Playa Grande Resort & Grand Spa

I wanted to love Playa Grande, and the location is truly stunning—the beach is quiet, the views are gorgeous, and the spa was excellent (my massage therapist, URI, was fantastic). The breakfast bar had nice options that rotated daily. The lobby bar tacos were great, but some drinks were shockingly expensive—for example, a double Crown on the rocks was $41, more than the price of a fifth at the airport. That said, the check-in and room experience completely soured the start of our vacation. I booked two rooms together hoping for side-by-side accommodations, with requests for an ocean view in a quiet area. We were initially told we’d get a free upgrade from the junior suites to one-bedroom masters since no junior suites were available. The first rooms we were assigned had a gorgeous view and were side-by-side, but the room directly below us was undergoing construction—jackhammering tile—starting early in the morning. We weren’t warned about this, and when we asked the front desk for the construction schedule, they said it would begin between 6 and 7 AM. We asked to change rooms immediately. The next rooms assigned to us had a worse view and were on the first floor. To our surprise, one of the rooms hadn’t even been cleaned properly—the TV was on, cups were left out, and the bed was unmade. After multiple back-and-forths with the front desk, we were finally given cleaned rooms side-by-side, but only after moving rooms four times and receiving a $100 credit. Additionally, on our last night, the power kept going in and out around 3 AM, which left us waking up in the middle of the night uncomfortably hot. In short, the location, beach, spa, and some food options are excellent, but the check-in process, hidden construction, inconsistent room readiness, and occasional power issues made the start and end of our stay very stressful. Management should be more transparent about construction and ensure rooms are properly prepared for guests.

The beach is not usable, but this resort has several pool options and multiple restaurants. It is clean, with beautiful, well maintained facilities.

We like this resort for the amenities and especially the location as you can walk into town (25 minutes to big grocery stores, 20 minutes to lots of restaurants!) The staff are very friendly, professional and the food (although we only ate in the sports bar twice) was very nice. Our room (and housekeeping) were above average; check in was prompt and bell people excellent. The only issue is that we had an RCI exchange and the room they assigned us (which was a nice room -slightly dated but nice and lots of space) was across from the marina (Building B) 2nd floor with a beautiful view of marina BUT across from the Mayan Monkey hotel and hostel and a parking lot which is the terminal for tourist buses! Needless to say the ear plugs were necessary and even with that you could still hear the noise of partying into the early morning. So bottom line great place to stay; location, location BUT get a room not looking onto the marina if you want to sleep. We would come back if we could get a different room.

We have stayed at the Playa Grande several times. One of the best things about this resort is the staff. They are so helpful and friendly and always make our stay a better one. One of our favorite people at the Playa is Uriel. Not only did he ensured we had everything we wanted, but he is very kind and always happy.

Ahna in the sports bar was terrific, excellent service. Ricardo at the pool side gave us great service and very attentive.