Jungle Luxxe

[Eric B]

We just checked in to RM; had an exchange into a 2 BR Grand Mayan, but my folks backed out of coming down with us. When they noticed it was just the 2 of us checking in, they offered to upgrade us to a Jungle Luxxe suite. They could probably use the 2 BR for someone else and we were happy to take the upgrade, so here we are. Haven’t taken any pictures yet, but they’re quite nice. Ours is a second floor one; only one concierge in the building; there are 9 Jungle Luxxe buildings. He indicated that coffee is delivered only to the ground floor, but we’ll be able to adapt to that hardship. Anyone else in RM now?

 

[Zinjanthropus]

Hey are you overlooking the road or the Lazy River? How far along is that? Is there construction in your building? When we were there, we were in the 4th building 3rd floor and they were still working on the rest of the building.

 

[Eric B]

Judging from the road noise, we're overlooking that, but there's not much to see off the balconies except for vegetation. We saw a lot of construction ongoing on the shuttle out here that is probably on the Lazy River, but haven't confirmed that yet. There seems to be a fair amount of construction on the roads/pathways throughout the site, but none on the building we're in.

It's not obvious what the occupancy of this building is right now. It's only been one night and I'm an early riser. I did notice that there are facilities for concierge stations and coffee service on both the ground floor and the second floor, where we are staying, but only the ground floor one is manned and has coffee. The coffee service is a single urn in an armoire, which gives me the impression that there aren't a lot if folks staying in this building yet. That would align with their having offered to upgrade us here. Nice rooms overall; I'll write a full review when the week is through, but it seems like there are some minor issues like the door to the bedroom swollen due to humidity and not closing.

 

[Eric B]

Helpful hint if you stay here - there's a master on-off switch for the room lights when you come in the door. Didn't notice at first and it took a couple minutes to figure out how to turn them on.

 

[Eric B]

Spoke with the concierge, building 9 has been for about a month. They opened in sequence with this one being the last one. The hard construction is complete, but there is some interior stuff going on, e.g., furnishing etc. At this point they only plan on manning the ground floors.

 

[richontug]

I hope stay is going great. I may not be able to use my 1 BR in Grand Luxxe starting Jan 27. If you want it and find out someone else does, see my posting in Last-Minute Rentals.

 

[Eric B]

Thanks, Rich. I might wind up taking you up on it if the government winds up being shutdown longer....

 

[pittle]

We just checked in to RM; had an exchange into a 2 BR Grand Mayan, but my folks backed out of coming down with us. When they noticed it was just the 2 of us checking in, they offered to upgrade us to a Jungle Luxxe suite. They could probably use the 2 BR for someone else and we were happy to take the upgrade, so here we are. Haven’t taken any pictures yet, but they’re quite nice. Ours is a second floor one; only one concierge in the building; there are 9 Jungle Luxxe buildings. He indicated that coffee is delivered only to the ground floor, but we’ll be able to adapt to that hardship. Anyone else in RM now?

Interesting - we are going in late April for 2 weeks in a 2-bed Grand Bliss. I would consider a Jungle Suite because we like to have 2 bathrooms, but the Grand Bliss units are nice and do have a nice deck (even though it is just Jungle view). If they would offer us a real GL 2-bedroom unit, that would be an easy call. It is our 50th Anniversary trip, so I will take the best that I can get with our SFX exchange.

Please post photos when you can.

 

[Eric B]

I’ll post pictures as soon as I get a chance.

There’s still a lot of construction going on at the new Salum market area by the beach club, the lazy river and it looks like some demolition on the end Bliss building. Not sure what’s going on there now. Some folks that have been here a couple of weeks said there had been a water leak under some of the roads earlier, which is what they’re fixing there, but we haven’t confirmed that yet.

I did confirm the Jungle Luxxe buildings correspond to what was labeled as Bliss buildings on the map by the sales building, so maybe they’re modifying the existing Bliss buildings as well. We’ll check with sales when we talk to them next week.

 

[Eric B]

https://www.amazon.com/photos/share/OQC1fGKtIZUhedRPVS3FwH1gnFKL2OyNhxAO66M5A2U - pictures of our Jungle Luxxe unit in building 9 are here.

 

[Eric B]

Interesting - we are going in late April for 2 weeks in a 2-bed Grand Bliss. I would consider a Jungle Suite because we like to have 2 bathrooms, but the Grand Bliss units are nice and do have a nice deck (even though it is just Jungle view). If they would offer us a real GL 2-bedroom unit, that would be an easy call. It is our 50th Anniversary trip, so I will take the best that I can get with our SFX exchange.

Please post photos when you can.

If you’re going to walk anywhere, Grand Bliss might be better. There aren’t any wooden walking trails out to the Jungle Luxxe at present, so we’re just using the cart trails for walking. Not a big deal from my perspective, but we do a lot of walking. Taking the transport carts to dinner at night anyway.

Upgrading from Grand Mayan seems worth it to me to get Beach Club access, but you would already have that with Grand Bliss. There’s also no pool on the deck with these. Definitely not a showstopper in either case, but things to consider in choosing between them.

We’re coming back down in early April on an SFX exchange to a 1 BR GL. I’m pretty sure it’s a standard GL rather than a Jungle one, but you never know. I’d happily stay in a jungle one anyway.

 

[pittle]

Thanks Eric. The pictures were great! We will be happy at GB because of the location! We just wanted to be able to use the Beach Club while there. It looks nice and is quite a distance from the Jungle GL units and even the regular GL units. We do like to walk around the resorts, but not every single place - it is the jungle after-all and I do not want bug bites.

 

[Eric B]

You’re quite welcome. We figured out a shortcut sneaking through GL III and walking out the service road/path, but it’s still a ways. No issues with getting my 10,000 steps in daily....

Added a couple of pictures of the Lazy River in its current state to the last batch. We didn’t see any work going on today, but it’s Sunday.

Spoke with someone else about the ongoing construction; apparently there will be a Jungle Luxxe building 10 & 11, too. No further information on when the river will be done.

 

[pittle]

What kind of refrigerator does the Jungle unit have? I could not tell in the pictures. GB has 2 of the under-counter ones. The regular GL has a really nice one. The deck is larger than I thought it would be. It is not as nice as the ones on Grand Mayan or Grand Bliss, and certainly not as nice as the regular GL units. these have potential.

 

[Eric B]

2 undercounter ones.

One more rumor on the Lazy River; Sr Chavez didn’t like it when it was finished, so they’re redoing it to make it longer, i.e., more curves on the same overall footprint and with 4 bars. Because of that it might be open for more than just GL.

 

[T-Dot-Traveller]

From your pictures it looks like there is a sliding door that can be used to separate the dining area from the living room .
If so - how much privacy and / or sound separation does it give if the sofas are used for sleeping ?

 

[Eric B]

There is a 3-part sliding screen for the living room, which has a trundle bed couch. It probably gives decent privacy, but the second bathroom isn’t on the same side of the screen as the living room, which I wouldn’t count as a positive for privacy. It doesn’t seem particularly sound proof either.

Not too sure how the bed conversion works; we tried it, but the mechanism for rolling it out didn’t work smoothly. In fact, it seemed as though swelling due to the humidity was keeping it from sliding out and made it a pain to get it back in place. If I were actually going to use it, I’d ask them to set it up.

I’m planning on giving them feedback on that and a few other punch list type of things; our bedroom door doesn’t close either. Not a big deal for just the two of us and kind of expected for such a new unit. (The football games are coming in in Spanish, too, but that’s understandable, too.)

 

[Eric B]

If you look at the picture I included of the building plan from the back of the door, you can see the layout. There are 6 units per floor; the rectangle as you enter is the kitchen island and the 3-part screen is just to the right of the red dashed line. Above the living room area is the second bathroom; the second door is to its shower.

 

[T-Dot-Traveller]

Va Jaguares (20 - 17) 4th Q

( we need a rest from New England superbowl's )

added -NE 24- 20 JJ - 4th Q - 2 min. warning / & Final

added -and Tom Brady & Co are in the big show .

 

[Eric B]

I know the feeling. I work with a few massholes.

Added a picture of the screen; it’s ~2” thick.

 

[Eric B]

Added a few more Lazy River pictures as well as a floor plan for the units going into GL NV building 5B. Those are 2 BR DELUXXE suites and are supposed to have views of the theme park, allowing a family to spend the day at the park, then watch the fireworks in the evening from their rooms. They just started offering them in preconstruction sales last week.

 

[Zinjanthropus]

Helpful hint if you stay here - there's a master on-off switch for the room lights when you come in the door. Didn't notice at first and it took a couple minutes to figure out how to turn them on.

Those master light switches are a pain. They didn't seem to work correctly in our room. They turned everything on correctly, but not off.
Thanks for posting pictures. Work computer doesn't seem to want to show me photos today.

 

[Eric B]

The master switches are more than a pain. Yesterday the lights in the bedroom came on early in the morning by themselves; I must not have noticed they went out the night before by themselves. The master switch by the bed was acting quite weird after that, turning on and off. Not all that surprising in such a new unit, but it means I've got to give them a punch list when I check out. I do like the units, but think they'll be much better once they get the bugs worked out.

 

[Zinjanthropus]

Yeah, it's a great idea once they iron out the bugs. The dimmer in the dining room was a nice touch once I figured out how to use it.

 

[Zinjanthropus]

Those pics are great! Thanks. The area of the Lazy river seems far from finished as compared to the area I sneaked to and saw, but it will be quite nice and elaborate.