Travel Agent recently returned from a stay at The Grand at Moon Palace Cancun, which hosted 550 travel agent and supplier attendees as part of the Palace Resorts Global Conference. A luxury, all-inclusive “resort within a resort” that just opened in 2017, it has a ton of options for families, making it a good fit for travelers with young children.
The Grand has 1,316 rooms and suites. We stayed in one of the resort’s suites, all of which have double whirlpool tubs (close to the balcony to take views of the grounds, pool or beach); 24-hour room service; a complimentary welcome bottle of wine; and double sinks in the bathrooms. Other nice touches include plenty of charging ports, as well as a spot to plug in your smartphone or tablet to stream your own movies or TV to the suite’s flatscreen television. (Free Wi-Fi is available throughout the resort, with good signal strength.) The top-tier suites, though, are the Grand Swim-Up Suites, which sleep four and open directly onto a pool.
Also a good bet for families are the resort’s Grand Family Deluxe suites, which have an Xbox/DVD player and a selection of Xbox games and DVDs upon request in the kids’ room, L’Oreal kids bath amenities, kid-sized slippers and robes and a minibar with treats like chocolate milkshakes, juice, soda, water and chocolates. For the adults, there’s a private balcony, a king-size bed and a double whirlpool tub. These suites can sleep up to six guests, in addition to a maximum of one infant (ages 0 – 3).
To keep the kids cool, the resort just opened a new water park this year. It has a splash zone, a wave simulator, a lazy river and three waterslides, with another three on the way. The water park is built around an indoor play area, which kids and adults can access through an innovative quick-drying machine – inside, activities such as laser golf, a ropes course, a sports simulator and bumper cars are available.
Other indoor activities include the Wired Lounge – once teens-only, the resort recently opened it to adults as well after a number of guests had asked for the opportunity to spend some time in it with their kids. This lounge is home to a number of arcade games and gaming consoles, as well as gaming PCs, plus a theater where kids and adults can play games on a light-up floor.
There’s also an indoor bowling alley that’s open until late.
For adults needing some time separate from the kids, there’s also the Unique Day Club, an adults-only pool area with a live DJ and cocktail, hookah and appetizer service. When we visited – just before noon – there was a remarkable lack of crowds, with a number of cabanas and loungers available, giving the space a very relaxed vibe. In fact, none of the pools at The Grand felt crowded, even though the resort was at or over capacity during our stay.
In terms of dining, we got to check out Habibi, an excellent Lebanese restaurant. The owners of Palace Resorts originally hail from Lebanon, and the attention to detail shows here in the mezze (small plates) menu, which offered course after course of cold and hot spreads, traditional Lebanese bread, sausage and spiced meats. All told, the resort has 10 restaurants and 12 bars – of these, we’re told that the JC Steak House, developed through the resort’s recent, exclusive partnership with Certified Angus Beef, is the most in-demand.
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