The Grand Bliss at Vidanta Riviera Maya - 77710 Riviera Maya

The Grand Bliss is an awesome hotel and a place to call 'home' during vacation! The staff are extremely friendly, from check-in to check-out. The concierges are always willing to help out and go the extra mile to ensure that my stay was amazing. The concierge was always available to answer questions, help with bookings, and always greeted me with the Saludo Vidanta (a symbol where the employees hold their hand to their heart) upon entering and exiting the hotel to enjoy the rest of the resort. The bell boys, responsible for luggage transportation throughout the resort, were very kind and knowledgeable when being escorted to the room at check-in. Additionally, the housekeeping staff go above and beyond. The daily housekeeping service includes the standard turndown, but also washing dishes from the kitchen located within the room. One time, I was greeted by an elephant towel animal and Hershey's kisses on the bed after returning from a long day at the beach. The room, a one bedroom suite, was awesome, which was equipped with a kitchen (minifridge, stove, sink, silverware, bowls, pans, etc), an outdoor space with a plunge pool, and a jacuzzi bath with complementary spa treatments (essential oils and bath salts). There were no lines at the Grand Bliss upon checking-in, however, the check-in process was long which also required a $1500 USD hold on your credit card. Following check-in, tired from the journey, I was greeted by a representative from Vida Vacations, the marketing division of Vidanta responsible for the sales of timeshares and vacation packages, to be invited to breakfast and a presentation/review/update. In exchange, additional perks for my stay were earned, including the Vida Privilege Card and a 10% discount on room charges. While originally skeptical about the presentation, I found the salespeople to be friendly, not pushy, and even reminding me that "No" is a perfectly acceptable answer. The public rate for a stay at the Grand Bliss begins at around $900 USD a night, but members are able to stay for seven days at a discounted rate, starting around $1000 USD per week. An additional thing to note is that all prices within the hotel and resort are in Mexican Pesos ($ MXN) unless otherwise specified to be in USD. Additionally, I would recommend paying for room charges and all other resort fees in Pesos compared to the resort converting the prices to USD (that is, if you have a credit card that does not assess foreign transaction fees), as the exchange rate that the credit cards use from MXN to USD is better than that of the resort. A sanitation and rooming tax (not included in the weekly/nightly rate) is assessed per day. The WiFi speed within the resort's basic (free) wifi plan is a little slow, and may not be suitable for streaming; although premium/high-speed wifi plans are available for an additional price.

If there was an option for 10 stars, we would give it to the Grand Bliss. I need to take cleaning tips from Vidanta. The entire resort was so clean, so pristine and immaculate. not even leaves on the walkway! We had the most amazing experience here. Here are a few reasons we loved our 7 night stay: -Genuine hospitality by everyone who greeted us. Employees just passing us, the bartenders, servers, managers, concierges, front desk - everyone. -Stunning room. We loved the jungle like environment, especially around our plunge pool, which provided privacy. Housekeeping and turndown service every day for us - truly a treat when so many resorts have minimized this service. -Housekeeping: huge callout to Cecilia, who made the most incredible animal shapes with out towels. She is a wonderful representative of Vidanta. We made sure to introduce ourselves to her too. -Food & beverage. Absolutely 10 stars. Believe us, every meal was outstanding and we dined at La Cantina, Limon y Sal, Nektar, Quinto, The Beach Club Bar, Tramonte, Quinto,Del Lago, Salum. The prices are beyond reasonable. Even though tips are included, we always left cash tips. They deserved it. -Transportation around the resort. Who is the Engineering genius who designed this? Ran like clockwork and we never had to wait very long. Even taking the shuttle UNDER the highway to eat at Nektar - that was a marvel! The pick-up at the airport was a true benefit. Our driver had cold Corona for us. What a way to start a vacation. Negative: I ate and drank so much I am sure i gained 5 pounds!!! No apologies. If you have read this far and not gotten bored, there are some shout outs to specific people. Even though everyone was so hospitable, we wanted to say these people made such a positive impression. Cecelia: housekeeping Orlando, Wilbert: Beach Club Ignacio: Tramonte (sommelier!) Francisco (server), Manuel (Manager): Quinto Ezekiel (server), Armel ( manager): La Cantina Sonjia (the MOST incredible omelette maker): Del Lago Alain: Nektar Susana: our concierge at Bliss

Items stolen from our room… by their security when the inspected our room. They investigated themselves and found nothing… surprising. Don’t take anything of value. Be very careful if you decided to go. it also appears that valuables are taken from luggage during transit. Our friends had this happen last year, but chalked it up to the airport. If you look at the reviews, it’s a regular occurrence. Crooks!

We love this resort!! We typically stay in the Grand Luxxe but did Grand Bliss this time and loved it!! Beautiful rooms, gorgeous resort, best staff anywhere!!! We come every year and it is always the highlight of our year!! The addition of Salum was fabulous!!!!!! Can’t wait until next year!!!!

Loved our 1 bedroom suite. Lots of room for a family of 4. The staff that cleaned the rooms were fantastic. Our room was very quiet and private. The kids loved the big jetted tub. All of the staff we met were friendly and professional. We really enjoyed all of the wooden paths. Made it very easy to get around and we hardly took the shuttles. The food at the sea side restaurants were very good, big portions and I appreciated the vegetarian options. We wished we had booked tickets to the fiesta dinner because we walked past and it looked so fun! There were performers and people were cheering loudly. (Vidanta push this at check in!) Our family loved Jungala that is on site. If you are going to the main pool book a cabana bed. It is $40 USD but what you spend on food at the pool goes towards that so it pays for itself. Room service was good and came in good time. Check in and out was easy and no line. Only downside was after check in being sent to talk to a guy who gave us 2 free drink tickets and tried to book us a time for a free breakfast. It was only when he tried to secure $20USD to reserve our spot that we caught on it was for the time share presentation. We said no but he proceeded to call our room constantly the entire week. I wish he had been more upfront. I was glad that nobody else bothered us about it around the resort. Booking our PCR tests was easy and convenient. Overall the resort was beautiful, food was big portions and delicious and staff were all helpful and pleasant to deal with and we very much enjoyed our stay!!!

So far not off to a great start and giving one star, but will update at the end of our stay too. We are paying $600+ dollars and today is our day of arrival. Our complimentary airport pick up shuttle through the hotel directly was supposed to pick us up at 7 am and it's 825 and we are STILL waiting. Meanwhile, 4 shuttles have come to pick up at least 100 other people who arrived after us and the guy keeps telling us they are supposed to be in a different shuttle, even though everyone is going to the same hotel as us. We have 2 toddlers with us. This is NOT acceptable for a "5 star hotel" where we are paying over $600 A NIGHT. Veronica May with reservations has been the nicest out of all the people (so thank you Veronica) but thus far the overall reservation system has been a MESS. I kept trying to add an extra day and it was literally back and forth with someone telling me they couldn't do it and then telling me I had to go through my original package company- and then I would call the package company and they said they didn't have access to the hotel and it was CHAOS. I would not wish this on anyone. I emailed reservations to ask them if I could speak with a manager when I am there. Update from morning day 1: shuttle took 2 hours to pick us up after our reserved time slot. 30 mins from airport. From the time our shuttle dropped us off to getting checked in to our room was 3-4 hours as we are not members. The process was "smooth" meaning someone was always doing something but took FOREVER. We had to pay a $1,000 refundable security deposit. No one has bombarded us with marketing as of now. The workers here are very very nice and seem to be trying their best. Update day 2: great food/buffet at lago for breakfast and dinner Update day 3: the beach is not really appropriate for swimming. Update day 4: mercado, Salum, infinity pool, beach club, grand Mayan resort are beautiful. The property is gorgeous. Thoughts: I was incredibly surprised to find that none of the hotel rooms were water view. This is the only resort I've ever stayed where you don't have a view of the ocean from the room. This place is advertised as "beachfront property" which it is, but I assumed this meant rooms would have a view but the rooms are too far back. Cons: no waterfront view from any of the rooms, extremely long check in process (4 hours) for first timers, shuttle reserved directly from the hotel was two hours late in picking us up (even though the driver was there with the sign- just the shuttle wasn't there, the "shows" at lago were a little old school with the dance moves but entertaining to watch - I think we were just hoping for more "cultural" dancing as opposed to them doing some ABBA dance moves Pros: wonderful property, great customer service, lovely food Will update again as needed.

Cleanliness was impeccable but everything else just fell so short of even meeting expectations. It took over 2 hours just to be taken to our room upon checking in. $1000 security deposit is required. Despite knowing Covid-19 travel requirements, not only is it not mentioned or suggested to make an appointment for your test upon arrival but when you do so times are not available. They suggest walking in for a test, they charge $25 and the process is not efficient. Every restaurant that requires reservations is pretty much booked. Room service not only took over 2 hours to bring our food but also sent our steak raw- literally only cooked on one side. When you bring these complaints to the concierge or manager there is no acknowledgement. If you're looking for a resort to literally relax and enjoy some drinks, this isn't the place for you. In addition they try to sit you down for a "free breakfast" and tell you about their membership. This process is over 3 hours. They not only messed up our initial appointment for this meeting, we also lost 1/2 the day just being told to wait. The following day we addressed these things to the manager who again showed no concern. He was more interested in "pitching" his sales pitch for this vacation packages and got very angry when we told him we weren't interested. This "free breakfast" ended up taking up two of our days here.

Despite the beautiful setting and the grandeur of the place, we are not satisfied with the stay. Firstly, as soon as we arrived, we had to listen to a promotion to attend a breakfast for their Vida program. We were exhausted from our trip and just needed to go to our rooms. Then, we were disturbed multiple times early mornings on the phone by their marketing team. The purpose of our vacation is to get some rest . However, we wore woken up either by the phone calls from their marketing team or house keeping pushing furniture in the hotel room right on top of us! I even went up one morning to let them know that we are sleeping downstairs, but it kept happening. Our room was the farthest away from Reception which meant so much walking to get to our room so we assumed we would get some peace and quiet. There was always some commotion coming from the outside on the hallways which also kept disturbing our sleep. Finally, the room smelled musty despite switching on the AC on high. Not recommended! On top of this, the last couple of days they were painting the room connected to us…. I could hear the workers chatting and singing as early as 7 am!