Grand-Sirenis.com

[leducgardener]

We are a group of six adults ages 50-60, 25-30, who have just returned from a week stay at the Grand-Sirenis Riviera. This is our 6th time staying at an all-inclusive in Mexico.

I am compelled to write this review because I believe this hotel has some serious issues that need to be worked out. I was very excited about booking this hotel because it sounded so superb and after it opened some negative reviews had me somewhat concerned, but we always have a good time in Mexico and we thought "How bad can it be?"

I have never complained about any resort we stayed at previously, but I believe this resort has too many problems for anyone to simply say it will all work itself out.

Let me start my review. Our check-in was smooth and pleasant. Bell-boy took our bags and they arrived within 10 minutes to our rooms. Had difficulty in finding our rooms, this resort is huge and arriving at night really complicates things. Walkways and pathways are not well lit and very slippery tile surfaces. Be careful. We were in the 1800 building, lovely, close to the beach, on the main floor, right next to the conceirge desk. Someone had already been in our room, messed up the bed a bit, but changed rooms because they had requested a king size bed. We told them this was not a problem since we all wanted to be together. My room request for this was granted. After unpacking, we checked in with the conceirge to book our a la cartes. We were told that we could only book one since the people arriving on the weekend flights had already filled up all the a la cartes and they were all booked. I believe this is a problem of arriving on Tuesdays and also because we are a group of 6. He told us to go and speak to the manager at the reception to see if they could do anything. We decided to go and eat and when walking back to the main lobby, my sister-in-law fell on the stairs (we had not had anything to drink at this point) by the adult pool. It is pitch dark there, no lighting at all. After our meal, we went to the front desk to explain our situation and were told that they could not do anything about this. They told us that they took new bookings on Sunday after 3:00 p.m. and to try then (remmeber we are leaving on Tuesday). Next day at our orientation with our Sunquest rep, we brought this issue up with her and she told us she would look into it for us and to see her later that day. We did and were told once again that nothing could be done about this. Two more days passed and we decided to ask our conceirge to see if anything had changed. It was a different person this time and she was able to book us into our three a la cartes with no problem. There is a real disconnect on this issue. Nobody seems to know exactly how the a la cartes are to be booked. Those of you arriving on Saturdays need to line up right away and be prepared to wait a long time in line to book the a la cartes. This process continues until Monday. What makes it so slow is that the conceirge also has to answer the phone constantly to deal with all the room issues and then call the appropriate personnel to come and deal with the problems.

We found the resort to be very well laid out, but be prepared to do lots of walking. The design is very unique, but unfortunately very cold. There is no color anywhere, just big slabs of white concrete. The main lobby area reminds me of being in an airport. The couches are the most uncomfortable things I have ever sat in. The metal bar stools are even worse. The noise in the main lobby bar at night when the show starts up, plus the background music blarring and then the competing music from the bar and disco t the Mayan beach make it impossible to have a quiet conversation.

The rooms however are breathtaking. The biggest rooms I have seen. The hole in the wall is a big issue, but you all know that. Found it very difficult to have people come and visit in the room since you can see everything that the person in bathroom is doing. Maid service was good. Facecloths seem to be a problem for them. We had to ask twice for facecloths, never got them, then simply took some off the laundry cart and put them away on the drawers to use as needed. I believe these huge rooms are a real bonus for families. Tons of space in the room. The metal patio furniture gets very hot during the day. We used beach towels on them all the time.

They were not using towel cards when we were there and this was a bonus since we always had two on the patio chairs. However, sometimes they would run out of towels.

Our biggest complaint is the food and the service. Believe everything that is written about the food. It is really not good. We are not picky eaters, have never complained about food in Mexico, but at this resort it is really bad. Thank God they let you have four a la cartes because that is what saved our week. The buffets feel like you are in a hospital cafeteria. No color, no decoration and no service. You are not allowed to get your own coffee from their thermoses, but it will take them forever to serve you. These waiters and waitresses work very hard, but there simply isn't enough of them. Tipping does not make a difference at this hotel. The staff are simply overworked, undertrained and know very little English. It is difficult for them to clear the tables, reset them and tehn try to serve you your beverages since they rely on the same people to perform all of these tasks. Nothing will change, no matter how long they remain open, until they change the way they staff their buffets. The good side to this however, is that you will get superb service at the a la cartes. Do not expect to have any type of rapport with the waiters since their English is very limited. They are always pleasant, warm and smiling, but unfortunately their limited English really prevents them from making any type of contact with you. We speak some Spanish, but found this resort to be the first place that we didi not have some type of rapport going with some of the staff.

The service at this resort is also a big concern. Like I previously mentioned, staffing and language are a huge problem. But, there seems to be a cold indifference to guests that I have never before experienced. I think that the whole area must be experiencing some real staffing issues as they continue to build these mega resorts who must be fighting for qualified staff. Frontline staff that deal with the guests daily should be able to speak a certain level of English and you will not find it here.

The staff are continuously cleaning and the resort is immaculate from top to bottom.

The bars close at midnight and the disco is in the Beach lobby and it close at 12:30. There are two beach nights that close at 1:00 p.m. In other words, this place is dead, dead at night. Other resorts ususaly do close their bars around midnight or one, but then the disco kicks in and stays open ususally until three or so and there is always a bar there.

My suggestion to anyone going to this resort is that if you got a good deal and I mean below $1,000 for this resort, then go for it. But we paid $1598 plus $269 taxes (cdn) and really feel that we did not get great value for our money. I do understand the term "soft openings" for new resorts, but they have now been opened for six months and some things are more than "simply a few bugs that need to be worked out".

In closing, I would like to say that our group still enjoyed ourselves, we simply did not let all of the above issues ruin our trip.....but we will never again stay at this resort our recommend it to any of our friends.

[pam]

Hi! Thanks for the review, I appreciate all information and comments. We also arrive on a Tuesday, late afternoon. After reading the comments on Trip Advisor re the a la carte restaurants, I emailed Eduardo, as he is the only person that I have previously emailed. I don't even know if he works right at that resort, and I didn't really have anything I could ask him, I only wanted him to be made aware that I want the 4 a la cartes, that we've basically paid for with our travel package. Can you give me any advice on who to talk to regarding the a la cartes, do you remember the name of the person that came through for you with your restaurant bookings? As well, I believe that the 1900 building is oceanfornt, is the 1800 as well? If I am requesting our paid for oceanview room, which one would you recommend? This is not a free upgrade, but we paid a few hundred more to secure oceanview. Thanks for the feedback Leducgardener!!
_________________
Pam I Am

[leducgardener]

Hi Pam:

There is a concierge in every building and that is who you will be making your booking through. This concierge looks after everything that needs attention in your building and each building has their own. Therefore, as soon as you get there go and see the concierge located on the main floor of your building and book all the a la cartes that you can at that time. Undoubtedly, you will not be able to book them all at once, since the a la carte week runs from Sunday to Sunday, but keep trying every day until you get them all and hopefully this will happen before the big surge of people arrive every Saturday. The concierge person varies from day to day so just keep trying. We had to give up the Friday lobster night at the buffet to get all our a la cartes, but I believe it was well worth the sacrifice. Also, they allow children in the a la cartes which is wonderful for families. You are right that the 1900 building is the ocean front building...but the 1800 building is right next door and it is not ocean front, but the location is close to all the pools, bars, and the beach. You will love that oceanview building, because you are steps away from the beach. Just let me know if there's anything else I can help you with.

[pam]

Hi LeducGardener! It's funny, I've been reading all the reviews since this place opened, and have kept thinking, "It's okay if the review is bad, we are still going to enjoy the resort because we'll be prepared". But today, reading your review has just kind of made me feel not good at all. Specifically not good because I recommended and chose this resort before the 20 friends with family that are vacationing with us paid a lot of money to join our family on holidays. I had originally decided that I would let them all know the info I've come across by reading these forums, and we'll be prepared and have a great holiday. But you were reading these forums LeducGardener, and you were prepared, and yet things were not good in your opinion with this resort. That has me really concerned, what should I do now to try to make sure everyone doesn't want to drown me in the pool for choosing this resort which has multiple problems???!!!Gosh, this is not good. I sure hope they work on making things better in the next few weeks. I remember reading somewhere that about 50 new workers were going through orientation one day just recently at the resort. Sorry to ramble on so much, but I do have one more question, I don't think you said, but did you take the provided transfer bus, and if it was Sunquest, did it make good time? I was planning on private transfer, but the Sunquest bus ride has been sounding good from the posters who took it.Thanks for your info LeducGardener!
_________________
Pam I Am

[leducgardener]

I know exactly how you feel Pam because I'm in the same boat as you. I always pick the hotel for our group and have never encountered these kinds of problems. I would like to emphasize once again that we are not a picky group, can let lots slide and we're not at all demanding....and I thought that we could just make the best of it......but two issues to me that I believe are very serious about this resort are the food and the service. Now bringing in more staff will definitely help because I could go into great detail about many others incidents that happened to us which were a very clear indication of staff shortage. I just don't know what quality of workers they will be able to recruit. Better training will eventually ease the situation but that is more long term. The second issue is the terrible food in the buffets. I don't know how they will be able to fix that problem. I told our group about the food issue that people were reporting about and they all said "How bad can it be? We're not picky" and when we were at the airport in Cancun, two people said the pizza and burger they were having there was the best food they had eaten all week except for the a la cartes.
Now, we did take the Sunquest bus although I had checked out the private transfers we all said it was too much money. We only stopped at one other resort and the rest of the passengers were going to Grand Sirenis. It did take two hours to get there because it had been raining and our driver took it real slow. Our bus left as soon as we boarded. On the return trip the bus made four stops, but its' daylight, you're glad to be going home and you can enjoy the scenery.

[Lumpy]

Just returned from Grand Sirenis on the 21st of Jan. We were staying in the Mayan Beach Resort bldg 21-3rd floor. We found the food the high point(same food as the Mayan Riviera), but we only did buffet the night we arrived(10:00 PM supper-would have ate anything by then) and the Mexican and Lobster nite. All were ok. The a la carte's-Brazilian was excellent, Italian next, Steak House then Mexican. Breakfasts were good. We saw start up pains-ie no elevators worked for the entire week, one afternoon no hot water-next afternoon no cold water-towels, wetbar restock and coffee restock were hit and miss, TV in room was hit n miss. The bar/restaurant by our building kept weird hours-just when you were comfy by the pool with a good supply of drinks available-mid afternoon-(by getting your own at the bar in the building) that bar would shut down and the only area bar was the swim up pool bar. If you were not sitting at it, the waitress had such a huge area that only one side of the pool got service-the side with the least amount of chairs. At the beach, you could get all day service but only with a notable tip at the start, middle and end of the day. When you are at the beach, who wants to carry a lot of cash? Enjoyed the shows, but again bar location was not in a back corner-it was in a front corner so access was by walking in front of the people watching the show and waiting for table service was the same as not having a drink. We learned to deal with the limitations on service and bar locations(I prefer to see the same bartender every nite in the same place-I'm small town-the lobby bars were not a good party spot from the feel comfy pt of view), walked our asses off around the huge grounds-its good for us any way and was in total awe of the scenery and look of the place. I did enjoy the week and did see improvement from the first day to the last-Please note: we are not complainers either, but after the fact, knowing what I know now, given the fact that this resort is isolated and you cannot just take a nite off...my next vacation will not be here.

[Sacbe]

Stayed for 2 weeks Dec.4/06 and paid 1500 canadian, had a wonderful time, they were short staffed then BUT not as bad when you went. Sorry to hear you were not happy overall with the place. You also mentioned very few workers spoke english, when we were there many of the workers spoke english, maybe they quit from being overworked. Take care...you WILL return to Mexico, to the kind compassinate people they are. .

[Steve Baxter]

It's 2009 Try it now you will love it !