Barcelo Aruba: Had a great trip.

Resort was very clean and well looked after. Room was ready and always cleaned/stocked. Enjoyed all of the al la carte restaurants. Booking in the Royal level made restaurant reservations easy. Only issue we really had was the shortage of pool/beach loungers and shade. The pool was especially bad with all chairs taken with towels very early in the morning. I was hoping there would be a separate area for royal level, but there wasn't really.

Occidental Arenas Blancas: HIGHLY OVERATED

I realize you go to CUBA for the beaches and the friendly people...but...hotel needs a major upgrade...1 elevator out of 4 working....buffet..repetitive choices every day.. you could use buffet at SOLYMAR once you turned wristband around...back to CUATRO PALMAS next trip...centre of town and great staff

Occidental at Xcaret Destination: Very scenic grounds, lobby, and nice rooms but food was average at best

Overall, the resort is quite nice, with lots of natural areas, wild life, and large pools. The beach is man-made because the ocean is quite rough on that stretch of coast. Restaurant and pool side staff were all very pleasant. Daytime and nighttime entertainment was good with the standard fare of pool side games and night time Magic, Michael Jackson, and Circus shows. Rooms were clean and comfortable and house keeping staff did a good job with daily service. Our biggest issue was the foo [... read more]d. The a la carte restaurants were fine but most of the buffet food looked unappetizing and was of average quality. Food at the taco/pizza place was good and they were open late so it turned out to be a good late night food option after having a small dinner at the buffet. Hotel is about an hour's drive from the Cancun airport.

Barcelo Maya Tropical: Barcelo Maya Tropical

This hotel is kept immaculate! The grounds are beautiful. Water features and fountains are beautiful and clean. Our premium room was no disapointment! A turn down and chocolates left each evening. Towels were in abundance - even face clothes! The al a carte restaurants that we went to were all very good. The beach buffet is the best. And the beach was beautiful soft white sand with turquoise water! And the drinks were exceptional all the time. It was a wonderful vacation!

Barcelo Maya Colonial: Meh….did not live up to the Review hype

I had a quick 3-night stay. In general, muh. I rarely post reviews but noticed that negative reviews disappeared quickly. The place is huge although laid out in such a way that is walkable. The common facilities are in good shape, and the bars and buffet run efficiently. Nothing beyond ordinary. Can only speak to the Jalisco building where I stayed: -No face clothes in room -power outlets were scare. You can plug in your laptop or you can have a lamp. Chose one! - Wifi regularly [... read more] fails completely. Not just slow - it’s gone. - No hot water - “Rain head” shower had little pressure and basically gurgled water. Doing a quick solo vacay, So I’m in / out of the buffet quickly, but there were many occasions that not a single sever made contact or offered a drink! The beach and the facilities are why you come here, Beach (sand) is 9/10 in my opinion. Lots of chairs, coverage if you want it. The water, looks beautiful but there is only one clear path out, the rest is rather rocky and treacherous, and a number of guest got banged up. On a calm day you can clearly see this, on a rough day you can’t I can’t recommend, nor would I return.

Barcelo Maya Tropical: Paradise but not for Black or queer people

This place was great by vacation standards, in that it was beautiful, well kept, and had decent pools and food. I just wanna say, though, that if you are a person of colour or visibly queer…a warning. We naively didn’t really think about it too much, and ended up arriving on the same week that the majority of the guests were people from small towns around Canada. You know uncomfortable it can feel to be in a small town sometimes? It was like that x1000. The amount of stares my Black partner got  [... read more](ranging from curiosity to gawking to disgust) and the discomfort we felt being a couple that are both women (we definitely weren’t comfortable to hold hands or anything) was enough to convince us that mid-budget resorts aren’t really worth the risk for us in future. It wasn’t really the staff, it was the other guests. We ended up moving to a less busy area of the hotel after spending the first two days of our trip requesting that they help us. It took a LOT of effort and time to get them to agree, which is rather disappointing. We’ve travelled through non-resort Mexico before and it was totally fine, nothing like this. I just want to put this out there for ppl to consider before committing.

Barcelo Bavaro Palace: Overall very good resort

Hotel was clean and nice rooms. Close to the airport is nice. Amazing beach with palm trees everywhere. Pool was nice. Unfortunately the big pool was closed for maintenance. food was good. Not great. overall I would say 7.5 / 10. I would return again.

Royal Hideaway Playacar: Uneventful vacation

This was a very small resort which we knew before booking. The staff cater to repeat guests and no pool chairs are available as they are all reserved before 600am to frequent guests. No buffet for dinner so if you don't like the food at the resteraunt you order room service. Resteraunts were ok but not flavorful food except for the tapinaki. Constantly ran out of booze at the only open bar. Not top shelf booze. This si the kind of resort that you are forced to relax cause there is literall [... read more]y nothing to do. They had craft classes and other classes during the days but they were all booked before we even got there by the members. Drink service at pools and beach was poor for new guests waiting sometimes an hour. Average age of guests is 60. Had a relaxing vacation in this small resort so thankful for that. Just not worth the money we paid for it. Lotts of other smaller resorts are cheaper in playacar this resort only caters to repeat guests. Beach was nice but a whole lot of jellyfish in the ocean knee deep so didn't go in. Heated pool is nice but no chairs available even at six am

Barcelo Maya Palace: Declining Customer Service

The Barcelo Maya Palace is a resort that used to provide great customer service. This year we have been disappointed with some aspect of the resort management. To start the front desk agent who received us at the lobby was very unpleasant, ridgid and cold. The resort refused to accommodate us with the type of room we had requested when we reserved 5 monts in advance. And during the week The restaurant reservation process was a pain. We were not able to get the restaurants at hours we wanted alth [... read more]ough we noticed these restaurants were not very occupied at these hours. We had to negotiate painfully all the reservations unsuccessfully most of the times. We even had to go to the same restaurant twice days in a row. The servers in the restaurants were always very nice and the people cleaning the room and the site of the resorts were nice and efficient. Unfortunately some of the customer service agents did not demonstrate the customer dedication that we have experienced in the previous stays at this resort

Occidental Punta Cana: Great hotel .

Clean as a whistle . Manager or supervisor at the front desk , Guillaume Desir is an amazing host and very helpful . This was our 5th stay there , and he is always very helpful and happy to see us .We also have renewed some friendships with other staff there . Entertainment was a little weak this time compared to previous visits . Very clean and well looked after resort . Congrats

Barcelo Maya Colonial: Beautiful Resort, amazing staff and great food

A little late writing this review lets just say life got a bit busy once we got back. We visited this resort for the first time on the week of Nov. 1-8 2025. All we can say is this is fantastic resort we have no complaints. We booked the upgrade to premier and it was worth it. Right from the check in to everything else that goes with it. We had our separate check in area and we did not have to book any a la carts as it was already done for us, and if there was any we wanted to change we could do [... read more] that after.Check in was quick and our room was ready for us when we got there. The room is fantastic and large and the view over the pool and the ocean was beautiful. Do bring water shoes as the ocean has rocky areas in it but where the rocks were we saw lots of different fish. The grounds are beautiful and well maintained do be prepared to walk as it is a large resort. As for the food there is no complaints, the buffet was good and had great variety each day and the a la carts were fantastic especially the Japanese one. As for staff and service they were all fantastic. We had an issue with the A/C on the second day, we called down to our concierge desk and within half hour maintenance arrived and had the issue resolved. One employee in particular really stood out and was fun to deal with his name is Jesus Puc, he made our stay a lot more fun. He was at the pool/beach bar during the day and than at the piano bar in the evening. The only bad experience was at the Strikers bar lets just say the food there was not that good as well as the service. We will definitely put this resort on our high list and will visit it again. We have been to a number of different resorts over the years and this is one in our top 3. We highly recommend you give it a try you won't regret it

Barcelo Solymar: Barcelo Good and Bad

Firstly the beach was wonderful and the staff was very friendly. The hotel itself was very clean. On the downside, like many resorts in Cuba, the food was not great. Tasteless and lacking in variety. They have five elevators. Only one was working and that was hit and miss. The desk chair in our room was broken. We reported it three times and nothing was ever done. The toilet did not flush properly. Overall, we had fun, but I don't think I would ever want to repeat the experience [... read more].

Barcelo Maya Palace: Barcelo Maya Palace

We've just returned from a 2 week vacation (Nov 6-20th) with the Barcelo Maya Palace. It was wonderful! Neither my husband or myself have traveled in around 10-15 yrs. So we have lost some of our traveling skills with the technical advances that have been made. Choosing and purchasing our holiday package online through TripCentral/ flying with Westjet was an easy process. I did not feel once like I needed to speak directly with our travel agent/ advisor. We recieved emails with our require [... read more]d travel steps from TripCentral consistently and in a timely matter, there was always a phone number if we ever felt like we needed assistance.( but never did) However, our experience at the airport was another story. Lol, thanks again to the two angels that helped us with the new ticket/passport scanners. We'd still be standing there if they hadn't stopped to assist us. My advice, familiarize yourself with the airport layouts and the new ticket/ boarding technology if you're out of practice and old like us, to reduce your stress levels. The Resort: So great to stay at a resort that has a swim-able beach ( with lifeguard!) And yes we saw turtles, and so many other fish! There were usually always lounge chairs at either the activity pool or at the beach whenever we needed them. But not always shade, so if that's a concern keep it in mind. The pools were impeccably clean as was the entire facility. It's such a pleasure and a privilege to spend the day outside, to return to a wonderfully cool and clean room. We found all the staff to be very hard working helpful and polite! The la cart dinners, what can I say, every aspect of them was delicious! The regular buffets were pretty well stocked and had a good variety. I'd make the loop, carefully choosing what I wanted, only to find my food cold when I returned to my table. More advice..... walk around and preview the food so you can get it and get back to your table while your food still warm lol. Sure after 2 weeks there was some food redundancy but there are always the other hotel's buffets to go to if you need to shake things up a bit. Resort size: It seemed like so much walking! We should have tried to request a room closer to the lobby and pool! My husband has previous work injuries to contend with, if we had known how much walking was involved we would have at least tried. Instead we went with the "Canadain Martyr effect" and toughed it out for the 2 wks. My and husband I both came home just under 10 lbs lighter each, and we both find walking our dog back at home easier, lol. But seriously, if you have similar concerns with mobility do look into renting an aide. There were several being used by people in several different styles! Our bus rides to and from the hotel came with our vacation package. We did almost miss our ride from the airport to the hotel, but managed to find them and we were dropped off at the front doors of our hotel quite promptly. As well as our ride back to the airport. The busses used are more comfortable than our airplane seats from Canada ?? to ?? with how closely packed the passengers are now. Overall We give our trip a 4/5, with point loss mostly due to getting old and finding out that some of our traveling needs have changed and practically unbearable plane flights. Breakdown Trip Central : 5/5, shopping and purchasing experience. Barcelo Maya Palace: 4/5, Hotel was a bit too large for our liking and they won't guarantee a closer room. Buffet food could have been hotter. Westjet: 3/5 flight staff were wonderful. Pilots got us there safely and a bit early in both directions, always a bonus! The real loss of points was that our flight home was unbearably hot, can't airlines keep the cabin temperature more closely matched to passengers needs? Isn't it bad enough that we pay to be packed in airplanes like livestock.

Barcelo Bavaro Palace: Needs work

We don’t have any hot meals. Food was always cold at any restaurant we went. Also was unable to communicate with any staff as they didn’t understand English and no one to ask that could help us. I wouldnt return to this resort.

Occidental Caribe: Nice Resort

Staffs are very politely and respectful. Pools are clean and well maintained. The Beach is clean and well cared. Foods are really tasty and so many choices to choose. Desserts are superb and also fruits are always fresh.

Barcelo Maya Palace: Great resort for young and old

We had a group of 21 during part of our stay. People over 70 and grandkids of 1year old and up. There was a variety of activities for everyone to enjoy at the resort from pool time to swimming with the turtles. Everyone enjoyed what the resort had to offer We are planning to return as a group or as individuals.

Barcelo Maya Palace: Great resort for young and old

We had a group of 21 during part of our stay. People over 70 and grandkids of 1year old and up. There was a variety of activities for everyone to enjoy at the resort from pool time to swimming with the turtles. Everyone enjoyed what the resort had to offer We are planning to return as a group or as individuals.

Barcelo Aruba: Welcoming Resort

Hotel is nice rooms are a little small and a bit tired looking, but very clean. Food is good, but the buffet was not good. Restaurants are nicely themed and food was good. Grounds were kept very nice and tidy, pool was very clean could use a bit of updating, and room service is not included , which is unheard of in an all inclusive. Beach was gorgeous, but definately not enough towels. Overall I give it a seven out of ten

Barcelo Maya Tropical: Good value - rooms need updates

Great value, enjoyed being able to walk across the entire 5 resorts and see the interesting landscaping. Would have like more shaded options near the beach and pool. Lots of food options during the day, late night wasn’t too much available. Hotel room was rustic, bathroom is in need of some maintenance. Was in room 7412 Veracruz for reference.

Allegro Cozumel: Clean enjoyable resort

Beach was beautiful. Loved the premium area. Staff were so friendly and always helpful. Felix and Natalie in buffet were excellent. Omar at the Santa Rosa always had a smile and knew exactly what we ordered every day. Exceptional employee. Our housekeeper Horhay is such a hard worker. Very friendly too. The resort was clean. A great size to walk through. Will definitely return.