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I love this property. I meant to write a review after our November stay, and again after our February stay. This property isn't shown the love it deserves. I'm so glad the majority feel a strong pull to cash in their free night certificates or points for the most expensive properties they can find. So, in Mexico they're likely to head to Zilara or Ziva or Andaz. That's great news for those of us who appreciate this gem in the Hyatt portfolio.
I've been at this hobby for a long time and have been fortunate to hit all the "hot spots" 'cept Maldives (yawn). In my humble opinion Grand Hyatt Playa beats Tahiti/Society Islands, Bali, Caribbean Islands, Sharm el Sheikh, the Southern Thai islands, et cetera. I love this place and can't wait to get back.

joetro, if you decide to choose Grand Hyatt Playa and love it like the rest of us please keep it on the down-low, okay? We've all agreed to keep our fingers and toes crossed that the word doesn't get out...(insert wink here)

The Weekly Flyer

Just returned from the Grand Hyatt Playa del Carmen, and was proactively upgraded to an oceanfront Grand Suite King as a Globalist member.

Very pleased with the Grand Club, which served made to order margaritas each night. Breakfast in the club was also good each morning.

We ended up taking an Uber from a nearby airport hotel here which cost $25, however on the way back took a cab from the hotel for $45.

You can view my full review with pictures here.

bgriff

Rough stay here the past few days.

First the general stuff: Property is physically very nice, as you would expect given how new it is. Rooms are comfortable and modern. Staff is friendly though everything takes longer than you might like (everything runs on beach time). Club Lounge has a small-ish but sufficient breakfast and a reasonably substantial evening offering, enough to make dinner out of if you wanted. Gym is nice and very well-equipped. Location is good, fairly central to the town of PDC.


The problem was with our room. First night one spotlight by the bed wouldn't shut off and it was late and we were too tired to do anything about it so had to sleep with a bright light shining in our faces. Took 4 calls (waiting 15-30 minutes between each) including escalating to a manager before anyone came to fix it the next day.

Then the third night we would use the master off switch to turn off all the lights and they would all turn back on full brightness 2-4 minutes later. Did not get a chance to call to have someone fix it as I passed out not realizing the problem while my husband was out getting late night tacos (I am a very heavy sleeper). So by the time he got back he didn't want to wake me and have someone come fix it, though if I had known I would have told him to wake me up -- oh well, but either way a ridiculous thing to have go wrong. (And lights not going off is a particularly obnoxious problem to have since you don't realize the problem until you are all ready to go to sleep.)

Spoke to a manager at check out and was offered 20K points for the trouble, pushed back and was offered 30K. Accepted, but still don't really think it was sufficient for the poor experience received.


BTW, I paid cash, used points to upgrade to a suite, and then contacted the hotel to pay cash to upgrade to the plunge pool suite. I don't know that I would do the last bit again; the plunge pool was nice enough but small even by plunge pool standards--definitely no more than 2 adults. It also required calling down to have the jets and heat turned on each day (and then takes 45 minutes to warm up, so requires some advance planning--it wasn't useful for example when it suddenly got cool and started raining at the main pool), and then both shut off at 9pm with no way to have them turned back on until the next morning, which seems to defeat the purpose of a balcony hot tub to me.

Overall would not return even without our lighting issues, just because given my other Mexico beach town comparison point of Puerto Vallarta, I liked PV a lot better as a town than PDC. If PDC it is, this hotel is probably okay if your room doesn't have lots of issues.

kishna

We're very interested in staying here but have heard mixed things about the music from the dayclub. One FT said music was over by 2:00 daily and that it was possible to avoid hearing noise if you go to certain part of beach; another said music isn't over until 7:00pm and can be heard most everywhere. Which is it?

Also, which room should I avoid if I want to avoid music?

hoping to use DSU to upgrade to suite. Thanks.

MikeMilzz

The Day club is on the north side of the hotel. Our room was towards the water end on the south side and didn't really hear the music during the day. I don't remember when it closes but I'd guess closer to 6 or 7pm - 2pm is prime time. There is plenty of beach space if you want to avoid the club all together. I wouldn't let this stop you from visiting this beautiful property.

sam_goh

We were in a suite over the more casual restaurant on the south end of the property. On the balcony you could still hear the music faintly, but not in the rooms.

kishna

Thanks for all the responses about the day club. A lot of the earlier posts in this thread expressed more concerns about the day club than the more recent posts.

Does anyone have a property/resort map that they can post a picture of? I would like figure out room/suite #s to avoid. Thanks!!

bgriff

The numbering scheme varies by floor, and is especially different on the top floor which hosts many of the suites, so not so easy to say which room numbers are good (and one doesn't really request a room by number at check-in anyway...). Just send the hotel a request to be "away from the day club" or "on the south side of the resort", they will know what you mean.

Also, another irony from my comedy of errors stay at this property last month: I sent the away-from-day-club request to the hotel ahead of time, and it was honored with our room being on the south side of the hotel. But then one of the days of our stay the hotel was running a group event on the beach by the south side rooms, with music blasting much louder than the day club does. So you can't necessarily win them all.

Rooms closer to the entrance and far from the beach are going to be quieter in general as there are various possible events on and near the beach (there were also a few weddings while we were there), but all of the suites are unfortunately in the potential noise zone. If someone is looking for a quiet upgraded accommodation, there is a block of swim-up pool rooms on a lower floor close to the entrance that would probably be very quiet, though I don't imagine you can use a DSU for those rooms, they would have no beach/ocean view, and the small pool shared by that block of rooms doesn't seem like it gets much sun either. (That pool is totally separate from the main pool complex and only accessible from the 6-8 or so rooms that border it. There might be more than one such block of rooms, but I only noticed the one section which could be seen from the club lounge.)

ILuvParis

Do I recall people complaining of mosquitos down in that area or do I think that just because it looks it would be a problem?

MikeMilzz

We were there in Feb and I don't remember any mosquitos at all.

bgriff

I didn't actually visit that area, only saw it from the club lounge, but I did not encounter any mosquitoes to speak of (in May) on the hotel grounds, I assume they probably spray pretty aggressively.

Walking around PDC and especially having dinner at any of the many open air restaurants was a different story though -- definitely put on some strong bug spray before wandering out in the evening.

ILuvParis

I have never noticed any mosquitos at all either.

I am talking about the swim up rooms or those with the plunge pools among the mangrove trees. Did you stay in one of those rooms?

Wooglin

No recollection of any mosquitoes in Dec 2016 either.

ILuvParis

I thought I had read something in the past, so I did a search. Post # 87 mentions looking out for mosquitos in the swim up rooms. A couple other posts refer to some reviews (elsewhere apparently) mentioning them as well. Nothing recent, however.

rbw5t

Does anyone have any experience with the kids club here? Is it included in the price of a room (at the nearby Andaz it is, but eating seems likely to be so much more expensive there that we're planning to stay at GH even if we have to pay for kids club). Any reviews or thoughts are appreciated. We're planning on a trip in early November, which I'm hoping should be less crowded time of year.