This resort is in hour of private ride from the Cancun airport. The resort is spacious and green. It is surrounded by mangrove jungles crossed by wooden bridge walkways. The grounds are clean and nicely kept. Walking around is an adventure. We found a cave with underground water somewhere in the Riviera part. It is not shown on the resort maps, but fun to visit. So, ask for directions.

The resort beach is white sanded, but bottom is rocky. The only pleasant, sandy gateway into the sea is in the northern, Kantenah part of the beach. You will easy spot it because many people gather there.

There are many restaurants. We didn’t visited many. In general we were very happy with buffet restaurants. Our preference is sea food, our rule is to avoid fast food. Both are easy to follow at the Grand Palladium. But, I noticed that folks who prefer ‘burger’ diet should also be happy.

This resort provides free Wi-Fi in lobby areas, which is very convenient to be in touch with families and friends on Skype.

So, will I return? I wish I would, reservations follow.

We arrived late afternoon on Friday, January 27-th at the Kantenah lobby. Checking in with Marco (I may misspelled the name) was fast. He ensured us that our rooms are on the middle floor. But in a few minutes we ended up in rooms 2018, 2019 on the ground floor (we e-mailed the Grand Palladium in advance asking for mid- or top floor locations because we were on travel with kids and worried about mold). We immediately returned and asked Marco why he told us a lie about room location. After some unreasonable explanations he promised to ‘take the case and call us later’. I could translate the quoted, but it is not for a written matter.

But, we were optimistic. Villa #20 is nicely located close to the beach. We spent the rest of the day on the beach and exploring beautiful flora and fauna. The real problem was discovered when we returned to our rooms for a sleep. Then we found that one of the rooms, #2019, is a SMOKING room. Beds, pillows, almost everything stank of tobacco in this room. After sleepless night we reported the case to the Colonial lobby. Young lady, we spoke with, told us something that left us speechless. She informed us that it is a usual practice at the Grand Palladium to place non-smokers in smoking rooms. IS THAT TRUE? If yes, I will never return. I believe that non-smoking accommodation must be granted, if requested. It is not a privilege.

Hopefully, another front desk person noticed our conversation and tried to help. But, she didn’t find a room for us available until next day. We requested meeting with manager, but it was impossible on weekend. Finally we were moved to room #1816 on Sunday, January 29th after two sleepless nights in smoking room #2019.

The rest of our vacation was just perfect, until we contacted the Colonial check out the day before our departure. Our original reservation was with Kantenah, but we were moved to Colonial section. So, we asked to call our taxi company and ask them to pick up us next day from the Colonial rather than Kantenah lobby. It was the first time in my life when hotel reception refused to call taxi company and offered to call ourselves for $5/call from telephone around the corner.

In summary: The Grand Palladium is very good resort, but its front desk service needs improvement. At the end of my story I’d like to repeat my question: is non-smoking accommodation granted at the Grand Palladium, if requested? I am sure that honest answer would affect many people decision about traveling to the Grand Palladium.

Fantastic holiday, large resort, great setting. Special thanks to Abigail at customer relation desk. Regarding food - high level of quality, being a coeliac I would highly recommend this resort to any coeliac, as the staff at the resort are trained about the importance of the gluten-free diet. Special thanks to Manuel Silva & Chef Andres at Tikal and La Hacienda Restaurants for all the help given to me, to choose the gluten-free meals. Thank you again everyone at the resort for a wonderful holiday. Hope to visit the resort next year. Zofia from Nottingham U.K.

Everything that people have wrote is pretty accurate....
The positives:
The wildlife and scenery.
Great Sit down restaurants.
Could always find a spot at the pool/beach
The warm temperatures, only 1 of 7 nights had to wear a sweater.
The negatives:
Lunch Buffet
Room checkin/checkout

Details:
We had a large group, approximately 20-25 people; When we arrived at about 1:00 we were told to get our wrist bands and get lunch.. They wouldn't even check to see if anyone in our groups rooms was ready(hard to believe that out of 15ish rooms none were ready; we had one baby traveling with us so it would have been nice for her to lay down for a nap etc have our long trip). Checkout we were told to put our luggage outside our door between 6 and 6:30 for our return bus ride at 6:50 am. Since there are really 2 lobbies half of our groups luggage was in one lobby and the other half at the other lobby(Colonial and Kantenah).
We were told the week we were there(Jan 27-Feb 3) that there were about 2500 guests and during their high season a few weeks before that there were 5000+ people, I couldn't imagine how packed and crazy the buffets would have been if I thought they were bad when I was there in low season.
Spa:
The spa was great, one day it was cloudy so we went up there late afternoon and sat in the hot tubs and jetted hot tubs. I also got a massage; I do think that it was quite sad that for the price of the massage the form says in big print, gratuity not included.... I'm sure the worker only saw about $5 or 10 out of my massage and the resort gets the rest and I was still expected to tip.
I was pretty sick of hearing "gratuity not included" by the end of my stay between the apple tour people and seeing that at the spa. I did tip when I got great service, we had an awesome waiter at the Mexican restaurant between 2 couples we tipped him over $10. Tipping didn't seem to matter at this resort, you got the same old slow service at the bars and a couple bucks to housekeeping must be expected I guess because I got only one animal the whole week after tipping just about each day.
Rooms:
We were in room 4608, it was the first building next to the Kantenah lobby, great location, found a shortcut to go to the pool/Colonail lobby. The housekeeping service was poor, I had a couple wrappers lay on the floor for over 2 days and one day she put my half drank pop I left on a counter back in my mini fridge so that meant I got one less new pop in my fridge. Fridges are medicore at best keeping the drinks cold.
Food:
There were so many different sit down restaurants to go to(most of them were able to get into shortly and the steak house and Italian were the only ones we had to wait an hour for). Go get ice cream at the bar that is adjacent to the swim up bar (awesome!). A great thing about the resort was that they had Sol beer, my first time in 5 trips to Mexico I could actually stand drinking the beer. Buffets were good, however we found that the breakfast buffett the service wasn't always the best, we had one morning where we didn't even get water or anything offered to us to drink and there were no glasses to fill with juice at the juice bar so we basically went thirsty during that meal, my only other complaint with the buffets was that the lunch buffet that was by the pool area(the outdoor seating area) there was hardly a table available at any time to sit down and eat and you are not allowed to take food out the area.
The last thing I will mention for the guys is that make sure to bring a many pairs of long pants, I had only packed 2 pair beside the pair my husband wore to/from airport, and we went out to eat every night. No need for shorts(besides the swim trunks you were during the day) if you are planning on eating at the specialty restaurants, which you are sure to do, because the buffets get boring day after day.
Overall we had a great vacation I would definitely recommend this resort to other people. We will probably not return do to the fact that our next warm weather vacation will probably be somewhere we haven’t been to….

This resort is a 90 minute bus ride from the Cancun airport but that's ok, they sell cold corona for $3US each on the bus.

We were the only ones on our bus going to this resort so check-in was instant, we were delivered to building 46 and shown our third floor room. The view from up here is awesome, tree tops and thatched roofs only. The room had a king sized bed, large closet with safe, one armchair at a small table and a desk with a cushioned stool. Also, sliding doors on to a decent sized balcony complete with two chairs and a small end table. I recommend you bring an extension cord from home as another reviewer suggested, the outlets are few and are single plug-ins, not double. One bone of contention is that the pillows were very small and there was a menu in the room to RENT better ones for $5 a day, you might sleep better if you brought a vacuum packed one from home in your suitcase. Our bathroom was clean and up to date and everything worked well, but again, one plug. The safe is included in the price of the room but the internet in the rooms is extra ($45/week). Internet in the lobby is free but on both the paid and free wifi the speeds are quite slow though I did see people using skype successfully in the lobby.

The resort: this is a massive resort with jungle surrounding it and scattered throughout. Keep the map, that the front desk provides, with you while exploring, it comes in handy. We ate at three buffets and they all seemed to serve the same thing and only the ones at the White Sands portion of the resort were slightly different in flavor and preparation. We ate at four a la carte restaurants with our favorite being Mare Nostrum near the Colonial lobby.

The best beach was found on the North end of the resort near buildings 34 35 and 36. We Also enjoyed the Kantenah/Colonial main pool and the busy bar that served it.

In the evenings we found ourselves in the Colonial lobby as the entertainment was always some live soloist or band and we could see the evening shows as well. The animation team or "People of Palladium" were excellent dancers and lip synced to a wide assortment of classic and modern music every night.

TL;DR: Big place, lots of bars and food and very good overall quality. Good value for your money. Dislike: Vendors in the evening were a bit pushy and small pillows in the room with a $5/day fee for better ones.