"Stayed March 17-22, 2026 with my elderly mother and two kids (ages 9 and 11). The resort itself is large with decent pools, restaurants, and a kids club. My children enjoyed the facilities and we had some good family moments. That part was fine.
The reason for this rating is the Palace Elite timeshare operation that is baked into the check-in experience.
At check-in, staff in green shirts approached me, called me an "Expedia VIP," and offered two complimentary Grand Day Passes to The Grand section of the resort. This sounded like an Expedia benefit. It was not. It was a timeshare sales pitch.
The catch: my entire family — including my 76-year-old Mandarin-speaking mother and my two young children — had to sit through a 90-minute sales presentation. I offered to attend alone. Refused. Since my mother speaks no English or Spanish and my kids are 9 and 11, this was an impossible condition.
Result: I paid $600 USD out of pocket for the day passes that had been offered as "free gifts" moments earlier.
It gets worse. When I complained, the resort offered a $200 partial refund — but only if I signed a Release of All Claims with a confidentiality clause preventing me from discussing the experience publicly. I declined to sign a gag order.
I also later learned that my booking included $250 in resort credits as part of Expedia's VIP Access program. Nobody at check-in told me about them. They went unused. The only "VIP benefit" anyone communicated was the timeshare presentation.
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