Another Wonderful Vacation by NStampqueen

[Anne]

Another wonderful vacation!

Grand Palladium White Sands

Created By: nsstampqueen on Friday, October 2nd, 2015

We’ve just returned after spending an incredible week as Palladium Travel Club guests at the GPRM White Sands – September 22-29. This is the first time I’ve stayed on this side of the resort. I’ve stayed in the Royal Suites and in the Riviera side prior to this trip. Our flight was great, arrival and customs was a breeze. The Cancun airport has been upgraded – it went really well.

I did not make a room request prior to arrival as the person whose membership we were traveling under had made it when we booked. We were put in building 59 – rooms 5919 and 5920 to be exact. 5919 is a suite – with a king size bed, flat screen tv and large balcony with very nice patio furniture off it, as well as a living room with sofa (can convert to a bed), another flat screen tv, a full size coffee maker (very nice touch), and another balcony with standard patio furniture. I believe it was my husband that made a comment about it being a problem to decide which balcony to have his morning coffee on – oh first world problems!! 5920 had two double beds, a sofa, a flat screen tv, full size coffee maker, loads of supplies, a private bathroom with Jacuzzi tub – which my granddaughter love (at 5 it’s a small swimming pool to her), and a balcony with standard patio furniture.

The fridge was fully stocked with 4 1-litre bottles of water, pepsi, pepsi-lite (diet), orange fanta, 7-Up, a couple of cans of beer, it was fully loaded!

As travel club guests we received our beach towels and two bathrobes and slippers in each room. We received a bottle of chilled champagne in each room – our room had two stainless steel travel mugs, two shot glasses, and a travel bag as gifts (oh and a bottle of tequila). The girls had a coffee mug, a travel bag and a ping pong set as gifts. Very nice touches – thanks Palladium Travel Club!

We had various towel art done in each room each day – housekeeping did an outstanding job – we were very impressed by their talent and we also received turn down service most nights. The fridge was always topped up – with loads of water, we never had to request anything – very nice!

We had breakfast at the Kabah buffet on the Riviera side every morning but two – where we went to the Tikal buffet on the Colonial side. We prefer the atmosphere, layout and staff at Kabah – we spend so much time around there that they have become friends! We were sad to learn that a few of the staff we were looking forward to seeing have left – Eduarto who drove carts and worked as a bell boy has left, likely to Spain we hear – we missed him. Daniel was a waiter in Kabah, Lucy was so looking forward to seeing him and he has left the Palladium – she was sad L. We did get to see a lot of Pedro, bell-boy at Riviera – Lucy and he are almost inseparable – and I’m sure lots of people were wondering who this little girl was that occupied much of his attention and time! He always had a hug and smile for her, and for us! Marlen at Kabah, is another who has become a friend – we will look forward to seeing her again when we return!

The food at the buffets has only improved by leaps and bounds – if you can’t find something to eat at the new Palladium menus then I don’t know what you eat at home – you literally cannot starve here!

From made to order eggs and omelets, to the most amazing health drinks for breakfast – I’m not able to eat like I used to (extensive dental work done earlier this year) – bacon, sausage, etc. are off limits to me and I don’t miss them at all – do you know they have whole baked ham at breakfast? Sliced to order? It was soo delicious!! They even have the usual Mexican breakfast station with made to order items, as well as freshly prepared items that are staples of the Mexican diet. Always lovely. More on the food later.

Lunch was random – sometimes we skipped lunch, sometimes at Kabah. Once or twice at Tikal. We never made it to the beach bars. Oh my the burgers at lunch (more on those later too). Everything was so fresh and well prepared.

Dinner we managed to get to the following a la carte’s – Rodizio (Brazilian – 2 times – once with adding lobster to our meal –mmmm), Mare Nostrum (Mediterranean), Sumptuori (show table – this was an interesting experience – the Travel Club oopsed on our reservation and ended up making it for 10 instead of 4 – but we ended up with a grumpy family of Spanish speakers – there were a ton of people from Spain, Portugal and South America the week we were there, they kind of put a damper on the experience – one of them video taped the show and their cellphone light was shining in my hubby’s face blinding him part of the time, one was talking on her cell phone repeatedly during the show, they had deplorable table habits, and more) but we persevered and showed my granddaughter a wonderful time! The food was good, the show a bit lacking this time around – this is the 4th or 5th time I’ve been and the show lacked a bit of pizazz from past experience. It was still good but not the level it was in the past. We also managed a trip to El Dorado for excellent steaks – we come from Alberta and beef country and I would have been happy with those steaks at home – yes they were thin – but they were fine.

We went to a number of the shows in the evenings, a few on the Colonial side for my granddaughter and many of the shows on the Riviera side. We tried to go to the White Party and the Fire show but it starts way too later (10:45) and we just couldn’t keep little Lucy up that late on the night before we went home. I wanted her to see the flyboarding and I was still glad to see they have kept that – I think it’s a great show for people – it’s all over the lakes here and a real show! The addition of acrobatics to the shows has really stepped things up – you sit spellbound and the modern music makes a really great show too!

Service at the resort was great – was it perfect all the time, no. But after several trips to Mexico I have learned that you have to not sweat the small stuff and realize that whether you are in a buffet restaurant or an a la carte, these people are busy and busting their a##e# to serve as many people in the shortest amount of time, and keep everyone happy. They often have to deal with people who lack understanding and proper manners, and they do an amazing job! There were times when we received everything we needed and then didn’t see service staff again – which was fine, we didn’t need anything else. Other times they were tripping over themselves to wait on us – you just never knew!

The beach was wonderful, the new loungers that are all over the place are so comfortable. The salt water pool, which is our favourite place was nice and we also swam at the main beach. If you go outside the roped off area there is seaweed in the water, but the beach was so nice and clean – I was very impressed.

We went into Playa del Carmen once, Cancun twice, Akumal twice, and Tulum once. We went on one organized tour – thanks to the Travel Club – Aventuras Mayas – oh my did we love that! We swam in a cenote, an open one; we swam in a cave – it was incredible; and then we went to Akumal to Yal Ku. The current was extremely strong that day, likely due to wind conditions, but we still got some great snorkeling in – the pictures they took, they provide a photographer, were beautiful – and not expensive either. Some places really charge a lot for that, I didn’t think they were charging a lot for them – and they were really nice!

For the first time we rented a car and I drove us around – it is so much fun to drive in Mexico! Nothing like seeing a sign that says 60km and driving 120km – makes you feel like you are getting away with something very risqué! I found it very easy to get around, even Cancun – and gassing up at the Pemex station in Puerto Aventuras was easy – no worry about being taken advantage of – they treated us very well – making sure to show us that the pump had been returned to 0 and everything. We drove to Tulum and paid 50 pesos for parking, then entered the ruins ourselves – we chose not to pay for a guide and toured around ourselves. It was a rainy day and the red flag was up on the beach. I am not sure if there has been swimming there recently or not – there is a ton of seaweed around there – they also have an area designated for turtles but I would be seriously concerned that they haven’t been able to nest – no idea how they would get through the water filled with seaweed to the point that the water was red, and then the piles and piles on the beach. The government of Mexico definitely has the right idea in putting that boom in place and removing the stuff before it does any more damage as I am sure we’ve already lost a ton of the turtle population and it will only get worse – hopefully there are scientist studying why this is happening to begin with – but that’s for another day.

We also drove all around Akumal (ok so not a big drive but a lovely one all the same). Then after our adventure day we took the Collectivo in to Akumal and delivered a donation of supplies to Hekab Be for the kids – met a nice English speaking lady who was there enjoying time with the kids making paper crowns – her’s said Queen – I missed her name but she knew Anne – and she was having a wonderful time! It felt good to know that these items would be used by kids that really needed them!

Ok so now, I have to add the following in – I know we all read the reviews on Trip Advisor and other places and we all say things like – I’m not sure where they were staying but it sure wasn’t the Palladium I’ve been at – or something that effect. So for all those reviews here’s what I have to say:

We went for lunch at the buffet on the Riviera side – it’s called Kabah, and had the beef burgers, we had to wait because they had run out, I mean seriously people, it’s lunch time, 3:00 on a rainy day, and you’ve run out of burgers? Anyway, so I find the buns under this warmer thing – they put their hamburger buns with their hot dog buns, no wonder I had trouble finding them! I put the burger on the bun and it’s too big – the burger that is – you can’t find a bigger bun? What am I supposed to do with all that burger??? Ok, so now I have this gourmet burger and where are the gourmet toppings? All you have is lettuce, sliced tomato, pickles, sliced onions, and of course, little packets of ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise – what if I want to put loads of them on my burger? I have to open a bunch of little packets? And why do you have to have so many choices for fries – regular fries, wedge fries – how many more kinds are you going to have??

And what’s up with the Mexican taco section – why did you let the person in front of me order 4 tacos, and cook them fresh to order for him? Why can’t you limit it to 2 tacos per person? Why do I have to wait for you to make them 4 tacos and the person ahead of them to have a quesadilla made for them, and you are making fresh chips, and frying empanadas at the same time – can’t you just make tacos and do that stuff some other time?

Oh and why oh why did you bring my hubby a beer and my kids sodas from the inside the restaurant but you are telling me that if I want a cocktail I have to go to the bar in the lobby? Can’t you serve everything from the little stand inside the restaurant?

Oh and you might want to turn that station down that serves the crepes at breakfast – I noticed that they were bubbling around the edges – pretty sure you don’t need food to stay that hot – I mean it’s okay for food to be a little cold around the edges right? I wouldn’t complain about something like that you know.

Oh and I was hanging out at the salt water pool with the kids yesterday – I hope that security at the Canadian airport doesn’t get mad at me for having sand in my shoes when I get home – couldn’t you clean up the sand around the loungers? Does it have to be there? There’s all that concrete around there so I’m sure you could do something to clean it all up!

There!! Now don’t we all feel just a little bit better? I know I do J

Oh I do have to say one thing in all seriousness – we went to one of the lobby bars, renowned for it’s coffee service, and asked for a hot chocolate for my granddaughter and they don’t have it – what??? No hot chocolate, in Mexico? How is that possible? We didn’t bother to go looking all over, but I figured for sure that a place that serves coffee, cappuccino, and other related drinks would for sure have hot chocolate, and nothing, I was sad for little Lucy. But she was ok without it!

If you are a frequent traveler to the Grand Palladium and are considering becoming a Travel Club member it definitely has it’s value – things like free phone calls home to Canada and the US, the free tour – we had a choice of 3 different ones – Aventuras Mayas, Rio Secreto and one more that I can’t remember now; we could have made dinner reservations for each night we were there – if it’s high season I would have done this but because it was not busy we didn’t bother except for the Japanese show table. The transportation service is also a huge plus – when we needed to get somewhere, and our personal concierge (Pedro) wasn’t available, then we just called for a travel club cart and away we went. That is a very important perk on a hot day or hot night – oh and to the travel club guests whose cart we busted in on when I was suffering from heatstroke I apologize – I got too much heat and needed to get cooled off quickly, I appreciate your sharing the cart with us!

While the activities that took place during the week that we were there were exclusive to Travel Club Members I don’t believe that anyone who was not a member was excluded or treated differently. Other than the beach bbq things happened as normal. There were a large number of weddings that took place – sometimes 2 or 3 a day. This would have affected the beach bbq as well if it were a normal week. I have travelled to this resort twice as a travel club member and twice as a regular traveler. I have never felt like I was treated differently, except the first trip when we were Royal guests and that you cannot compare – being a Travel Club member and staying on the Royal Suites side would be the absolute ultimate in luxury if you ask me – you couldn’t get any more top of the line than that!

While we had the luxury of being able to call for travel club cars to take us wherever we needed to go, we only utilized it from our room when we had a schedule to keep – dinner reservations and morning appointments. Otherwise we either walked or used the trains and transportation carts. What a change for our first visit in 2012 – back then they used golf carts to pull the cars around, now they have trucks and it works! We did find a few times that timing was way off and we just couldn’t wait anymore so we walked. Once we were waiting after the Colonial show and we must have waited more than 20 minutes and no carts showed up. That was way too long for no transportation to show up at all. You’d think that their timing would be better in that situation. We also had an instance where the cart driver knew where we wanted to go and twice drove by our room, not usually a big deal, but our granddaughter was asleep in my hubby’s arms and it being our first night we hadn’t figured out the lay of the land in the dark yet – we were a little frustrated with that driver!

If you haven’t tried Travel Club travel but you’d like to, and you don’t want to sit through that 90 minute presentation, try to find an existing member and maybe make arrangements with them for one of their weeks. It gives you the best of both worlds – you get the experience just like you own it without the hassle of the sales pitch. We could have done the tour, we’ve done it before and to be honest it was tempting, but I’m so in love with Mexico I’m at the point of looking for real estate not a vacation once or twice a year! The only thing with the travel club is – you can go to all 7 locations on that membership and that sure is a plus!

Even leaving it was smooth and wow what changes on that end – no more elevator at TGI Friday’s, and the menu and food have been upgraded there too! The duty free area has had changes, and shopping was easy! I bought liquor and vanilla and they now package it so you can take it straight through to home, we had a layover and I wouldn’t have had to put it in my suitcase because she did some fancy bagging of it for me. That’s new and handy! Unfortunately I packed it in my suitcase and the vanilla bottle broke, luckily it was in the fancy bag and it barely leaked on my stuff! Our flight home was smooth and uneventful. We even arrived in Toronto 30 minutes early – think our pilot was in a hurry – he flew fast!! Customs in Toronto was electronic – you insert your declaration card into the machine and it spits out a copy and off you go. I put that I had food – the vanilla, and so I had to see an officer, quick and painless, he asked a question, scanned my passport, and sent me on my way. We picked up our suitcases and off we went – easy breezy!

Anyway, if you have any questions or want to know more about the resort or our trip don’t hesitate to ask!

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