We
exchanged into Playa Grande using our $300 Blue Week in North Carolina.
Playa Grande was well worth more than that. Really, the only negative I
can think of right now was the ongoing construction activity that is moving
right along to get the resort completed.
Not so much the noise, that really never bothered us, just the ever
present dust, and the hassle of walking way around the construction site to get
to our room.
I don’t want to appear too
gushing in my praise, but this is one very nice place to stay.
We were very impressed with the villa.
We had a top floor one bedroom suite.
This comes with two full baths, a very nice amenity.
One bath off the bedroom was very large and had a beautiful glass
enclosed tub and shower. The quality of the construction, furnishings and
appliances was first class.
A fairly complete kitchen is provided with a full size refrigerator,
microwave and double bowl sink.
No automatic dishwasher is present, but dish soap and a scrubber is.
Turns out we never needed the dishwashing machine as the housekeeper
always washed our few dishes every day.
The tap water is purified and we did use it with no ill effects.
The living room has a sofa bed,
a large screen tv and a patio door out onto one of the two terraces.
The bedroom features a king size bed, another large tv and another
patio door out onto a second terrace.
For some reason the 2 terraces are divided by a wall so you cannot walk
from one to the other. There are many decorator touches like candles in wrought
iron holders, ceramic fish and decorative pitchers.
Playa Grande does give away the little bottles of soap, conditioner,
sewing kits and the like, but there is no hair drier, so bring your own.
An iron and board are available if laundry is your thing to do on
vacation. My wife thought the bed kind of hard, but I did not have a problem
with it. The
air conditioning worked rather well.
They have an energy conservation routine that I have never seen before.
When you enter the room, you are required to place your electronic room
key into a special slot by the door before the electricity turns on.
This assures that you always return after a long time away to a hot room.
(the air is off when no electric is present) We soon figured out to leave one of
our 2 keys in the slot when leaving for a short while, and then we could return to a cool
room later in the day.
Right now there are 2 swimming
pools open. A
smaller one with a hot tub is sort of the adult pool.
The larger one has the swim up bar, and convenient shallow parts where
young children can play close to where Mom and Dad can swim. This pool is quite
large and will double in size when they open the second half that is currently
under construction.
The new pool will feature water falls and it appears there will be an
even bigger hot tub.
The beach is wide, with golden
sand and totally pristine.
There is no litter or debris of any kind present.
The sea water is clean and a beautiful dark blue color.
Nobody swims in the water as the waves and undertow are too fierce, but
it sure is beautiful.
There are also no peddlers of trinkets, silver and blankets because they
just can’t get there, and no people to sell to anyway.
The restaurant is very stylish
with indoor and outdoor seating.
The food was not spectacular but good, and the prices not too out of line
for Cabo. A
piano player provides entertainment in the evening. The permanent lobby hasn’t
been built yet and the temporary lobby will in future become shops and an
exercise facility. Again, everything is very stylish.
The owner of Playa Grande, who we were told is also the owner of the
Solmar, and Finisterra Resorts, is either a marketing genius or a bit of an
egomaniac. Everywhere
you go you see the Playa Grande logo, on the towels, ash trays and matchbooks.
The
operation seems well financed as construction activity was really booming with
many workers laboring furiously.
Also, a steady stream of sales tours arrived daily and were paraded
around the resort.
We did encounter quite a few owners who bought last year and were
enjoying their ownerships.
Playa Grande sells good old fashioned timeshare, fixed weeks and fixed
units, none of that new fangled floating time, so owners receive exactly what
they paid for when returning.
Everyone seemed quite happy.
The Owners were happy, the workers were happy, the housekeepers were
happy…overall, a very nice experience.
Here are
some photos we took while visiting
Click on the thumbnail
photo to see the full size version.
PLAYA
GRANDE 
