Seadust Cancun Family Resort (Formely) Great Parnassus Timeshare Resort

The Hotel was nothing out of the extraordinary and lacking a lot in some areas.

We stayed at an ocean front suite expecting the best quality as they are the most expensive rooms only to find that the jacuzzi and the shower were disgusting, old and not properly maintained.

Housekeeping was ok, they left 1 dirty towel in 1 ocassion and didn’t clean the shower properly before our arrival (there were hairs on the shower).
We had to leave instructions the first 3 days to get water refilled otherwise they wouldn’t have refilled our mini-bar at all.

The view from the room was good but the room itself was very noisy as the glass doors didn’t shut down the noise from the entertainment below (on the main pool). At night though leaving them open and listening to the sea was very nice.

We were on the 5th floor.

The entertainment each night was good, mainly music and dancers in different modalities and a magic show. That I do recommend. Be there early as the theater can get full rather quickly.

Food was good on the main buffet area for breakfast and lunch, only complain there would be the staff attitude (some of them really rude when you ask for something).
Food from the speciality restaurants vary from restaurant to restaurant, I’d say the best one was the sushi place followed by french restaurant (but it’s adults only), and last would be the big ben (steaks). I’d stay out of all the other restaurants.

Bar service is not very good and bartenders have a very bad attitude almost all of the time, the only way to make them look at you is with a tip (so if you drink a lot have a couple is 1dll bills with you and they will be happy with that).

Take note that you have to make a line for water (only water fountains for self service on the room floors, none at the pool or the Beach).

The spa services and installations are just ok, I do not recommend them for the prices, you will get better services at the states anywhere as the prices are at par with the ones here in USA.

Plus the spa itself would smell of sewer. The lobby also had a horrible smell .

The adults pool is really poor, not maintained at all. Both the “Jacuzzis” didn’t work and the water was always cold and really dirty, there was always “something” floating on the water. Very dissaponting and disgusting.

The Hotel is Not Handicap Friendly! Take a note as there is no ramp towards the Beach or for the restrooms at the pools.

Notes:
1. Avoid all the purple shirt people at the “concierge” desk. They will waste your time trying to sell you timeshares.

2. Beach is really bad (not hotels fault maybe), the sand is not that beautiful sand they advertise about Cancun, it is very dirty by both seaweeds and the usual human footprint :( and since it’s no longer the original beach after some hurricanes, you cannot take nice walks next to the sea.
Sea at this location is pretty rough so if you are traveling expecting calm nice waters look for a different hotel.

This hotel looks great from the pictures on the website. Here are the pros and cons.

Pros

Service Staff – Great staff in the adult pool bar and Cesar in the lobby bar. They really care about their visitors.

Kids Club Staff – They were super friendly and provided such good care to my child. The hours were 9am to to 7:45pm during the slow season.

Public Bathrooms – They were always clean.

Main Areas – They were kept really clean.

Cons

Timeshare Selling – After checking in you are constantly asked about sitting down for a time share presentation. They try and tell you that you’ll get better benefits including alcohol and food. I didn’t buy into the presentation piece.

Smelly Rooms – The hotel room was extremely musty and the smell would not go away no matter what I tried. There was also a foul smell coming from the drains in the bathroom.

I have already laundered my clothes twice from this vacation and they still have the smell of the hotel room.

Hotel Fridge – They would not take my word that my fridge or should I say room temperature cooler was not working. Finally they replaced it on the 4th day.

Food – The food definitely needs improvement.

Breakfast – The food was okay, but had limited choices for North American options. I asked for syrup the one morning and the cook said he didn’t have anymore. Really? The coffee was horrible in the dinning room. A good suggestion would be to have self serve expresso machines in the dinning hall. Wilberto a server was very attentive to our table.

Lunch – They had limited North American options. I normally would eat snacks by the Kids Club Restaurant. Not much to be desired.

Dinner – We tried the Boathouse and Sushi Restaurants. The food was mediocre and nothing that was very impressive.

Elevators – They didn’t close properly and on more than one occasion an elevator would be out of service. They were very slow and at times, I wondered if the doors would actually open. In fact, the doors do not properly close they have about a cm in width where you could through.

Bracelets – They tell you that they will charge you 300 USD if you lose you bracelet, but yet they don’t take it at the end of your visit.

Beach Towels – They charge you 25 USD for a missing towel. I found the towels to have a damp old smell to them.

Safety – The hotel is relatively large and has a cruise ship layout. There were only elevators on one side of the building for hotel rooms. People had to walk long distances to and from the elevators. It was hot and muggy inside because of the layout and lack of air conditioning.

I also didn’t see many flights of stairs throughout the resort. I obviously check out my surroundings when I stay. Not up to North American standards.

Front Staff – They really push to give the hotel a good review. I was asked if they could help me with my review.

Would I stay here again? They would need to have some major changes to their food and rooms. I think this hotel has potential, it just isn’t there yet.

I think they need to determine what market they are catering to and how to fine tune some of the issues with their food and rooms.

Hotel: Stayed here at the end of May with 5 adults & 2 kids. The price was right & the reviews here seemed good. We were *not* impressed and I would never stay here again. It’s definitely good for the kids (water park, mini golf, zipline, pools, etc), but not so good for adults.

Beach/Pool: I read reviews about the waves being rough, but figuring I’m from NJ that’s nothing. I was wrong… the problem is that the water is very shallow, so when you are standing there and big waves are hitting you, you get knocked over very fast. Not good for the kids (or adults). We walked down to the Iberostar & the waves were better there (must be a reef off shore). Don’t be fooled by other reviews, there’s a ton of seaweed on the beach. But that’s just because of the area the hotels are in. It’s all over the hotel zone, so there’s no getting around it (it’s to be expected in this area). There were a lot of beach chairs & palapas (grass huts) on the beach for shade. We spent most of the time there relaxing because the pool area was very loud. The pools were okay but not very clean. There were lots of people in the pools (of course it’s a big hotel). It was a very slow week, I can’t imagine what it would be like with the hotel full. Each guest gets issued *one* towel card and they are very strict with it. You must surrender your towel card and you get one (beach) towel and only one towel. They weren’t the best quality, so they would get wet very fast, and in the hot/humid weather, they never dried. There was only 1 station you could get the towels from, so if you were at the beach, you would have to walk up several flights of stairs to exchange your towel. Do a lot of people really steal towels that this was necessary? I have a back problem, so having another towel to roll up for my back is almost necessary for me. I had to use clothes instead.

AC = HORRIBLE. 25 degrees C (79 degrees F) is *not* air conditioning IMHO. And to make matters worse, there is *no* AC in the bathroom. There’s no fan in the shower area either, so no way to get any cool air in the bathroom. Thank goodness we called the front desk to get the ceiling fan (which is over the bed) repaired so we could have some kind of air circulation. The AC in the restaurants is terrible too. None of the bars are air conditioned, they are all open air, so we couldn’t even go to a bar and get cooled off. After dinner we would just go upstairs to our room, take off our clothes and lay on the bed wishing to be cool. No AC in the elevators too, so when you get in them, it’s literally like a 110 degree sauna!

Food/Bars: The food here is *not* good. It’s so-so. French restaurant was good, but it’s adults only. Buffet is acceptable, but always the same stuff day after day after day. Tang/orange flavored water is not orange juice! Several of our party got some unidentified meat at the steakhouse. My bro-in-law ordered prime rib. Whatever he got was some kind of meat, but not prime rib. My daughter ordered flank steak and she said she’s never tasted a meat like that. My rib eye was okay. None of us liked the Mexican restaurant (except for the margaritas). As mentioned above, AC in restaurants is almost non-existent. Not one bar had air conditioning, they were all open air.

Drinks/Bars: Everyone expects that the drinks at an all-inclusive will be watered down, and this place is no exception. The problem is that everything they mixed it with tasted horrible too. Yucky cranberry juice & Tang doesn’t make for a good Malibu Bay Breeze. The only good drinks we got were the margaritas in the Mexican restaurant.

Shows: Oh gosh… someone said the Michael Jackson is a must see, what a joke! My sister & I went to the show (once again, no AC in the theater) and “Michael” came out and lip-synced horribly to a song. The dancing was equally horrendous. We laughed hysterically through the number and promptly got up and left. Three family members went to the Mayan show and stayed for about half of it. It was what you would expect from a typical Mayan show, but nothing good.

Guests: I read previous reviews that there are a lot of Mexican people staying at this resort. I am *not* racist and that did not deter me at all from staying here. I thought it would be nice. The problem is that Mexican people speak Spanish (no surprise here). But the hotel obviously catered to the Spanish speaking people. When you went to the theater, or you went to the pool games, the employees spoke 75% Spanish & 25% English. So you weren’t always able to keep up with what was going on.

The Bad: 4 out of the 7 of us got sick (stomach/gastrointestinal). It had to come from the food/drinks there because it started for us after being there for 3 days. This was the worst. The hotel definitely needs upgrading. The concrete areas by the pool were all chipping and the stairs around the pool area were really steep. And with no handrails near the steps, it was a bit treacherous. It was really hard getting into and out of the pool unless you are very young person. Once again there were no handrails and the first step going into the pool was really steep. I’m surprised there weren’t more accidents. I left a tip for the maid for the first 3 days, but after having a big clump of seaweed sitting in the shower for 3 days, I decided not to leave a tip anymore. They obviously don’t clean the shower or even rinse it out. I read reviews to stay away from the purple shirt people since they are trying to book you for their hotel/time share. So we avoided them completely but… you can’t even get a map of the place or know where your room is unless you go see them. That’s ridiculous!

The Good: The employees were friendly, but I didn’t get any particularly good service from anyone except the travel folks. We didn’t go to the Sunwing desk, we went to the other one which was right in the lobby (to the left of the check-in desk). The guys there were super friendly and if you know how to play your cards right, you’ll get a good deal on their trips. Just show them what you can get via the internet and they will match it. The resort was good for the kids, but my niece felt uncomfortable leaving her daughters at the kids club because they were always speaking Spanish to the kids and she felt like the girls wouldn’t know what was going on.