Written by guest blogger, David Dillon, my son. He did a thorough job of reviewing The Grand at Moon Palace after our stay in July 2023. There were four adults in our group myself, David, Emma (our daughter) and Brendan (her fiancé that proposed on property!) Enjoy, and let us know when you are ready to book!
For the reader, I am a 24 year old male who has traveled somewhat extensively. I have pretty high standards across the board and have been to a fair number of all-inclusive resorts. I ask that you know my expectations are tempered through this lens and may vary some from your own experiences - especially that I can be particularly harsh when nothing is really wrong.
I didn’t bring a computer with me and instead took notes daily about what we did. I will include my thoughts in addition to the walkthrough of the days. I think, presented in this manner, you see through my thoughts that we enter a sort of “flow state” and start to turn certain actions into habit. If you’re looking to have a supremely relaxing vacation, I recommend that approach.
Tuesday July 4, 2023
In Cancun, the airport is immediately different to an American traveler. The modernization of American airports is more startling in comparison. However, from the last time I remember it to now (a little more than a year ago) it was much nicer. In-processing is now through a futuristic booth. You scan your own passport, walk up to facial recognition, and scan through. If you fail that you go through the old booth. Then you walk to baggage claim down the way. It takes about 3x longer than you’d expect. Like if you thought 30minutes was reasonable, try an hour and a half. Afterward, you go out to the parking lot. Depending on your destination, there are options. Individual transportation was our choice, and I have to admit, price dependent, it’s probably worth it. We went, almost instantly, from the parking lot, to the black escalade, to the road. The company gave us the driver and he loaded the bags, put us in, and we were off. Buses, on the other hand, seemed to take MUCH longer.
Upon arriving to the Palace Resort’s the Grand, we walked immediately up to the counter, the checked us in via a pretty reasonably short process and we were told no rooms would be available until 3pm. Not a big deal, just check luggage with the bellhops. A seamless process. We explored the Grand for a few hours and realized that it is much larger than we had anticipated.
This is a 'visualize in your head' section so watch out. The Grands property is situated on the rightmost third of the Palace Resorts overall beached section. The Grand itself (lobby and main building) is situated on the bottom left corner of the Grands bottom right third of the property. The lobby building is weird. I view it as three sections. The middle section which is the lobby, then its right and left. Main floor lobby went back into a bar, then to a few places we only toured (to include the circus which was well done). Main floor left extended past Tavola (Italian), Le Chateau (French), and Unique (night club) to the coffee bar (which said it had beignets in the name but most certainly did not) and the business presentation rooms. Here, you’ll find a staircase down. We’ll come back to that. Main floor to the right extended past Jade (Asian), a series of souvenir shops, and Wired (teen hangout) to the Grand buffet and JC’s (Steakhouse) which were cornered by a staircase. If it helps, view the whole building as an big lowercase n. The lobby is the middle connector, and each side has a staircase down to the basement I guess we could call it.
On the left side of the “n” under the coffee shop, there was a bowling alley, the prohibition bar, La Cantina (Mexican food) and its’ sister restaurant. On the right side of the “n” under the Grand buffet is, ironically, the gym, and a smoothie bar.
This layout is not super intuitive and dictates that if you want to get from the gym to the smoothie bar you must either go upstairs, across the building, and downstairs OR you must exit and reenter the building after a 5 minute outdoor walk.
Furthermore, and my final geographic, quasi visual section, the pathing outdoors is hard to get a grasp of. I’m pretty good at maps, solid with a compass, and not terrible with GPS - I had some trouble navigating the resort. Not only does everything look similar and all the grounds are accented with the same coconut trees, pools, and walk up bars, BUT the paths aren’t straight and don’t rely on like a highway system of big roads and small offshoots. All the paths wind endlessly, are boxed in by tall vegetation, and are the same size (which is only rough when golf carts try to pass you at 35mph). Anywho the phone app has a map.
Our first fooding was at the Grand Buffet.
After some exploring, which again emphasized the massive size of the resort, we got to our room.The room was great. As you enter, a minibar to your side greets you. A few steps later and you’re flanked on either side by the enormous closet and the bathroom. In the bathroom two sinks guard the shower with the toilet separated by another door, for privacy. In the room itself, two double beds sit with nightstands and a dresser. Down two steps is a desk with two chairs, a jacuzzi and the double glass doors to the balcony. I am realizing now that I am not sure I ever went fully outside the balcony because I could not name the furniture there. Weird. Whoops.
The room was great and nice. Cleaned and consistent. No weird decorations or abhorrent cleanliness violations. We really only changed, showered, and slept in the room, but if a family with little ones had to spend more time there, it is absolutely doable.
As we went outside for our first bout of pictures (as a guise for Brendan’s proposal) (Happy engagement btw), we walked some on the beach (once again plagued by seaweed as it also was last year), the winding paths near the beach, and by some of the pools, trying to vibecheck the most usable. Brendan and Emma returned to the room to change for dinner and we scouted the best spot for the proposal. Incidentally, the staff proved extra special again in their willingness to offer suggestions for locations.
We met back up with Emma and Brendan and (unfortunately) were convinced to go to Michael Jackson (the exhumed experience). Summarily… it isn’t what I would call PG. We checked the MTV (as Michelle insists) music videos for Thriller and Dangerous. There are literally NO scantily clad ladies in those music videos which is NOT the impression you’d get if you only saw the exhumed experience. I wouldn’t bring my kids, IF I had them AND I had to go again.
Wednesday July 5, 2023
Breakfast at the Caribeno yielded plenty of options. Hispanic, breads, American, fruits, yogurts, carved ham, and hot chocolate. No wait either. I believe we did this for the rest of the week and I highly recommend AVOIDING the hubbub of the Grand Buffet if possible for breakfast and dinner. Unfortunately, and Wednesday is my only day with this note, low population made the food sit longer. I never noticed this another day, but it is a risk you run. I think we may have been there VERY early though.
That night came the great fall. Cusco. Cusco is Peruvian cuisine and again is separate from the building and as far from the rest of the resort as anything can be. I know why now. Everything we got, we did not finish. I don’t know if I can put my finger on the exact problem, but I promise you, when I read the menu I thought “WOW I'm gonna order everything”, and I tried. I really tried. I didn’t like very much at all. And neither did anyone else. Frankly, avoid it. Unless you can try every other restaurant, make it absolutely dead last.
Afterwards, in a vain attempt to rebuild a desire for food, we returned to the lobby to check the coffee bar. When I tell you it was jam packed, I mean it. The entirety of the main building felt at capacity. Ultimately, after watching a man drop the ice cream off his cone, sigh, pick it up with his hand off the floor, return it to the cone, and continue eating it - we left.
We were here the rest of the week. The pool is mostly not. It’s largely a space to lay and drink, but technically the water in the middle is there and people congregate in it. You won’t swim laps here is where I’m going with it, so don’t expect to. Also it’s an 18+ area and that rule was abided to. I didn’t ever see kids in this area.
Everyone else left to get coconut drinks while I held down the fort. Coconut drinks were really good, albeit, there was very little actual liquid. Turns out that a lot of the coconut is coconut and is thusly difficult to fill with a beverage.
Before lunch, I ran to the money exchange, a window in the lobby and asked if I could trade an 20USD for 20 USD 1’s. He did it immediately, no paperwork no problems. There maybe fees if you cross USD to Peso, but I don’t know. If you want US to US, no problem.
On this glorious fooding, we met Tavola. Potentially the premiere highlight for the Grand, Tavola offers Italian food that is actually good. About a year ago we had some of the worst pizza I have ever witnessed in Palace Resorts other resort. I was skeptical of this, and frankly, somewhat bummed as we came in because the food looked really good (so the letdown would be more I presupposed.) In truth, the ciabatta was great, meatballs were heavenly, the Alessia pizza was divine. If you wanted to start a new religion, it would be no mistake to start at Tavola. We returned later.
After Tavola’s blessing, we went back to our spot at the pool. 2x we did this manuever, but the pool is safe enough that we left our bags and things there while we ate and returned to our spot unconcerned. We partied until dinner.
JC’s steak was not too shabby. I had calamari and clam chowder (It was good, I’m not from Boston. I have no loyalties). The 10oz Ribeye and the 3 Musketeers left something on the table and frankly, in retrospect, JCs is the only restaurant with upcharge pricing on the menu for some items. While the steak was good and I paid no money to eat there because all inclusive, it’s probably about the same tier as Outback Steakhouse. It’s good.
Friday July 7, 2023
Breakfast at the Caribeno was sparsely populated, but very fresh.
We returned then to the Unique Day Club. At this point, I have to be honest or the entry for the day would look strange. My notes here… leave a lot to be desired. I had convinced the family to do tequila shots, but our waiter, Alfredo, was on his second day with us. He knew my games. So after 2 double shots for everyone, I did a triple shot, then nursed some drinks. As such, my notes for Friday July 7th are barely legible and not very helpful.
If memory serves me… we ate there at the pools bar. I had barbeque wings which were great and Brendan and Emma had food too. We did a variety of other shots there (possible for you too. Just ask the waiter to bring you shots or whatever kind he wants).
For some reason we went back for a nap.
After Le Chateau, we went to the Speakeasy. The interior design there is better than anywhere else, save maybe the Circus. It is designed to be a library that became a speakeasy. The drink choice and presentation is top of the line and really well done. They have taken classic prohibition drinks and modernized them without totally forgoing their roots. Really commendable job all around. Highly recommend.
We ended this night with the most spectacular entertainment offering available. Luchadore wrestling. This luchadores had the same level of acting skill as professional WWE fighters, but none of the cheeky camera angles to make it all look real. The environment and crowd for the event was great, and the excitement from, mostly but not entirely, children was palpable. Solid way to spend an hour, probably doubly so if you’re still utilizing the bar there.
By Saturday we’d routinized our day entirely. Breakfast Caribeno, Unique day club with Alfredo, Tavola for lunch, Unique day club with Alfredo til dinner, and
Dinner at La Cantina was good. I had a drink made with honey from Mayan flowers and I think it opened a third eye. Everyone else had normal good drinks. Food was great, albeit not always totally clear. My sangre de toro bean cream soup was more palatable to Americans with me than “beans” were which is weird because mine sounded so much crazier. The food itself was fantastic and generally normal. Shoutout to the waitstaff and management (Angelica and Geraldine (I really should remember) because I asked for a weird dish I had in Guatemala (atole blanco) and they offered to prepare me atol (which is not the same but I didn’t know that). After a long wait they brought forth sweetened corn milk with cinnamon. For dessert I’d asked for cafe de olla which I recommend. Also I ate Michelle’s ice cream which was great because everyone knows it doesn’t count if you don’t order it.
Sunday July 9, 2023
We woke up early, had Caribeno before we left the resort after making sure to put our bags outside the door. Our transfer to the airport arrived before 8 and we were at the airport by 830. We traded information at kiosks and our bags at the desk (REMINDER - keep your visa ticket printed by the new machines during customs. As it says, you need it to leave). The flight to Indy was fine, except that, I personally felt the screens that generally say your destination didn’t say anything until we were already boarding. Pay close attention to tickets, conversations with tickets people, and the flight boards.
Reprocessing on the Indy side was fast. Off the plane into the baggage claim room took 10 minutes and only about 25 more for baggage. We were in the car no more than an hour after we got off the plane.
Some major takeaways:
- Don’t pack pants, necessarily, you don’t need them.
-Pack too much sunscreen. It’s expensive there.
-Don’t shy away from only eating things you love and eating more often. Try everything and really double down on things you like (Mexican Coca-Cola for instance - way better than ours).
-Pace yourself with alcohol. I had too much on the 7th and was really disagreeing with it on the 7th at dinner and the 8th, kinda took a chunk out of my free drinking time
-Consider hanging out near the beach if you don’t care about the water. Given the lack of people there it would be very quiet if the seaweed is flaring
-Move around til you find what you like. Maybe its not pool 1 or 2 or 5. Maybe its pool 6.
-Do stuff. As much as I’ll talk smack about Michael Jackson by calling it an exhumed experience, it is as much a memory as day 3 of laying out in the sun or time number 43 we ate at Tavola. The events they offer may feel dorky (Luchador-ing) but give it 15 minutes.
-For men specifically, when you’re thinking dress shoes for dinner - I wore tan HeyDudes with no socks. You don’t have to pack gold toe socks and penny loafers
-If you wind up in the same place everyday, meet the wait staff there. I know our service was better because we actually talked to Alfredo and tipped as we went - not all at once at the end
