Admin, feel free to move this over to hotel section to start a thread on this new hotel.....thanks We stayed a week at the Great Parnassus(GP) from june 1st thru the 7th. All in all, we found it to have everything we wanted and then some. THE WATER....Lets get right to it. It still taste's funny to us, but it looks clean and the sulfer smell we heard about early on seems to be gone....at least for us it was. It was never an issue. Just used bottle water....ask for more if you need it. The Food is very good. We enjoyed the Spanish restaurant the best, but only found out about it the last day. I will admit that we never talked to the consierge about the hotel, so probably our fault, but many others knew nothing of it either. It sits on the west end of the hotel around the kids area....all other restaurants are on the east side. Find it!! Open only from Noon to 5pm. Its all appetisers. Chicken in bag, empinada's, mexican nacho's, fajitas, etc,....all crazy good. We also enjoyed the Japanesse, Big Ben, Manhattan, and Portifino restaurants...never made it to the French one which we had heard needed slacks for. Brought them just never got there. Didn't seem to be a dress code to speak of. There is also a food court for breakfast and lunch that has about 8 different stations, and a place outside that cooks up the normal fair there. A nice ice cream and dessert place too. One more restaurant will be adults only on the 10th and 11th floors, facing the ocean. Great views from up there. We checked it out. I think its gonna be great. Look for it to open in the next few weeks. The spa and gym should open within the next two weeks. When you arrive, the reception area is a huge open air circular place. Well, the spa and gym is the same size, but right underneath the reception area, 1 floor below. Should be huge and really nice, but we couldn't get down to it. The beach was a downer for us, as we usually stay at the Golden Parnassus with a great beach, but the GP's as all the hotels in the area, has alot of rocks. The pools are nice, but when this place fills up, it could be hurting for pool space. The adults area pool is on the second floor on the west end of the hotel. Very nice area, secluded from kids. A great topless area for the ladies(sometimes we were the only ones up there, topless and then some!!!)...you have your own bartender, etc... The suites are all on the ends of the hotel, and they don't put kids in those, so no one overlooking the adults area is a child. We checked out the suites. Wow, very nice indeed. Huge closet, and wonderful stand alone shower. Jacuzzi outside on the huge balcony. The GP has two full size tennis courts, astro turf, and two big basketball courts, all on the far west end. If you play tennis, bring your own balls with you, as I'm not sure if they have them. They have rackets to give/rent? out. Very nice!! The kids area, and teen area is west of that with their own little water parks, disco for teens, etc....all very nice as far as we could tell. Got to go down the teen water slide in the shape of a castle. The wife loved it, as did another couple that were with us. The staff. They took care of us in every way. We know many of them from previous stays at the Golden. Entertainment staff was wonderful. 20 on staff as of now. Many dedicated to your children. Wait staff was wonderful. We brought $100.00 in one dollar bills and it was just enough to tip with. Our maid was wonderful as well. Betty loved to tip the lady who made her breakfast every morning, and I always tipped the ice cream/dessert lady in the evening. Sometimes we forget about those people, and they seem sooo blessed to receive a tip. The hotel is 12 stories tall...glass roof. Very beautiful. At our visit, it was only at 17% capacity, so it seemed empty. Good and bad. Not many kids...good! lol. But, not alot of people to get to know. It is supposed to get an influx of people the next few weeks they said. The british are not sending their folks there, so that is a reason as well. You can also use the facilities at the sister hotel, the Golden Parnassus. Its adults only, and one we've stayed at many times. We were down there many days to see many very good friends. Anyways, check out the Golden if you want to get away from your kids, lol. All in all, we enjoyed the Great Parnassus very much. Yes, they opened it to early, and got a bad reputation because of it, well deserved probably. BUT, the place is rounding into shape very well. Yes, the small detail work, was not done well, but easily overlooked. There are great deals to this place right now. I suggest getting one and bringing your family or just the two of you and checking out this wonderful place to relax and get away. A shot of Betty on the beach/rocks at the Great.
Welcome back. Sounds like you liked the hotel. Too bad it is not Adult only, like the Golden. I will have to at least check it out when I get there.
Jannet, Dani and I spent a night here at the weekend. Since we only live 20 minutes away we only booked one night which meant we could check in early and check out late. 2 full days for the price of one night :lol: I wanted to have a family weekend "away" and the hotel was well priced, just $200 for all three of us AI. After booking I read the reports on TA and almost all were negative so I wondered what I had let us in for. I shouldn't have worried, the hotel was perfect for what we wanted. A great kids club, lots of bars and restaurants with no reservations required (I think something like 8 of each). The food quality was excellent, the main food court area has like 10 different stations all providing different themes, pasta, mexican, sushi, oriental, poultry, deli, fruit, veggies etc The Manhattan Diner 24 hour restaurant had great quality food too and we ate there a couple of times. The room was nice we were on the 4th floor of 12. The construction of the hotel is an art in itself, it allows every room to have an ocean view regardless of position. Our room was king size master bed with bunk bed for kids, and a pull out bed under the bunk for a third child. The bathrrom had a bathtub nice shower, separate WC. The TV was a 28" plasma with cable offering around 60 channels. Entertainment staff were great, must have been about 20 of them. Kids club was excellent, they have a teens pool (12-16) a kids pool (4-12) and a baby pool. The kids and teen pool has a castle and pirate ship with water slides etc. Kids club offers a movie theater and a kids disco as well as the regular things like swings slides painting coloring etc. The main pool is a 3 level infinity pool the final one of which is for the sports activities. The beach here is a little narrow but still plenty of room for a volleyball court and great sea shell hunting for kids. Saturday night entertainment was an International dance show, the performers in this were 110%, unlike some of the almost amateurish shows I've seen elsewhere. They must be paying good money for these performers. Warm up was Xbox car racing competitions on the giant movie screen. Hotel staff were excellent too, spent Sunday afternoon drinking at the pool bar (no cheap alcohol here - it's Smirnoff, or Absolut if you want it) Never had to ask for a refill. If you're looking for a kid friendly place then this place is perfect. If you're not then you can always head off to the adults only pool and bars or enjoy the sister adults only resort Golden Parnassus. We will be back in a few weeks time.
With all the bad news about this resort, we were glad to see you had a good time Steve. It is perfect for families with kids.
Thanks GCPS girl. For the first time ever I submitted a review on Trip Advisor. I wanted to stress that not everyone has a bad time there, but they didn't accept my comments. Don't know if that was because of my website here and they thought I had some financial interest in posting my thoughts. But for sure we will be back soon. I was pricing up another weekend stay for my Mum in Laws birthday just today.
Great Parnassus - Report Card/Trip Report Oct 10th, 2007 My wife and I stayed at the GP for 7 days and just returned on 10/10/07. Overall we had a fair experience but I thought it might be helpful for you if I graded the key areas. Food: B- While there is a wide variety of restaurants to choose from the dinners were OK at best. The food court offers a nice selection for breakfast and lunch, and those were our favorite meals. Outside snack bar was good. The sister hotel (Golden Parnassus) has the better dinner restaurants so be sure to get a day pass and give those a try. Bars: A+ The drinks were free flowing and the waiters always greeted you with a smile. Premium liquors were available and they didn’t try to water anything down that I could tell. Very good. Room: C We reserved the Ocean Suite and the view was terrific! We had the Jacuzzi on the large balcony and other than the fact that the first tub of water had to be drained each night due to rust coming out, it was nice to sit out there under the stars over looking the Caribbean. Although it is on their website there is NO wireless internet in the rooms. We had to use the business center to go online at a rate of $7 per hour. Air conditioning is marginal at best. Mini-bar was a joke. While it is included in the suites, it was just a small refrigerator that didn’t keep drinks cold. No alchohol is included in the mini-bar other than a few beers. When I requested specific drinks each day for the “min-bar” (i.e. 6 beers, 3 Pepsi, 4 waters, etc.), I got push back saying that they can only replenish with what they originally put in each day. I pushed back and was able to get what I requested, but only after a bit of an argument. Staff: A Carlos and his group kept everyone entertained during the day and in the shows at night. They were great! The rest of the staff always greeted us with a smile, including the bartenders, waiters, cleaning people and maintenance folks. Watch out for the guest service people however upon check-in (see below). Hotel Condition: C- While the design of the hotel (looks like a cruise ship) is impressive, they still have a way to go in finishing it. This hotel has its grand opening in December, but there is nothing on their website indicating that the hotel is not yet finished so you may want to wait until they get everything done. (We had workers banging away on construction around the pool area 3 nights out of 7(up until 9:00 one night) which takes away from the balcony experience. Leaks in ceiling in some areas of the food court when it rains. Pool: A+ It doesn’t get any better than this! 3 large connected pools on the ocean side that appear to flow right into the ocean, plus a swim up bar. Nice! Another large swimming area for adults on the lagoon side plus whirlpool and a kid’s pool with water slides. Beach: D Not much beach area due to Wilma wiping it out a couple of years ago. Erosion has left large rocks exposed so swimming is almost impossible. The beach is on a steep incline, so not much room to walk along. Go over to the Golden P. for the beach. They have a nice area for swimming there. Other comments: Be careful of the guest services people conning you into going to visit their new “sister” hotel when you check in. They approached us at check-in to explain about helping us during our stay and then pushed us to take a quick 90 minute tour of their new hotel (The Royal) so we might consider it on a future visit. Sounded like a nice thing to us so we signed up for it… This is nothing more than a vacation/time share scheme to get you over to the other hotel and then have to sit through a high pressure sales pitch which will last much longer than 90 minutes! While I was prepared for the time-share people trying to grab us at the airport, and the constant barrage of street vendors and flea market people that Mexico has, I was extremely disappointed that the GP hotel staff would stoop to this approach and before we could even get into our room the first day! There is a certain level of professionalism and trust that is expected from a hotel staff, and they definitely crossed the line with their deceitful portrayal. It had me looking for the next pitch from them the rest of the week. Also be careful of the free shopping tour the hotel offers you. You will be taken to an expensive jewelry store for additional high pressure tactics, before being allowed to shop around the rest of the market.
So Royal hotels did buy the Golden and Great Parnassus.....that has been rumored for 6 months at least. Hopefully they will update the Golden and get the Great finished!
Following my previous report above we stayed here again mid October. Again another one night / two day stay which we thoroughly enjoyed. This time we had my mother in law in tow which allowed us to experience the adults only bar while she babysat. Had some good fun in there although I dont remember much as it was my birthday The beach had noticeably changed since our Sept stay and was a lot narrower - the beach volleyball court barely fit on to the sand before the drop off to the incoming waves. That said beaches contract and expand frequently dependant on weather conditions. Generally speaking beaches on the Ocean side are narrower towards the autumn months and expand again in the Spring.
Does anyone know what this place should cost for a week in Oct?...... Currently they're pricing goes up to May and that's around $1600
