Grand Palladium Kantenah Resort and Spa - All Inclusive

Customer Ratings & Reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

10342 reviews

• 

  Great all rounder hotel in a stunning setting!

  I have recently returned home from a two week stay at the Grand Palladium Kantenah with my 11 yr old daughter. I dont normally write reviews but I wanted to give an honest account and clear up some of the bad ones! Firstly the Positives: • The Hotel Grounds - absolutely stunning and very well kept. There are many walks you can take through the grounds where you will see an abdunace of wildlife at every turn. The wildlife was a massive highlight of our holiday - Coatis, Spider Monkeys, Kinkajou, Turtles, Iguanas, Agoutis, Squirrels, Crabs and sooo many types of birds! • Pools - The main pools were both a great size and cleaned daily. The splash pool was great fun and perfectly situated next to the main pool and beach. • Restaurants - The buffets had a good selection of choice for everyone and was replenished quickly. We found the pool buffet better as wasn't as busy as the main one. - Al a cartes were hit and miss, some being better than others, though loved how they were all included in the price of the stay and that there was a large variety to choose from. Our favourites were the Japanese, Italian, Fish (beach restaurant) and Brazilian. The staff in the restaurants were all extremely friendly and welcoming. • Rooms - Modern, large and comfortable beds, great bathroom especially the jacuzzi bath. • Beach - Breezy, and lots of shade from the palm trees. Can imagine being beautiful in the right season. We sat on the beach one afternoon and watched stingrays surfacing ❤️ • Bookings - I found the restaurant bookings very easy and was able to book every restaurant at a suitable time during my stay. When my phone broke, the concierge was very helpful in booking restaurants for the rest of our stay. • Facilities - We only used the sports centre and facilities on the beach so can only comment on these. Paddle boards were great, as was pickle ball, badminton and shuffleboard. Mini golf was very tired and needs a revamp for sure, but was nice playing in a tropical jungle setting! • Kids club - for younger kids it looked great. My daughter was in-between the two for ages which was frustrating as she was too old for the younger club and too young for the older so didn't really get to use it. • Entertainment - We only went to the white party and the mexican night as we were shattered but both nights were brilliant and there seemed to be loads on every evening. The not so good: * Beach - So week one there was seaweed... or so we thought. We managed to get in for swim and paddleboard but due to the wind it was soupy with seaweed. The second week however was horrendous about 3ft deep with seaweed on the beach. The hotel tried to clear it on week one, but I think there was so much coming in on week two it was like shovelling snow when it was still snowing! It is the time of year though for seaweed and mother nature doing her thing, but it smelt really really bad and made the beach almost unaccessible. * Rooms - We unfortunately had to move rooms twice. The rooms are modern but very dark, I needed to turn every light on to see anything. To use hair applicances which need plugging in, you needed to use the bathroom mirror (I find this quite dangerous having water and electricals next to each other 🙄) The reason for the room moves was due to faulty bathrooms which kept flooding when we showered from different places. It is obviously a fault in how they have been fitted but it was dangerous and having to move twice for the same reason, certainly wasnt the highlight of my holiday! I lost 8-10hrs of my stay sorting out the issues, with me ending up needing to speak to the main manager to get it sorted. * Pools - Colonial pool was lovely but very hot & deep (need a floaty!), White sands lovely and peaceful and much shallower, but had sharp cracks in the tiles where you could easily cut yourself. * Bars - Lots if bars to choose from but unless you tip the bar staff, they are generally grumpy. The biggest fault was that there were no hard cocktail menus. My phone broke week one so had no access to the online menus. When I asked for options of what they do they just said look online even when I said I couldnt! It was very frustrating. Also they needed a beach bar in the evening where you could sit out. There are positives and negatives to all hotels and things some people will like and some wont. Even though we had some issues, I would definitely return to this hotel, as overall it was a great hotel for what we paid and the grounds, wildlife and food selection made up for the negatives! I hope this was helpful!

  Jun 15, 2025
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  Beach is a health hazard, other wise 5/5 for the money

  9th visit to 1 of the 4 hotels on the complex. Food good Pools good but hot 26 degrees Staff good Resort good. Rooms good (refit last 12 months) Very Clean Don't listen to the people who complained they are not in the Family Selection and get second rate service if you are just in the Kantenah, it is priced different and you get more, the normal service access to non Family Selection areas is fine. In fact because the Family Selection has dedicated areas and restaurants it take lots of kids out of the other areas so Kantenah better then in the past. The above would all warranty me giving a 5/5 and total value for money, and remember the cost if you want to moan. Now the poor side, the beach. I totally understand the Sargassum, been to this Hotel and others with this and this is nature and i expected it this visit. What i find unacceptable there was no cleaning for 4 straight days which meant the most horrific smell and danger getting in the water climbing over the rotting weed to get into the sea. When they did try and clean it was just two men with equipment they have been using for 5+ years when it was fit for purpose. Also they only cleaned the Area in the White Sands Palladium Club not the Kantenah I mentioned this to the TUI rep 3 times who spent all her time trying to sell trips (reps should be banned from this because that's all they focus on!) Was told she was not allowed to walk around hotel and comment on the beach (that was another TUI role) and would feedback when she spoke to the Hotel Manager, after 3 days of asking i just gave up. They have also taken down the beach web cams, Life guards mentioned management had done as not to show poor state of the beach to the public! I can predict what Kenia Rodriguez the Hospitality Advisor will say, sorry for the experience and we are working on improving strategies and resourcing the issues. This is not acceptable, you have hundreds of great staff but choose for what every reason to leave you best asset the beach to literately rot and smell. This will cost you your business if you do not address it. Will be interested to see other reviews on the beach in the coming weeks and if you actually act on feedback.

  Jun 15, 2025
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  Would not return

  The room was nice large and very clean. No outside seating area or entertainment at night so stuck in the lobby every night entertainment terrible ,noisy disco every night.sea terrible could not swim in the sea.noisy tractor up and down the beach every day ruined our nice relaxing beach holiday .toilets near outside bar filthy .staff not friendly .a lot of money for a 3 star at best.

  Jun 13, 2025
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  Honest review good and bad

  Honest review - we have had a lovely 10 day stay at the hotel and overall the experience was positive. The grounds are immaculate, rooms clean, entertainment good and the staff are helpful and friendly. We also enjoyed the gym facilities and the daily activities such as cookery classes on the beach which were fun. However there are some areas that in my opinion fall short. Theres no afternoon tea or snacks available in between meals (no crisps, nuts, etc at the bars and no snacks in the mini bar in the rooms either which has always been my experience in every other all inclusive i have stayed at). You can get snack type meals in one restaurant called ‘after time’ which is a depressing American style sports bar with no windows but i waited over an hour for my potato skins by which time i may as well of waited for the main buffet restaurant to open. The food in the main buffet was excellent with a good selection. However the other restaurants that require you to book were average at best. The Argentina steak restaurant was horrendous and i would go as far to say it was the worst meal i have ever eaten (or couldnt eat in this case). The steak was tough as old boots, full of fat, came with abut 7 French fries and the pepper sauce was watering salty sludge. Really really awful poor quality food. We have enjoyed our stay here in mexico but i have had better experiences in all inclusives in barbados, turkey, Egypt, Dominican etc. i wouldn't say grand pavilion was 5 stars

  Jun 12, 2025
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  The worst food of all Mexico all inclusive we have been to

  We stayed here for two weeks, and all I can say is it’s a beautiful hotel in a gorgeous setting with lots of nice walkways and lots of nice touches. However, that’s about as good as it gets, the food variety was awful, the buffets have the same food every day for breakfast, dinner and lunch, none of the food is hot, it’s all cold or luke warm. The a la cartes are a slight improvement, but again, they are all pretty much the same just with a different name. Steak steak and more steak, avoid if you like good food and variety, certainly not 5 star worthy; 3 star at the most for the food.

  Jun 12, 2025