Awesome vacation

Hotel was great, lots to do, beautiful pools and great beaches. The food was amazing and the service was great. The rooms are fine - nice and clean - but not on a par with the rest of the resort. Staff were great. Most amenities were included, there weren’t a huge number of things you had to pay out of pocket for.

Beautiful resort

Six resorts in one complex. Each one is stunning by itself. Put them all together takes the complex up another level. The place is the largest resort complex we have ever stayed at. We were there for a week and still did not get to experience all the pools and restaurants. It's so big that it has it's own mall, casino and bowling alley. No reason to leave the complex except to explore other tourist destinations. The grounds were beautiful and well kept, as were the rooms. The king size bed was  [... read more]comfy, the bathroom was large with double sinks and separate tub and shower. The food was good with plenty of cuisine to suit everyone's tastes. I would highly recommend this place to everyone. We have been to 16 resorts throughout Mexico and the Caribbean and I would rate Barcelo Maya Complex at the very top of all of them.

Excellent!

Fantastic resort with superb staff. Everything we experienced from the food to the pools was more than you could wish for! I would recommend this resort to any family looking for a five-star resort on the Riviera Maya.

Very large resort with lots of activities on site (and TURTLES)

My Review is reflective of my experiences visiting many resorts in the Mayan Riviera and Cancun area. We Stayed at the Barcelo Maya Palace from Friday Jan 31-Feb 7 2020. Our family of 3 (2x adults and 1x 13 year old) stayed in an Oceanfront Premium Jr Suite. We flew with Air Canada Rouge. Overall, I would say that this resort is good for large groups of people. There are lots of things to do right on the resort: on site shopping, bowling, water parks, zip lining, dolphin show/encounters, snor [... read more]keling, non motorized water sports, scuba, spa, mini golf, basketball, tennis etc... Some of these extras are included in your AI and some things felt like they should be included (e.g. Pirate Island water park, bowling) and some things are understandably an extra cost (zip lining, dolphin encounters). Because of the variety of activities, there will be something for everyone. Extra activities that I participated in were = snorkeling, spa, water circuit, fitness center, and shopping. Usually I like to stay at a smaller more boutique resort where there are no reservations required for dinner, all dinners are at a la carte restaurants, you don't have to wake up at 7am to 'reserve' a shady spot by the pool and there is beach drink service. I have recognized that these features are more important to me than access to 100s of activities that I do not participate in. Good: Ocean front room view - the view was worth the extra cost, it was lovely to be able to hear the waves from our balcony and watch the sunset over the ocean. The room was standard, and I would say 'well worn', the resort is showing its age. I would encourage Barcelo to refresh the rooms in the Premium section asap, everything feels old, dated, well used and broken. Although it is obvious they have been maintaining the rooms well... I don't think you can escape time, we stayed at this resort in Jan 2014 and everything was almost the same. Snorkeling - the snorkeling opportunities right at the resort are unparalleled in my experience. No other resort that I have stayed at in Mexico can offer this level of snorkeling just walking into the ocean from your bedroom. We saw dozens of varieties of tropical fish and ocean life. the highlight of my vacation was swimming with the green sea turtles that hang out in the bay in front of the resort. This alone made our trip worthwhile. Walking - This resort is enormous and there is a lot of walking, which I very much enjoyed. I wore my apple watch and logged between 15,000-25,000 steps per day. One of my favourite activities at this resort was to walk from one end of the Oceanfront trail to the other and back. Palace Buffet - the quality, quantity and variety of food at the palace buffet was exceptional. We did try some of the other buffets at the other resorts and they do not come close to the variety of dishes on offer at the Palace. I especially appreciated that there were authentic Mexican dishes every night at the Palace Buffet. This alone is a reason to stay at the Palace vs. Caribe/Colonial/Tropical. Premium check-in - I am not sure if the easy checkin process was worth the extra cost, but it was very nice and one of the highlights. Other resorts we have stayed at have this level of checkin standard (e.g. Excellence and Finest), I love being offered a cold towel and cool drink when I arrive off the bus from the airport. Rodizio - I had a delicious steak cooked to perfection. I would definitely return for this meal. Bad: Bus ride to resort - very long, and we stopped at 6x other resorts to drop people off on the trip down from the airport. We were the last stop on the milk run. Our flight left at 6:10am from Toronto and we did not arrive at the resort until 4pm Buffet at Colonial / Tropical - Terrible, avoid at all costs. The wait staff forgot about my drink order, there was very little variety and most meats were over cooked and selection was limited. Micheal Jackson show - avoid at all costs. The back up dancers do a great job, but MJ just didnt perform and it felt like a bad lip sync contest. No beach service - I know it sounds lazy, but there is no service on the Beach. So if you want a water or beer etc... you have to walk to the pool bar, wait in long lines to grab a bottle of water. I have seen other resorts that do not offer beach service fill up coolers with beer and water on the beach. This could be a great stop gap measure. Capri restaurant @ Barcelo Maya tropical - avoid. Spa - I had the Energy Massage (80min) - I was hoping to get a deep relaxing massage. This did not happen. I'm glad I paid 40% off list price ($140 USD), but it still wasn't worth it. Note: they automatically include a tip prior to your service

Quality is slipping

Rooms, grounds, general upkeep, pool areas, impeccable! Room fridge restocking was hit and miss, checked in Sunday, fridge not done until Tuesday. Then missed on Friday and Saturday. After checking in, went to guest services to book a la carte meals. The first booking we could get before 9:30 was Thursday, then Friday. As this was our second visit we were not interested in any of the a la cartes at the other resorts. So, we were relegated to eating all other meals at the buffet.  [... read more] Hot food should be hot, cold food cold. The only hot food was if you got it directly off the grill. Most was room temperature. The staff everywhere were excellent. Well, the front desk staff had their moments. Ask a question and you could get as many answers as was behind the counter. Beach is hard. Snorkeling is fair, silt gets stirred up. Many people drift up from other resorts, and take up space at the Palace. Lots of walking! Used the coffee the first day. Never replaced! Had to drink it black. No sugar or (ick) whitener.

Great place (some issues)

So we were returning for our second visit and were absolutely floored that the resort group (Barcelo) does not recognize returning guests as loyal unless booked via their own system. Shameful way to operate. More or less threatened to not lose our towel cards or get “fined”$25 USD but the funny thing is they don’t use the cards and the staff collect towels right off loungers starting at 2:30 pm daily. Told we couldn’t have a king bed unless we wanted to “be out by the road” due to re [... read more]novations, when in fact there were no renovations underway as proven to us by an on-site customer service person stationed in the hallways of the room blocks. Buffet food in trays was usually cold. My brother an experienced chef showed me why. They place dry food in trays on hot bricks with no overhead heat and upon questioning they are allowed to leave food on the buffet for two hours before changing. The staff beyond the front desk are amazing, the beach is great, the bars are superior. We arrived Sunday and at 1 pm we attempted to make a la carte reservations and could only get seats for 3 on Thursday and Friday unless we wanted to eat at 9pm or later. Being two diabetics we need to eat at regular hours so we were not pleased with this. Given the fact the resort was very lightly booked it should not have been an issue. However we learned that the AO (Riviera) folks seem to get priority bookings at the Palace. The fridge (minor) was not stocked at all upon check in and took two days and 50 pesos to get that taken care of. Turn down service happened once in 6 nights so maybe we weren’t supposed to get it at all. Oh well I know how to turn down a comforter. Cleaning was spot on, rooms was always very clean. TV if required is limited but again that’s not why we go south. Sunwing rep chastised us heavily for not taking in the speech, and threatened us with not getting a ride to the airport because we checked in Tuesday versus Monday, then she wasn’t even there on Saturday when she told us to come back and confirm our private transfer. Her replacement got angry because we did not have our booking number and told us to go get it because they can’t “simply look you up” in their system. Great system Sunwing has, if in fact that was true. Then he told us what time and we called ourselves to confirm and got a later time so we believe he did it intentionally. To summarize, I would return to the Palace but expect Barcelo group to treat returning customers better.

Super séjour au Barcelo Palace

Nous y étions du 11 au 18 janvier dernier, moi, mon conjoint et notre garçon de 3 ans. Notre séjour fut plus qu'agréable: tout est propre, excellente nourriture au Buffet, l'aménagement paysager impeccable, beaucoup d'espace sur la plage, même si il faut faire attention aux roches à l'entrée de l'eau. Je recommanderais sans hésiter cet établissement. Les employés sont tous très aimables. Toutefois, le seul bémol est que nous n'avons pas eu la chambre que nous avions demandée lor [... read more]s de la réservation. Ceci est mon 10 ieme voyage dans les Caraïbes et c'est la première fois qu''un hôtel ne peut respecter notre demande ( nous voulions une chambre avec lit King et avons eu deux lits doubles) Je crois que cela est dû au fait que l’hôtel était en forte demande et très achalandé lors de notre séjour. Pour cette raison, je vais certainement considérer aller sur au autre site de Barcelo, soit le Barcelo Colonial ou Tropical,aussi beaux et merveilleux mais qui semblait plus tranquille.

Great resort!

Grounds , restaurants and room are very well kept. Food was excellent! Staff are constantly working hard to ensure guests are kept happy! Lots of options for food and dining can be inside or outside along the waters edge if preferred. I would return and recommend this resort to friends. I should mention that you do need to pay to have wifi throughout the resort which we didn’t find necessary but always good to know so there are no surprises for those guests requiring the service.

Family Resort

First impressions of this resort are jaw dropping and over the top. It is stunningly maintained and very structured with lots of concrete, bridges, pools and buildings. The beach is immaculately kept with soft white sand. This is a family oriented resort with kids everywhere. We thought we'd be going when kids were in school. Wrong. If you are a couple looking to avoid children, find another resort. Lots of money goes into stocking the bars and maintaining the grounds. The staff work ha [... read more]rd to keep this place looking amazingly prestine. When we travel we are looking for good quality food but we didn't find it at this resort. The quality of the food in the Brasserie a la carte restaurant was excellent. The rest of the food on the resort was very disappointing. Cafe style buffets are where you eat and the food is cold, undercooked and prepared too far in advance. The waste of food is incredible. Kids and families might like the variety of choices but the quality isn't there. When clearing away plates of wasted food I wish they would ask people if there was anything wrong with the food resulting in such waste. Maybe something might change. We tried about 6 different a la carte restaurants and other than the Brasserie, they were horrible. There are some good things about this resort that might make it a perfect destination for families with kids. It is huge with lots of pools and beach areas for swimming. You can walk for a long time along the beach as well as the adjoining resorts so there are lots of places to move about throughout the day. The dolphin area is within walking distance and even if you don't swim with them, you can watch the daily shows. The malls allow for shopping, bowling and internet access during certain hours. If you want nonstop internet access all day and night you will need to purchase it for about $10 US per day. In my opinion, internet access should be free. Even though people are told not to feed the wildlife, they still do. Fish come into the shallow waters as do the sea turtles and pelicans. This resort is perfectly located for anyone wanting to go into Playa Del Carmen, Tulum and Coba. Lots of tours are available. The public bus (Collectivo) comes right to the entrance of the resort on the main road. You can save a lot by taking this bus (van) service to and from the resort.

Beautifully Groomed resort

Very wide spread resort. A lot of walking The beach was pretty much lined off with rocks. Really need water shoes. Food was good. The Brassiere was amazing! Great food, great service. Beautiful clean rooms. But again, l mean a lot of walking...to every restaurant, markets, shows Was dissatisfied with the rocky beach. People in bare feet couldn’t walk proper to step in the water.

Amazing vacation!

Overall this resort is a perfect all-inclusive get-away and what you’d expect from a Barcelo property. The location was beautiful, the facilities were well cared for and the food was really good. I love the attention to detail and throughout the resort, there were many beautiful spaces created to help make your moments richer. For the most part, the staff were very friendly and accommodating. The unfortunate exception was the person who checked us in. Not friendly or helpful. Didn’t exp [... read more]lain anything nor did she offer a beverage like all of the other families received. I believe she was new - perhaps a manager or trainer should have stayed close by. It was a negative introduction to the property that fortunately was short-lived. And really from that point forward it only got better. Our room was as it looked in the brochures and housekeeping did a great job maintaining it. With 6 resorts all-together, there was always something new to discover. And the restaurant variety was like most 5star resorts. Good food -great variety. The pools and the beach were immaculately taken care of and I felt very safe. Loved the mix of reef and beach for exploring. It was a wonderful week away for my girls and I. I would highly recommend this resort.

Excellent resort

this is a huge complex which now contains 6 hotels of which the Palace is the second newest. It is very well maintained and the food is good to very good. The buffet restaurants offer lots of choice for even the most selective or discerning palates. The specialty restaurants (Brazilian, French etc) are ok but not high end. The swimming pools are first class as are the facilities for the kids of all ages. We have been to this group of hotels many times. The Palace is much the same as the ot [... read more]hers but we now look forward to trying the latest Barcelo at this location - which only opened in December 2019.

Large kid friendly resort

The good: Food is average for the price. Great selection but typical resort quality, not much taste. Plenty of beef, chicken, fish, shrimp etc.. Lot's of space, chairs, activities for kids. Beach is wide, sandy, and shallow and no seaweed problems during my stay. The bad: Service is slightly below average for Mexico. Most staff really just can't be bothered. Room was often not made up, missing towels, etc.. No "towel art". Calling for service was always "we'll send someone" who never sh [... read more]owed up. Reception often does not answer the phone. They have obviously been told that they should deal with problems by agreeing with anything the guest says and then promptly ignoring it. Rooms are typical 3* beach resort. Clean but not impressive. Because it is a good resort for kids there are a lot of them and the rooms have terrible sound proofing. There is a lot of screaming and running. Entertainment at the Palace is poor, high school production quality, but there is better available at one of the other resorts. You have to pay (a lot) for wifi unless you are "Premium Level". Decent quality alcohol but wine is usual cheap resort stuff.

Barcelo Maya Palace - Fabulous Resort!

My husband and 2 boys (in their 20's) stayed at Barcelo Maya Palace last week. Although it rained every day we had an amazing stay due to the resort being outstanding. Restaurants both buffet and a la carte were very very good. Beach was beautiful and very much enjoyed swimming with turtles and other marine life. Our rooms were very very large with fabulous bathrooms. They were clean and well serviced. Would not hesitate to recommend and revisit this property. Thank you David and Tri [... read more]p Central for booking our latest vacation.

Barcelo is fine!

Food is excellent and resort offers something for everyone. Lane swimming and gym so you can maintain your routine lots of beach space. Comfortable rooms and nice shower. Would like to suggest that WIFI be included as standard instead of paying as an additional cost

Beautiful 5* resort

The resort is beautiful, speckless, the staff and service is great. Food was amazing. Beach is beautiful with white sand, but like in every resort in this area it seats on a lime stone so it is not as soft like in other Caribbean destinations. Snorkling is amazing, sea turtles are right there every day and they will come and say hi to you if you snorkel a little further away from the shore - don't take bananas or other food with you, as they can attack you. Snorkling around the pier is a must do [... read more] as well - lots of fish out there. The resort is huge, and it is a fair distance to get anywhere. In fact they have a shuttle, double decker bus running through the resort. Rooms are beautiful, spacious and clean. Room service is great. With access to other parts of the resort you get to experience so much more i.e. free dolphin show every day, access to other water parks and kids pools (there are so many of them with two biggest at Palace and Colonial sections of the resort), casino, shopping mall and other paid attractions. The only complaint I have is the luck of evening entertainment. Other than a show at 9:30 every evening, the Palace section is really dead. There are no shows for the kids earlier in the evening. We did not feel like going to the discotheque every day and would appreciate a general hanging out area were you can listen to Mexican music, maybe dance while enjoying a drink after or before the show. The lobby bar is very formal and is not very inviting. My second biggest complaint is the background music. We stayed there in the second week of December and all they played was Kenny G christmas music - literally 24/7 from every speaker in the resort, even along the pathways along the beach. That was the most dreadful thing - I will never want to listen to his music again. I wish they played Mexican music instead. Overall it is a beautiful, very well managed resort minus the evening entertainment and Kenny G!

The best vacation!!

The hotel was very clean, the food was delicious and such a wide variety. The service was excellent. You have to go to the Brazillian restaurant. The BEST steak I've had in my life. Bring your snorkel because there's great snorkeling at the resort beach...including sea turtles!!

Vacation at Barcelo Maya Palac

I love Barceló Maya Palace which is an all-inclusive resort, and that is why we returned to this resort for the third time to enjoy our family vacation. This Barceló Maya Palace is very charming and welcoming, and for this reason, my oldest son decided to marry there. It is a nice and clean place, both inside and outside the resort. The rooms are amazing, and the staff that works there is very friendly. The food and drinks are excellent both in the buffets and in the restaurants a la carte. [... read more] The beach is very clean and is great where we could all enjoy. This resort also has more than one pool and they are large and very clean. The aquatic activities are great, and the night shows are really nice and have variety.

Unforgettable

This was a true five star resort the hotel is amazing, so clean and organized. Food was incredible my 3 year old picky eater was well fed. The beach is white sand clear turquoise waters great for snorkeling. Activites from mini golf to bowling. Free dolphin shows daily at dolphinaris. Shopping mall and market on resort. INCREDIBLE and UNFORGETTABLE

Amazing resort

Beautiful beach, clean surroundings, excellent restaurants and high quality food. Friendly staffs everywhere, specially In buffet they are almost raining between tables to take away used dishes. Entertaining every night every where so gusts never felt boring.