Hotel Review: Moon Palace Golf & Spa Resort

I was fortunately enough to have an opportunity to travel to Cancun for work and even luckier to be staying at The Grand at Moon Palace.  It was my first time in Cancun and I couldn’t have been more blown away by this resort.

Located only a short 15 minutes from the airport, it is the perfect resort for those who just want to stay in the same place for a week and not leave the resort at all.  There is so much to do, eat and see at the resort that you really won’t get bored in a week.

After a slight mishap at check in, I started making my way towards my room.  Little did I know that this would actually be about a 15-20 minute walk!  The resort is so big, and with most of the rooms located away from the main lobby building, there were golf carts outside each exit to transport guests to where they want to be.  Unfortunately for me, there wasn’t an available golf cart when I was there, so I decided to just walk to my room.  In hindsight, this gave me the opportunity to look around and get my bearings, so it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

The room I was given had 2 beds, a Jacuzzi, an amazing bathroom and floor to ceiling marble.  It was definitely by far the most luxurious place I had ever stayed.  The view from my balcony was of the Waterpark, which was still under construction when I was there. 

Since I had arrived at night, it wasn’t until the next morning that I got to see just how grand this resort is.  As I walked back into the lobby, I couldn’t help but feel that I was in Vegas or Macau at one of the extravagant casino hotels.  Perhaps more Vegas than Macau, as I remember thinking that the hotel was very Americanized, as it was obviously built to cater to Americans. 

The Moon Palace Golf & Spa Resort is actually separated into 3 sections.  The Nizuc, Sunrise and the Grand.  A few years ago, Palace Hotels decided to perform a major renovation on the Grand, and it’s now regarded as the most luxurious of the 3.  Guests at the Grand can freely enjoy the other 2 sections, but not vice versa.  I didn’t get a chance to visit the Sunrise section, but I did briefly walk through Nizuc and it’s a world of a difference.  The Nizuc definitely looks and feels much more dated.  It felt very small too, but that could have been because I had just spent several days at the Grand, where walking around the entire section takes close to 30 minutes!  Also, I only noticed a few restaurants at Nizuc, whereas there are more than 10 dining options available at the Grand.

The Grand also has adult only sections, including a couple of pools as a restaurant.  As expected of Cancun, the resort does not have a very nice beach area, but that is definitely compensated by the number of pools and the waterpark.

There are so many more places within the resort that I didn’t even get a chance to see or enjoy.  As I said earlier, it is absolutely the perfect choice if you wanted to just stay at the resort the whole week without going on an excursion or anything else that requires you to leave the property.  One of my favourite things about this resort is that they let you take food from their buffets away to whenever you want to eat.  There was one day where our meeting was running late and I was about to settle for a sandwich, but then realized the buffet actually had plastic plates you could carry food away with.  On another day, I was lying by the pool and wasn’t quite hungry yet, but knew that I would want to eat in about 30 minutes, and the poolside buffet actually had special coloured plates and cutlery for people who wanted to take food away.  And last but not least, I was absolutely blown away when the sandwich and macaroons place actually let us wrap everything up to go.  We were able to order sandwiches and dessert to take with us to the airport and eat that for dinner on the plane, instead of paying for food on the plane home.