Honeymoon Discussions

Cancun

What all-inclusive resorts have you stayed at in Cancun? What good and bad experiences have you had? Any resort to stay away from?
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Re: Cancun

  • Would you also be considering Riviera Maya?  It's a little farther from the airport, but the resorts are larger and not all right next to each other on the strip of beach.  I've stayed in Riviera Maya twice, and I know a few good resorts.
  • I've been to a few resorts in the Cancun/Riviera Maya area- Secrets Maroma, Secrets Silversands, Iberostar Grand, Zoetry Paraiso, Barcelo Palace. There are so many to choose from at so many different price points, adults only and not adults only and all with different pros and cons. I personally did not really like Secrets Silversands too much but some people on here rave about it. It's all personal preference.

     







  • Agree with the Rivera Maya. Much better than Cancun. We've gone to three resorts there and all have been great. Lots of variety as far as price points and adults only/kids welcome. I would recommend that versus Cancun.

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  • Also agree with Riviera Maya over Cancun. Cancun was very....spring break-y, IMHO.
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  • Riviera Maya is an option for sure. We are trying to stay under or around $1,500 a person. Just wanted some people's pros and cons of certain resorts in the area. Trying to stay at an all inclusive adults only. 
  • rbanfie2 said:

    Riviera Maya is an option for sure. We are trying to stay under or around $1,500 a person. Just wanted some people's pros and cons of certain resorts in the area. Trying to stay at an all inclusive adults only. 

    Ocean Maya Royale is one of my personal favorite resorts. You can stay there for a week for about 1k a piece. Adults only and the rooms are all in 8 room villas, so it's not a huge hotel building. We've stayed there twice.

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  • We've done grand princess riviera in Riviera Maya. Nice location, just north of Playa and they do a free shuttle to Playa which is nice.
  • Anyone ever stay at the Valentin Imperial or Excellence Playa Mujeres?
  • Live Aqua in Cancun ruined AI's for me. Every other one gets compared to our time there and they all come up short. It was fantastic

  • One of my close friends went to Excellence Playa Mujeres and said it was amazing. It was our second choice for our honeymoon. Opted to go to Catalonia Royal Tulum instead.

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  • My husband and I went to Excellence Playa Mujeres a couple of years ago and we loved it. I think the beach is probably nicer at Valentin as the beach at Excellence wasn't really as nice as at some of the other resorts in the Cancun/Riviera Maya area. If you are looking for the best beach, you might be disappointed with EPM but if you are more into the pool scene you will likely be very happy with it. 
  • We stayed at the LeBlanc in Cancun. A beautiful place with pretty good service, nice beach, and fun nightly entertainment. It's an adults only, though it may be a little more than you are looking to spend.

    I actually agree with the others though. there are other areas that are better. I actually really liked Playa Del Carmen. They have a great shopping area, a huge beautiful beach, and some awesome restaurants. Plus, you can ferry over to Cozumel, for something different. Can't suggest resorts though as we only spent the day there at our resort's sister resort, the Playacar Palace, which was great, but not adults only.  

    "There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness." -Friedrich Nietzsche, "On Reading and Writing"
  • edited April 2015
    We're heading to the Hyatt Zilara in Cancun using points, for a 2nd honeymoon of sorts, in May.  We're really pumped for the all-inclusive setup.  Will definitely publish a thorough review post on it when we return!
    Michael - The Honeymoon Guy  http://thehoneymoonguy.com
    Guiding you to a champagne honeymoon on a beer budget!

  • One of my close friends went to Excellence Playa Mujeres and said it was amazing. It was our second choice for our honeymoon. Opted to go to Catalonia Royal Tulum instead.

    @mikenberger, how was it at the Catalonia? That's where we're going and I am beyond curious.



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  • sheknows6 said:

    One of my close friends went to Excellence Playa Mujeres and said it was amazing. It was our second choice for our honeymoon. Opted to go to Catalonia Royal Tulum instead.

    @mikenberger, how was it at the Catalonia? That's where we're going and I am beyond curious.
    @sheknows6 I'll gladly let you know in about 3 weeks :) We get married May 1st and leave on the 5th.

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  • sheknows6 said:

    One of my close friends went to Excellence Playa Mujeres and said it was amazing. It was our second choice for our honeymoon. Opted to go to Catalonia Royal Tulum instead.

    @mikenberger, how was it at the Catalonia? That's where we're going and I am beyond curious.
    @sheknows6 I'll gladly let you know in about 3 weeks :) We get married May 1st and leave on the 5th.
    Wow duh! I forget that some of the regs on the boards are still in their countdowns too :)



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  • sheknows6 said:

    sheknows6 said:

    One of my close friends went to Excellence Playa Mujeres and said it was amazing. It was our second choice for our honeymoon. Opted to go to Catalonia Royal Tulum instead.

    @mikenberger, how was it at the Catalonia? That's where we're going and I am beyond curious.
    @sheknows6 I'll gladly let you know in about 3 weeks :) We get married May 1st and leave on the 5th.
    Wow duh! I forget that some of the regs on the boards are still in their countdowns too :)
    Trust me, it cannot come soon enough! I can't wait!

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  • @mikenberger, I'm bursting to know haha :)



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  • sheknows6 said:
    @mikenberger, I'm bursting to know haha :)
    Oh man! Totally forgot about this....

    I hate to burst your bubble. I hated it. Well, as much as you could hate an all inclusive resort. The employees were rude, pushy, constantly pushing sales. It's a timeshare hotel, so they're going to try to rope you into going to their presentation to join the timeshare. I didn't want to go to their timeshare presentation, we had NO interest in it and they tried 5 times to get us to go. Including: Calling our room at 7:30am on our third day (which we promptly unplugged the phone and every subsequent time housekeeping plugged it back in) and leaving a coupon book in our room that appears to give you $500 in free stuff (should've known better) but when you go to the conceirge to set up your appointments for your massages, dinners and other excursions, they immediately badger you to join their timeshare club and go to the presentation. The approaches to join didn't stop until after our fourth day. So, after that stopped, it was nice. 

    The restaurants are across the board; mediocre. You're not going to have super awesome food, but you're not going to have awful food either. The tapas bar is right next to a pond of sorts, so mosquitoes galore. The restaurants are open on various evenings, so make sure that you get a brochure of your chosen language so you can read it :) Ours came in french and italian, which didn't help. The servers at the restaurants are overall, very nice. A weird thing though: wine was not included in our stay package. We had to pay for all of our wine at our meals. We could get beer or mixed drinks, but no wine. 

    So tipping. Tipping is STRONGLY ENCOURAGED. You get better service and faster service if you tip. None of the resorts I've been to were like this. It was really weird and very offputting. Especially after spending what we spent on our vacation, to have to spend more just to get a drink faster than 45mins (I'll touch on that later), sucked. It's really up to you what you want to do with tipping.

    The pool bar, you have to exit the pool to get to, it's not a swim up bar. Not a huge deal, but we didn't notice that when we booked. They do have people serving the pool area, but it's like 1-2 people a day. Which when you have a large pool, which the Catalonia Royal Tulum does, it takes a lot of time for someone to come around, take orders, get orders, deliver orders. The pool was nice though, overall clean. The lounge chairs are mostly under shade at some point in the day which is nice. But I recommend going down to reserve your chairs around 10am. You'll have fresh towels in your room every day. 

    Housekeeping was FANTASTIC. They were super friendly, helpful and I loved them. They were definitely the saving grace to the resort. Room service was meh. It was mainly pizza and burgers. But hey, they delivered to the room. Can't beat that. Our minibar was stocked every day and we had a different towel animal every day. 

    I personally wouldn't return. But I wasn't so appalled that I'd just leave and go and stay somewhere else. 

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  • I was really hoping that since this one wasn't near the "hotel zone" that we wouldn't run into the salespitch/timeshare thing....damn.

    I remember the last time I went to Vegas, the more I tipped the better service I got, and I totally agree that after you spend so much to go on an all-inclusive you shouldn't have to tip to get service. 

    Well, better to go with realistic expectations than be disappointed- but damn!



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  • sheknows6 said:
    I was really hoping that since this one wasn't near the "hotel zone" that we wouldn't run into the salespitch/timeshare thing....damn.

    I remember the last time I went to Vegas, the more I tipped the better service I got, and I totally agree that after you spend so much to go on an all-inclusive you shouldn't have to tip to get service. 

    Well, better to go with realistic expectations than be disappointed- but damn!

    Yeah, the sales stuff REALLY pissed me off. If it weren't for that, I'd entertain coming back. But it is so off putting. I understand once. Perhaps twice of trying to get us to attend this presentation, but the line was crossed when they called us at 7:30am. WE ARE ON OUR HONEYMOON. Even if we were awake, or not on our honeymoon, it's a damn vacation. Don't be calling me at 7:30am unless something is on fire or there is a hurricane imminent. And the timeshare, so we met up with some people from various parts of the country and they had all attended. Apparently it's 20k over 20 years and you have access to their privileged status rooms (which we stayed in one -- nothing about it was privileged. No hot tub, no premium sheets or stuff in the minibar. Was a very normal hotel room.) BUT there's a clause in there that the company can increase your yearly contribution at any time. And apparently the only way to get out is your death. Which is probably not true, well, most likely it's not true, but damn dude. 20k over 20 years. I'd rather just vacation at will lol

    We didn't go on the beach though. But there was TONS of seaweed that we could see. But it's the season for that. 

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  • We're in Cancun right now. It's my third time here and it's not our HM. We're at an non-AI timeshare resort. They tried to sell us on the timeshare thing once, but since then, they have backed off. However, there is a hard sell on many other things, like spa treatments. We wanted to do a couple massage, so we'd planned on booking anyway, so we didn't mind the first time we were approached by the pool. They did a 5 min complimentary foot massage, which was amazing, but then we were approached at least 8 more times so far. We won't go down to the beach, either, in case there are salespeople down there (which I have not seen, though.) Mostly everyone has been awesome, though, and I wouldn't really let it deter you from going. I just wish it was a little less windy. It's refreshing, but it can be a little too strong sometimes.

     







  • My favorite all inclusive is the Royal Hideaway in Playacar. It's adults only and it's amazing. I highly recommend it for a honeymoon. The food is great (the breakfast was incredible), the drinks are cold and the resort is relaxing. There are several great "adventures" nearby as well, including zip lining and a combo day at Tulum/Xel-Ha, which I HIGHLY recommend. 
  • The last resort we went stayed at (Occidental Xcarat) we also got the sales pitch, after we listened for 5 minutes and got a silly mayan paperweight? we were upfront and said we weren't interested. The woman backed off but kind of gave us the stink eye the rest of our vacation.  I didn't love the resort because it didn't have a real beach- just a small lagoon. The first resort we stayed at was so much better, though.  We stayed at the Sandos Caracol Eco Resort.  It was a pretty large resort, had a swim up bar, and nice beach (no big waves due to barriers- but still nice to swim in) they had tons of exotic animals-- pretty sure I was trying to chase a raccoon one night, but no worried- they don't have rabbies... And the restaurants were very good.  It wasn't adults only, but we still had fun.  Valentin Imperial is where I'd love to go next.
  • klk111415 said:
    The last resort we went stayed at (Occidental Xcarat) we also got the sales pitch, after we listened for 5 minutes and got a silly mayan paperweight? we were upfront and said we weren't interested. The woman backed off but kind of gave us the stink eye the rest of our vacation.  I didn't love the resort because it didn't have a real beach- just a small lagoon. The first resort we stayed at was so much better, though.  We stayed at the Sandos Caracol Eco Resort.  It was a pretty large resort, had a swim up bar, and nice beach (no big waves due to barriers- but still nice to swim in) they had tons of exotic animals-- pretty sure I was trying to chase a raccoon one night, but no worried- they don't have rabbies... And the restaurants were very good.  It wasn't adults only, but we still had fun.  Valentin Imperial is where I'd love to go next.
    OMG. We got one of those too. I promptly left it with the concierge. "But it's my gift to you!" Yeah, that's cool. You keep it buddy.

    Valentin Imperial is definitely on my next list.

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  • I am in the same situation! My fiancé and I are trying to choose between Jamaica or going to Excellence Riviera Cancun (it's actually not in Cancun, it's in Riviera Maya). I've gotten a lot of great feedback on that Excellence resort!
  • klk111415 said:
    The last resort we went stayed at (Occidental Xcarat) we also got the sales pitch, after we listened for 5 minutes and got a silly mayan paperweight? we were upfront and said we weren't interested. The woman backed off but kind of gave us the stink eye the rest of our vacation.  I didn't love the resort because it didn't have a real beach- just a small lagoon. The first resort we stayed at was so much better, though.  We stayed at the Sandos Caracol Eco Resort.  It was a pretty large resort, had a swim up bar, and nice beach (no big waves due to barriers- but still nice to swim in) they had tons of exotic animals-- pretty sure I was trying to chase a raccoon one night, but no worried- they don't have rabbies... And the restaurants were very good.  It wasn't adults only, but we still had fun.  Valentin Imperial is where I'd love to go next.
    OMG. We got one of those too. I promptly left it with the concierge. "But it's my gift to you!" Yeah, that's cool. You keep it buddy.

    Valentin Imperial is definitely on my next list.
    This Mayan paperweight... Is it a mini replica of the main pyramid at Chichen Itza? Because that's what I'm picturing, and I want one.

    FI and are are honeymooning at Moon Palace in Cancun (an AI timeshare resort), and one of the main things we asked the woman we booked through (who owns a timeshare there) is whether they are pushy with the timeshare presentation. Apparently, they ask once and a firm NO puts an end to it - reviews on TripAdvisor confirmed this. 

    @mikenberger wine not being included is the biggest bullshit I have ever heard. I would be PISSED. Moon Palace has liquor in the rooms. IN THE ROOMS. I am so ready for 11 nights in Mexico.
    BabyFruit Ticker
  • I'm so happy people understand the damn paperweight... Give me a bottle of tequila and you will have my attention a little better.
  • kvrunskvruns member
    First Anniversary First Comment 5 Love Its First Answer

    We just got back from the Royalton Riviera Cancun (it is about 10 miles south of Cancun).  TripAdvisor warned of the timeshare people but we were never once asked, even in the mornings when we would walk through the lobby and saw the timeshare people standing out there.  Maybe they stayed away because we were stinky from the gym :)

    Tipping didn't seem any different from other AIs I've been to in the area.  I swear we can tip big or not at all and it doesn't make a difference  The only exception was we had a private dinner on the beach and H tipped the waiter $30 and then we saw him the next night at a group dinner on the beach and he grabbed us and seated us right away, had us get in line first for food, etc so I think that helped but general tipping for drinks etc I've never noticed a difference. 

  • klk111415 said:
    I'm so happy people understand the damn paperweight... Give me a bottle of tequila and you will have my attention a little better.
    We're bringing an extra suitcase for tequila. Our friends brought us back a bottle when they went to Cancun last fall, and it was FANTASTIC. And it was in a bottle shaped like a pistol, so that was cool.
    BabyFruit Ticker
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