Blue Diamond Luxury Boutique Hotel: Wonderful stay!

Our room was beautiful! Other reviews mention a musty smell, but that’s just the nature of a humid environment. We had to make three requests for our plunge pool to be filled the first time and it drained within an hour. The spa was fabulous and the steam room was stunning. The food was good and healthy, but limited options. Desserts were just awful, which is fine if you’re there on a wellness retreat. We loved the beach and it was never too crowded. Overall we very much enjoyed our stay. If you [... read more] are expecting an American 5 star experience this is not it, but it’s good enough to have a relaxing holiday in paradise.

Barcelo Maya Beach Resort: Major sewage issues

This is my second time at this resort and probably the last. The first time, we stayed at the Maya Palace. Everything was great, except for the rooms with paper-thin walls. This time, we stayed at the Maya Beach. The bathroom was dirty and smelly. There would be a very strong smell of sewage when we turn on the tap water. There was no water in the toilet tank to flush it in the middle of the night, and it would make a lot of noise in the early hours when the tank was filling. The rooms ha [... read more]ve the same paper-thin walls as in the Maya Palace and the other hotels in the complex. My niece had to call security two nights in a row because the people above her room were partying all night. You can easily hear the conversations of your neighbours. There’s also the constant door slamming, and it’s really loud. This gets bothersome at night. The beach is beautiful with lots of palm trees, but the sewage smell is also in the ocean. I stepped on something one day (probably raw sewage) and I was immediately surrounded by a nauseating aroma. Another day, it was impossible to swim without having the smell of sewage all around us. Sewage tanks are located near the adult only pool bar El Cielito. The smell was unbearable some days. The pools are really nice. My only issue is with parents who think that’s it’s ok to let their kids play with their inflatable donuts in the lap pool. There’s only one, so leave it to the people who want to swim laps. There is a huge pool right beside it for kids to play. We enjoyed the fact that the complex wasn’t overcrowded, and we were able to reserve at some à la carte restaurants. I highly recommend the Mexican and the Traditional Japanese (and the French if staying at the Palace). Nevertheless, we made the most of our vacation. Will I come back for a third time? Unless the sewage issues are resolved, probably not.

Sandos Caracol Nature Resort and Water Park: Great Vacation

I was a bit leary at first after reading some reviews on this resort. Well it was so much better than the negative reviews. We arrived late afternoon and the check in process was great, we stayed at the Club Select. I requested a 3rd floor and was given what I wanted. We went for Christmas eve dinner, we did not realize that we needed a reservation, but the kind staff at the Laguna International buffet accomodated us. We really enjoyed our meal, the selection was overwhelming by how much there  [... read more]was. Great Job! The next morning my husband had a shower, but no hot water. I went to guest services and the problem solved and we had lots of hot water. We were treated very well, I have no complaints about this resort. Everything is within walking distances. The beach was great too, yes the Ocean is rocky but we knew that before booked. We totally enjoyed sitting out on the lounge chairs by the ocean. We loved that the bar was close by too. The only thing that kinda spoiled our trip was the very selfish people on the beach, that needed extra covered huts and extra lounge chairs, one family of 4 needed one each for them. We shook our heads at them. Besides that we loved our stay. Plenty of restaurants and bars, something for everyone. Lots of activities for families too. Besides 2 days of rain, we still came home with a tan. Plenty of animals and birds, please do not feed them! I also was minding my own business, I had a coffee in my hand standing by the adult pool, when a monkey came running at me and grabbed my coffee, it spilled on him and he bit me, drawing blood. I don't blame the animal, he is wild and because people feed them. I'm ok, but when I returned home I have been getting tetanus and rabies shots. Besides that is a pretty cool story to tell friends. One thing we noticed that nobody tips anymore, we tipped all the time. We loved the staff at this resort and guest services especially Johnny. Anyways thanks Brenda Moran for calling me! Loved our holiday.

Bahia Principe Explore Akumal: Not a five star

We went over new years. The hotel staff were great for the most part but seemed like they were understaffed at times. We have never experienced a 5* were you had to wear wrist bands, check your towels out and back in as well as book our restraints in advance. The food was tasteless which was a huge disappointment. Asking for any kind of hot sauce seemed to be so far fetched. Would not stay at this chain again.

Royalton Splash Riviera Cancun: Nice resort

The resort was well laid out. Easy access to all bars and restaurants. We had Diamond club which gave us access to better rooms and restaurants. Room service was great. Pools were great if you could get chairs. Down at 6:30 am to secure chairs. Our butlers were non existent. We booked our own restaurants. Needed to call down to housekeeping to clean our rooms twice as they were not cleaned by 5:00 pm.

Barcelo Maya Beach Resort: Beautiful Resort but lack of friendly servcie/staff

The resort itself was very nice. No complaints about food and cleanliness etc. What was odd was lack of staff engagement and helpfulness. When we arrived after a long flight (it was Christmas day) nobody greeted us at the resort. There was no welcome drink etc. Nobody told us about where things were etc. In addition we couldn't even get into our rooms until 3pm. We were lucky to be able to book 4 a la carte restaurants. We were flexible around eating times. But very little availability. We didn' [... read more]t really get a lot of options for choices. Luckily all of the restaurants we went to were very good. The pool and beach area were likely our biggest issue. There were not enough lounge chairs, no sun umbrella's on the beach.. just trees. People would put towels down and leave for hours - this was not supposed to be allowed. You could not find a spot (despite signs saying this was not allowed - no staff members enforced this rule). In fact good luck finding staff. The pool bar was so understaffed. Huge lineups at the pool bar. Also there were no places where you could take food with you. They would not let you take food out of the buffet. So weird that you could not have lunch at the pool or beach. No lunch or afternoon pool side food. No drink service at the beach or pool. I've never experienced that at an all inclusive resort. Also room service was not included. It felt like staff didn't want to be there. They spoke to you only if you asked them something. At the buffet in the morning, nobody greeted you or had mimosas waiting etc. I could sit for five-10 minutes before I could get someone to take a coffee order or bring water. It was ridiculous. We did have a great vacation but not because of how staff made us feel. It's hard to complain when you are on a warm beach. We made our own fun etc. Did several excursions. I don't think I would choose this resort again.

Sandos Caracol Nature Resort and Water Park: Family room

The hotel is big, the waterpark is smaller than I taught it would be. There’s is like a baby/toddler pool, than another spot with many slides but my toddler was to scared to slide down without me and I was not allowed to go down with her, than there’s another spot with just 5 medium size slides that my 5 year old really liked and another spot with 3 slides that was for little more bigger kids, they dont have alcohol beverages at the waterpark you must pick a long walk to go get some. The main po [... read more]ol is not really big and the beach is full of rocks and the sand is rocky, I did not enjoy the beach at all. There’s food line by the main pool is incredibly long and I wish that the activities during the evening would have started earlier, 9 pm was a little late for us with a toddler. The site is so big it’s a lot of walking and the driver of the golf cart don’t really give out rides they are mostly there for check in and check out. You can easily get lost and the food was fine but we were so over the buffet after 4 days we waited in line to get over easy eggs took about 15 minutes to get serve and 3 eggs were busted in the process of cooking. My husband had an upset stomach the whole trip my kids ate hotdogs pizza and cucumbers the whole time we went to the restaurant but yea the food was the same as the buffet. Lots of pork little chicken and beef, I had bacon once and we were at the buffet at 9 am. The room was fine but I wish the fridge would have been filled up without asking and I wish we had more pillows and a thicker blanket or 2. My toddler as contracted hand, mouth and foot infection but i can’t be 100% sure it’s from the hotel, my son had fever and I had diarrhea. Like the whole experience was ok but I was expecting more from a 4,5 stars. Strong points was definitely the performance, customer service from the overall staff and direction, and the animals that walked freely around the resort that was really cool.

Sandos Caracol Nature Resort and Water Park: Amazing wildlife

If you want to see wild animals this is the place for you. If you want a beautiful beach, great food, great entertainment, hot water in your room, then it is not. We got really sick while we were there, not sure if it was the food or not but we ended up begging the concierge for crackers as it’s all we could eat. The pools were nice and the staff tried to do their best but it was definitely not a 4 star in my opinion. 3 at best. That said the wildlife was spectacular-was so cool to see monkeys e [... read more]verywhere and that’s really the reason we went. The grounds and vegetation were wonderful and lots of trails to hike or bike.

Royalton Hideaway Riviera Cancun: Horrible Resort

Dirty rooms Out dated Sub par food Loud Obnoxious guest Rude pool staff Horrible experience. Never will return to a Royalton ever! This is a 2 star resort at best... the reviews and website is total lies.

Margaritaville Island Reserve Riviera Maya: OK Resort but had not noticed there was no beach.....

Although this hotel was new (2023), there were a few issues. It was a nice hotel, clean. What was disappointing was the there was always something no longer available, whether it was drinks, (menu removed after the order was placed), certain main food items at the A La Carte restaurants (ex: Osso Bucco, etc). Certain wait-staff at non A La Carte restaurants were non attentive - for example : Other customers would come in after us, served by their wait-staff, and departed before we were served. T [... read more]hen, Half of our table was served and either received their main course before the appetizer, and were finished well before the others got their meals. Reason for this was the restaurant was full - which it was not. I've been to a lot of All-inclusive resorts and this one was unfortunately not up to standards.

Grand Oasis Riviera: Would not return or recommend

We just spent the last 7 days at the Grand Oasis Tulum. This was a long awaited holiday trip from Dec. 25 to Jan. 1. We had 2 rooms, were a family of 5 and I will never stay at another Oasis property nor would I recommend to anyone. I have done many all inclusive vacations and our stay here was BY FAR the worst experience. Checking into kids room (18, 15 and 12 years old) and it has ONE bed. My room with my husband has a bathroom that’s leaking, moldy and filthy. For the kids, we ask for a [... read more] cot. Hours later, none received. I have to deal with this at 10pm after a day of travel on our first day of “vacation”. Kids were put in a temporary room that night. My husband and I took the kids original room for the rest of our stay. This was a downgrade from our initial oceanfront room that we had paid EXTRA for. Rather than do the right thing and either put my husband & I in an equivalent cost room, or at least offer us some sort of compensation. I was asked to agree and sign something saying that I accept that I wont get a refund. Which I did because I’m tired, on vacation and going in circles. The kids were assigned a new room the following day. It appeared ok upon initial inspection, since it had just been cleaned. A few hours later, it SMELLS horribly of sewage. Can’t open the patio door for fresh air. Bathroom is gross. We don’t have the energy to deal with changing AGAIN. Thought that with it being cleaned everyday, they could make it work. Housekeeping NEVER came despite at least TEN requests over 5 days. No toilet paper, no towels. The no reservation system across the restaurants is archaic. Waiting 1 to 2 hours to get in, IF you get in. The Maki Taco restaurant took us 2 tries on 2 different nights to get in and the food was revolting. Quite literally some of the worst food I’ve every had. Overall the grounds are in shambles. Everything is falling apart or is patched together (not well) to make things look OK. The beach and grounds are not kept up well. There was garbage that sat in the same spots every day. The first thing every morning should be a sweep by staff - this is BASIC. Although the buffet has a lot of options, the food for the most part is quite disgusting. At checkout, my 15 year old son had taken off his bracelet in him room. We were not advised that upon departure we’d have to have the bracelets cut at the front desk. With our shuttle for the airport out front waiting to go, the guy at the reception desk is not letting our son leave. He was rude and essentially holding our kid hostage. We had to go back to the room (which is a long walk away) dig into the trash for the bracelet. The staff were great. Such good people, they made it bearable and we had fun with them. The beach is beautiful. We travelled with another family who share the same sentiment. Their toilet overflowed, took forever to get it fixed and then even longer for housekeeping to come and clean up the mess. The whole time we were there, we heard many other guests sharing the same stories and/or trying to change rooms. Trust me. Pick another resort.

Sandos Caracol Nature Resort and Water Park: Not great

Over crowded, every drink was mixed different , food at the same restaurant was always different. Had to get up at midnight (every night) to book Al la cartes . And then it was hard to get into them

Barcelo Maya Riviera: Great Resort

Overall a great resort, pools, beaches a la carte resorts and buffet were excellent, all the staff and workers were very friendly and helpful. No real complains, had a couple of days where you had to search the beach for available chairs

Allegro Playacar: Beautiful resort!

The hotel and grounds were well maintained, spacious, neat and clean. The beach view was breathtaking. Staff were very attentive and friendly. The rooms were clean and air conditioned. It was a little noisy from 8:30-10:30pm at night with the sounds from the entertainment which was amplified far too loud. You could hear the MC all the way from the front lobby to the ocean. It was definitely overkill and unnecessary. Also, the walls in the rooms are paper thin and since there are straw roofs whic [... read more]h are open to the outside, you can hear people talking in other rooms and outside, which was a little disruptive. During the late night though, the entire complex was quite quiet and peaceful. We all got sick from the food and it was not as described by our travel agent. Food was plentiful and varied but bland and it wasn’t easy to get salt and pepper to our table when we ate there. The Mexican restaurant (one of 3 different ones at the resort, which offered seated meals as opposed to buffet, was a big disappointment. The food was the same as in the regular daily buffets except it was served to us. The menu was “fixed”, so we had very little choice and we did not enjoy the food at all. Staff were excellent as usual, however. We expected more from the food since we paid a big amount for the 10 day resort for 4 people. Despite the disappointment concerning food, we would still recommend this resort for its excellent location, safety, cleanliness and easy access to the beach, which was fabulous.

Viva Maya by Wyndham: Beautiful resort

Lovely resort, very reasonable price. The location is perfect in Playacar. The beach is stunning, the rooms are charming, the food is pretty good. Plenty of activities with daily events and nightly performances.

Platinum Yucatan Princess: Resort is no recommended

We are resort goers and go to Mexico 2-3 times a year. This resort is no where near 4.5 stars. And this is the worse one since +10 years of going to Mexico. Food is undesirable and seems to be re-used day after day. Line up at the bar and buffet food stations were a constant. Anything that is half good is empty and unfilled for a period of time. Restaurant is not good, full stop. The international restaurant and Italian was the best because of the servers. They were able to screen the  [... read more]items and drinks for us. Bedding is uncomfortable due to their plastic wrap that did not breath and crinkled as you moved around and rooms are very old and tiresome. The closet stunk of mildew. The beach smell of sewer. The taco station at the sister resort, when it was on, has a huge line up and ran out of beef and chorizo and only allowed pork or chicken and keep on moving like we were in a camp. Drinks are undrinkable. They seemed to be filled with some sort of alcohol filler that gave terrible heartburn. After 3 days, with much effort and time spent talking to management we were able to get our room sorted out to be more comfortable for the rest of our stay but it is still incomparable to other resorts that we have stayed at. Management was appreciative of our concern and did their best. Entertainment though was good. They put on great shows. The entertainers and resort staff are sweet and kind. I really appreciate them.

Ocean Coral and Turquesa: Average Resort for the cost

We recently stayed at Ocean Coral and Turquesa for two weeks over the Christmas Holiday. The airport transportation wasn’t very friendly or good. When we arrived at the hotel, we tipped the driver three dollars Canadian, which we thought was fair as other passengers didn’t even bother to tip. The driver insulted us saying that he doesn’t accept “metal” and demanded that we provide him bills instead. Off the Start we did not have a good experience and found that to be quite rude as we didn’t have [... read more] any American money at the time. The reception was quite friendly and it brightened up our day. We had to wait until 3 PM to check into our room, but we were able to enjoy the amenities of the resort. Overall, we found the rooms to be quite dated, although adequate. The king size bed was extremely hard and almost felt like we were sleeping on a brick. The maid service was quite good and we did tip our maid as we now had American money. Overall, the food was actually quite good at all the restaurants and the buffet. Although the buffet was quite repetitive and was pretty much the same food every night with minor differences, it was still quite good and we enjoyed it very much. The one thing that we found foolish was the first come first serve at restaurants so you could not make reservations for those restaurants and you have to break up your day and wait in line 30 to 40 minutes prior to the opening of the restaurant. They gave priority to The upgraded Privilege customers who were permitted to make reservations at first come first serve restaurants. They often held at least HALF the restaurant tables empty just in case others from the privilege would book. I really think they should just get rid of this waiting in line process and just have all Reservations. If they want to give priority to privilege then that’s fine but at least we should be able to book a reservation so we don’t have to queue up in a line for 30 to 40 minutes. A bit of a downer was my wife suffered an injury on the fifth day of our trip at the pool on a broken tile inside the pool. It caused a gash on her big toe while walking into the pool as her toe got caught on a sharp broken tile and she required 17 stitches at the hospital. Although the staff was very nice and seemed to be sympathetic, they did not really offer much to compensate us for the loss of basically the rest of our trip due to disrepair of their pool. The hospital doctor ordered my wife could not go into the pool anymore and could not go on the beach as it could infect her injury. So this caused a bit of depression on our part because we were unable to enjoy the rest of the trip as we should have. Although accidents do happen, I believe something could’ve been done to mitigate the fact that their pool was in disrepair and was the cause of her injury. On another note, the beach had a lot of seaweed on it however we noticed that this was one of the only resorts in the area that actually use the tractor to try and get rid of it and clean up the beach so this is definitely a plus for them. However, we would recommend Water shoes for the beach. The shows provided by the animation team were fairly average as we have been to other resorts that have provided better entertainment. This would not be such a big deal if the location of the resort was closer to the town or other amenities around. Also, they shut their indoor theater and all the shows were outside. Given the season it did rain a fair bit so they had to shut some shows down. They did not have a disco, although you could go to the pool area where there was a DJ, but unfortunately, they needed a little bit more nightlife at this resort. A bit of a letdown on the entertainment and dancing part. The taxis to travel to other places were all triple the price even the resort was aware of this. Thus the extra cost was quite big as the resort is fairly secluded. Serving staff was a bit aggressive when it came to tipping. We tip and feel this is important but it should not be aggressive to make guests uncomfortable. The Gym area was terrible. It was misrepresented online. Tiny gym could not accommodate hundreds of people - fail marks on this. OVERALL, the resort is average. Quality wise we would give it a 3 star.

Valentin Imperial Riviera Maya: Excellent Vacation

Rooms were excellent clean spacious mini bar stocked daily. Grounds were amazing well kept and lit nicely for an evening walk. Food was excellent tried every restaurant was never disappointed. Staff friendly and courteous. Pool was large clean and warm. Beach area separate from resort being ocean not visible from a lot of resort.

Valentin Imperial Riviera Maya: Excellent Stay

We had a great time at Valentin Imperial. Rooms were clean comfortable and good size. Mini bar stocked daily. Grounds were excellent. Pool clean and warm. Food was excellent. Entertainment was average. Beach is separate from pool area and not visible from most of resort. I would recommend if beach is not your primary concern.

Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda: Don't stay here

Black mold EVERYWHERE, black spots all over our sheets, pillows, curtains, tiles, aircon was unusable as it spit black gunk everywhere the second it was turned on. shower heads caked in mold, corners of shower literally growing. They didn't change our sheets all week, we even left tips to telry and make it happen. All 4 water taps fall off when you touch them, the bathroom was almost unusable, the sink was literally falling apart, silicone ontop of silicone in top of silicone, growing mold. N [... read more]o hot water all week. We found cockroaches in our bathroom. Doors/patios don't lock. It was repulsive condition. Everyone got sick from the food. The staff is absolutely checked out- the others in our party, my mum and my aunt ordered a double queen room, were given a king room and they wouldn't change their room all week despite having availability. Never stay here.