For those of you who didn’t know (that included myself until I accidentally came across the info), Grand Palladium Kantenah has been closed since April 15, 2023, and is planning on reopening Dec. 15, 2023.  The resort has been closed primarily for room refurbishments and the addition of rooms and amenities for the resort chain’s successful Family Selection program.  The Family Selection program is considered to be a “resort within a resort” and has already been implemented at both the Costa Mujeres and Puerto Vallarta resort chain locations.  Kantenah resort is part of a mega-resort complex also consisting of the adults-only TRS Yucatan (you can read my resort review here), the Colonial, and the White Sand family resorts.  It’s a very large mega-resort complex but is very popular with all it has to offer vacationers since all family resort’s amenities and services are available to one another.  The adults-only section, of course, is only for guests who stay in that particular resort, and the Family Selection will only be available for upgraded Kantenah guests.

Kantenah’s Family Selection program will consist of the following:

• new private check-in lobby with games area
• private swimming pool with bar.  Es Niu Pool Bar will also have a separate area where lunch will be served only for Family Selection guests.
• private new restaurant called The Nest
• a new beach bar for Family Selection guests called the Sand Castle.  (FYI–the existing La Jarra beach bar will stay where it is at the very end of the resort’s beach area with access for TRS Yucatan guests since the private beach area for the adults-only resort section is adjacent to that beach bar.  There are also supposed to be minor renovations and changes made to the private adults-only beach section, so watch for that as well).
• butler and nanny service (some services within this context will incur an extra cost, however–I would imagine anything having to do with private babysitting would cost extra)
• addition of new room categories

Here’s how the new room categories for the Family Selection will play out:

• 84 Family Jr. Suites with Garden View
• 60 Family Jr. Suite Swim-Ups
• 6 Family Jr. Suites with Private Rooftop Pool
• 8 Family Suites Beachside
• 2 Family Suite Swim-Ups Beachside
• 3 Family Suites Rooftop with Private Pool
• 6 Family Ambassador Suites

As you can tell by the room classifications, some are brand new types of rooms (swim-ups and beachside rooms), but all of these rooms will be closer to the beach area than the rest of Kantenah’s rooms.  This works like most other resort’s upgrades where upgrading will get you a better room location in terms of closer to pools and/or the beach.

I tried a dummy booking for Kantenah’s Family Selection beginning  Dec. 16th and the on-line website calendar has everything being labelled as “Not Available” until Dec. 22.  I’m not sure whether that means all existing Family Selection rooms are already booked from Dec. 15 to the 22nd, or that the new section won’t be opening until Dec. 22.

If you want to see what some of the new rooms will look like, the resort’s website has some room renditions–the rooftop pool rooms look pretty awesome, I wouldn’t mind checking this one out myself.  Click here to get a peek of the new rooms.

So how about it?  Who’s planning on going?