April 11, 2015:
We didn’t see anyone here from NV but there were a lot of people coming and going!

We are booked into the CDS show on Wednesday of next week with the VIP dinner/table and we will let you know our thoughts afterwards. There is another Vidanta restaurant adjacent to the CDS venue (but not part of the circus) which is a Mexican theme and the pictures look very nice so we may try that another time. They are planning to build another “theme park” here surrounding the existing Theatre building and they say that it will be similar to the proposed CDS theme park in NV (you know my views on that!). BTW I noticed that the press release yesterday has pushed the theme park date out to 2019 and not 2018

They are also planning a “community” of casitas also behind the CDS across the road that will be a river/canal based community like the Banyan Tree project here at Mayakoba and they will have standalone one story studio casitas, one story one bedroom suites (interchangeable with the two story one bedroom lofts that they are building in GL4 here and GL5 in NV), two story two bedroom casitas and three bedroom casitas. All of the casitas can exchange for similar size rooms in the theme park hotels every second year (so they say)

They are also planning to tear down all the MP buildings from the MP lobby down the beach and put in three more GL buildings in that space together with a market like La Plaza. The MP building on the non-ocean side will remain and the MP buildings that currently sitting empty will be reopened and will take up the slack of the MP buildings they are tearing down. That’s all from the sales people so who knows?

Platinum members continue to be treated as “special” people here compared to NV with our own dedicated concierges and transportation. The new beach club is disappointing because the plan to have a seamless sand beach into the ocean isn’t working. There is still a ton of seaweed washing onshore every day and there is still all the exposed coral as you enter the water. I think they are trying to fix that with seawalls and some docks that take you out into the water but it isn’t working!! The new pools are very nice but pretty much like the GB pools at NV – they have an elevated beach area like the original elevated beaches that they had at the Punta pools (that got taken out!) but that’s it. They are apparently building model casitas immediately to the south of the GB pool area (which also has a kids club) but that will be a while getting ready.

New spa is almost ready – maybe a month away. New gym likely two to three months away. New GL reception lobby is beautiful and elegant (and way oversized) and airport limos take you right there. New Azur resto is excellent especially for breakfast. GL4 here has made no progress in the last year while they try to decide how to reconfigure it into lofts?? So it remains a skeleton

Will get back to you after CDS show.

April 17, 2015:
We tried the Nektar restaurant which is the Mexican resto next to the CDSS but not actually part of the CDS itself. It’s really just another Vidanta resto which is Yucatan/Mexican theme. We found the menu extremely limited with mostly unusual Yucatan/Mayan dishes or preparations and no mainstream Mexican choices. Service was also slow and for a restaurant that’s in the same complex as a circus, there is no family/kids menu. So we would definitely not recommend it to our friends and we have shared that with the concierge staff here.

Tramonto remains a good choice and Havana Moon has improved over last year. Also they redid Balche/Frida’s and it is very pretty nice. They are about to redo the Blue Fish resto here which is part of the fancy Grand Mayan pool area and they are expanding it, enclosing it, air conditioning it and keeping it open for dinner with live music. That’s good because it is the only real seafood resto on the property and up until now it has been closed for dinner. I had a great grouper lunch dish there so it has good potential. Those changes will likely happen over the summer. We are off to Puerto Morelos tonight to try Al Chimi Churri which is one of our favourites (Argentinian/Uruguayan)

The interesting thing here about the one bedroom loft is that they have the casita option they are building in the next few years and options to trade into the theme park hotel. I suspect that ALL one bedroom lofts will have those options – they just don’t tell you about it over in NV – or they will try to charge extra for it! There really is little consistency between properties.

I will try to take some pics if we get back to the Beach Club which is really the only thing that is new here (other than the walkways that are the same as in NV).

Boots on the Ground in RM