Eric,
We have not been to RM for years - considering going next year. DW hard to convince as she likes NV. Couple of questions.
Can a GL villa resident use the Lazy River - or is it exclusive to 'Jungle Folks'? DW likes lazy river; being restricted would not go over well.
Any other considerations for us NV GL people to entice us to go to RM - or not?
Mike
Mike,
What we were told by sales is that the Lazy River, now being called the Water Park, will be free access for Grand Luxxe, but not for anyone else in the resort. It being Riviera Maya, it's not entirely clear whether that will include folks exchanging into GL rather than using their own ownership weeks to go there as is the case periodically for the GL Pool and the Beach Club. If you're using your own week in a Villa, you should be able to access it if it is open then. Last word I heard from sales was they are targeting June of this year for opening; there is a lot of construction going on there and it is much closer to being ready than it was when we were there last year, so I'm confident they are still planning on opening it, though as usual the date is in question. One of the concierges in the Jungle Luxxe buildings said it wouldn't be opening for another year, but we were just asking as many people as we could to see if anyone had any actual information available; I don't put too much stock into either the sales or the random individual responses as to what the actual date will be, but work is progressing.
Jssquared posted a plat of what will be in the Water Park earlier in this string. Looks like it will include a wave pool and there were a lot of water slide parts visible in the construction area last week as well as some of those large buckets you see in other water parks. In my opinion, it's going to a bit of a bigger deal than just a Lazy River; the sales folks were also saying that they would be allowing outside visits for fees to a limited extent as well as free access for GL, but it's not really apparent from the plat whether it will really be set up for that. Prior site plans had included a more major water park installation inland from the Cirque Theater, so it's not really clear to me whether this is replacing those plans since their using the same terms to discuss it or whether there will be two water parks. We'll have to see what ends up happening, but I'm pretty confident that they will finish the one by the Jungle Luxxe units. As an aside, they now have a wood pathway between the Jungle Luxxe units and the water park with extensions that go into the park; looks to be a very short walk for folks that stay there and might be worth considering as an option for stays in RM in the future if that's what interests someone going there.
As for other considerations, the new Salum area has a nice selection of smaller restaurants, including the RM version of La Cantina. We didn't eat at that one, but did like the Waves and Tacos, which wasn't terribly expensive for the size of the tacos as compared to ones out in town. There is also a tamale stand and an ice cream stand in the Mexican Mercado portion of Salum that are good and not terribly expensive. I won't say there inexpensive, but somewhere between what you would pay in a more traditional Vidanta restaurant and what it would cost out in town. They also have a decent selection of Mexican craft beers on tap at a bar in Salum that are worth trying if you're into that (I am). I haven't seen that many craft beers on tap in NV, so I count that as a plus for RM. The house draft beer at the Beach Club last week was a Mundo Maya Clara or Obscura; I'm fairly certain that the brewery was ripping off
@pittle for the term "Mayan World" but can't prove anything. The Mundo Maya Obscura really isn't all that dark and seems more like an American Pale Ale or an IPA; think it was 110 pesos for a 14 oz draft; 2 during happy hour. They do have some decent theme nights at Salum; we enjoyed the Retro Night (60s-80s music) and the Mexican Kermes Night. The only other enticement I can think of is the Cirque Joya show; seems like it'll be a while before they get one in NV. We like the fact that it's a nonstop flight for us down there instead of having to connect through Houston to get to PV/NV, but to be frank, for me the treatment differential between owning and exchanging is much higher in RM than NV as is the differential between platinum and non-platinum. I think we've figured out getting off the resort much better in NV and I'm more comfortable just walking off there, but both are manageable.
Eric