Fantastic holiday, large resort, great setting. Special thanks to Abigail at customer relation desk. Regarding food - high level of quality, being a coeliac I would highly recommend this resort to any coeliac, as the staff at the resort are trained about the importance of the gluten-free diet. Special thanks to Manuel Silva & Chef Andres at Tikal and La Hacienda Restaurants for all the help given to me, to choose the gluten-free meals. Thank you again everyone at the resort for a wonderful holiday. Hope to visit the resort next year. Zofia from Nottingham U.K.

Everything that people have wrote is pretty accurate....
The positives:
The wildlife and scenery.
Great Sit down restaurants.
Could always find a spot at the pool/beach
The warm temperatures, only 1 of 7 nights had to wear a sweater.
The negatives:
Lunch Buffet
Room checkin/checkout

Details:
We had a large group, approximately 20-25 people; When we arrived at about 1:00 we were told to get our wrist bands and get lunch.. They wouldn't even check to see if anyone in our groups rooms was ready(hard to believe that out of 15ish rooms none were ready; we had one baby traveling with us so it would have been nice for her to lay down for a nap etc have our long trip). Checkout we were told to put our luggage outside our door between 6 and 6:30 for our return bus ride at 6:50 am. Since there are really 2 lobbies half of our groups luggage was in one lobby and the other half at the other lobby(Colonial and Kantenah).
We were told the week we were there(Jan 27-Feb 3) that there were about 2500 guests and during their high season a few weeks before that there were 5000+ people, I couldn't imagine how packed and crazy the buffets would have been if I thought they were bad when I was there in low season.
Spa:
The spa was great, one day it was cloudy so we went up there late afternoon and sat in the hot tubs and jetted hot tubs. I also got a massage; I do think that it was quite sad that for the price of the massage the form says in big print, gratuity not included.... I'm sure the worker only saw about $5 or 10 out of my massage and the resort gets the rest and I was still expected to tip.
I was pretty sick of hearing "gratuity not included" by the end of my stay between the apple tour people and seeing that at the spa. I did tip when I got great service, we had an awesome waiter at the Mexican restaurant between 2 couples we tipped him over $10. Tipping didn't seem to matter at this resort, you got the same old slow service at the bars and a couple bucks to housekeeping must be expected I guess because I got only one animal the whole week after tipping just about each day.
Rooms:
We were in room 4608, it was the first building next to the Kantenah lobby, great location, found a shortcut to go to the pool/Colonail lobby. The housekeeping service was poor, I had a couple wrappers lay on the floor for over 2 days and one day she put my half drank pop I left on a counter back in my mini fridge so that meant I got one less new pop in my fridge. Fridges are medicore at best keeping the drinks cold.
Food:
There were so many different sit down restaurants to go to(most of them were able to get into shortly and the steak house and Italian were the only ones we had to wait an hour for). Go get ice cream at the bar that is adjacent to the swim up bar (awesome!). A great thing about the resort was that they had Sol beer, my first time in 5 trips to Mexico I could actually stand drinking the beer. Buffets were good, however we found that the breakfast buffett the service wasn't always the best, we had one morning where we didn't even get water or anything offered to us to drink and there were no glasses to fill with juice at the juice bar so we basically went thirsty during that meal, my only other complaint with the buffets was that the lunch buffet that was by the pool area(the outdoor seating area) there was hardly a table available at any time to sit down and eat and you are not allowed to take food out the area.
The last thing I will mention for the guys is that make sure to bring a many pairs of long pants, I had only packed 2 pair beside the pair my husband wore to/from airport, and we went out to eat every night. No need for shorts(besides the swim trunks you were during the day) if you are planning on eating at the specialty restaurants, which you are sure to do, because the buffets get boring day after day.
Overall we had a great vacation I would definitely recommend this resort to other people. We will probably not return do to the fact that our next warm weather vacation will probably be somewhere we haven’t been to….

This resort is a 90 minute bus ride from the Cancun airport but that's ok, they sell cold corona for $3US each on the bus.

We were the only ones on our bus going to this resort so check-in was instant, we were delivered to building 46 and shown our third floor room. The view from up here is awesome, tree tops and thatched roofs only. The room had a king sized bed, large closet with safe, one armchair at a small table and a desk with a cushioned stool. Also, sliding doors on to a decent sized balcony complete with two chairs and a small end table. I recommend you bring an extension cord from home as another reviewer suggested, the outlets are few and are single plug-ins, not double. One bone of contention is that the pillows were very small and there was a menu in the room to RENT better ones for $5 a day, you might sleep better if you brought a vacuum packed one from home in your suitcase. Our bathroom was clean and up to date and everything worked well, but again, one plug. The safe is included in the price of the room but the internet in the rooms is extra ($45/week). Internet in the lobby is free but on both the paid and free wifi the speeds are quite slow though I did see people using skype successfully in the lobby.

The resort: this is a massive resort with jungle surrounding it and scattered throughout. Keep the map, that the front desk provides, with you while exploring, it comes in handy. We ate at three buffets and they all seemed to serve the same thing and only the ones at the White Sands portion of the resort were slightly different in flavor and preparation. We ate at four a la carte restaurants with our favorite being Mare Nostrum near the Colonial lobby.

The best beach was found on the North end of the resort near buildings 34 35 and 36. We Also enjoyed the Kantenah/Colonial main pool and the busy bar that served it.

In the evenings we found ourselves in the Colonial lobby as the entertainment was always some live soloist or band and we could see the evening shows as well. The animation team or "People of Palladium" were excellent dancers and lip synced to a wide assortment of classic and modern music every night.

TL;DR: Big place, lots of bars and food and very good overall quality. Good value for your money. Dislike: Vendors in the evening were a bit pushy and small pillows in the room with a $5/day fee for better ones.

I know the score we have given this hotel is around average and quite honestly I think this is a more than fair score! Whilst the hotel is in a beautiful location and most of it is in good order most of it is in an unkept shabby condition we totaly got the Eco thing but that's no excuse! When we first arrived it had the wow factor but within hours we realized this place had it flaws ! The check in was a long dragged out affair however they had got all our details correct and upgraded us to a Mayan room in the colonial part of the resort due to it been our honeymoon . The room was great and Lovley little touches like towel art and the odd flower and mini bar well stocked however it wasn't cleaned thoroughly eg: under bed and siteee full of dust dead creepy crawlies ! In our two weeks stay they remained there ! The biggest problem was the restaurants if you are happy to wait 30-40 mins in a que to just request a Table then wait upto a further 2-3 hours to eat then this is the place for you ! No I'm not exaggerating unless you are happy to eat in the buffet every night this is a true account of a dining out at the grand palladium resorts restaurants ! I firstly complained to the Thompson holiday rep then the hotels customer relations explaining we was on our honeymoon and not happy about the dining out situation Spending our time rushing to get out to que and to wait for a table somtimes eventually eating as late as 11at night ! The response we got was nothing could be done about it ! I asked to speak to the manager and was told he couldn't do anything about it ! But my feeling is mr manager you will reply to this review ! We as a couple felt totally over looked many of the hotels guest come from America and Canada and usually travel in large groups and wedding partys so the hotels restauraunt staff spent most of there time moving tables and taking large orders which took some time and ended up with couples been over looked ! The hotel runs a privilege membership to any if the palladium hotels world wide this is basically pushed on you in a very sly form and guise of the hotel has a special gift they wish to give you for a few minuets of your time ( half a precious day of your holiday) !!!! Requesting you bring a credit/debit card and your passports with you from the onset it's a hard sell to buy into this scheme and they are reluctant to let you say no! And if u do not buy in guess what there's no special gift !!!! I have noticed Thompson/first choice have not included this hotel in next years holiday brochure and I'm sure it's due to many complaints similar to ours . This was no honeymoon or relaxing holiday until we ventured out of the hotel into playa del Carmen to dine out with out the trauma of queuing and waiting hours for food and doing what most holiday makers want to do ! Relax and enjoy their holiday ! If that's what you want avoid this place ! On a better note staff are Lovley and helpful wildlife and beach fantastic !