Let me start by saying that I have never considered myself a "hotel snob." This is why, at the last minute, we changed our reservations to the Great Parnassus. Originally we were staying at the Casa Magna Marriott (which I had been to several times before) for a wedding. Right before we left, I decided to do a little research and came upon The Great Parnassus. It seemed "too good to be true!" The rates were incredible and the recent reviews made it seem a very logical choice to switch our reservations to a more "family friendly" environment for myself, my father, my husband and my 2 year old son. We really wanted our son to have some fun things to do. So we opted out of the fancier Marriott where our friends were staying and moved on over to GP. We were SO Excited about this rare family trip and very proud of our decision to move over to the GP.

On a side note, we used Entertainment Plus for our transportation, and they were awesome. This was about the only good choice I made regarding this trip. Upon arrival at the hotel, we began to sweat. I had read about the Open Air Lobby, but nothing prepares you for the humidity in that lobby on a very hot day. (And I have been to Cancun many times before). So we are hot and sweaty, with a 2 year old. When we got there, the rooms we were assigned to were not the ones sent to me in my confirmation email. They were not the beds we had requested. They were not even next to each other, which was essential as my father was helping with my son for the duration of the trip and we needed the rooms right next to one another. Soooooo.......after about 20 minutes, we were given 2 new rooms. We got all of our luggage up to the first room, opened the door, and it was a disaster. Under MUCH construction. Not sure why they even sent us up there, but I almost started crying when I first saw it. Filthy, nasty...there was even a tv turned upside down on the bed. So back down to the lobby I went, (leaving the family in the other room). This time, Monica (who actually was the only nice employee we met), tried to get the manager Federico's (yes I took names) attention. He was standing in the corner laughing with another employee (Nato) and wouldnt look her way. I stood there for at least 10 minutes, waiting to get his attention. When he finally came over, he looked for rooms for us on the computer for about 10 more minutes and never ONCE looked me in the eye or made a comment. The only thing he did was give me the room keys to the 2 new rooms and walk off.

I went up to the new rooms to check them out before having my family move all the stuff down 5 more floors and discovered they were both smoking rooms. At this point, I gave up. We took the rooms anyway.

One of the only perks was that I had put in a original email that my son's birthday was on the day of arrival. They had a cake sent up to him, which I thought was very nice.

So this was just our first hour there....Here is a brief synopsis of the rest of our time at The Great Parnassus.

Pros-The few positive things I can say (and I truly am not typically a critical person)..

1. The rooms were nice and large. The actual room itself was very clean.
2. It appeared that the kids by the larger pools were having a good time with the entertainment.
3. The gift shop was very reasonable. (I had read that room service would bring you bottled water, but this was not the case, so we had to buy tons of it in the gift shop.)
4. Food by the pool was decent. My dad and I had three plates of cheese fries as that was one of the few things edible (see below).

Cons:
1. The food as many have stated before was AWFUL. I held out big hopes for Big Ben after reading reviews and other than a decent steak, the rest was terrible. My "Salad" was 3 pieces of lettuce, drizzled with salad dressing, and 2 tiny slices of bell pepper. The Magnus food court literally made me sick to my stomach. My dad works overseas in India and is used to very poor conditions, and he could find little that even HE would eat. We actually left the property several times to eat. We waited an hour at Manhattan on our first day there to get a sandwich and we were one of only 3 tables that had anyone at it. The Mexican Rest. was closed the entire time, which was one of the things I was most excited about.

2. My father drank 8 margaritas by the pool one morning and literally....felt NOTHING. You had to beg for any alcohol.....we arent huge drinkers, but seriously....NOTHING. At one point, he asked them to put tequila in his drink and the bartender said, "OH...you want alcohol?"

3. The smell....a previous review really said it all...it smelled really bad throughout the entire place.

4. The bathrooms. Some of our fixtures (like the rail in the bathtub) had been taken off and there was lots of rust growing in it's place. As stated before, the rooms were nice...the bathrooms were just not that clean. (least of my worries though).

5. The noise...as someone posted, you could hear everything. They also play this old school slow music (think...theme song from Titanic) over and over from 7am until 11pm throughout the entire resort. It was so depressing. Only thing I could think is that when the resort is full and at capacity, they use it to calm people. For us, it just made things even more dreary, and we could hear it late into the night. Our first night there, a bunch of drunk people went through the halls singing at 2am. The doors are made of some sort of hollow wood, and you could hear every single one bang when it was not closed with the most deliberate care.

6. The waterpark. We made our decision to go to GP largely b/c of the children's service. The girls in the baby club were very sweet. We never left our son, but did bring him down to play in the playroom one night (which he DID love), but we were told at first that he couldnt even be in the water park and would have to use the baby pool instead. This is a tiny wading pool with a few toys floating in it.) We were finally allowed to let him slide if we put floaties on him and he loved the slides. HOWEVER, when we went back the next day-we were told that the slides were closed all day because "THE WATER WAS BAD!" What does that mean? So the one thing our child truly loved and a huge reason why we were there was shut down. You can imagine that he wasnt going back into the water later on when "The water was bad!" In general, the other pools were okay, but they are definitely not the cleanest. One morning there was literally scum floating in the pool and as we were getting in, a man came by with a scrub brush and right in front of us, starting scrubbing mold off the side of the pool and dipping his brush right back in the water.

7. Internet...Internet service was decent, though the sports pub that it was in was so dark and dreary, I hated to go in there. Many of the computers were down every time we went in there.

8. This is small, but was a big deal to us. Along the floor on the lobby floor they have these lights that kind of spotlight your walkway to the Magnus Grill. My 2 year old leaned over an touched one and wound up with a huge blister on his finger that is now infected. Not so safe for kids...

9. I can count on one hand how many staff members smiled at us or acted as if they were glad we were there. Especially at Magnus, everyone looked as though they hated their job. Monica at the front desk was nice to us, as was one of the girls at the pool, and the people who did the entertainment by the pool were some of the only staff members who seemed to interact with those of us there.

10. This is not a big deal and we didnt really care, but we were some of the only Americans there. There was a huge mix of different races, but especially hispanic which is probably why most everything was in spanish. (not really many english channels al tv). When I went to ask a question to the girl helping with baggage this morning before we left, she didnt speak any english. Very frustrating when you are trying to get answers.

I am writing this on the evening of our return, because I am so very frustrated with our trip. It is true that we got a great rate compared to surrounding hotels, but I would have NEVER chosen the service, cleanliness and environment we were in for ANY PRICE. The Great Parnassus truly ruined a vacation that we were all looking forward to for many months. I based my decision on the great reviews that were recently posted, so I felt as though I needed to post one myself. I am a big "review person" always researching things before I make decisions. This was one time that I was very disappointed in my ultimate decision. I would give anything to go back a week from today and keep my reservations at the Casa Magna.

It has become a joke in my family now that when someone in my family makes a great big mistake, we will call it, Making a Great Parnassus. I made a horrible mistake by choosing to trust this resort with our family vacation.