Grand Riviera Princess Hotel

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We spent 2 weeks at Riviera side in junior deluxe 3rd floor (8211). Great room and perfect view. I have to say that hotel was FAR better than I expected following other reviews I had read since it opened in December 2007. It is a massive resort, but the beach and pools are excellent and the hotels lays on 3 free coaches to Playa each day. If you don't want to use the coach, you can get a taxi for USD13 each way. Clientelle are mostly from USA and Canada, but we did hear some French and Eastern European guests while we were there. Minimal English guests at the moment.
The hotel gives you minimal information on check in as to what facilities are on site, and the resort map is poor. Hopefully this will improve in time. Both reception areas (Sunset and Riviera) have ATM's where you can get extra pesos if needed, much safer than using ATM's in Playa. We used USD, as accepted all over resport and Playa.
Food is plentiful and varied - but the main buffet food services do let it down.. The bar staff get 10/10 as do the maids. Our room 'safe' was perfect. We tipped bar, restaurant and room staff USD 2 a time.
We saw no mosquitoes at all until the rain started on 29th/30th May. Then I saw several in corridors linking ground floor buildings. (Buildings 8 , 7 and 6). The ground floors have some fountains and planting within the building, hence the mozzies.
Beach was great, good sand, safe water and loads of loungers to sit on - pools are excellent. You can choose noisy or quiet - loads of choice. Animation staff are also excellent and work hard. You can safely walk the beach both North and South for a hour or more with no problems.
There is a lack of entertainment in the evenings - I only saw a three piece band strumming away each evening. Most people just sat around talking and drinking.
My only real gripe the whole 2 weeks was the Riviera Buffet. Its bedlam at busy times - like a canteen.......badly laid out with food at one end and three sections for patrons. We gave up eating the broccoli and carrots - hard and warm. May as well have been raw. Also one night the new potatoes in a salad were grey inside. Huge selection though and loads of it. Aim to eat at 7am - 12 noon and 7pm and avoid the main rush. Breakfast and Lunch at Tortuga restaurant by the beach if you want a more calm meal setting. Service is excellent. We ended up eating all breakfasts there for some peace and quiet.
Floors are very slippery in resort (most are marble) - especially when wet - I nearly fell 3 times.
Is the hotel 5 star - not yet in our opinion - but it could be well on its way if it gets those Buffet restaurants and entertainment sorted out. Personally though I think it is perhaps too big to give the service and food quality that a 5 star resort needs. It looks like a 5 star hotel, but the services let it down. Goodness knows how it will cope when the new rooms being built are occupied.
Shuttles to PDC leave at 10,11 and 12 am (get ticket from Concierge) and they lay on enough buses to bring everyone back at 6pm. But we got taxi back at USD 13
Our room backed onto the building work at Riviera side. Yes, there is a huge block of new rooms being built that stretches the whole length of the current buildings 8 and 7 but, as at the entrance side of the rooms, we were not too bothered by the banging. It certainly did not affect our holiday, so guests need not be concerned.
Rooms have fridges that are filled with water, soft drinks and beer each day. Plasma TV is good and offers about 25 channels, mostly spanish or american. Shower room can be awkward as water goes all over main bathroom floor and again floors are slippery when wet.
Regarding the computer access - we tried on several occasions to get on line but gave up - I had no intention of sitting waiting for a hour a time to get access to one of the 3 working machines. They do need at least 2-3 more computers in place for guests. I was lucky to get access one evening - but the machine crashed twice. Although I think that was me as the keyboard was not one I was used to and the prompts were in spanish. @ is acessed via control alt F2 for example. There is no @ key. I had to ask an american lady how to access that key.
There is no store to buy books and magazines etc - only facilities at the moment are jewelery, basic toiletries, swim wear and tourist tat. So, if you read fiction on holiday you need to bring enough to last your whole trip.
Trips were excellent - we did Chichen Itza, Coba, Aktun Chen, Tulum and XCarat on mainland - plus went over to Cozumel on ferry to go down to view the Reef from Atlantis Submarine. All were excellent and money well spent.
Would we go to the Princess again, I am tempted to say yes, but I think a fairer answer would be no, although it is a beautiful resort it was too big and impersonal for us. That said at the moment it is exellent value for money.