Sandie B.
Yelp
A disappointing hotel can really put a damper on your trip, and the Grand Miramar certainly did that. We came to PV hoping to have an amazing, hang-out-at-your-resort-relax-and-sip-cocktails-by-the-pool experience. We wanted a wonderful respite away from the fray of the city. Instead, we found largely terrible service, terrible cocktails, mediocre to terrible food, and noise. Lots of noise, everywhere.
THE ROOM - I will say that the room itself was large and, for the most part, comfortable. The bed was nice and firm, and the pillow was very high, which for me, was perfect. (My friend, however, said it hurt her neck.) It was generally clean. On the downside, many things didn't work properly, including the sliding bathroom door. There was also an issue with towels and robes. For some reason, even though they were hanging in the bathroom, housekeeping kept taking them and not replacing them. Overall, we made many calls to housekeeping and guest services to have things fixed / delivered / replaced (and often, those calls went unheeded and we had to call again.) Earplugs were needed every night / early morning from the noise in the hallways (staff walking by with loud walkie-talkies, carts rumbling by, guests yelling to each other down the hall) and loud music outside.
THE PROPERTY - The property itself was quite disappointing. From the photos it looked glorious. There is, in fact, one glorious place on the property--the adults-only rooftop pool. It's lovely. And loud. And crowded. It's a small pool, and everyone wants to be there. There isn't nearly enough seating for everyone. Several people were sitting on the ground on towels, which was nuts because we weren't even there at a busy time of year. The downstairs pools, to me, looked like they belonged at someone's somewhat low-end condo. Kind of depressing. The lobby and breakfast room were the same. Kind of depressing. Cheap. Because there was no seating on the roof, I sat by the shaded downstairs pool for two hours one day, and it smelled like trash or sulphur or something... I finally left when the jackhammering started...
THE SERVICE - With a few exceptions (like the men who helped you get a taxi each day and Daniel (?) in the breakfast room), the service was astonishingly bad. If you needed something, it often required two phone calls. Sometimes three. The fitness center was always "off" in the morning (no A/C, no power to the machines, empty water cooler) which was insane in the oppressive heat and humidity). No one came by at the pool to ask if we wanted drinks. When we had a medical emergency in the middle of the night, guest services was unreachable. And on the day we were to check out, we had been throwing up all night from some kind of stomach bug and were still feeling horrible. We had no idea what time check out was because the room had no booklet with a hotel overview. We called to request late checkout (our flight wasn't until 4:30pm) and they said they we had to be out of the room no later than 11:30am. I talked to five different people and explained our health situation and the timing of our flight, and they were utterly unsympathetic. We explained that we would have to sit in the lobby (the only place with A/C) after we checked out for hours, potentially still vomiting. The manager I spoke to was pretty much like "fine," and literally offered us plastic bags that we could puke into while we sat there. Finally, he offered us a later checkout if we paid a fee. It was just... INSANE.
THE FOOD - Yeah, just don't eat here. Breakfast was okay, but don't pay for food here, whether at the pool "snack bar" or at Eugenia. (See my separate review.)
THE WATER SITUATION - The hotel allots you two small bottles of Kirkland water per room per day, delivered with turndown service. If you need more, you "can order it from room service" for a whopping $6.50 / bottle + delivery fee + tip. So on the day you arrive, you'd best get into a taxi down the horrific cobblestone hill (like maybe a 5 minute very bumpy drive to get to the main road) to go to the XOXO market and get yourself a big jug of water lest you get very dehydrated.
GETTING INTO TOWN - It's not terribly far from the Romantic Zone--maybe a 10 minute taxi ride--and there are always taxis available at a moment's notice which is nice, but half the ride is VERY, VERY, bumpy and windy. If you experience motion sickness, this will be a nightmare for you. We could only handle one trip into town per day, and neither of us is prone to motion sickness.
We paid a total of about $200 / night for our room, and it still felt like too much for what we experienced here. This is not a good hotel. It's not luxurious. It's an aging, poorly managed, ill-situated (except for the view), ruin-your-entire-trip kind of place. We didn't feel cared for at all, and when you go on vacation, you just want to relax and feel taken care of.
