Millseas Mates: Riviera Maya

Millseas Map started out as a forum to document my travels for my personal memories and to share with my family and friends. I stand by my recommendations and think that oftentimes the bad things are more important than the good. Maybe it's a pessimistic approach to life, and one my husband hates, but I always have to look at the cons of a situation and think - can I live with that?! versus the alternative in identifying all the pros. If I'm traveling - I'm probably researching a place I've wanted to go to....I know the pros....what I don't know are the cons. I've applied that philosophy to Millseas Map - some might think that it's not a good look to be open about cons - but I'm not afraid to say - it was nice but don't waste your time.

That being said - I'm one, single person. But I think my style to feedback/reviews remains needed just is not as popular as the Pinterest and eye-catching "come here, come here" you must see this product/place. So I've forced my close friends and family to document their adventures with Millseas Map in mind.

Now with all of that in mind our first rendition of Millseas Mates is also our first big-time Millseas FAIL. My co-worker Jeff, wanted to plan a last-minute trip with his wife over the July 4th weekend. We're talking book on a Tuesday - fly out that Saturday - kind of last minute. Using Cheapcaribbean.com (see our Millseas Minute: How We Research blog post), he found a deal in Riviera Maya, Mexico for the Grand Palladium - a place I've been before and frankly loved. My family and I originally were staying at a Dreams resort in Tulum that was 5-stars and all the reviews - hated it - and pivoted over to the Grand Palladium - a 2-star hotel that we couldn't speak highly enough about. The service - great, the food - wonderful, the beaches - pristine, and the rooms - spacious. Now that was a while back - but when Jeff was looking in Riviera Maya - I suggested the Grand Palladium to him and was reaffirmed with great reviews on all of the travel websites that my opinion of the hotel was still valid, see below:

Source: Expedia

Source: Trip Advisor

Source: Travelocity

You get the idea - seems like a pretty good hotel. It was also ranked by Oyster their top-5 all-inclusive resorts in Riviera Maya and #2 by Trip Advisor, as shown above. So would it come to a surprise to you that my friend - wound up paying money to leave early - because it sure was a surprise to me! He left his review on Google - and well, no one can find it, even sorting by "recent reviews" - which are all 5-star nothing but good things to say...a little sketchy if you ask me. I'm here to break down his trip and outline the good, the bad - the very bad, and the ugly. Without further ado, here is his experience:

I'm going to start by just posting his Google review and then elaborate with some additional color:

So if you took the time to read that - you know that was a lot and not to mention the complete opposite experience that my family and I had. Also if you take a second to read through the reviews recently left...not really the same messaging. With his review not being "findable", it really pushes to me think...is it on purpose?

Now I said that - the above was only a taste of the cons he endured, some more feedback was:

• The only options for breakfast and lunch was the buffet and the food options weren't great and the food at the buffet was terrible, no fresh foot

• If you wanted to order room service there was a $15 charge per person, per order

• No real juices were used in any of the drinks

• There was a ton of wildlife on the property - snakes, capybaras, iguanas, raccoons, etc. but the droppings were not cleaned by the hotel

• The beaches were not maintained - there were seaweed and rocks everywhere

• Armed military guards with rifles on the streets, stopping cars and patrolling the beaches at the hotels

Here are a few pictures he captured from the Grand Palladium:

Jeff and his wife then left Grand Palladium and stayed at Planet Hollywood. They had the most amazing things to say about this place, with the only con being that there was some mold/mildew in the bathrooms, but nothing compared to the Grand Palladium. They said that there was AC throughout the resort, wonderful food, fresh fruit juices, clean pools, and perfectly maintained and manicured beaches. Some pictures that he sent me are as follows:

So in summary - don't stay at the Grand Palladium - my once favorite vacation in Mexico, clearly is not what it used to be. In addition to the hotel summary - Jeff and his wife went to 2 of the 3 xcaret parks in Mexico. Now Xcaret also doubles as a hotel - which if you're willing to shell out some $$$ you can stay - or you can do a daily excursion there of approximately $150 per person. I asked him to describe to me the three parks and provide some context on how they chose the 2 that they did, see below:

• "xcaret park" is the main/original one - it has like a little bit of everything including cultural stuff like mayan pyramids and shows. they also have a lot of wildlife and a cenote. i didn't choose this one because 1) i thought it would be the most crowded (the other parks were not crowded when we went luckily, barely had to wait for anything if at all), 2) we weren't interested in focusing too much on the cultural shows, 3) we already basically had a ton of wildlife at the resort, and 4) i wasn't planning on swimming in the cenote from all the horror stories i saw about people getting sick from the bat droppings

• "xavage" is the newest park under the xcaret umbrella - it's more of an extreme adventure park. they have a monster truck/rock crawler course that's awesome. a manmade white water rapids course that was our favorite ride (it included a section where you can just out and swim the lazy river), there was a speedboat ride that went through a course and did 360 spins along the way. they had this zipline-like roller coaster where you lay on your stomach. they had a kayaking course. there was extreme monkey bars/obstacle course. and we even spent a good amount of time in the kiddy pool (because we finished all the attractions early with no lines)

• "xel ha" is the water park with a natural lazy river. they also have cliff jumping, water slides, and water obstacle courses. the main inlet is for snorkeling which was super fun and we saw a lot of fish and stingrays.

• food at both "xavage" and "xel ha" was buffet-style authentic mexican but all great compared to the resort Grand Palladium food lol.

I hope that you liked our first edition of Millseas Mates. Our recommendation might have gone 'south' on the Grand Palladium but that doesn't mean we don't try to learn for next time. In terms of how to avoid this mistake in the future...I'm not sure - and that's what scares me. In researching some of the additional ratings, I did see that "yelp" a platform I usually head to for restaurant recommendations v. hotel suggestions rated the Grand Palladium quite low. I used to rely on Oyster for real pictures and real reviews - but now I might start checking 'yelp' as well.

Let us know what you think of this new category!