Joaquin Allen
I was supposed to stay a week here but only lasted 24hrs. It took almost two hours to check in and there were only two people in front of us. When I got to my room it was very dated and unsanitary. I feel it wasn’t turned over just cleaned and not cleaned well. There was open sugar packets on the counter and a used towel hanging from the shower door. The pillows smelt of body odor bad. There was mold behind the bathroom mirror photo added. The other guest were very loud and extremely inebriated. It was like spring break on a Monday night. The staff was not very friendly and accommodating, but I don’t blame them because of obnoxiousness of the clientele, this resort caters too. I’ve stayed in many resorts in the area and this is by far one of the worst. Not only did I immediately check out and move to a different resort. I left that resort with food poisoning. The buffet was extremely unsanitary. They serve hotdog and hamburgers for dinner. The alcohol options seem to be mostly well alcohol. I did not drink. The grounds are nice and the wildlife is abundant. It seems that this resort at one time must’ve been nice in the early 70s. An employee walked into our room without knocking and by the time I made it to the door they said nothing just stared at me. I do have to note that upon checking out the manager did apologize.
Karen Mariano
The resort is not a 5 star, let’s get that addressed right away. Having said that, the food exceeded our expectations when it came to the à la carte restaurants. The main buffet however is your standard all inclusive.
Pros: The Good
Kids Club is awesome, Pamela and Elizabeth made the everyday activities fun, educational and creative. Our daughter felt safe and comfortable that she went almost everyday to see Pamela and Elizabeth and spent the entire day with them. She didn’t want to leave Kids club, we had to beg her to spend the day with us because thats how much she loved Kids Club.
I also want to thank Pablo at reception who was consistently very helpful and provided us with excellent information as well as service. He answered all our questions with a smile. This guy needs to be promoted because he is very competent.
Service is amazing, ignore the reviews that if you don’t tip, you get no service because that is not true. I tested that theory the first day, we purposely did not tip and we got amazing service from Victor, Aurelio and Adriana from the buffet. Benjamin our server in the Steakhouse was outstanding too, we really enjoyed our meal and the 2018 French wine (extra charge).
Our room (7329) was super clean, the maids work really hard. I give 5 stars the maids and the cleanliness. I reviewed the room below separately as it is not fair to review the condition of the room in the same bucket as the room service or cleanliness.
The drinks and water was always refilled each day. The guys work really hard making sure there’s drinks everyday although our mini fridge is broken. LOL
Cons: The Bad
We stayed in building 7 room 7329. The room is in rough condition. The toilet seat is barely attached, the glass patio door’s rubber seal is coming off, the mini fridge is broken and doesn’t work at all, the shower glass door doesn’t close as it rubs on the floor. This is not a reflection on the maid service, our maid was great.
There is no security guard in the beach area, our chair was stolen with our beach towel when we went to get a drink. Came back and saw the trail in the sand and we followed it. The couple who stole our chair said there was no towel on it. We called the lifeguard Alejandro who was super nice and he called Concierge (Alex) to come to the beach. Alex spoke to the Spanish couple and said that there is no evidence that they took our towel but I disagree, the fact that our towel was on the chair and they stole our chair plus there is the fresh trail on the sand that clearly stopped where they placed the chair makes them guilty. Alex from concierge said I needed to make a formal complaint to the lobby so we went. I filled out the paper which was a waste of time because they did nothing. He told me I have to pay for the towel. I can understand if I lost the towel due to neglect or but we went to get a drink for 5 minutes and when we came back our chair was gone with the towel and with a fresh trail. There should be a security guard in the beach area and if a guest’s towel is stolen and reported immediately, the guest should not be penalized because we didn’t lose it, it was stolen from us and Alex believed those thieves that they didn’t take our towel because they all spoke Spanish and he said there is no evidence. The fresh trail on the sand was not enough evidence to make them guilty? The least the hotel could have done is waived the fee for the towel but no, they told me we have to pay for it. The hotel is responsible for the guests safety and if we cannot even leave our towels unattended to get drinks then what do they expect us to do? The point is, there’s no security guard and NOT enough chairs to go around hence people are stealing chairs and removing towels. I hope those two Spanish couples who stole from us get what they deserve!!!! Take your own beach towel from home so you don’t need to use the hotel’s towel because towels get stolen not just from us but we’ve spoken to other guests and they had their towels stolen too.
John Desousa
We are day 5/7 at the Grand Esmeralda. So far our experience has been great. Buffet has quite the variety with lots of freshly cooked food, al a carte restaurants do offer a more premium meal than the buffets, and drinks have been great. Service has been amazing, everyone greets you with a smile. Shoutout to Pedro helping with the entertainment by the pool. Rooms can be a bit of a walk from the pools/beach/restaurants but it’s a nice walk and you get your steps in. We would recommend this resort.
Adam Flanders
I'll try to be fair, but this was far from my favourite all-inclusive resort.
VERY rundown, ranging from the easy to fix (why is my toilet seat flaking? Just get a new one) to the difficult but important (it rained and the roof leaked into several hallways). Paint cracking everywhere. Old/musty everything. Smelly bathroom with broken/rust-stained sink. The best way I heard it described was like a hurricane hit the resort and they haven't fixed everything yet.
The outdoor property is 'ok' only. The beach was very hit or miss. Full of seaweed on day 1, brown water with stinging creatures on days 2 and 7, better on days 4-5. Pool was good, especially if you have young kids, but was insanely loud at night so my mother-in-law couldn't sleep. The entire property (but especially certain pockets) smells like sewage.
The food is meh. I would place it exactly in the middle of resorts I've gone to with one important note: 5 of 8 members of my family got diarrhea that could only have had its source in the resort. It ranged from 'tolerable' to 'had to stay in bed all day.' So really, no matter how the food tasted, it made most of us sick.
Staff were also sort of unimpressive. Nice enough, but just generally unhelpful in the ways I've found other staff at other resorts helpful. We were assured (months before) that we'd have a crib in our room. Arrived and told they were all being used. No attempt at problem-solving was made, so we just had to manage.
Vera Pekker
This is not a 5 star hotel, it is at best a 2 star in regards to both accommodations and service so adjust your expectations accordingly.
Having traveled to Cancun, Cozumel, PDC, Mayan Riviera and CDMX annually for over 20 years, I am simply evaluating this resort in line with the other resorts i’ve stayed at ranging from 4-5 stars in Mexico.
We were housed here for 7 hours by Westjet due to a flight cancellation and it was horrendous.
The room: our rooms 8125 and 8123 had mold everywhere, a piece of the door was missing, there was old blood stains on the mirror, dead and living bugs in the room and bathroom. The sheets appeared “clean” but the bed skirt and duvet/decor pillow had blood stains. The “terrace” floor had bird poop and garbage on it. The room smelled disgusting like it had not been cleaned in ages. The shower and sink looked renovated but had mold everywhere. It was absolutely disgusting.
The grounds were littered with garbage.
The service was nonexistent- the staff were incredibly rude. Took 45 minutes to get a bell boy who didnt even bring the bags to the room. Meanwhile an employee was driving around around in the VIP golf cart aimlessly in circles and refused to help us at all despite us explaining that our bus is leaving from the lobby in 5 minutes and he was driving to the lovby anyway. The only reason we even needed help was because we had no clue where to go- we checked in at 3am werent given a map or anything. The buffet staff waiters just ignore you. The buffet had one ancient coffee machine which was broken and couldnt dispense any milk beverages. The food did not look good at all. The check in MANAGER told us we dont need to check out if we dont charge anything to the room during our 6 hour stay but in reality we couldnt leave until we indeed do a check out. When i told the front desk staff who checked us out about the blood in the room he ignored me completely. The staff ironically checked our check out tickets 4 separate times (i’ve never encountered that at any of the other 30+ resorts i’ve stayed at across the world) holding up our bus which was already late to the airport by an extra half an hour because they didnt feel like keeping proper track or a list of which guests they already checked the first 3 times.
The whole property looked trashed and extremely ghetto. Its in desperate need of a fumigation, renovation and a garbage clean up.
The fact that westjet tries to sell this as a 5 star resort and charges $3000/pp for it is actually a robbery.
Save yourself the headache and disappointment and avoid this resort unless you like living with cockroaches and bed bugs.
My Booking
