My Great Parnassus Hotel Review

The Great Parnassus is a family hotel in Cancun.

Since i live in Playa del Carmen, as a mothers day gift, I decided to get myself 1 night, all-inclusive in this hotel so my son and I could have a lot of fun.

Here are my very candid thoughts on our experience.

Just so you know, I tend to “make the best” of everything and “not sweat the small stuff” so my reviews tend to be on the positive side.

But….

Let me tell you, I started sweating pretty much as soon as we got there.

TOP 5 THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE BOOKING

1. The Service can be TERRIBLE

Here was our experience CHECKING IN…

We arrived for 2pm thinking that standard check in was 3pm and I wanted to avoid the crowds at reception desk.

I was more than ready to not have a room for the first few hours, I just wanted to get our all-inclusive bracelets on, grab a bite and maybe go for a swim.

There were only 3 people ahead of us in line at reception – not too bad right?

That’s until the receptionist spent 35 minutes with one couple. No joke.

I don’t know what the issue was…8 staff and only 2 of them were actually checking people in. I felt like I was at the supermarket… you know when you choose the wrong checkout line and the person in front of you has tons of items that can’t be scanned.

EVERY check-in desk was that slow!

People started losing patience and cutting the line to the “members” desks.

My 7-year-old was getting more and more impatient, as were the other adult guests around us, many commenting loudly that it should not take 30+ minutes to check out, or that they had been waiting 20+ minutes.

After about 30 minutes of waiting, I decided to tweet it and see if the hotel would take action.

Just for the record – I had tweeted to the hotel about our arrival several times and had not received a response.

To the social media “manager” of the Great Parnassus Hotel:

1st – When a guest freely publicizes your hotel by saying they are looking forward to their upcoming stay, you should WELCOME them and/or THANK them. What would your mama have you say?

2nd – APOLOGIES go a long way. Making excuses for HORRIBLE service is not acceptable… and pisses people off even more. We were only there for 24 hours, (2pm Saturday to 2pm on Sunday) and lost 1 of them standing needlessly in line. I can’t imagine how the people having just arrived after a long flight must have felt. First impressions matter. SORT IT OUT.

So, other than this experience the service was fine but it does leave a bad taste in your mouth and has you expecting the worst. Hey, maybe that’s their strategy.

2. Rates for Single Parents

This hotel has an offer for single parents that 1 adult and up to 2 children under the age of 12 stay for free. It is really affordable.

3. They Accommodate Families of 5

This is one of the few hotels that can accommodate families of 5. They have family suites that come with bunk beds and either 2 double or 1 king and a trundle bed.

4. Red Flags on the Beach

The beach is beautiful but the water was very rough during our 2 day stay so swimming wasn’t an option. Cancun beach can be very wavy and have a lot of undertow year-round. Even on a less windy day, the water may be rough for small children. This is nature and cannot be controlled, but best for you to know if you love to swim in the ocean.

5. It’s a Family Friendly Hotel

Even though this hotel is in Cancun, this is *not* a party hotel is extremely family friendly (not at all what you imagine Cancun to be).

Also, contrary to many other hotels where the services are all spread out, pretty much all the restaurants are centralized in the main lobby area. This means full A/C getting, to and from your room, to the buffet and many of the services. It also means elevators, making carrying your beach bag, toddler, stroller etc, much easier.

MY PERSONAL TOP 5 LOVES 

1. The Rooms

The rooms are large and airy and due to the way  the hotel is built. Almost all the rooms have at least partial ocean view. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.

2. Water Slides!!!

The hotel has a fabulous kids club with both indoor and outdoor areas. You can stay with the kids in the water park area. Minimum required age of 5.

There is also a couple of larger water slides for the bigger kids (height requirement is 1.2 meters, 84 inches). We had a lot of fun on the slides!

3. Mini-Golf

There’s mini-golf on site. Great addition for extra play-time.

4. Room Service

Three cheers for room service is all I have to say. We had breakfast in the room with a beautiful ocean view on Mother’s Day morning which was a real treat. The food and coffee were hot. The food was delivered on time and it was probably the best meal we had during our stay. Maybe having it delivered to you while still in pyjamas makes it even tastier.

5. The BIG, Beautiful Beach

The beach is wide, long and white. You can walk for miles. It’s quiet on either side and there are plenty of beach loungers and palapas for shade PLUS waiter service on the beach. Score!

TOP 3 AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT

1. Pools

Apart from the water park area, there is a three-tier infinity pool overlooking the ocean. The pool area is gorgeous, however not very big for the amount of guests at the hotel and you have the impression of being one on top of one another. If you love to lounge at the pool and relax, this may not be the best option for you.

There is waiter service around the pool and they do have a lot of loungers and areas with shade.

There is an adults only quieter pool on the rooftop.

This image is taken early morning before people arrived to the pool but it gives you an idea of the size of the first level of the pool. There are two more smaller levels leading towards the beach area.

2. Reception

The line ups are long and overall it is disorganized. I’ve already ranted about this – see #1 in Things to Know area at the top before booking.

3. FOOD

The buffet is set up in an atrium/solarium type area and the circular center is divided into stations: fruits, salad bar, poultry, pasta, mexican, sushi, seafood, desserts etc. So you can always find something you prefer. The buffet restaurant tends to be noisy and hot.

There are several a la carte restaurants at dinner time that do not require reservations: Asian, Steakhouse, Mexican, Italian, and Deli with New York favorites.

Outside by the main pool area you have your typical snack station with burgers, fries, nachos etc.

The food was not memorable, we always found something to eat but nothing left us impressed – although the margaritas were always pretty good!

With all that said and done – I would go back. It is one of the only hotels that offers rates for single parents and even though it started off terribly, we really did have a good time with the water slides and other activities on site.

Get Discounts on the Great Parnassus

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Have you stayed at the Great Parnassus? What did you think? Comment below.