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THE BUILDING: The building at the GR Solaris was built in about 2004-2005 so it is still pretty new. The lobby area is very pretty with marble everywhere. It is an air-conditioned area so you are very comfortable from the second you walk in the front door.
There are several places to eat, including Café Solaris which is in the a/c part of the resort (breakfast and some dinners), Rosamarinus, which is open-air (some breakfast, always open for lunch, and sometimes open for dinner), Marco Polo, where reservations and proper dress are required, and the buffet at the theater where there are three special buffets to go along with three special shows. A very nice touch at this resort is a deli, which is open from 4:00 PM through the night to 6:00 AM. There is a bar in every eating area except the deli.
The lobby bar is very nice. It is the main location of much of the late night entertainment, including open-mic karaoke, live music on some nights and a DJ on others, and rainy day activities (unfortunately we had that a couple days). There is also a very nice pool bar. As I mentioned in my report, the pool bar is very free of the “pool bar huggers” and it is not hard to get a drink like at some other resorts. The bar at Rosamarinus is excellent. It serves the restaurant and the adult pool, as well as the overflow from the main pool.
The main pool is very large, with an upper and lower section. There is a cute little bridge separating the pools. There is a small waterfall under the bridge, but there never seemed to be much water falling this week. The upper pool is the main site for entertainment, which goes from about 10AM until 5PM. The poolside entertainment team is excellent at getting as many people involved in activities as possible. The lower pool always seems to have volleyball or water polo game going. This week volleyball was the game of choice. The games were friendly, but people did take the opportunity to play to win. It was what I would call competitive but relaxed.
There is a very nice weight room (not that I used it) and a very nice spa. Spa services can also be arranged at the adult pool area over looking the beach. The massage that Joni and I had was very well done, and the price is about normal for the Cancun area. I would do it again if we returned.
The exterior grounds are kept very nice like the vast majority of Mexican resorts. It was pretty, but in my opinion not even the same class of pretty as the Iberostar resorts. There are nowhere near the number of flowers, and no live animals on property. Speaking of flowers, one of the things I loved at the Iberostar was the fresh cut flower arrangements that were put all over the resort everyday. The flower arrangements in most areas of the Solaris were FAKE, and you didn’t have to look hard to see that they were fake.
THE ROOM: Our room had two double beds, a small desk, and a TV cabinet with drawers under the TV one side, and a small fridge on the other side. I’m going to guess that the TV was between 22” and 25” in size. There were about half Spanish and half English channels.
I found the bed to be VERY comfortable, but the girls disagreed with me. They had covers on the beds, which were not necessary due to the fact that the room never really cooled off at night. We think the a/c is on a motion detector due to the fact that there is one mounted on the ceiling with a red light. When you move the light comes on, and a few seconds later the a/c. this means that to keep your room cool at night every once in a while someone has to wave their arm in the air to set off the motion detector. Our thermostat was set to 18º C but it was rarely near that.
The bath had a one-sink counter, a toilet, and a very nice large shower. Being honest, the shower at my house is nice, but the shower here was exceptionally large, with a light and vent. It didn’t have very good water pressure, but we never ran out of hot water like at some other resorts in Mexico. It was hard for me to believe that a hotel that touts itself as a ♦♦♦♦♦ Premier class hotel would not have a tub in every room. I do know that some of the rooms with king-sized beds had tubs. My thought on this is that the room with two doubles would more than likely have children, so isn’t that where they should put the tubs?
My main comment about the room was that it was entirely too small. We had 3 people in a room that the GR Solaris says can hold 6 people. The RCI exchange form says it holds 4 people, but there is actually a double Murphy bed that could hold two more people. I may be wrong, but this looks like a set-up for future spring-break business. That is just speculation, but it sure looks like they mad the room with the idea of holding 6 people in a very small room.
THE FOOD: This was the most pleasant surprise of the week. The food at Marco Polo was the best we have ever experienced at any all-inclusive resort. The one problem with this is that it is a reservations required restaurant and it was booked up everyday before 11:00 AM so only a very limited number of people get to eat there. The GR Solaris timeshare owners get first priority for reservations, so when they sell enough memberships this will obviously become a member’s only restaurant. At the Royal Solaris they had two reservation restaurants so they rarely totally booked up. The GR Solaris also needs a second nice reservation restaurant if they are to continue to serve the clientele as well as they do at this time.
The evening buffets all have a theme, but some how they all seem to be Italian in one way or another. Pasta is always one of the main courses, and the meats generally stay the same. With that said, they were always very tasty – never great, but away very good.
I was very impressed with lunch at Rosamarinus, but very unimpressed with the food poolside. The Royal Solaris always had fabulous ribs and great burgers. The GR Solaris had ribs twice, and they were not as good as at the Royal Solaris, and the burgers were just poor. The nacho cheese at the poolside grill was either watered down or was very poor quality. It basically ran like water and had very little taste at all.
The Deli was a great addition to this resort as they served great food all night long. The sad thing was that they no longer have the poolside grill at night, which again means no burgers or ribs like at the other Solaris.
There was a special show on Thursday evening called Pre-Hispanica. At which they served a VIP dinner to just about 100 people. The food at this dinner was by far the worst of the week, and to make matters worse, it was served in a very dark room. After a few bites of the different things on the plate we decided to stop eating. That evening two of the three of us had very upset stomachs, and a couple other guests expressed the same thing. Was it coincidence? I don’t know, but I would not suggest eating at that dinner if you are the least but finicky at all.
THE BEACH: The beach at the GR Solaris is okay, but not great. We found it to be kind of small. I have to give credit to the people at the GR. Solaris as they are doing a great job keeping the seaweed out of the beach area in front of the resort. As you notice from the pictures, other resorts are not as fortunate. Seaweed is a MAJOR problem in Cancun right now, but the biggest problem is the rocks. The past few storms have taken a major toll on the beach areas, and if something is not done soon, the beach may never come back.
It is starting at the GR Solaris down that the beach seems to be better. The poor people at the Hilton are really hurting because they are not getting help from areas around them. The Hilton is even using a tractor to pick up the beach, but it looked to me like they were really just pushing the weed down into the sand as much as they were picking it up.
The area around the public area, as well as the Old El Pueblito resort is the worst. It does appear that they are finally restoring some of the units at El Pueblito to be private residences so maybe that area will tart to pick up, which will help the Hilton, GR Solaris, and other resorts between them.
THE BEST THING ABOUT THE GR SOLARIS: Without a doubt the best thing about the GR Solaris was the service of the bar staff, restaurant waiters, the poolside entertainment team, and the maids. They are what make this resort a special place. It was the general workers who pulled together to make this a great vacation, and the sad part of that statement is that they are the lower paid employees at the resort. We tipped more on this vacation than we ever have, mainly because of how wonderful the entire staff was to all the guests. I always made certain to tell them that the tip was for the individual, not for the tip jar, but I have a great fear that much of what I gave the people who were so wonderful ended up in the hands of their supervisors.
Someplace there is a person who is hiring a lot of very good team members. That person needs to find his/her way into the highest level or Solaris management. My biggest fear for the Solaris is that they are going to take care of this resort until it is sold out of timeshare, and then the attention of the Solaris team will focus on their next project.
OVERALL CONCLUSION: I would recommend this resort to almost anyone. It would be a great place to get married, and great place for a honeymoon, and great place for a family (even though the rooms are very small), a fantastic place for a couple who wants to get away from it all. I would not suggest this resort for anyone who may get sucked into the timeshare presentation and has low will power and a hard time saying no.
If you want to go to this resort I would do so in the next few years, as I really wonder what will happen here when the resort has more timeshare members and the overall resort gets more crowded. Right now it is a relatively small resort with a small resort feel. If that is for you, then the GR Solaris may be the place for you.
