Grand-Sirenis.com

[Jamie]

Grand Sirenis Review
Aug 23 – Aug 30

Hey all. Just got back from the Grand Sirenis last night and had a great time. For the past couple of months I have been coming to this website and reading all the reviews, and found all the complaints to be far exaggerated or even non existent. With that said there were still a few things I would change, so here we go:

INTRODUCTION
This review is written from the perspective of a 20 year old that went with his girlfriend and 6 of his friends. We booked with Transat holidays from Calgary, Alberta, Canada and flew direct into Cancun Airport. Everything from flight and pick up from the airport was a breeze. I was actually very surprised at how well everything was run. After a 6 hour plane ride, the bus to the Grand Sirenis seemed to take forever, but I think it was around 2 hours or so (with dropping everyone else off at different resorts).

CHECK IN
As soon as we got to the resort, we were told to leave our bags and go into the lobby. We were welcomed with a non-alcoholic beverage and were given a brief run down of the resort, where the buffet was, how check in was going to work ect ect. After the speech, we quickly got our room keys and went to get our bags. When we picked our bags up someone there told us to leave them as they would be delivered straight to our room, so that was cool. We then found a map and left to go find our room. (Later our friends told us that if we waited around a bit longer someone came and gave them a lift directly to their rooms). Finding our room wasn’t much of a problem, as all the buildings are generally in the same area, although the resort is huge.

THE ROOM:
Let’s just start off by doing a bit or rumour killing. After months of reading all the reviews on the message board, I was scared s***less about what we were going to find in our room. However, the room was spectacular. There was no horrible mildew smell, the Jacuzzi or the shower didn’t have brown water, our room wasn’t flooded, nor filled with wild animals. The room was just spectacular. We had a king sized bed, our mini fridge was filled with 2 cokes, 2 bottles of water, 2 beers, and 2 other soft drinks (It varied) and 2 more large jugs or refillable water daily. We left the tipping to the maid to the very last day, and every day our room was very clean. She even made us a different animal from towels and left it on our counter everyday. Just for the record, we were in the 2000’s building right by the pool, snack bar and ice cream shop.

THE FOOD:
The food is a tough one to right a review for because there are a bunch of different ala cart dinners, multiple buffets, a coffee shop, a ice cream shop and a great place right by the beach where they make your food to order, not to mention all of the bars to drink. But bare with me here and I’ll do my best.

The Buffet:
We had the main buffet for most of our breakfasts and lunches, but only had to eat it for dinner twice with all of our excursions and ala carts. There is a good selection and the food was pretty good. With that said, by the last day it was hard to stomach a lot of it. Not for the reason that it was bad food or anything, but just for the simple reason that if you eat the same buffet everyday, after awhile your going to get sick of it. They had everything from traditional Mexican dishes, to fried chicken, pork chops and pizza. My biggest complaint would have to come in the breads department. I’m a huge fan of baked goods, and all the bread, croissants and what not all seemed to be stale no matter what buffet or time in the day we went to/at. Regardless, I thought the main buffet did the job. I don’t think I could eat any buffet without getting sick of it unless they had a complete different selection every day. The service in the main buffet was exceptional. If our drinks were empty, we would have a new one within a few minutes, and there wasn’t one time I went up for seconds and my first plate was gone by the time I came back.

Ala Carts:
We did the Brazilian, Italian, Steakhouse and Mexican. All were the best meals we had at the resort by far. The Brazilian is all meat, so don’t book it if you’re not a meat fan. The Italian by far had the best looking restaurant and the food was good as well. We didn’t really had a problem with the portions as there is an all your can eat appetizer buffet. The steakhouse was pretty good as well, but a way to red neck for my tastes. I live in Alberta, which is the equivalent to the Texas of America, and I thought it was too red neck. Anyway, the food was good, but wasn’t the best steak I’ve ever had. No complaints about the Mexican place, but that’s to be expected as we were in Mexico. Service in all the restaurants was amazing.

Snack Buffet:
This is the place you go if your in the mood for some chicken wings, burgers, hot dogs, French fries ect ect. Really hit or miss with this one. The burger was absolutely disgusting. I usually just stuck with the chicken wings, fries, and nachos which were good. Service here like anywhere else was awesome. One day, our waiter came up to us with the wildest shot I’ve ever experienced. It was red, white and blue (he most of thought we were American) and burning hot like a candle if you put your hand directly over top of it. His English wasn’t the greatest, but he made it clear to us that we had to put the straw in right away and drink as fast as we could. We did as he motioned us to do, and as we drank the shot it was freezing cold and tasted like black liquorish. It was pretty crazy.

Ice Cream and Coffee Shop:
These places are a great compliment to an already stacked food and drink menu. The ice cream place had slurpee drinks, 8 different flavours of ice cream, as well as soft chocolate, vanilla and mix. It’s a great thing to be able to get ice cream anytime during the day on such hot days. The coffee shop was also awesome, with ice caps as well as fresh brewed black coffee with all the shots of flavour you could every want.

Bars:
All you could every want here. I’m not much of a drinker but when it’s free and it’s convenient it happens a little more than you expect it to. I didn’t really recognize too many names here, but regardless the drinks were strong and tasty. Bar staff was probably the friendliest, seeming to go out of their way to make sure you’re having a good time and starting up conversation.

POOLS:
Just some more rumour killing to start off this section. The pools were always very clean, and we didn’t return with any horrible rashes. I think there are around 3 or 4 pools in the resort, but we kept finding more as we explored the resort more and more throughout the week. A few of the pools had swim up bars which is a nice feature. The lazy river was very cool, but like someone said in their review before can be ruined by over anxious kids running on the side or swimming right by you. Can’t really help it though, and just try and do the lazy river when its empty or less populated is my suggestion. My biggest complaint has got to by that the pools close SO EARLY!! All the pools, including the lazy river close at 7PM local time, which means no late night swimming which I thought was a big disappointment.

ENTERTAINMENT:
There is a theatre at this resort that puts on nightly shows. Being theatre arts major I wasn’t expecting much, but thought the shows were fairly hit or miss. Most of the time I found the opening acts or people doing karaoke or game show type challenges better and more entertaining then the second rate main performances. I’ll say again though that I’m a theatre major, and I’ve seen some of the best stage performances ever created. My friends found the shows pretty good and we usually were at the theatre every night unless we had an excursion. The majority of the shows consisted of singing of various famous songs. In the lion king, they did all the songs from the movie, in broadway they song a bunch of famous songs from noteable broad way performances, ect. I didn’t understand why they had the same singer from the opening band play all the main roles in every single performance. Perhaps it’s a cost saving move, but I found it to really cheapen the shows, as he wasn’t a very good singer even as an opening act. The Mexican show as well as the circus show I would suggest everyone to check out as these were both very cool to see. During the day there are various activities throughout the resort. Dance classes, archery, tennis, ping pong, ect ect. We didn’t check too many of them out, but it’s a nice touch. Biggest complaint about the entertainment is that after the main show is over (around 11PM) There is absolutely nothing to do at this place besides go the the club, watch TV, or go to sleep.

MISC POINTS:
- If you plan on leaving the resort, don’t take a taxi!! It is a complete rip off. I forget the name of it, but if you walk down to the free way, you can wait for the bus (actually, a white van) to pull over and take you to pretty much wherever you would want to go that a taxi could take you for only 2 US dollars.

- Snorkelling fans, Akumal in the morning is a MUST! We went to both Xal-Ha and Akumal for snorkelling. We paid $90 (with transportation) to go to Xal-Ha, and $27 (With a private tour and transportation) and found Akumal to be much better! We saw two sting rays, 10+ sea turtles, a barracuda and a huge school of fish among others!


PICTURES


This is one of the buildings where the rooms are at night.


The bridge from the lobby which leads to the rooms and pool.


Outside the main lobby


The Pool at night


The restaurant by the beach.


Inside the buffet


Lobby

More pictures to come later, any questions feel free to ask and comments are very welcome!!

[makita122]

Thanks for the honest review! I'm not as adventurous as you though, cause I absolutely HATED the collectivos the first time I was in MX, and now use taxis. Next time it'll be a rental car. Moving' on up. Glad you had a good time!

[bgarhan]

thanks for the great review, glad you all had a wonderful time!

[Mustang]

Fantastic review. Thanks.

Mustang
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Dreams Riviera Cancun 12/09
Barcelo Palace 6/09
Grand Sunset Princess 12/08
Barcelo Palace 7/08
Grand Sirenis Mayan Beach 7/07
IB* 00,01,02,03,04,05.06
Robinson Club 99
Windjammer (Fantome) 81,82,83

Carefree Highway!!!

[dfh98]

excellent review - thank you so much. i am getting excited and we still have 12 weeks (today) to go
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[cornell4259]

Thank you for your terrific review! I really appreciate all of your little tips -
We leave Saturday for a week's stay, and after reading your post I am more excited than ever!

[Jamie]

Some more pictures...


Room shot 1


Room shot 2


One of the many towel animals the maid left us


Pool


Instead the lobby by the bar


Lobby and reception area


Some of the cool art work


The Lazy River


Another pool


Outside the resort at night





Beach at night (Note, going on the beach at night is a bad idea, there are crabs everywhere!!)


Archery Range


Our lizard friend


Lion king show 1


Lion king show 2


Another towel animal


Mexican restaurant


The coffee shop


The daily/nightly activity board for the week.

[MayaTripper]

Thanks for the pics, they bring back some great memories. I can't wait for my next visit in 6 weeks.
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MayaTripper

[admin]

Awesome review and great pictures!

[brenda]

Hey Jamie - thanks for the great review. We are heading there for Spring Break on March 25th and we will be sharing 2 queen bed room with our son..I have noticed on a few pic's that the bathroom is a clear view (via window) from the bed's point of view. Is this a standard thing or is there an actual blind you can pull down on that window? I kinda notice on the 'King' bed room suites there is no cover but on a few pic's of the two "queen" rooms there was a cover!! Did you notice a cover thing at all?

Thanks
Brenda
Sherwood Park

[Mustang]

Some have the hole...Some have frosted glass...Some have the hole walled over. Have your T/A get with the tour company and ask for which version you would like. Then email the resort about 7 days prior to arrival. Keep printed copies of all emails and take that with you.

Mustang
_________________
Dreams Riviera Cancun 12/09
Barcelo Palace 6/09
Grand Sunset Princess 12/08
Barcelo Palace 7/08
Grand Sirenis Mayan Beach 7/07
IB* 00,01,02,03,04,05.06
Robinson Club 99
Windjammer (Fantome) 81,82,83

Carefree Highway!!!