Grand Sunset Princess: Very Good Resort

The buildings and grounds were very clean and well maintained. We found the staff to be very friendly and courteous at all times. The food in all restaurants was very good. The Entertainment throughout the week was excellent.

Reef Club Playacar Beach: VERY GOOD TIME

This hotel was just great. We loved the size(not huge) and the fact that the front desk Rosa gave us a room close to the pool/beach. The room was small for 3 people and we had no hot water in shower for 3 days, also with no pressure. They made the water a bit warmer. My girls could not wash their hair for a few days. Because of high capacity of guests moving our room did not happen. Every thing else was fine. The food was amazing, pools nice temperature, ocean very lovely, sandy bottom is a pl [... read more]us plus. Staff was super good to us. May help to have 2 gorgeous, friendly daughters, but not sure!!! The walk on beach to town was alot more than 15 minutes, I'd say more like half an hour and on sand a bit more difficult. Even so, we did that twice. Then took a cab next time for $6. and about 5 minute drive if that. Downtown is so different now with all the big box stores, but mixed with the old it was kind of neat. Thanks for your help Maria. We would have liked the extra Valet park n fly coupon they told us we could have received at booking. We felt for $1500 each we should have had hot water. We stayed happy all week even still. The weather could not have been better. Rio Secreto we LOVED, also Coba adventure was very good. Sandy and daughters.

Grand Sirenis Riviera Maya: Phenomenal Resort

We liked everything about this resort, great location, staff was excellent, food was awesome, lots of things to do, spa was amazing, rooms were clean and up to date. We would definitely go back, and hopefully will soon.

El Dorado Royale: Not bad, not perfect

The hotel is great. The service is also great but the beach is the worst thing for this hotel. Also, we got there for the food (apparently) it was a great place for the food - Culinary experience. Well, I'm not saying it wasn't good but not much restaurant where we could say WOW WOW WOW ! So the culinary experience is what I would called an ordinary food experience. To finish, another thing that is not great is the fact that you keep waiting for the restaurant all the time. Because there is no r [... read more]eservation, unless you want to eat at 6H, you will wait form 30 to 90 min depending of the restaurant and the time.

Secrets Maroma Beach Riviera Cancun: Activities Galore.

The beach is the nicest we have seen in Mexico and the hotel went over and above to deal with the seaweed. Hotel is awesome. Some furniture was dated but clean. Activities staff were always doing something and the wifi schedule and printed schedule allowed you to plan your days. No reservations at the a la cartes was positive, never a line up. Food was excellent. Management planned meal time entertainment several times and had a good variety of entertainment for everyone. Just little things [... read more] like Saxaphone player in the pool in the afternoon and another at breakfast. Bike tours, etc. Awesome week. Only negative was the fight for pool floaties. For such a small item resort should just buy more.

Iberostar Selection Paraiso Lindo: Lovely

Beautiful and manicured. So many pools and choice of food. Something for everyone. Most service is on par. Buffet service could be more consistent. Rooms are clean and serviced appropriately. Very large so you’ll want to take advantage of the golf carts Nd trolley when you get a chance.

Bahia Principe Escape Sian Ka'an: A peaceful paradise

We enjoyed this resort Staff was professional Nice to see the natural trees throughout Well taken care of, very clean. Overall very happy with resort. The trees gave shade on the hot days. Liked that we could use the ammenities at the partnering resorts (Akumal, Cuba and Tulum), such as the infinity pool. We enjoyed that the resort was adults only. The setting of the natural trees, birds chirped and being an adult only resort made it a peaceful place to stay for a week. As non-smokers,  [... read more]it would have been nice to have a non-smoker part of the resort to enjoy our stay free of second hand smoke. We recommend this resort and would definitively return in the future if the opportunity arise.

Valentin Imperial Riviera Maya: A less than perfect resort

Pros are that the grounds are beautiful, the room was nice and the staff were very friendly. Cons are the best seating in the restaurants (outside) was reserved for smokers, the coffee was terrible, the best cabanas are available only for an extra cost ($130 usd per day), the food was very fancy and the portions in the alacarte restaurants were small and the buffet restaurant was not available at dinner. We often had to wait to be seated at the buffets even though there were lots of tables av [... read more]ailable and no lineup. We saw a man denied entry to the Italian restaurant because he had open toed sandals on. This level of dress code is ridiculous given that his wife and every other woman were admitted entry with open toed sandals. This was an expensive resort and to be refused entry to a restaurant for that reason is one of the reasons we aren’t returning.

Hyatt Vivid Playa Del Carmen: Beautiful Well Kept Resort

We recently stayed at The Royal Playa Del Carmen. It was a breath taking resort, beautiful grounds which were excellently manicured and the employees were the best I have ever experienced and friendly and respectful. You were greeted every day and at any moment you met with a staff member or walked by one in passing with hand over their heart (literally) and a hello or good morning or good evening. Hector, who obtained our baggage for us was a great man who assisted us not only with our bagga [... read more]ge but with questions we had, to the point we would search for him each day to say hello and talk a moment, he made us feel very welcome. Another gentleman, also Hector, Hector Colin I believe, who worked on the pool deck, made a point of greeting us every morning and coming to talk with us each day to ask how we were and talk with us about how we were enjoying the resort and our stay. Jacquie from the Real Club was also a gem, and we enjoyed our tour and lunch with her. While yes it was her job to get to know us better for our needs, we felt a deeper connection to her as we talked with her and got to know more about her and the Mexican culture. The food was so phenomenal, I'm still missing the flavours, and choices. You never waited for a meal it was always hot and fresh and the service was exceptional from start to finish. My only complaint about the food was that of the tourists eating over the buffet bars as they were choosing their food items for their plates or waiting for their friends to gather theirs as opposed to waiting to be seated at their tables. It was put off to want to eat some items after watching food fall from their hands or off a bite they took and landing back in the buffet. And the guy who sneezed all over the bread station in the 24 hour Cafe... Gross!!!! The Pelicanos was our favorite place to eat and Maria Marie's for dinner which you needed a reservation for, well worth making one, you won't be disappointed. I closed my menu and asked the waiter to pick my meal for me from appetizer to dessert and surprise me. I am so glad I did as it was delicious. I'd likely not chosen the meal I had as I'm a creature of habit so by asking them to surprise me opened my eyes to new food and new flavours, not to be disappointed with any of it. Drinks were heavenly, from daiquiris to riviera mayas, electric lemonade and supermans. If the resort wasn't so beautiful I could have opted to stay in suite as well because the royal junior suite was elegant and so spacious and comfortable. The only problem was that it was always damp but that's a climate issue not a room issue persay. Our rooms were always cleaned and well stocked and the aromatherapy essential oils lit each night for us was WOW! Too, if. You have the opportunity, do book a massage at their spa. You won't regret it. We had two couples massages while we were there and likely would have done it daily if we could. We did walk the 5th Avenue strip. That wasn't as pleasant an experience and quite tense from my perspective. From being heckled all the time and insulted when not entering one of their small shops, being called my boyfriends servant and called white skin in a derogatory manner, not a fun experience. It was had to enjoy the shops when you just wanted to get the hell out of there from being pulled in every direction. Hats off to The Royal Playa... I would definitely go there again.

Hyatt Vivid Playa Del Carmen: An exceptional resort

The Royal Playa del Carmen resort truly lives up to its name. We were treated like royalty from the time we arrived till it was time to leave. The staff were the most friendly, gracious and accommodating of any resort we’ve been to. Everything we experienced; from the restaurants, the room service, the Spa, the evening entertainment shows, the poolside service, and the planned activities were all first rate. We came home well relaxed and quite pleased at having selected the Royal. Our only dis [... read more]appointment was that we had to come home. We definitely have our sights on returning again.

Bahia Principe Explore Coba: Great Resort!

We had stayed at GBP Tulum and decided to try Coba In spite of it not being beachfront, we had a fabulous time! Met or exceeded our expectations on everything More amenities than Tulum Freak issue with seaweed, but the staff worked SO hard to clear it up every day!

Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda: Great resort

We enjoyed the atmosphere on the resort. Staff was amazing friendly and courteous ,food great, very clean grounds. Beds were very hard and pillows not overly comfortable But otherwise we had good time. Beach was unkept so we didn't spend any time there , mostly by the pool. Pool clarity wasn't the greatest the entire time we were there but wasn't a make it or break it for me We would go back again value for the dollar was really good

El Dorado Seaside Suites: A must Visit

I can honestly say that there was nothing that I was not happy with. The staff were friendly, the food was excellent, various restaurants, pool and beach was good. The rooms were more than I expected. The entertainment and the bars was excellent.

Iberostar Waves Paraiso Beach: Great winter escape

My wife and young daughter travelled to Iberostar Paraiso Beach from March 19-26/2018. We enjoyed this resort a lot. The weather was excellent! The trip from the airport was pretty quick (about 30-35min). Check- in was smooth and all the staff were very helpful and all spoke English. Standard room was "standard", but clean, they gave us a ground floor which is key if you have young kids (no elevators). They keep the mini fridge well stocked with water and beer. This resort was good for fami [... read more]lies, lots for kids to do (parks, kids club, kids show in the evening etc) and lots of wildlife for them to look at. The grounds are very clean and well kept. The food was good, my wife and daughter are gluten / dairy free and the chefs accommodated them very well (they will come and offer to make you special dishes if you let the hostess know). The resort is large so be prepared to walk a lot, but they have carts to pick you up if you want. The beach is nice, it's big enough and not super crowded, lots of seaweed, but it gets cleaned up daily. The pools are really nice and big and you can use the pools at the neighbouring Iberostar resorts so you don't get bored. The bars were good. Service was quick and you won't have to go to far to get to the next one. They have lots of activities/entertainment, the staff were enthusiastic and friendly. The gym is awesome, brand new, large and open. They have a nice shopping area as well with a good coffee shop, bars, restaurants, carousel, sweet shop etc. They have an on site golf course, it's $99 usd for 18 holes or after 2pm $69usd, plus $55usd club rental. So if you plan on playing bring your own clubs if possible. My only complaint is with the airline(Air Transat) as they do not allow families with infants to select seats. So my wife and were not seated together, I know several other families had the same issues. I would definitely recommend this resort to a friend and would rate it between 4 and 4.5 stars.

Bahia Principe Explore Akumal: Beautiful Resort

The resort is beautifully maintained, very clean, nice assortment of food, friendly staff, comfortable beds, etc. Loved the beach and all the pools and vegetation. Enjoyed 7 sunny hot relaxing days. My only complaint is that they need more umbrellas around ALL pools!

Bahia Principe Explore Coba: Great Place For A Holiday!

This resort is fabulous! The grounds are well maintained and kept pristine by friendly staff. Our room was a nice size and the king size bed was comfortable. There was plenty of hot water for the shower at any time of day and the Jacuzzi tub was an added bonus. We were informed at our check in that we had access to the restaurants and facilities at the adjacent resorts, Tulum, and Akumal also which was a nice perk. This resort is large and quite spread out. There is a transportation service t [... read more]hat runs on a schedule to take you any where you want to go, or pick you up along the way. We never had to wait more than five minutes or so for a ride to take us to another part of the resort. It is very well organised. The food was amazing. There was plenty of selection at the buffets and everything was fresh. We had breakfast at all five buffets and were never disappointed. The a la carts we chose were excellent as well. The staff were very friendly and ready to meet our needs at all times. The housekeeping staff did a great job of cleaning our room every day and restocking the fridge. The nightly entertainment was always good with high energy performances at the theatre, and live music at the bars. There was a different show every night at the theatre and different performers at the bars. This was by far one of the best vacations we have had and I can't think of anything that we were disappointed with.

Royalton Riviera Cancun Resort and Spa: Big resort

The resort is big and modern, secluded from the others. Rooms were nice and food was delicious. We found the resort understaffed, it had long waits for dinner, not all A la Cartes had waiting buzzers. Frustrating. Beach had nice sand but ocean was full of weeds. They have signs posted everywhere that you cannot reserve your beach/pool chairs but the rule is broken, even by hotel staff paid on the side by customers. I would recommend it for families with kids, kid pool was awesome.

Sandos Caracol Nature Resort and Water Park: Great place for families

We have stayed here twice with our daughter (and she wants to go back). They have a fantastic kids club with daily activities for the kids and the opportunity to participate in some of the theatre shows (including rehearsal, costumes and makeup). There is a water park with slides for the whole family. There are animals kept on site that you can wander around and view or learn more about (and feed) with the staff. They also have many eco and cultural activities for children and adults. And of cou [... read more]rse they offer the usual resort activities like zumba, beach volleyball, bingo, etc. The food at the buffets is great. The main buffet has hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza, and fries (and many healthier options as well). The a la carte restaurants are a bit difficult to eat at with children. There are no reservations (except for the Japanese - book it right away) so you need to line up and wait. They open at 5:30, so if you get there at 5:15 you can usually get in right away, but if you wait for a later time you can be waiting an hour to get in. Also the a la carte dinners take 1.5-2 hours - lovely for a romantic dinner, but not so great for kids. There is one restaurant each night reserved for adults only, and the a la carte restaurant located in the adults-only section only allows families (children) after 8pm. There is no longer a 24-hour snack bar at this resort which is very inconvenient. You can get food at all hours but not easily. During buffet/restaurant hours those are the only places to get food. In between those hours there is always food somewhere, but the location changes for every time period. Most locations are inside one of the restaurants so you cannot just grab food and go; you must sign in and sit down to eat. I miss being able to grab a plate of nachos to eat near the pool and the convenience of being able to get a hamburger before the buffets open so my daughter could get ready for her part in the theatre show. The mixed drinks here are not great. They do not use real juices - they use artificially flavoured/sweetened mixes. Maybe the adults only bars have real juice? I've only traveled with the standard bracelet so I don't know. There is water available everywhere, including a large dispenser in each room. The beach here is "natural" meaning you will need water shoes to enter most of it. There is a beach volleyball court but not a lot of open sand space to play. The up side is that if the weather cooperates you can snorkel right at the beach. There is also a cenote on site for snorkeling on days when the waves are too big. Our latest trip was for March break and there were no spring breakers at this resort. It was mostly families. They do have an adults-only section, but there is no way to escape the large number of children here. Our room this time was a renovated eco superior and it was great. It had a king bed and a bunk bed. The bathroom has a large walk-in shower but no tub. Wifi was good enough in the room to stream Netflix. There are not many drawers to unpack clothes. Overall it's a great place for a family vacation. There is so much to do here that even after two visits we haven't done it all. We also visited the sister resort (Sandos Playacar) for a day. You can use all their facilities for free but you pay for your own transportation to get there and back ($15 USD each way by taxi).

Sandos Caracol Nature Resort and Water Park: Lots to do!

The rooms themselves were standard with not many perks, but the resort amenities such as pools, waterslides, restauraunts, spa, etc were amazing! There was so much to do, we only left resort grounds 1 day. The beach was lovely as well!

Secrets Maroma Beach Riviera Cancun: Relaxing romantic vacation

Beach Under normal circumstances, the beach would be phenomenal and #1 on my list of “pros” below. While we were there there was a moderately bad seaweed epidemic. The resort did what it could to clean up the build up of seaweed at the shoreline (the first couple days it was men raking and they couldn’t make any progress but then the next several days there was a tractor which managed to clean most of it). There was nothing they could do about the seaweed in the water. Some spots in t [... read more]he ocean were completely brown and unswimmable but the majority had only a small amount of seaweed floating around and we swam several times. The last day (March 30) the wind had died down and it was much better. Pros Excellent service overall, most particularly at the restaurants where they were super friendly, polite and attentive. Food service was a little slow one night but otherwise well paced (i.e. about 1.5 hours for a 4 course dinner, the times I mention being slow was when we waited about 30 mins for our first plate of food). We had excellent drink service next to the pool and at the beds behind the beach. 6 a-la-carte restaurants, no reservations required and we never had to wait at all for a table which was FABULOUS (one night we ate at 6:30 and were basically the only ones at the restaurant, we also ate at 7-8pm when they were more full but still no wait) Food ranged from very good to excellent. We only ate at the buffet for breakfast. Lunch we usually ate at the grill next to the pool which was both excellent and quick but also ate at the seaside grill 2 times. Supper we always ate at the a-la-cartes and while some of the dishes were only okay many of the them were delicious and we would have liked to have had enough time to go back a second time to almost all the restaurants. The desserts were a bit lacking, the only one we loved was the creme brulee at Bordeaux. The Hibachi table at Himitsu (where you sit around the grill and they cook in front of you) was a nice experience but warm in the private room (2 are in private rooms and one is in the central part of the restaurant). This was the only thing which required a reservation. Very clean resort, most notably the washrooms at the beach, there was always staff there keeping them tidy (in my experience at other resorts, beach washrooms are messy) Beach beds! There was a large number of beach beds that cost 50$ per day and included concierge service. We did not try those as I thought the price was ridiculous. There was also 5 beach beds directly behind the beach (with a view of the ocean), as well as maybe 10 beds near the pools. We spent most of the week at the beach beds behind the beach. There was a wide variety of activities, and the staff were not annoying about getting people to participate. The one pool with the swim up bar was always super busy and more the “party pool” atmosphere whereas the other one was much calmer and quieter (even though they are right next to each other). There are 2 whirlpools and the water is actually quite warm (at other resorts we’ve stayed at the whirlpools are no warmer than the swimming pools) Cons suites were a bit smaller than some other junior suites we’ve had at other resorts. We were told we were “upgraded” to a partial ocean view but that was a lie as partial ocean view is actually their lowest room category. Furthermore, since we were in the building farthest from the beach we actually couldn't see the ocean due to all the palm trees. All the good spots got reserved very early (before 9am) but there are 2 signs next to the pools saying not to reserve spots and that personal articles could be removed if a spot was unoccupied for 30 mins. There was a few very rude people who left their stuff on the beach beds all day long and only showed up at 1pm or even as late as 4pm one day to use the bed. I found this extremely selfish given there are only 5 free beds behind the beach (not counting the ones on the beach that you had to pay) so after the first day we simply started remove peoples’ stuff if we saw that they hadn’t shown up as of late morning. All beach beds should be free and only require an additional fee for concierge service. There was a dozen beds not being used every day because people didn't want to pay the fee! There was a small lineup almost every morning at the buffet around 9am, simply because they were not fast enough at cleaning tables and getting people seated. Luckily it was only a 3-5 minute wait (one day 5-10 mins). Air conditioning in the restaurants was not strong enough, my husband who had to wear long pants (but was in short sleeve shirts) was always too warm. It was more comfortable being outside with the breeze but a few times the patios were full and we had to eat indoors. Internet in the rooms was poor and would disconnect frequently, but internet access around the pool and on the beach was consistently good. Overall we loved this resort and would definitely recommend it!