Barefoot Bride Amanda’s Review of Grand Palladium Costa Mujeres & TRS Coral
My fiance Vinny and I stayed at TRS Coral from April 29th, 2024, to May 2nd, 2024. We had already chosen TRS Coral/Grand Palladium Costa Mujeres to host our wedding at this point. However, we were in Mexico for a friend's wedding and wanted to see the resort in person before our wedding. We had plans to meet with the wedding department as well as our off-site wedding planner where we had the opportunity to meet with vendors and have a food tasting.
The Property
The property is stunning, unlike any resort Vinny and I have ever stayed at. With that being said, the property is very large and for someone like me (directionally challenged) it can be difficult to navigate. We chose this resort because it is family-friendly and we wish to have our nieces and nephews attend our wedding. There are three sections of the resort which are the TRS side (adult only), the Grand Palladium side (family-friendly), and the family selection which allows children but also gives adult guests the ability to access the adults-only portion if their children are not with them.
The property was well maintained, everywhere you go you can see employees working to upkeep the property. There is a man-made lake that sprawls across the property which is not only scenic but can also be used to paddleboard and catch a shuttle to the other side of the resort by boat. Like I mentioned before, the resort is very large and if you’re up for it you can definitely get your steps in, and perhaps skip the gym for the day. If that's not for you there are bus stops every so often where the shuttles pass by and can take you to your destination.
Something that we loved that we soon realized other people did not is the abundance of iguanas on the resort. There were a lot of them! We love all animals and truly enjoyed their presence. However, we did see that this was something that freaked some of the other guests out. Just something to mention!
Accommodations
For this trip, we booked the Junior Suite Garden View, which is the most basic room they offer on the TRS Coral side. The room was beautiful but did appear to be a little run down. The room has a gorgeous stand-alone tub, a sink and mirror area, and two small rooms with doors with the bathroom and shower. The balcony was large and even though we picked the most basic room we ended up facing the lake which provided a stunning view.
Every room on the TRS side is provided with a butler, and ours were so kind and helpful. This isn't a service that Vinny and I typically enjoy, but our butlers Miguel and Hector did contribute convenience to our stay. If you download WhatsApp they message you every morning with what restaurants are open and the events for that day. They became familiar with us and even approached us the night before we were checking out, knowing we were leaving and asking what time to get our bags. They were so kind and even helped us with our air conditioning issue which is to be mentioned next.
TRS Coral is an eco-friendly resort, and we love that. When you leave the room the lights shut off to preserve energy and electricity. However, when this happens the AC also turns off. When we entered the room it smelled very strong like mildew, and we attributed this to the room potentially being unoccupied without the AC running. However, we soon realized that even with the AC on the lowest setting the room never really got cool and was rather damp. We were fine with this, but it did get uncomfortable while we were sleeping. We escalated this issue to our butler who had the AC looked at by maintenance but we were told that everything seemed okay. I won't know until the wedding if this was perhaps bad luck with our room, or if every room holds the same experience.
Food and Drinks
The first day we arrived we had to wait until 3 to check in but changed and headed to the TRS pool to spend the day. We ordered food from the food stand where they had many different options. We both got burritos and agreed that they were very good.
For dinner, we ate at La Adelita which is the Mexican restaurant on the Grand Palladium side. We ordered melted cheese with coriander for a starter, tacos for dinner, and churros for dessert. Everything here was so delicious, and the service was great.
For breakfast the next morning we ate at Capricho on the TRS side. This to our surprise was a sit-down breakfast with a small buffet section. The food was great, but we love a traditional buffet-style breakfast.
We skipped lunch that day and went for an early dinner at El Gaucho, the TRS Argentinian restaurant. We ordered a traditional cheese provoleta for starters, and steaks (I can't recall who got which cut) with creamy spinach and mashed potatoes as a side. Again, the service was amazing but the steaks were quite tough.
The following morning we went to Isla Blanca, which is the true breakfast buffet on the Grand Palladium side. This had everything you could think of and was pretty standard for a breakfast buffet.
Again, we skipped lunch that day and went for an early dinner at La Boheme, the French restaurant on the TRS side. We ordered the cheese fondue for an appetizer and the chateaubriand and coq au vin. I will say that Vinny and I do not typically eat French food, but we thought that everything was very good.
When speaking of drinks, Vinny and I don't usually order anything special for drinks, but what we did order was good (usually tequila and grapefruit juice). The house wine was also good enough for us. The only odd thing about the resort is that there are water bottles in the room, but they are glass and secured with bottle caps similar to a beer, where they provide a bottle opener to open them. This made it so you couldn't take the bottles out of the room, and if you asked for a bottle of water anywhere you were told they didn't have any and would give you a cup of water instead.
In the towers where the rooms are located, there are water filters that you can refill with. However, Vinny and I were not aware of this situation so we did not bring tumblers or any kind of large cup to have access to water. I will also say that next to the sink in the room there is a sign saying the water is filtered and that you can brush your teeth with the water. We are much more comfortable drinking from water bottles and were a little disappointed with this detail.
Amenities
The gym is on the Grand Palladium side, which was fine because the walk to the gym can serve as a warm-up. The gym was very big and had just about every machine you could think of. I honestly liked it better than the gym I go to at home.
We visited all of the pools and overall liked the TRS pool the best. It was the perfect combination of lively and relaxing, where they had a saxophone player at the pool which really added a great vibe to the experience. The family selection pool was also beautiful but had a decent amount of kids (as expected). The Grand Palladium pool was lively in a different way and felt more family-oriented. We did feel that the Grand Palladium pool needed vacuuming, and was very sandy at the bottom. The beach was gorgeous and relaxing. There were plenty of lounge chairs and a refreshing breeze. There was hardly any seaweed.
Vinny and I found the nighttime entertainment to be a little confusing. We felt that there were a lot of things going on that weren’t specified on the Palladium app, so we had to walk around and find each event on our own. That being said, the resort is so big that we feel we may have missed some of the entertainment due to the large nature of the resort. The cool part about this resort is that the section with most of the restaurants and bars is located in what appears as a town. So at night, you don't feel like you're at a resort in this area.
Wedding Visit
As mentioned, we had already booked our wedding before our visit. However, it was difficult to get in touch with the wedding department to meet with the resort coordinators and schedule a food tasting and tour. With this being said our outside planner arranged for us to have our food tasting with one of the head coordinators at the resort by the name of Marisa and she was lovely. Our food tasting was at Isla Blanca and the staff was very excited to have us there and was so interested in our feedback on the food. The chef himself came out of the kitchen and presented our options to us, which we thought was so over the top and kind of them. The food was great and we were really happy to make decisions.
After the tasting, we went to the wedding department where our outside coordinator had us meet with the vendor for decor and the DJ. Everyone was so nice and thorough, and we truly appreciated them coming to meet us. Vinny and I were under the impression that we’d be facetime the vendors to speak, so we were very surprised to see them at the resort.
After that, we toured the potential venues at the resort with Marisa and our outside wedding planner. We were originally told over email that the convention center glass room was only available as a backup venue, but in person we were told that wasn't true so we changed our ceremony to that venue, which we love. We had originally chosen Poseidon 2nd floor for our reception but we ended up changing this as well. We are unsure about how many guests will attend, and Poseidon 2nd floor has a capacity of 100 so we decided to switch. We were so happy and grateful to have that experience considering communication can be difficult at times.
Overall Impression
When speaking of our wedding, the venues at this TRS Coral/ Grand Palladium Costa Mujeres are what made us choose this resort for our wedding. The venues in our opinion are unmatched, and we had a hard time finding resorts that have a modern aesthetic but are also family-friendly. However, after visiting this resort we both agreed that as a childless couple, we wouldn't choose this resort as a place to go for a vacation. The quality is lacking in some aspects such as cleanliness and attention to detail. However, we are still very excited to host our friends and family here in celebration of our marriage.
