One Mom's Journey

To brief you, I traveled from Toronto to Cancun - 3.5 hours with a husband, teenage boy and 3 and 1 year old girls. We booked a Sunquest vacation and flew on West Jet. We stayed at the Gran Bahia Principe - Coba resort in Riviera Maya. This will be a very detailed review of all aspects of the vacation.

Booking with Sunquest:

We are 5 in our family - one of whom still sleeps in a crib. Sunquest would not let us stay in one room only, because the capacity was 4 people. Therefore we were charged for two rooms at dual adult occupancy. Started my vacation off on the wrong foot. Sunquest would not make it work, even though 1 of our children was still in a crib. What did that mean? Our vacation that was originally going to cost us for 2 adults, 1 teen, 1 child and 1 baby(free) now cost us 4 adults + 1 baby(free). Crazy, we are talking a HUGE difference here!

Next - our toddlers/baby suitcase was left behind in Toronto. We were left without any children's clothing and baby necessities for 40 hours. You could only imagine the horrible situation that put us in.We were allocate $200 to spend on necessities, we have yet to see how quickly we receive our reimbursement. Also while on the resort, the Sunquest rep was extremely difficult to locate in guest services, and was rarely there during his 'so called' hours.

West Jet

Our west jet flight was very accommodating. They did our best to keep our family as close together on the flight as possible. They came around frequently to ensure that our children were doing okay for food and water. They also did a great job briefing us on baby safety procedures. Flight was excellent pre-board and in flight.

Gran Bahia Principe - Coba Resort

amazing kids waterpark

We stayed at Coba because it is family friendly. They have a wonderful kids waterpark, and a beautiful large pool. There are organized activities everyday, and they rotate on the same schedule daily, so you can try to do something different everyday or find your favourite and do it at the same time everyday. Activities were: waterpolo, beach volleyball, pool volleyball, water exercise, salsa dancing, Bingo, darts tournament, ping pong tournament, random games for prizes, pinata for the kids, hoola hoop tossing for the kids and much more. Something for everyone and every age.

They also had a children's camp for the younger kids and a teenage camp. When we arrived, their was a gift bag sent to our rooms with childrens t-shirts and slippers and bath robes all labelled with Bahia Camp. So cute - nice added touch.

Kids Disco - everynight 8pm

Everynight at 8pm there was a kids disco where kids could go on stage and participate in organized fun. The animator, Alexandra, hosting the program was amazing! She entertained the kids and the parents for sure. Made it memorable for us all. There was always a show to follow at 9pm - like a circus show, a 70/80's show, dancing shows etc, but we never made it to any seeing as we had small children to put to bed.

The water park for kids was impeccable. There was always a life guard on duty and they maintained that park amazing. Water was tested multiple times a day for purity.

The resort itself was absolutely clean. I rarely saw a cigarette butt on the ground, the grass and gardens were perfect, and not an piece of litter to be seen. No paint pealing, no roofs busting, no water leaking, washrooms were soooo clean all the time. This was truly a 5 star resort.

The public Relations team not only assisted us with our dinner reservations, but they helped us located and send our lost baggage to our room. Very organized, information did not get lost amongst employees like it so often does.

Room Cleanliness

The rooms seemed a bit dated, but the beds were so comfortable, and no sign of bed bugs. The cleaning crew took excellent care of our rooms, nothing ever went missing and they never threw out anything they were unsure of.

They really used every ounce of this resort to entertain. Outside the lobby was constantly changing its decor nightly to create a new atmosphere for outdoor dancing, lessons or bars. When it rained, they brought the fun into the resort lobby/bar and entertained us and kids all there with balloons, parrot shows, and dancing.

resort photographer

The resort photographers were excellent. Usually, they do not do the best job, this team did such a great job, I bought almost one of each of the pictures we had taken!

This resort has an on site dolphinarium. Four out of Five of us were able to participate in an adventure with dolphins. Amazing. And like the rest of the resort, this was impeccably maintained and the animals seemed very well cared for.

Dolphinarium

Beautiful beach

The beach was a short 5 minute shuttle ride away. The sand on the beach was beautiful, and they pumped music and exercise on the beach as well! Take note, it is very hard to get strollers on and off shuttles, so if you can do without, I would recommend it. We made it work, but it was a pain.

Finally - the food. I want to start by saying that this is the first time my family has not been ill on vacation at a resort. Usually, we all end up with some sort of stomach bug, or other end bug...but we did not have any issues while on vacation. The food selection was excellent at the buffets. And since you can travel to any resort on the property, you never had a shortage of choices. I did not find the service at the buffets or the restaurant up to par. I found that high chairs took a long time to make their appearance and on separate occasions, servers took an extra long time to get drinks and coffee to the table. Sometimes our plates piled up on the table throughout the entire meal,and other times we did not receive our drinks until half way through our meals.

Personal Chef

Japanese Restaurant

The Coba resort had one buffet and one 24 hour eatery and 3 restaurants. So you never had to leave this particular part of the resort if you didn't want to.

We ate at Italian, Gourmet and Japanese. The Japanese was definitely something to write home about. The other two, I could take them or leave them. The Japanese had the live chef who did a great job entertaining us, and cooked amazing food! I would highly recommend this one.

Hair Braids - Poolside

There is a spa on site where you can charge back to your room. There is pool side massage tables and hair braiding.

The shuttle to and from the hotel was included in our trip and the travel time from resort to airport is roughly 1hour and 30 minutes.

Overall, I would give this resort a 4.25 out of 5 stars - the .75 removed because of the service at the buffets and restaurants.

I hope this helped set expectations for you!

Enjoy the Gran Bahia Principe Coba resort!