Grand Palladium Vallarta Resort & Spa

TL;DR Version: Great for families with young children. Not great for anyone with mobility issues. Take water shoes – there were a few cut feet. Wedding: If you are planning a wedding here, do not expect much communication until you arrive. We had questions that were not answered until the day before the ceremony, but it all worked out in the end. Pros: The wedding turned out great in the end! Claudio and Jasmine were amazing the day of - they went above and beyond. The food was fantastic! We had a large group with diverse dietary needs (celiac, shellfish allergies, vegans, etc), and the buffet we had included something for everyone. The cake was delicious! The service was great. We brought a lot of our own decorations and the team set up our tables and made everything look great. The beach was an awesome location for the dinner and reception. Having dinner under the stars with the ocean in the background was fantastic. We also had a really cool fireworks show at the end of the reception. Cons: The photographer (Palladium Adventures Photos or whatever the onsite photographer is...) had poor time management, which caused us to be late for both the ceremony and reception. The photos we did get are (mostly) wonderful, but there was some miscommunication and we did not get all of the photos we had expected. We thought we would have more of the bridal party (only captured a few of us all standing in a line on the beach, none of just the girls or just the boys) and our family (we didn’t get one with the groom’s full family), we also didn’t get photos of our rings or of the groomsmen getting ready, which was disappointing. They did offer us an extra photo book and canvas, which was a nice gesture, but we are still disappointed that we did not capture once in a lifetime moments. So, my advice would be to have a list outlining what photos are important to you. Additionally, they had originally offered us a second photo shoot because when we requested the 8 hour package we were told that would be too much for our day… BUT to prepare for the photoshoot, we would have had to spend hundreds of dollars at the salon again, so we opted out of the “extra,” two hours. In hindsight, we absolutely should have stuck to our original plan and kept the, “extra,” two hours on the wedding day to ensure that everything was captured. We had wanted to bring an offsite photographer and hair/makeup artist, but did not want to pay the $800USD vendor fee EACH to do so... we definitely felt that their fee was excessive as other resorts have significantly more reasonable vendor fees. We also considered going off site for hair and makeup, but due to the location, felt it was risky timing wise to travel 40~ minutes each way for services. We felt locked in to using over priced services. The head chef was aggressive regarding gratuity. As we were obviously busy on the wedding night, we had intended to provide a gratuity to the wedding planners to split, but the head chef made us very uncomfortable in the following days and, in the end, decreased his team’s gratuity. Our table numbers disappeared, which we had borrowed from a friend. This is very disappointing as they were to be used for an upcoming wedding and we had to inform them that they did not make it back from Mexico. I am very disappointed that they did not end up packed up with the rest of our decorations. The Disco was not open until the time that was advertised, so our group cleared out our mini fridges and all met on the beach to continue hanging out. The spa was excessively priced. Having my hair styled for the wedding was around $200 CAD, ditto for each bridesmaid that chose to have her hair done, and makeup was $170 CAD. Mary did a fantastic job, and even let me borrow the lipstick for the evening (thanks, Mary!!), but I definitely felt that the price was excessive. Overall resort: We had a large group (around 78 guests) and overall, great service and staff! Room service was very handy! The guests with young children loved the family club and all of the activities geared towards young kids. The older kids played basketball, volleyball and went boogie boarding daily. There were lots of activities for everyone! The omelets at the buffet were amazing!! Two separate people in our group who do not drink alcohol, on separate occasions, asked for Diet Coke and received rum & coke, though, which was very concerning. There were a few other miscommunications (including with security and maintenance when our room keys were not working) as it seemed a lot of the staff did not fluently speak English. Sports bar was frequently out of food. We were disappointed that we were not allowed to play pool games or our own music (even if our group were literally the only people in the pool). Also, the beach and pool music was LOUD! It was hard to relax, if you were lucky enough to get a spot. You have to head down early to set up camp for both the beach and pools. There is a LOT of walking and stairs. Not ideal for anyone with mobility issues or strollers. Beds were hard and pillows were bad. Heads up, we were able to get a very reasonably priced Uber from the resort to Sayulita. You have to walk off the resort to catch the Uber, which is no big deal, but the taxi drivers will harass you and the Uber driver if they see you going towards an Uber instead of them. When we were ready to return, though, we could not get an Uber and the return taxi was just over 4x the price. Apparently, this is very common.

My mum and I had the most amazing time staying at the Palladium. It’s a little further out, but you have everything available for you at the hotel. It’s a beautiful setting and has a great beach offering a variety of water sports. If you wish you can also easily get around with a taxi or using the public bus which stops right outside the hotel. All staff are very friendly and helpful in particular Julián Dueñas from guest services, who helped us many times with directions and other useful information and Eter for being an amazing surf instructor. It was my first stay at the Palladium but it will hopefully not be the last. Lisa

The staff were like family to me and my daughter and granddaughter. The service, food and entertainment were fantastic. My granddaughter especially enjoyed the kids club and the staff made it so much fun. I would like to make a special mention for Carrina who always had a smile and hugs for us. Thanks again