Another great trip to TRS Coral

[Anne]

Long Review:
October Trip to TRS CoraL   By Page Hall

This was our second trip to TRS Coral and our 12th visit to a TRS/Palladium property beginning in 2010. Our first trip to Coral was in June 2019. Beginning last year, we began going fall instead of summer as the weather is cooler. I will break this review into categories.
Travel—We had a private transfer to/from the airport as we traveled through the Palladium Travel Club. They use TraficTours, and we had no issues coming or going. We did have issues with our flight as we traveled the weekend Southwest cancelled thousands of flights so we arrived at our tiny Corpus Christi Airport to find our flight had been cancelled and another flight out of Corpus was not for three days. So, the awesome SW staff helped us rebook out of Houston for later that day and we drove to catch our plane at Hobby.
Getting through immigration upon arrival was not a problem at all. We deplaned and were done with immigration within 10 minutes. We then waited at least 30 minutes for our luggage. After that we breezed by the customs folks (nothing to declare) and out of the airport to our travel guides. We made it to the resort in around 40 minutes.
On our return, we had no issues either. We showed our negative covid results and our health questionnaire at check in and at the gate. No problems as I did take pictures of both the health questionnaire and test prior to leaving the hotel so we did not have to use the internet at the airport and only pulled up the photos. We paid no tourist tax nor were asked to at any point during arrival or departure at the airport.
Check in—We were checked in and to our room within 15 minutes of arrival at the hotel. The Travel Club staff made us a reservation at Tentazione for that night. Since it was 6 p.m. already, we were happy to get a 7 p.m. reservation. The bar staff offered us awesome drinks: a margarita on the rocks for him and a mohito with vodka for me.
Room—In 2019 we had an Ambassador Swim Up. This year there were none available so we had a Junior Swim Up. It was room 1027. I was worried we would miss the extra room, but we found it to be very spacious. We both loved the patio outside (no jacuzzi). We loved the bed on the patio as well as the very cool swinging chairs. I am currently looking for these to purchase for us to use in our outdoor kitchen here at home. We had a great view of the TRS pool, sun in the later afternoon in the swimout but our patio stayed shaded the entire time which was awesome. Each morning I had coffee on the patio and chilled.
The room itself was lovely with plenty of space in the bed and bathroom area. We had the shower, deep jetted tub and separate toilet closet. The bedroom area had plenty of space for me to workout in every morning before we got going for the day. The bed was super comfortable. I had no back pains the entire week, and we have a purple bed at home. This bed was as comfortable as our purple.
The only complaint we had was the lighting in the safe area. Actually, we had NO LIGHTING in the safe area which made it hard to find things in the safe and to even open the safe. They need to fix this by adding a light when you open the cabinet door that contains the safe. Actually, they need a light above that area. It’s very dark. There was plenty of light in the rest of the suite—bathroom had 4, and bedroom area had at least 6. Also the room has a TON of places to plug items in both regular and hdmi. Both sides of the bed had at least two HDMI each, there are HDMI and plugs under the TV area. There is a plug as you walk into the bedroom area and there are plugs in the bathroom. All in all we loved our room. We loved the space, the location and would certainly do a junior suite again, and it was a better price than the Ambassador.
Restaurants/Food—We ate at Capricho, Helios and Isla Blanca for breakfasts. We loved the service at the TRS exclusives ones, but Isla Blanca had the omelet making stations which I liked much better. Food was overall good at all. I used the coffee maker in my room for 3 mornings until I ran out of coffee. I don’t do the expresso. I ordered coffee from room service the other mornings. It arrived within 30 minutes of order. Coffee can also be ordered the night before, and I did that twice. They asked for a time to deliver and delivered right on time.
We had room service for two lunches and one dinner (too much alcohol). The fajitas are great. My husband said wings were okay (not my thing.) We had the club sandwich, and it was good. Pizza was ok. They gave a time frame of 40 minutes to an hour. We never waited an hour and usually had our food within 30 minutes. We also had food several times poolside. Service there was awesome. Food was good for eating at the pool—nachos, sandwiches and sushi.
Tentazione was our first diner. The food there was fantastic. We had soup, salad and the steak cutlets. This was the second best beef dish we had at the resort. The tiramisu was the best dessert I had (not counting the crème puffs from the coffee shop.)
Second dinner was Bhogali. This was birthday night for me. My husband was reticent to have Indian food. This may have been the best dinner we had. We both ordered the tomato soup, the turnovers and butter chicken. All were fantastic. We asked for bread (ask), and they brought out Naan. IT WAS SO GOOD. For dessert they brought a piece of cake with a sparkling candle and sang “Happy Birthday. “ This was very sweet!
Third dinner was El Gaucho, and probably our least favorite for food. The service was excellent though. The meat was too fatty (husband ribeye) and too over cooked for me (flank.) The food was not bad by any means just not our fave. The sides were yummy. The cheese in a skillet—great—it is cheese in a skillet.
Fourth dinner was Sumptori—neither show or sushi. The food here was excellent! I asked for sushi, and they brought two small rolls which were fabulous. I had the chicken teriyaki, and he had the steak. Both were very good, but his steak was as good if not better than the beef the first night at Tentazione. Service was fabulous.
Fifth night was room service. See above as I had too much to drink breaking my 4 p.m. happy hour rule.
Sixth night was La Adelita. Food was ok. We are from South Texas so we have very good TexMex all around us. They served pork rinds with their salsas. My husband loved the rinds. I asked for chips which they brought me. The salsas were great. The tortilla soup was good. The fajitas were ok, and my flank steak was ok. The room service fajitas are better in my opinion. Service was great though. I did have the drink of the night which was a mango margarita. I am not a tequila drinker but this was a good drink.
Our last night was sushi at Sumtori. It was awesome to watch Francisco work. He is very much an artist. The rolls we had (yes 3 rolls with 8 pieces each as I can eat my weight in sushi) were AMAZING. I left happy and full.
We also got dessert to go most nights when we were in the village for dinner from the Coffee Shop. The brownies are good, the chocolate cake is good but I love, love, love the crème puffs. So, I would take one to the room for later.

Pool/Spa/Massage—We did the relaxing massage which was wonderful. We used the hydro therapy area at the spa once. We could have used it more but never got back. The hydro therapy pool is very cool and worth going to IF you don’t have to pay. We spent a lot of our days at the pool. We had amazing service from the wait staff. We met some cool people and had a great time for our 1-2 hours a day of lounging.

Staff and ameities—Everyone was so kind! We had our pillows ordered on the butler form as well as a bottle of vodka and two cans of club soda.

Tipping—We spent about $300 in daily tipping not counting dinners. We did $5 a day for the cleaning staff, $2 in fridge (got plenty of water daily), $2 for drinks or food at the pool. $3-5 for room service. For service at breakfast we did $5, and the cooking tables $1 per item. We tipped the TC staff who booked our dinners ($10) and helped us. For dinners out, we tipped $20 to our waitstaff. We did $20 to the sushi maker and $10 to our waiter on our last night.

Covid Test—Upon arrival, they schedule your test. We chose to do ours 48 hours out. So, Friday at 10 a.m. we took our test. We had our results by 2 p.m. The few hours in between were stressful even through we were fully vaccinated. It is still scary to think about getting COVID and having to stay longer than planned. Once we had our results, I took pictures on my phone. I also asked the TC to print the results for us which I put with our passports. On Sunday a few hours before we left, I did the Health Questionaire on line and then took pictures of the result as well.

TRS Coral vs. TRS Yucatan—I love the jungle setting of TRS Yucatan, and I love the largeness of the resort. However, Coral being so compact, we never used a cart to get to where we were going. I like the swim outs at Coral. Coral also seems to be better built than TRS Yucatan. What I mean by that is small things like the plumbing fixtures and wall socket are solid (not wobbly.) The sliding glass doors seem to be better quality as well as the furniture. Plenty of areas to plug devices in is also a huge plus. The resort is also newer having only been constructed in 2018 so the bones just seem sturdier. I like the modern feel as well. Another plus is the shorter drive to Coral. We did miss the wildlife and all the cool walkways that Yucatan has.

To sum our trip up, we had a FANTASTIC, RELAXING vacation. We love TRS Coral and the Palladium brand. Until next year….

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