Grand Riviera Princess All Suites Resort and Spa All Inclusive

This hotel is a great place to spend a family vacation. We stayed with another family in the same resort and it was a blast for the kids. When kids are happy and have something to do parents can relax. The platinum upgrade was worth it because of the location (next to the beach), always having available spots on the beach, premium drinks, priority a-la carte restaurant reservations.

This is my third time to Playa Del Carmen, and the third different resort. We stayed in the Villas and the room was awesome! The room was big, great views, nice jacuzzi tub and outdoor shower. The Grounds are beautiful and well maintained. The pools are big, with lots of swim up bars and activities. The food was pretty typical of an all inclusive resort. Lots to choose from in the buffet, and most of it was ok to good. None of the food at the buffet was great, but its about what I expected. We went to two of the a la carte restarants (Miso and LeFleur). At Miso we were at the hibachi area, and it was good. LeFleur was their international restaurant. My wifes food was really good and mine was ok. Again, overall, about what I expected from resort food. There is always a place to get something to eat or drink. The drinks were typically very good. The drinks were definitely not watered down and there was never a line to get drinks. Snack foods were also pretty good. I love guacamole, and it was served everywhere. Nachos, burgers and dogs can be found just about any time. The coffee was not good, but the cappuccinos were great. Staff at the resort are very friendly and helpful. The night life is better than some of the places we have stayed, but not as good as others. The beach is crowded and a little rocky in the water. If you pay extra money, you can go to a roped off area where they will wait on you and not nearly as crowded. When we go back to Playa, I will probably stay somewhere else. We spent a lot of time in Playa, and taxi's start to add up, It costs around $20 each way to get to town. I think we will probably stay as close to town as possible or possibly rent a condo off of 5th Ave next time. If you are looking for a relaxing vacation at a resort with great staff, Princess is a nice choice. It was probably the most beautiful resort I have ever stayed at and the staff was really great. I love the town of Playa and we spent a lot of time off the resort. We did Xel Ha and Explore. We tooled around Playa both day and night. Ate some wonderful food at a lot of different restaurants in Playa. Great vacation and can't wait to go back.

It is a great hotel... good food, good beverage... the only downside is that the night restaurants were full al the time you have to do the reservation with 3 days of anticipation.... the rest of the hotel perfect... very beutiful place...

This was a great resort. We just got back on 2/8/2013. We stayed in the Platinum section of the resort. IT IS WORTH THE MONEY. We have our own private check-in that lasted only 5 mins. We have a separate private lounge with snacks, water bottles, internet, dvds, private concierge (who will make all restaurant reservations for you). The room was right by the beach (platinum only). Since the resort is really big, it takes about 10 mins to go from the front lobby to our room. (or you can wait for the little golf cart which transports every 15 mins). There were many restaurants and we tried them all except for the Italian. Honestly, they were all just fine, nothing great, nothing bad. Platinum guests have their own separate section on the beach but both areas have waiters taking your drink order and bring the drinks to you (or you can walk 30 seconds to the bar, which is also on the beach). Daytimes they had a beach barbeque, which hamburgers (NEVER got sick- very good), hot dogs (NEVER got sick - very good), chips, salsa, quacamole, paella, etc. Of course, the rooms would smell damp because it is very humid. However, they give you complimentary incense (not sure if this is only for platinum guests). They always restock the fridge with pepsi, diet pepsi, 7up, club soda, orange drink and of course, water bottles. They give complimentary scotch, vodka, and rum bottles and will restock if you use them. We didnt use them and took them back hoe with us :) The beach was wonderful. Yes, there are some rocks along the shore but it is not as bad as some reviews state. The water - BEAUTIFUL - no seaweed. The sand - white and soft. The ONLY drawback about the beach is the vendors selling beach massages, sunglasses, etc (not employed by the hotel). But listen, it's no big deal - just tell them no. Also, they are NOT aligned along the entire beach - rather, only a small portion. After 7 day, however, it can get a little annoying. That is the only reason why i gave this hotel 4/5 stars. I WILL GO THERE AGAIN AND WILL REFER FRIENDS THERE FOR SURE, BUT I NATURALLY DONT CHOOSE THE SAME RESORT JUST TO TRY SOMEPLACE NEW. HOPE THIS REVIEW WAS HELPFUL

Beautiful large hotel. The grounds were immaculate and so were the rooms. We were in the platinum area ad the pool was great. The staff was not as friendly as other resorts we have gone to. Overall great experience!

We had a negative experience from the beginning of our arrival at this resort. We booked a Platinum Suite on the Riviera side of the resort. However when we received our key, we had to find our room on our own. We were instructed that the only place serving food was the Sports Restaurant, and we were hungry, having not eaten since before our flight 8 hrs earlier. Food was horrible there. We arrived in our room, our luggage came shortly there after. I knew this was not the Platinum Suite that was described on the Orbitz site. The staff member comfirmed that it was not and the Platinum suites were at the Sunset side only. I immediately called the front desk, and they said that this was a modified Platinum room. I then went to see the concierge, and she was kind, understanding, and promised to put us on the list as 'number one' for the next Platinum room. When nothing happened the next day, I went to the concierge and was told the original girl was not working for several days, and they knew nothing about this. The third day, we could not take it anymore. We tried for it not to ruin our vacation, but we were on the third floor, and no elevator in this building. Our view was of the woods. The only thing they did to this regular room to make it "Platinum" was they placed some amenities in the bathroom. On the third day, I went to the front desk, and told them this vacation was not what we had expected. We had intentionally booked this resort after researching many, because of it's Platinum rooms being close to the beach and pools. The Princess did correct the problem, but explained to me that Orbitz, as well as all of the travel agents were informed that the Riviera section of the Platinum Suites are all under renovations, and are not opened. The Sunset Platinum are opened with limited amt of rooms. Orbitz should have informed their customers who think they are getting a Riviera Platinum resort, (paying for such also), but not receiving one. When we finally did get the Platinum Suite on the Sunset side, there was a huge improvement in the room, size, amenities, LOCATION, respect, buffet, and everything overall. I think that the resort needs to explain more about where everything is, besides handing you a map, which does not have everything labeled. The second half of our vacation was wonderful, The grounds were well maintained. Staff was friendly, food was just ok at the buffets, but the ala carte restaurants were very good.

This was my third trip to Mexico in the past 5 years. We picked this resort because we thought that it was in Playa del Carmen but it turned out that we had to take a 20-minute ride to get to the center of Playa del Carmen. The resort and the rooms were beautiful. The beach was full of seaweed and it was rocky in many areas. The beach area was full with massage huts and vendors, which blocked the beach views in many areas and limited the number of available beach chairs under huts. People were going very early in the morning and leaving their towels and books on the chairs to reserve them. By 8 am, there were no chairs available. The all-inclusive package included buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner. It also included vouchers for “a la carte” dinners. We arrived on Saturday morning and went immediately after checking in to reserve for the a la carte dinners. We were able to reserve at one restaurant twice at 9 pm and all the others were completely booked. Apparently, they limit the a la carte dinners to 40 people per half an hour, which is unrealistic given the size of the resort. With a 2 year old, it was difficult to eat at 9 pm and they were not very accommodating to us. Additionally, in the buffet restaurants, we walked out with a banana and a bread roll in our hand for our daughter because she didn't eat anything that day, the waiter followed us outside the restaurant and wanted us to put them back as if we were stealing food. I didn't pay $6,000 for the vacation to steal a banana and a bread roll. The quality of the food in the buffet restaurants or the a la carte restaurants was average to below average. The staff in general was very kind and friendly. The front desk staff and concierge service were not very nice and nor very helpful. We were trying to call a local taxi company (Grey Line) to confirm our return trip to the airport. For some reason, the hotel phone lines were "unable to call the number" because it was considered "long distance". However, we could make the call from our room with a $5 connection charge then $1.60 per minute after that. Eventually, I called on my cell phone and had them confirm it for us. There was entertainment every night. It was not great but it was ok. They had music bands, dance shows and fire shows. They also had a sports bar that was open all night with billiard tables, air hockey and foosball tables, many flat screen TV’s showing NBA basketball, college basketball, tennis, soccer, and hockey. I certainly had a much better time during my previous two visits to Mexico and my stay at the other resorts was much more relaxing and enjoyable. The resort is just way too big, crowded and it took almost 10 minutes to walk from our room to the beachfront. The bottom line is that the hotel advertises things that it does not provide. It offered a beautiful beachfront, great food and restaurants and a 4 star rating. What we got was a 4 star resort and room appearance and a 2-3 star service.

If you're looking for a weekend getaway with pool and drinks this is fine. If you want good food and more amenities look elsewhere. If you don't upgrade to a suite the only restaurant reservations made available to you are 6PM and you aren't allowed to dine at over half of the a la cartes.

We usually stay at the Riu resorts in Mexico and Jamaica which we absolutely love but decided to see if we were missing out on some better resorts. We paid a lot more to stay at the Grand Riviera Princess than we would have paid to stay at a Riu so we were thinking we were getting a better resort. This is a beautiful resort that falls short in so many areas. Basically, you check in and are then left to figure everything else out on your own, from getting to your room to where restaurants are and everything in between. We were in the platinum building and my sister was in a villa for one week. We knew we were entitled to extras amenities but were never told about them by the resort staff. The staff is not friendly (came across one friendly guy on a golf cart making a delivery) and they don't know anything about the resort other than things that pertain to their job (the main building with all the restaurants is very large and we had to ask 2 different people where one restaurant was as there are no maps posted or signs directing you to the restaurants). There are so many common sense things missing such as no towel hooks in the bathroom, no instructions in the room on how to turn on the electric (knew from reading forums that your key card is put into a slot by the door to turn it on), how to turn on ceiling fans (sliding tabs hidden on the walls) or how the AC works (it is in Spanish and has many settings). Breakfast at the restaurant by the platinum building was not done well - ran out of bacon almost every day and even ran out of scrambled eggs one day forcing us to have an omelet made by a very unfriendly lady. It's not as though we were getting there just before they closed, we were usually there between 8am and 9am. They would have mustard out for breakfast but no ketchup and then at lunch, no mustard and the ketchup would run out so no condiments for the hamburgers and hotdogs. Guacamole ran out everyday and like everything else, was not re-filled. Lunches at the platinum restaurant were pretty good but choices were limited. We are used to endless choices at the Rui. Will say the dinner buffet in the main building was very good every night. We ate at the Japanese restaurant (hibachi table) one night and it was very good and entertaining. I talked to a lady one day staying in a regular room with her parents and her son. They called to get extra coffee and were told they would have to pay for it!! We didn't go to the beach because the water was so bad - filled with rocks and tons of seaweed. I'm from NJ and can tolerate seaweed but this was wall to wall in the water and on the beach!! The large center pool where the entertainment takes place each day is a lot of fun with music playing whereas the other pools are more quiet and no music. The pool by the platinum building is massive huge but other than the 12 seats around the swim up bar and inside the jacuzzi there is no place to hang out - no built in tables with stools, no seating ledge around the perimeter. Also, the only way in and out of this pool is by ladders or the one area where it becomes very shallow whereas the pool in the center of the resort has multiple areas with steps - very strange to do in one pool but not others. We talked to quite a few people and everyone of them said they would not go back even though it was a beautiful resort. It is such a shame to have built a truly beautiful resort and to not have thought through the simple things that would make it superior and to not insist that your employees know the resort and know how to interact with the customers. Even though I have written a lot of negatives, I will say we didn't let this stop us from having a great time as it isn't worth letting the things you can't change ruin your vacation. Back to the Riu Resorts for us!!

The resort itself was absolutely beautiful! We stayed in a Platinum Suite, which had some positives and major negatives. The room was nice and big, but had a horrible horrible musty/mold-like smell and was EXTREMELY humid! No matter how low we tried to turn down the A/C it never got rid of the humidity and never got any cooler. We had issues with the outdoor jacuzzi knob breaking and having to get replaced (lost one night of jacuzzing b/c of it) and it took FOREVER for it to fill up (also the same one in the bathroom). We also had issues with breakers blowing if too many things were plugged in/on at the same time. We were under the impression that we would have vodka included in the room, which it wasn't. The premium bar consisted of a small bottle of tequila and 2 different types of rum. The Platinum Suites private pool and lounge was nice, which included free use of computers/Wi-Fi. The bar that was in the lounge closed at 11pm, which sucked considering the closest bar was all the way at the front of the resort...about a 15 minute walk or you had to catch a shuttle that came every 10-15 minutes. The lounge also had a 24-hour concierge available, which was helpful and we utilized numerous times! The beach was beautiful and very relaxing. We never had to worry about getting lounge chairs at the beach, which I know some people complained about. The grill on the beach was great...some of the best food at the resort. Beware that when getting in the water, the first 1 1/2-2 ft is covered with small pebbles/shells/rocks, which HURT your feet really bad! The water temperature was perfect though and hardly had any waves...nice to just cool off and float in the water. The food was overall pretty subpar. The buffets were terrible. We found that the best way to order breakfast was through room service, the best place for lunch was the grill on the beach and the restaurants open for dinner were hit or miss. The mexican restaurant and italian restaurant were terrible...food was cold and not good. The grill and chinese/tepanyaki restaurant were fabulous! Highly recommend only eating dinner at those 2 restaurants. The nightly shows at the resort were great and the drinks were pretty good at most of the bars. Sometimes the vodka had a weird taste like rum...but you couldn't go wrong with margaritas or fruity type drinks. The resort had 2 really good drinks I would highly recommend....Bahama Mama and Purple Rain. Overall, we had a nice time, but would probably prefer to stay at a smaller resort in a non-humid room!