As a vacation, cruise and honeymoon specialist, I am more critical of resorts than the average guest. I look at the resort in terms of how it would fit the needs of my clients so I tend to be very picky when I travel.
My husband and I spent 6 nights at the Occidental Grand Xcaret in mid June. They were running a fabulous special to entice travelers back to their resort after the much exaggerated swine flu problem. I actually booked this trip as a guest rather than a travel agent since the prices were so good. They were offering a buy 1 night get the 2nd night free promotion for June arrivals. With airfare and transfers, the price was so inexpensive that I couldn’t pass it up.
I have not sent a lot of clients to this property in the past due to what I had heard about it- that it was huge and had no beach. What I also heard was that it was attached to Xcaret Park, which is someplace that we didn’t get to visit on our last trip to the Riviera Maya. I purposely didn’t read any reviews so that I would be able to make an honest evaluation of the property.
I did email the hotel general manager prior to our arrival to ask for a complimentary upgrade (the same as I would do for all of my clients) and he responded very quickly to let me know that we had been upgraded to the Royal Club. Having seen the properties in Punta Cana and Cozumel, I knew the Royal Club was the concierge section of the hotel with extra amenities so I was anxious to experience this service.
The resort is about 1 hour from the airport and upon our arrival, we went to the front desk. Since we had been upgraded to the Royal Club, we were escorted to the shuttle to take it to the Royal Club lobby. Our luggage was sent on to our room separately. We were greeted by name upon arrival at the Royal Club and were told that we had the “best room in the house”. Not knowing what to expect, we went up to our room 31302 on the 3rd floor of building 31 and were amazed at what we saw. We were expecting a regular room or junior suite but what we were booked into was a 2 room suite with gorgeous ocean views, 2 balconies, separate living room and dining room and a fabulous bathroom with a separate Jacuzzi tub and shower (with views of the ocean!). We definitely had the best room in the house!
Royal Club amenities include junior suites or the master suites (18 in all which was the room we had), concierge service, upgraded toiletries, Jacuzzi tubs, nightly turn down service, fruit basket, upgraded linens, free internet in the Royal Club lounge, DVD library, priority reservations at the a la carte restaurants and the additional restaurant exclusive to Royal Club guests. The Royal Club has its own pool area with a large Jacuzzi pool that is exclusive to the Royal Club guests. The young ladies who work in the Royal Club lounge were always pleasant, smiling and knew us by name after check in. They went out of their way to help make our stay as pleasant as possible and I would highly recommend the Royal Club.
We did see the deluxe rooms and junior suites in the resort and they are very comfortable rooms with garden or pool views. The 400 rooms around the Flamenco pool (buildings 18-22) are in the family oriented section. You will also find the Apple and Funjet Vacations representatives in these buildings. The rooms in the “Crab” section (#14-17) are more adult oriented. Their pool is the quieter of the 2 pools in the complex. The deluxe rooms have 2 doubles or 1 king. The junior suites have 1 king and some have a sofa bed. The bathrooms only have showers. The mini bars are refilled every 3 days but if you can always call for a refill earlier. There are some corner rooms that have a junior suite and a deluxe room side by side and have an exterior door that will close off the entry to both rooms so you can have 2 adjoining rooms for a larger family. These are on request only and can’t be guaranteed.
The resort is very large but not difficult to navigate. After the first day, we got tired of waiting for the shuttle (which circles the property every 10 minutes) so we ended up walking. The Royal Club rooms are closer to the beach but the furthest from the lobby, restaurants and theatre areas so we truly got our exercise walking all over the resort.
Food- is always a big deal in an all inclusive resort and we weren’t disappointed by the meals in the a la carte restaurants. We tried the Steak House, Mediterranean, Oriental and Seafood restaurants as well as the Royal Club restaurants for dinner. Since we were in the Royal Club, we got priority reservations and had no limit on the # of times we could eat in the specialty restaurants. If you are not in the Royal Club, there are limits (I believe 3 or 4 a la carte dinners per 7 night stay). We found the food and service in each of the restaurants to be very good to excellent. Our least favorite was the Oriental restaurant. The food was tasty but the air conditioning wasn’t working well and we had to leave because the heat was oppressive. The seafood restaurant is outdoors (part of the Beach Club Restaurant which is open for breakfast and lunch). Because it is oceanfront, the breeze was nice and kept us pretty cool. Dress code for the a la carte restaurants is long pants for men and some guests who were not dressed appropriately were asked to leave. We ate at the Beach Club for breakfast once and for lunch twice. The buffets were ok- pretty standard. For breakfast the line for the omelet station was incredibly long but there was the normal assortment of breakfast items. For lunch, there was a pasta station, with pizza, a grill, salads, hot and cold food as well as desserts with ice cream. The main buffet was only open for dinner since the occupancy was pretty low during our stay and we didn’t eat there at all. It is air conditioned and the dress code for dinner is casual. Had we had to eat at the buffet for ½ of the time we were there, I’m sure my review might be a bit different since I do not like buffets for dinner. I’m ok with them for breakfast and lunch but I like to be served for dinner.
Drinks and bar service- We are not big drinkers but we were happy with the bar service. For dinner, we were offered a house wine- either red or white and I liked the white but my husband didn’t. There was bar service around the beach and adult pool area and one of the waiters balanced a tray full of drinks on his head. Not an easy feat when walking on sand! Mixed drinks were always good- Miami Vice, Pina Coladas, Sombreros- were what I sampled. Club soda with lime and lemonade were my standard daytime beverages- both cold and refreshing.
Entertainment- Every night there is an evening show in the theatre at 9:30pm with a pre-show at 9:15pm. The pre show usually included audience participation. They were cute and fun but typically had some sexual innuendos made so they may not be necessarily appropriate for young kids. We saw about 3 shows during our stay. The first was a “Miss Flamenco” contest with guest participation. The other was “The Beat Goes On” and the third was music and dancing from around the world. The dancers were better than expected. They did lip sync to the songs but they were very high energy and entertaining. My complaints about the shows were that the sound system was uncomfortably loud and the theatre is very hot. Although there are fans, it is open air and there isn’t much of a breeze.
In addition to the evening show, there is a disco and sports bar which we didn’t go into. The lobby has some nice seating and in the evening it was used by couples and groups just relaxing and having fun. There is also a good deal of just outside of the restaurant complex with tables and chairs and a bar. This was an area that many guests hung out in the evening as well.
During the day, the Fun Club staff tried to entice guests to join beach volley ball games, salsa lessons, and had a full array of activities. Again, due to the low occupancy rate, there wasn’t much guest participation.
There is a nice kids area for ages 3-12. We only saw kids in there once.
The resort also has a putting green, tennis courts, volley ball courts, air conditioned gym and spa but we didn’t use any of them so I can’t comment on them. The sauna and steam room are free of charge, but you need to make a reservation to use them.
Beach and pools
I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the beach area. Remember that I was told the resort had no beach. Not true- it is actually a man made beach/cove that is ideal for swimming and safe for kids. It is sectioned off from the open ocean so it is very calm. There are a lot of fish in the beach area and lots of guests were snorkeling right there. Since other guests were throwing bread into the water below from the Beach Club restaurant bridge, there were lots of fish around. There was another snorkeling area but the water was pretty rough during the week we were there and it didn’t seem terribly safe since this area was surrounded by rocks.
There are 2 large free form pools- the Flamenco and the “Crab” pools. The Flamenco pool is the larger pool with a swim up pool bar and this is the activity pool. The Crab pool had easy entry (good for those with walking issues) and whirlpools. The Royal Club pool was small and exclusive to the guests in this section.
In addition, there is an adult’s only pool right near the beach club restaurant. It is a salt water pool that refills from the ocean looks like it has 3 jacuzzi tubs in it but they are just for decoration. There are 2 sets of steps down to the water- no easy entry for people with walking issues, and please note that the stairs were VERY SLIPPERY. My husband fell on his way in the first time. We learned after that. Since the adult pool is oceanfront, it was cool and breezy, unlike the other pools which are very hot since they are further into the resort where there is less of a breeze. There are a good number of palapas around the beach and adults only pool for shade.
Resort and grounds
The resort is truly lovely. The lobby is open air with fountains and water features. There is a “river” going through the lobby, restaurant and shopping area that connects with Xcaret park. On the resort grounds, there are many parrots, a deer enclosure, lots of iguanas, Mayan “ruins” and beautiful landscaping. The resort was clean and the grounds were always being kept up by the staff.
Overall travel agent impression
I would have full confidence recommending this resort to qualified clients. Those who would enjoy this resort, I feel would be families with younger kids and multi generational groups, couples and honeymooners. The property also has onsite wedding coordinators for those clients who want to get married on site and their wedding packages are very reasonable.
I would not recommend this resort for the true beach lover since it is not a large beach or for those who like to walk along long stretches of beach. I would be a bit hesitant to recommend the resort for clients with walking difficulties since most of the pools do not have zero entry and the resort is large.
I would highly recommend upgrading to the Royal Club for the superior service and rooms.
My complaints about the resort- pretty standard in the Riviera Maya- are the relentless time share sales people who were constantly trying to get guests to buy time share units. Also, the beds were very hard- 2 egg crate mattress pads still barely helped.
If you have specific questions, feel free to email me directly at mindy@myvacationlady.com. I have many pictures of the resort and rooms as well.
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