Pickleball Getaways at Grand Palladium: A Comprehensive Review

WHAT THIS BLOG IS ABOUT

I will cover four topics about the pickleball camp we attended at the Grand Palladium Colonial Resort & Spa in the Riviera Mayan (Carretera Tulum). Those topics are:

  • Interesting details about our trip getting to the resort.
  • The resort itself.
  • The organization of the trip by Pickleball Getaways
  • The pickleball instruction

I will also give a “bottom line” expressing my opinion about all three topics.

You can go to any topic you like by clicking on it in the table of contents below.

Table of Contents

    our travel

    Getting There

    We were destined to leave the day the ice storm hit Atlanta. Fortunately, we booked a hotel room for the night before because, if we had tried to drive to the airport the day of our departure, we never would have made it. Below is a picture of what the conditions were like. Note that there is snow and ice, mostly ice. When we looked out the window of our hotel room, we saw a car do a 360 on the highway. Things were not looking up.

    Our original flight was supposed to leave at 12:30, but early in the morning we heard that there was an indefinite hold on arrivals and departures. I’ll make a long story short – because of the help of a Delta agent, we were able to get on an earlier flight, as well as being protected on a flight the next day, should worse come to worse.

    We boarded our “earlier flight” at 12:30, then sat on the tarmac for three hours while we waited to have our planed de-iced. This is what we saw out the window.

    Well, after three hours of waiting, we managed to take off. When we landed, our pilot told us that, if we had been delayed for about 15 minutes more, we would not have been able to take off because all flights were grounded. Our original flight was cancelled!

    We got lucky.

    Arriving in Cancun

    Getting through customs was a breeze, mainly, I think, because so many travelers were delayed. Finding our shuttle, however, was not a breeze because of the chaos outside the terminal. It is only because another traveler had found the shuttle that we were able to find it as well, and that was because of WhatsApp.

    Then we had a 1 ½ hour shuttle drive to the resort. When we got there, at about 8 PM, just as we were booking in, some band directly across from the lobby started blasting a Beatles song. Our nerves were frazzled as it was, but (and this may sound funny) the singer could not carry a tune. Nothing worse than a loud band with a tone-deaf singer.

    Well, ultimately, we got to the room, where the thermostat was set to 17 degrees Celsius, or 62 degrees Fahrenheit. That was great except for one fact – there was not bed cover on the beds. We only had a sheet to lay under. We were freezing. We were going to wait until the next day to ask for covers, but we found a supply cabinet and grabbed a couple of covers for ourselves.

    Grand Palladium Colonial Resort & Spa

    General Information:

    1. There were miniscule black bugs on the bathroom vanity.
    2. Sometimes housekeeping left us new towels, and sometimes they just left our wet towels hanging on hooks.
    3. We had one face towel for the two of us, and it was not replaced at all during our stay.
    4. Apparently, we would have been able to upgrade to better rooms on the TRS side of the resort, but information about the upgrades never made it to us.
    5. It took us a couple of days to figure out where to get coffee before 7 AM (when breakfast started). That was the Sports Bar, but the machine didn’t necessarily work all the time.
    6. Unlike every other resort we have stayed at, there were no hot tubs to sit in after pickleball. If you wanted a hot tub, you had to buy a day pass to the spa, which costs about $30 US. This is an all-inclusive resort?
    7. Some resorts, like Sandals, prohibit their employees from accepting tips. It didn’t take long for us to realize that, unless you had some dollars visible in your hand, you were going to get less than stellar service at the bars.

    Dining Information

    You had several choices of ala carte dining, as well as two buffet restaurants. Before I go into detail, let me say this – avoid the ala carte restaurants and stick to the buffets.

    Sumptuori Japanese Restaurant

    Bottom line – if you want to go to the hibachi tables and are less interested in the food that you get as opposed to watching a chef bang his knives together to make noise, then perhaps you would like this restaurant. But…

    After having fantastic tempura at the Grand Bahamian a month of so earlier, we were really anxious to have dinner at the Japanese restaurant, mainly because it served tempura. In case you don’t know what tempura is, it is a Japanese dish of lightly battered seafood or vegetables that are deep-fried until crispy. I was also looking forward to sake, which was also served at the Royal Bahamian resort.

    Well, when we ordered sake at the Japanese restaurant, the waiter brought us a price menu. They were going to charge us about $30 for sake! Come on. If you want you can drink all day at the resort, but if you want sake, you’re going to have to pay for it? Not right for an all-inclusive hotel. We passed on the sake.

    When our tempura came, it bore no resemblance to tempura we have had in the past. The vegetables were hot, but the coating was clearly not deep-fried because it was not crispy. I guess the best description is that is was limp.

    We followed that with a couple of sushi orders which were just about as good as what we can get in our local supermarket.

    Then I order this: Chicken Supreme in Teriyaki Sauce. This meal is described as “Grilled chicken breast in teriyaki butter sauce, with roasted mushrooms and crispy rice.” Well, the chicken was not grilled (it was apparently roasted until all the moisture was gone), the rice was just white rice and was not crispy, and there were no mushrooms.

    So, like I said, if you want to be entertained, perhaps this restaurant is for you, but if you want Japanese food, forget it.

    Chang Thai Restaurant

    Again, we had high hopes that were dashed.

    First, we ordered Satay. Here is what is usually considered to be Satay: it is chicken, pork, or beef cut into thin strips or small bite-size pieces, grilled on skewers and served with peanut sauce. I can honestly say that I don’t know what kind of meat was on our skewers because the chunks (yes, chunks) were tough and tasteless and there was no peanut sauce.

    Then we made our way to the “salad bar,” where I looked forward to getting the Vietnamese Spring rolls, which are (again) supposed to be served with peanut sauce. These rolls contained some kind of pickled vegetables and there was not peanut sauce.

    I then ordered Pad Thai which (shockingly) was pretty good. My wife ordered the grilled chicken. I don’t know if it was grilled or not, but it was very, very dry.

    The crème brûlée desert was pretty good.

    Bottom line – avoid this restaurant as well.

    Lunches

    This is a sad commentary on the lunches. My wife and I booked two excursions (which I will blog about later). Each provided a “rustic” lunch, consisting of tortillas, black beans, rice, lettuce and chicken or pork. These lunches were better than any lunch we had at the hotel.

    Pickleball Instruction

    Overview

    There were 80 pickleball players on the Pickleball Getaways trip, so the instruction was broken into two sessions of 40 players each. The 40 players were spread over 10 courts. The instructors, of which there were 8, were mostly good, but compare this to a Pickleball in Paradise trip we took recently where there were 16 players on 4 courts. The two sessions each lasted 1 ¾ hours, while the sessions with the Pickleball in Paradise trip lasted three hours. There was very little opportunity to get individual attention in the Pickleball Getaways, where as in the Pickleball in Paradise trip we got a lot of individual attention.

    Pro Exhibition

    Ben Johns showed up for the last two days, and that was a plus. He and the other pros put on an exhibition in which they goofed around a lot. Ben Johns was a down-to-earth guy who seemed to be having fun. Below is a video of him posing with all of us.

    Play with the Pros

    The last day was “Play with the Pros” day. We were really looking forward to this but, given the number of players, the number of courts, and the number of instructors, we wondered how this was goin to work. Well, we each got to play 4 points with a pro (including Ben Johns) and that was that. After the four points, a new pro rotated in. We were in the “4.0 and above” group but (and this should NEVER have happened) there was a woman on our court who didn’t even know how to serve. This made the session less than fulfilling for the rest of us.

    bottom line

    Pickleball Getaways has potential but needs significant improvements in event management, communication, and overall organization.

    If you’re looking for a relaxing vacation with casual pickleball, this trip might suit you. However, for serious instruction and seamless travel arrangements, I recommend looking into alternatives.

    Until Pickleball Getaways improves its operations, I cannot recommend it for players seeking a well-rounded pickleball experience.