Grand Velas Riviera Maya

My husband, our teenagers, & I stayed in the Ambassador section, which is worth the extra cost to be at the beach. We repeatedly visit Riviera Maya because the people provide the warmest hospitality with the biggest smiles. Grand Velas staff worked hard to remember our preferences & greet us by name. Eli at Lucca, Isaac at Bistro, Javier & Luciano at the beach, Jazmin, Reyes & Daniel at the pool especially wowed us with their service! Cynthia was friendly in the coffee shop each morning. Diana & Francisco were very attentive personal concierges assigned to our family for our stay. Grand Velas is a big & beautiful & well-kept resort with plenty of food & drinks at all times-similar in quality & variety to Disney Cruise Line. Don’t miss the lobster-grilled fresh & served on the beach in the afternoon. Buffets are available, but we preferred to eat at Bistro for table service at breakfast & pool or beachside for lunch. Bistro & Lucca were favorite dinners. Reservations required. Plenty for all ages to enjoy! GV is a 35min drive from Cancun airport, which we had prearranged with the resort roundtrip.

Wow! What an amazing experience! My husband, 9 yo son and I had an unbelievable time at the Grand Velas Riviera Maya resort thanks to the amazing staff! Alfonso, Braulio & Enrique went above and beyond to make our trip special & unforgettable! Always friendly, engaging & at the ready for all of our needs (& then some- special treats awaited us frequently without request). We can’t thank you enough! You are the best!!! Xoxo (my son already wants to go back for our next vacation!)

We are checking out in a few hours. So I'm writing this review a bit preemptively. We stayed for 5 nights in the Zen area. We didn't book directly through the hotel and feel like we gotten a substandard room (1145) because of that. It smells of humidity and is very dark. To the point where turning the lights all day long is a must!! The room is a bit tired and in dire need of renovation but this is the norm usually in this type of weather. The food is pretty good overall. We enjoyed most of the restaurants. The Bistrot was our favorite. Piaf and Lucca were average with small portions and slow service. It took us two hours for supper which is a bit much for three dishes. My son got sick after eating at the Piaf. We suspect food intolerance rather than food poisoning. The big disappointment, for many clients. Is the inability to eat at the Michelin restaurant. It almost fells like a bait and switch. Even other clients who booked restaurants in advance were unable to get in. To be transparent, I feel like the hotel should exclude the Michelin from the AI like the Conrad does. Because at this point, it seems like it's a marketing plan with almost zero chance for customers to try it. The buffet at Azul and Chava were ok. Gym is big but can be pretty busy in the morning. The Beach is non existent like most resorts in this area. This is not unique to the grand Velas. If this is a priority for you.l, book somewhere else. We knew what to expect since we often stay in the area (St-Regis, Fairmont, etc) Grabbing a lounge chair near the swimming pools: they have signs that forbid clients from reserving chairs and if you leave your items for an hour, they are removed. That's just on paper. The reality is that the pool waiters can't enforce. I got up at 6am and most of the chairs were already gone. Folks drop a pair of glasses on a chair and it's theirs for the rest of the day. Bottom line, either enforce the policy or get rid of it. Looks like not enough chairs for the number of customers. On top of that, the Zen area wasn't even close to full. 23% if I'm not mistaken. Requests are often forgotten or discarded. We had to wait for 24h just for slippers and bathrobs. A pretty basic request. Follow up multiple times or you get nothing. Finally, I didn't appreciate their song and dance of joining their vacation club. My timeshare senses were alerting me. I was offered 300 to be used at the spa for a 20mns presentation. The classical offer to sell you something. When I arrived, they insisted that my wife be present, or the offer is off the table. Now, is that suspicious/slimy/unjustified or what? If the role was reversed, a woman can't make a decision without her husband present? Do they have a playbook that requires the two to be present? According to them, this is how they get their reccurent clients. Well, they just lost a potential one because of these slimmy salesman tactics.

Such a wonderful trip. It exceeded our expectations! The food was great and the service was exceptional. Braulio and Alfonso were there for anything we needed. Reyes went above and beyond with amazing service and a smile by the pool. Angel and Daniel were so helpful by the pool as well. We will be back!

There were many pros, including the beautiful grounds and the impeccable service of our concierge. Cons: the chair situation was terrible. Unless you pay someone, it is hard to find chairs by the pool. Towels are also no where to be found. You’re lucky if you obtained one towel per chair (if you found chairs) but nothing more. If you asked, it would take several minutes for someone to track down a towel as you wait shivering from the freezing pool. There was only one elliptical trainer in the gym. That’s actually insane given how well equipped the rest of the gym was. The food service/quality at the restaurants was largely underwhelming. There had so much potential to be so many more kids activities during the day. There were a few days with several back to back, and they were phenomenal. The teens club was great, but there should have been options to leave younger kids there during the day as my 9yo who still needed childcare did not want to be playing with the toys in the kids club!