a map of the resort. In reality, this is a 30 minute process of them throwing resort credits at you in order to get you to attend a 2.5 hour presentation to buy the time share/membership. We only got away by saying "Even if you gave us a million dollars in resort credits we won't attend the session under any circumstances" before he finally gave up and let us go. After that it's back to the bell hop to find your bags and get a golf cart to take you to the room. Last things you want to do after traveling there. Room: We asked at reservation time and a week before arriving and at check in to be put near our family who was arriving later. We were assured that would be no problem. Once they arrived, they were put nearly half a mile from us requiring several stops on a shuttle. The only option to be near each other was to spend 40% more money on the room and downgrade to a lesser room. Total bait and switch. Note for family with small toddlers: the rooms all have 3 stairs down the hot tub that are treacherous without much way to block them off from a toddler. Food and Drink: Very generous with alcohol. Bartenders and wait staff are great especially is you tip well for every round. Food was generally good when ordered a la carte in a restaurant or at a station in the buffets. Anything from the cold and hot bars wasn't particularly good. Circus - good food great show for kids. Jade - Good food especially the A4. Le Chateau - Mediocre food. Least favorite restaurant we went to. La Cantina - good food and good fun. Avoid Mariachi day if you want to talk. Cuzco - Good breakfast from the Chilaquiles and Omlette stations. Caribeno - Quietest spot for breakfast. Shuttles: Most okay at non peak times but at peak times expect to wait a while to find empty seats especially with a lot of guests jumping the line. Pools: Very nice. Some areas are reserved for status members but mostly was a non issue. Read less

Having visited Place Resorts a number of times I had always been impressed with the service and facilities and recommended them to friends and family. So much so that 2 years ago I decided to take out a membership and this year took my brother in law and his family for a 2 week holiday to the Grand. Total of 4 adults and 4 children. Unfortunately this year we had a leak from the room above which I did not notice until having slipped on the water in the morning and fell heavily hurting my neck and back. The leak could not be fixed so we then had to change room, which my wife then had to pack and unpack on her own due to my injury, ruining a day and evening as we could not get in the new room until late. Then later in the holiday one of the children cut their foot where a tile was missing in the pool, stopping then going in the water for the rest of the holiday. Working in the leisure industry myself I understand these things can happen however how you then deal with these incidents is important and shows the values of the company. When as a family you have paid $40K for you to go on holiday for 2 weeks you expect good customer service when things go wrong. The customer service team just seemed interested in trying to get us signing to say they were not liable rather than trying to actually help. The front line staff were great as usual but would not recommend Palace Resorts anymore to friends and family as their customer service when things go wrong is terrible. Read less

Really rude staff. Just a bad vibe here. The food isn’t great. The room service food is unpalatable. There was no hot water. Jqccuzzi tubs were broken. Condescending staff. Calls to the kids’ room before 7am waking them up. Really long waits. Cheap construction. Seaweed all over the beach. Not cleaned like the adjacent resorts. Check-in takes forever. Not worth the money. Bad vibes. Just feels yucky here. We went to Isla Mujeres for a couple of days after, and the vibe was so much better. People were nice there and not rude. Listen when I say the staff at the palace glares at you like they hate you. We also caught them in white lies several times. Never again. Read less

Pros: The Grand is one of three resorts of the hotel chain Moon Palace (Nizuk and Sunrise being the other two) that are physically located about 15 minutes from the airport. Once you book your vacation in the most expensive Grand you have unlimited exchange privileges in all 3 resorts. This is a rather common concept that other hotel chains follow. The whole Moon Palace resort complex is massive, so much so, that they provide “public transportation” (golf carts) within and in-between the resorts. The golf carts are a lot of fun for kids and adults alike. Most of all, they are frequent – the transportation system works like a Swiss watch. We have very young grandchildren and live in the suburbs of Boston. For the past 4 years we have been looking for a resort in the greater Cancun area (short direct flight with JetBlue) that would accommodate all our needs given the age of the kids. We found it finally and we will be returning. The Water Park, the indoor Playrooms in each of the resorts, the selection of the restaurants that caters to families with small children, the pools and jacuzzis that again are suitable for toddlers or preschoolers and finally, the beach with an easy access and powder sand were the main reasons why will come back. There were however a few issues that I would like to mention so that other families will learn from our experience. 1. Accounting/booking Our original booking was done many months ago. When making a reservation, we had 2 options: either to pay a discounted rate and pay in full at the time of booking or to pay in full 72 hrs prior to the arrival and obviously that rate was higher. We selected option #2 for Nizuk or Sunrise (to be assigned by the receptionist at the time of check-in; the price is the same for both resorts if I am not mistaken). About a week before we left, our daughter found out that in order to use the Water Park (Lazy River in particular) we would have to either upgrade our booking to The Grand or purchase a day pass ($100/person/day) and be able as guests in Nizuk/Sunrise to spend the day at The Grand. We opted for the upgrade and paid in full for our vacation at The Grand a week prior to departure. When speaking to the reservation agent, he issued a new booking number using the original number with a new suffix. We believed that this was all set until 72 hrs prior to departure when both charges, the original ones for Nizuk/Sunrise and the new ones for The Grand were posted on our credit card account. We were very much concerned about it because I read 2 postings on TripAdvisor about accounting issues with Moon Palace and so we wanted to fix this prior to our arrival to the resort. It took 3 days, numerous calls and emails but in the end, the Nizuk/Sunrise charges were reversed. 2. Rooms – this is our biggest disappointment The resort was built in 1996 at the time when it was very fashionable to have jetted bath tubs in the room. The rooms are divided into 2 sections: the upper part (about 2/3 of the room is the bed, TV, etc.) and then there are 3 steps down, and the lower part has a large jetted tub on one side and a desk with chair on the opposite side. Every room has also an outdoor space which varies in size and shape depending on what floor is the room located. The whole room is tiled with polished marble tiles, which looks spectacular but is not practical and in fact is dangerous. The floor, especially the steps are extremely slippery. So when one is walking in the room, even with slightly damp feet from the shower, one can easily slip. I would say the surface is absolutely inappropriate for families with small children or seniors. Our daughter booked a “family suite” which was nothing more than 2 regular rooms with connecting door. The very first day, we had to take the “king size bed” apart (they were actually 2 beds next to each other) and use the beds as a barrier in the kids room so that they would not be able to access the steps and go down to the lower level of the room. We brought 2 portable travel cribs and set them up in the room. So the kids were all set, safe. Our daughter used the large tub in her room to bath the kids every night. So that was fun. My husband and I had a corner unit on the third floor with a terrace and a beautiful view basically 180 degrees. The problems with the terrace were as follows: The terrace had a pergola and it rains rather frequently. In our case, it rained every night. As such, all the furniture (cushions) on the terrace was soaking wet every morning. Even at the end of the day, when the sun was pounding on the terrace all day, the cushions were still so uncomfortably damp that one could use the chaise lounge sofa only with 2 layers of towels underneath. The terrace floor was uneven and as such, there were puddles of water on the surface all week long. Next, the paint used for the walls was so old that every day, after the night rains, we found chipped paint all over the terrace. Finally, and most importantly, each of the room had a sliding door onto the terrace. Our room had a large growing patch of mold on the wall of the terrace that had been so old that the mold started to expand inside the sliding door. I am not making this up, I have pictures to document this. 3. Check-out and sales rep sharks The check in and check out sections at the resort were in 2 different areas of the main resort building. When we checked out, there were 2 sale reps who waited for every person/family to check out and took the advantage of us being caught off guard and basically tried to ambush us with an offer to come back. The offer of course required us to put money down immediately in order to secure a discounted stay in the resort at a yet to be determined future date. They were offering the same discounts that one can periodically get on their website throughout the year. I was so upset about the ambush that the sales rep immediately realized that there will be no deal to be made with us and left almost immediately to pursue another family who was just checking out. 4. The TV program selection Given the fact that the vast majority of the clientele in the resort was English speaking, we were surprised that there were only a few US channels. This is rather silly. One doesn’t go on vacation to be in the room and watch TV but access to one of the main US streaming platforms would have been nice. Almost everybody has an account with Netflix so being able to login and watch a movie in English at the end of the day would have been nice. Well. CNN and Al-Jazeera provided enough entertainment for us adults since it was just a few weeks prior to the presidential election in the US. Read less

We just returned from a wonderful family week at The Grand at Moon Palace! We've been Palace members for years and each time we go we are filled with such joy and pleasure. This week we gathered as family in the villa in Bldg 93 - such a great location, close to the beach, the pool, Cusco, and a short walk to the waterpark for the grandson! The villa itself is spacious with a large gathering room and dining room/kitchen along with the dip pool and jacuzzies on the balconies - favorite relaxing and play spaces. Great house keeping. We enjoyed a private dinner in the villa - a gracious break from being out each night. Concierge Lilia and Butlers Tony and Edward attended to our planning and every need - they were always checking on us - handling reservations and transportation daily. The daily coffee and pastries delivered to the room each morning was a treat! We can't thank them enough. Breakfast daily at Cusco with Wendy who took such good care of us - anticipating our needs - adding flowers and fruit platters - and, with Brenda, rescued us by bringing us a bottle of dish washing soap for the baby bottles! Dinners everywhere were incredible - great food and wait staff. Sommeliers Jorge Diaz, Martin, Fernando, and Walter were great! Our first experience at The Circus for the grandsons was a load of fun and bowling was a family highlight. Our 4 year old grandson enjoyed the indoor playroom and the outside water park - digging holes at the beach - and the bubbles (foam party) for kids at the beach - and of course, lots of golf cart rides. Jose Gambino is the best pianist both in the Lobby and the Library. Ana and Fernando took great care of us in the Library. We enjoyed golf, though wet, the course was in great shape and breakfast at Riviera Mya is a treat. There is something at The Grand for all ages and interests. That's why we choose to bring the whole family together there! We will return! Read less