Review of Gran Festivall All Inclusive Resort 3*

Horrible place! NO RUNNING WATER! That's right, when we arrived the water had quit working about an hour before. We got to our room and then proceeded to get a drink from the bar. I ordered a gin & tonic, with a squeeze of lime, and it seemed to have a weird spicy flavour. I had to dump it out. I said to my friend that it tasted like whatever the bartender had for lunch. After learning he was unable to wash his hands, I realized that was the case. (I'm gagging a bit right now). When we discovered we had no running water (toilets wouldn't flush) we were told by the front desk that the problem would be fixed in a hour. Well, that hour came and went and so did many others. When I asked about it the next morning, the woman at the desk said they may be bringing water in by cart (and I'm sure pulled by an old donkey). Luckily our Sunwing rep came that morning and when we told her we wanted out she found us a room at the Karmina Palace (for a price difference — that we decided was more than worth it to get out of that nightmare). I should mention too, that we had to eat supper at the Gran that first night and it was so bad words can't describe. The buffet consisted of every starch you can think of (obviously to fill the guests cheaply-baked potatos, rice, pasta — all laid out one after another). But, and I wish I had taken video, because I still can't believe what I saw, ANTS crawling on the desserts and bread… And people were still choosing those items! The next morning I searched every toilet in the complex for a clean one to use. Honestly, I have never seen that much caca in my life. I think I'm traumatized as I'm having a hard time forgetting what I saw. All that said, the breakfast buffet the next morning wasn't too bad, but we did howl when we asked for coffee and the brought us two cups of hot water and a jar of instant. Not sure if that was due to no water, or if that's what the always do. Also, the orange juice was not fresh squeezed which we thought was odd, as real oranges don't need water added. I really felt for the families we talked to that felt like prisoners because they couldn't afford to flee to another resort and were now stuck in a place that had no working water slides or a kiddie pool. Big kudos to the Sunwing rep (Margarita Vega — she was amazing in handling all the irate guests) and a big boooooooo to Sunwing for putting this third-world place on their list of choices. Perhaps their CEO could spend a little less time trying to be Frank Sinatra and a little more time inspecting the Hotels he has on his list.