Gala Review

Subject:

Comments:
: We booked 6 nights at the Gala through US Air Vacations for April 5 – 11th. It was only about $50 more than a charter, but we weren’t restricted to traveling Saturday to Saturday, or Sunday to Sunday. We were able to upgrade to first class with upgrade stickers and still received frequent flyer mileage. All of our luggage was carry-on so we walked off the plane and right through customs. US air uses Lomas travel to transport you to your hotel. They met us just outside of customs, and we were driven in a car with no one else. We later heard from other people who had booked their vacations through charters, that they had to wait until everyone from that group went through customs, over 1 hour and then went from one hotel to the next dropping people off. : THE ROOM : We arrived at the hotel at 2:30pm and checked in. The hotel room was quite nice. It was pretty large with a balcony. It had a nice bathroom with a large shower. There was no clock in the room. You could program the telephone to give you a wake up call but a clock next to the bed would have been nice. The other item was noise. The noise in the hallway could be heard very clearly in the room. In addition above the shower was a screened opening into the outside hallway. The opening was about 6 inches by 18 and was at the top of the wall near the ceiling. I am assuming this was for ventilation in the shower and it seemed to work because there was no fan. But this also lead to additional nose in the room especially if you had the bathroom door open. Also any conversation in the bathroom could be heard in the hall. The mini bar was stocked with 2 beers, 2 pepsis, 2 diet pepsis, 1 orange, 1 grapefruit soda and 2 mineral waters with “gas”. They do not supply the room with regular bottled drinking water. However room service is free and will bring you just about anything. We had them bring us a pitcher of water ever night. : : THE FOOD : The food was ok to good. The general opinion was that the food was all local. So the beef and veal was not the same quality and taste as back home. We ate at the Italian restaurant twice. Had the veal once and I would not recommend it. It wasn’t horrible, but it just wasn’t good. The shrimp dishes were ok to good, as was a tortellini in a cheese sauce. Also they have an antipasto bar in the middle of the restaurant which was also quite good including the proscuito. The Mexican restaurant was also good. Again the shrimp dishes were good. I also had a dish that was supposed to be pork medallions. The dish was very good but it was a lot of shredded pork. The lime soup was also good. In the middle of the Mexican restaurant they also had a hors dourves bar. It was also good. : Every night the Gala offered a large buffet. It was different every night. Most of the time it was set up outside unless there were some clouds around 3pm when they started to set the table up. However it never rained during dinner when we were there. The first night was BBQ. We ate at this one and I would recommend that you skip it and go to the other restaurants. They also had a Mexican night, International and some others. They always had pasta with various sauces and hotdogs. The deserts were almost always the same about 8-10 different ones. The fresh fruit always looked good and there was always a large variety of it. : Breakfast was served in two different places both buffet style. The smaller location by the pools did not have as large a variety as the other place. Both places always had someone cooking to order eggs/omelets and pancakes. There was a large selection of juices and fruits. : Lunch was served in the same two places as breakfast. Again it was buffet style. We ate by the pool everyday where the Gala classified the food as fast food as compared to the larger lunch place. They had pizza daily as well as french fries and onion rings. They also were grilling hamburgers. However they were seasoned. In addition, they usually also had chicken parts. Each day, they offered a different daily grilled item, such as grilled fish, chicken fajitas and grilled beef etc. Here you could eat in a bathing suit without a cover-up or shirt. : Apparently once or twice a week dinner was served at the restaurant by the pool. We saw them setting up one night for this but assumed it was for a private party of some sort. It looked almost empty. We found out later from someone who tried to walk in that they serve seafood there and reservations are required. It would have been nice had this information been given to us and the other guests. We made reservations for Mexican and Italian restaurants but no one ever mentioned this one. : DRINKS – There was a bar at the beach and one between the two pools at the restaurant that were open until 5pm. There was some beach/pool service but not a lot. I did not observe anyone tipping at all. The drinks were fine. The only beer they had was Corona and a nice darker beer. After 5pm only the main bar by the pool tables was open. : EVENING ENTERTAINMENT - Every night at 9:30 there is a show put on by the staff of the Gala. On Sunday the show starts at 9:00 when they have a professional Mexican group come in. The Mexican group was great. They played music, dressed and danced a song from each of the states in Mexico. The other shows were pretty good as well. Although the other shows had recorded music and they lip-sinked to any words the costumes and choreography was well done. : The Gala also has bicycles available to ride. Every morning at 9:00 there is a group trip to town. We did not join that but did take two bikes and locks and ride to town on our own. The bikes are older without gears (but there are not any hills) and the seats can not be adjusted. There is also a health club with a tread-mill and free weights and two other machines. They also had aerobics In the Salon, a manicure is free (and depending on which girl does your nails, some will be better than others), and a pedicure is $20. My wife also had a 45 minute massage for $45. She said it was very good. : There are activities going on throughout the day. Water aerobics, bingo, volleyball and a dance class. : : There are two pools at the Gala. One is an adult only pool. One problem is towels. There are always plenty of them but you are not required to sign them out and they do not ask you to return them. So there are always towels on chairs around the pool making it look like they are all taken. They do not go around until 5pm and start to pick them up. : I inquired about the free scuba dive. I was certified years ago but had not dove in a number of years. I was asked to show both my certificate and a picture Id. After I told them I had not dove in a few years they said I would have to take a refresher course for $45. So it seems like they are quite safety oriented. I did not take the course so I did not dive. : : The free snorkel trip was OK. You go on a boat ride South along the coast and snorkel behind a reef so the waves are very little. The boat stays with you. The equipment was good there was no instruction about the best places to see anything. Basically, the boat got to the reef, they pointed to two areas and said go. Last October we went on a snorkel trip at Grand Cayman and made three stops. You swam with giant sting rays and they fed the fish so there were hundreds of them. This was OK, but did not compare to that. : : BEACH REPORT : The day we arrived it was quite windy and red flags were up everywhere. Someone told us that out of the past 5 days 3 were yellow and 2 were red. For the other six days we were there it was yellow 4 days, green one (or rather blue), and the day we were leaving they still had the blue flag up from the day before but they were treating it as if the red flags were up. No snorkeling, scuba trips and none of the boats were available. This was all due to the wind. : The beach is gorgeous. It is very wide and slopes gently towards the water. There is no steep drop off to the water. You enter from the hotel at the middle of the beach. The volleyball net is to the right just a little. On both the right and left side are palapas for shade. There were always plenty of chairs at the beach and it never seemed crowded. On the weekend you could tell that there were a lot more people. At times on the weekend it was hard to get a spot in the shade at the pool. : On the beach they have 4 hobbiecats. The first few days they were only using two of them but then the last few days they started using a third. I went sailing quite a bit. The boats work well but you can tell they have got a lot of use. They also have ocean kayaks, and wind surfers all for free. : To the southern side of the beach at the Gala it is un-developed.. You can walk down the end of the beach about ˝ - 1 mile and get to a rocky point. There is a sign there that says you are at the end of the Playacar resort area and beyond this sign they can not guarantee your safety. When we walked down to the end there was a guard sitting in the shade under a rocky overhang. : Walking north from the Gala you are at the Ibeostar – They have a upper beach and a lower beach separated by an almost 10 foot difference. There are sandbags on the slope. The bottom beach by the water is very small and crowded. There is also another drop from the lower beach to the water of a foot or so. It did not look very nice. : Next comes the Rue Hotels. From the beach it looks like all three Rue’s share the same beach. It was wall to wall people. It looked like a typical summer weekend at the beach in New England but everyone had a chair. : Viva Maya comes next. Here they have huge sand bags the size of mattresses. The beach is almost non-existent with some sort of piping running down the middle and into the water. There is also a little lagoon made from these sand bags in front of the beach. Not very inviting to swim. : Royal Hideaway is the next resort. They have a nice large beach with plenty of room. The only shade seems to come from small umbrellas that you can move around. : Allegro is next. This beach is by far the narrowest of all the hotels and quite small. : Viva Azteca is next. This is a nice beach that is quite large. Nothing like the other Viva hotel. : Fishermans village is the last hotel we walked up to. It looked very nice from the beach. A small pool but a large and uncrowded beach. : SHOPPING : One comment about shopping in Playa Del Carmen. From everything I read and heard the shops would rather have Dollar than Pesos. We bought stuff at three different places and all of them wanted Pesos and said why don’t you go across the street to exchange your Dollars then come back. : TO SUM IT ALL UP – Everyone was extremely nice at the Gala. The rooms, beach and pool were all good. The only improvements I would recommend would be a little better food and eliminating the window in the bathroom. Would I go back? Yes. : Any other questions I can be reached at mgresnick@mail.com

Optional Link URL:
Link Title:
Optional Image URL: