The hubs has an annual work conference that was celebrating a milestone this year, so the conference moved from the midwest to sunny Cancun. Seeing great potential for myself to be able to tour resorts while he was working, I packed my bags and accompanied him to the sunshine. We only had two full days plus our arrival and departure days, to enjoy the resort we were staying at plus attend the conference and do my site inspections. So, not much vacation time was had but a lot of work was done. Here’s the recap.

The accommodations: Nizuc Resort and Spa, south of the Hotel Zone in Cancun. This resort is uniquely positioned such that its beach is essentially private. The resort itself isn’t an all-inclusive but you can add on an ‘Endless Indulgence’ package to include meals during your stay. There’s no other way to describe Nizuc as anything other than pure luxury. The rooms were AMAZING. Our room was an oceanview junior suite that had a huge balcony with private pool, coming it at around 1200 square feet! We had a gorgeous view of the Caribbean and the mangrove forest that fronted the resort, where we watched a heron come in each afternoon and enjoy the forest goodies.

Pampered every minute, we had golf cart transportation around the resort, which is fairly spread out due to the layout of the land and how it meets the Caribbean. And the food, delicious. Possibly the best food I’ve ever had at a resort. So fresh and beautifully presented.

Nizuc is supposed to have a fantastic spa but, I’ll have to make a return trip for that, we didn’t have any time to enjoy that on this trip. Disappointing for sure but… working vacation. When this is the view from your resort’s lobby every morning, that puts any disappointment back in check.

But alas, back to work. Two full days to get in as many site inspections as I could. That meant five resorts on the first day and three on the second day. Those last three are huge resorts so they warranted more time. The hotels I visited on day one were all in the Hotel Zone. Normally not my favorite place for families because the beaches aren’t private and the hotels are very close together, I wanted to get a feel for the on-site experience at a few properties. Seaweed, while not currently an issue in Mexico, has plagued the beaches there and around the Caribbean for the last couple years. I’m always on the lookout for resorts that have great pools and activities in case the beach turns out to be a no-go due to seaweed at a particular time. It seems too that many guests are focusing more on these types of amenities over the beach itself so I try to follow what I’m seeing on that end as well.

I hit the ground running on day one with my first stop, Now Emerald. This is a family resort and has a very nice beach, beautiful pools, and is continuing to be renovated after the property itself changed from an Oasis brand resort to Now Emerald earlier this year. I took this shot from a room that I toured on-site, such fantastic views and look how pretty the water was that day!

Moving right along, Live Aqua Beach resort, an adult-only property in the Hotel Zone, right across from a luxury shopping mall. This place knocked my socks off. The rooms were beautiful, amenities stellar, multiple pools all at different temperatures even!, delicious food and drink, plus activities galore. I would definitely love to stay here in the future. It just finished up a multi-million dollar renovation earlier this year after hurricane damage. Any place with a room view like this has my vote. Did I mention that the room also had its own aromatherapy station, the curtains closed automatically when you left the room to save energy and reduce cooling costs, etc.? So nice. And the rubber ducks, super cute!

Hyatt Zilara was next on my list, also adult-only and in the hotel zone. The style here felt authentic Mexico with lots of wrought iron, stained glass, and open air spaces. I especially loved the room balconies, facing the Caribbean with a hammock. Can’t beat that! The fitness center had a lap pool outside that would make anyone want to become a swimmer! I especially loved the idea of their apothecary where you could be instructed on how to make your own oils and scrubs to be used during your spa treatments!

After that, Hyatt Ziva was my last stop away from my own resort for the day. Ziva is a kids friendly property that also has an adult only section. There is a Delphinus dolphin center on-site there for those interested in interacting with dolphins. There’s a new tween/teen club called Moods that had virtual reality machines that I would’ve loved to have checked out.

An interesting thing about Hyatt Ziva is its location. Much like Nizuc where I was staying, Hyatt Zila sits at the end of a point, basically on a peninsula. So their beach isn’t private but they’re pretty far down and not in the middle of a lot of other hotels. The break shown in the picture below also helps with seaweed blockage.

The last place on tap for me that day was back at my own resort. I enjoyed learning more about the resort itself and its history and the different rooms types available. I thought our room was stunning (and it was!) but the one-bedroom private villas… truly a ‘wow’ moment. Imagine having your own backyard with private infinity-edge pool!

Speaking of history there, their most famous and award-winning restaurant called ‘Ramona’ has these doors as its entrance. The story has it that these are the original doors of the Presidential Retreat building that used to be on the site of the Nizuc resort, where the President of Mexico came to relax. From standing in front of them, I would agree that they definitely seemed authentic and impressive. The picture doesn’t capture the jaw-dropping size of these!

Phew. Lots of resorts, pictures of beds, bathrooms, and balconies. I had just enough time to enjoy the pool on my own balcony before dinner and bed. The next day, I headed out again, bright and early. First stop, Azul Beach Riviera Cancun. A family-friendly property that is often a little friendlier than some on the purse strings, I was pleased to see that even at a slightly lower price point, the quality wasn’t compromised. The beach here was definitely not as big or pretty as the Hotel Zone but the pools helped offset that.

I really loved a new room style that I toured, and I can’t wait until those become open for booking. They are family suites and the current style with double beds and sleeper sofas are being renovated into beautiful split rooms with a separate king bedroom area for parents and two twin beds for the kids. These are set to start renovations in 2020 and hopefully they are finished quickly!

 

Royalton Riviera Maya was next and is a client favorite. This resort has some beautiful swim-up rooms (I LOVE swim-ups!) and so many amenities. That was a huge plus because it started to rain cats and dogs when I arrived at Royalton. So much so that I didn’t get to tour much of the grounds. Disappointing but I can’t control the weather!

I’m a sucker for pretty bathrooms. 🙂

Last stop, Moon Palace Cancun. Moon Palace is a huge resort with three separate sections: Sunrise, Nizuc (not my resort), and the Grand. Sunrise and Nizuc are very similar with different decor and the Grand is the most upscale part of the property. I was impressed by the amount of things to do, how happy the guests looked (despite the buckets of rain coming down during their vacation), the decor, and the friendliness of the staff. Such a great place for families. Check out the stained glass ceilings in the Sunrise lobby!

The rooms were pretty sweet too. Wouldn’t that jacuzzi be so great in the evening?

After Moon Palace, it was back to my resort for a little more pool time (thank goodness our balcony had a roof!) and a quick walk on the beach after the rain subsided. The next day, we were to fly home but our flight was cancelled due to a mechanical delay and then crew issue. The airline very smoothly setup accommodations for everyone on the flight for the night and shuttled us to the hotel and back. The only glitch? The hotel was a DUMP! I always talk about not selling resorts I either haven’t personally been to or ones that I don’t have a colleague who has been to confirm its quality. TripAdvisor reviews are often lies or one-sided (I know, shocker!), pictures can be staged and cropped, resorts change owners and aren’t renovated when needed, locations can be horrid, etc. Well, here’s a perfect case of that. Seadust Cancun. Oh my gosh, never have I ever. This place brings new meaning to budget. The entire resort was basically open-air, including the restaurants, which is so bad when we’re talking Cancun on the beach and in a high-rise. Even the rooms were hot and the air-conditioning in the rooms never got to the temperature it was set to. We had tile floors with wet spots on the floor that NEVER dried, from the humidity I guess, brown water pouring from the faucets, hair in the bathroom, two sets of outlets in the whole room, and a bed that felt like someone had poured water all over it from the humidity. The food in the buffet restaurant was out of temperature, it’s a true wonder we didn’t end up with food poisoning.

What are you looking at in the picture below, you ask? These things that looked like sports lockers were actually doors to closet space. Those aren’t reflections near the handles either, those are literally handprints and smudges. When opened, they were basically big holes to put stuff. A couple of captive hangers and one or two shelves. My main concern with these was that I needed to open them up to see if someone was hiding in there to kill me in the night!

The funniest thing is that the reviews on this place are great, 4.5 stars on TripAdvisor. I was trying to rationalize that in my head when I realized what the resort reminded me of. A cheap Virginia Beach or Myrtle Beach high-rise hotel crossed with something cheap in Las Vegas. I think the guests that enjoy this resort must be using this property in a similar fashion, not realizing that by spending a little more money, they could stay at a resort that their health and well-being wouldn’t be in danger. I’m very grateful to have not woken up with an upper-respiratory issue after sleeping in that room for the night. This place is EXACTLY why I tour resorts, I want to see the place first hand before I send a guest to a place that “has great reviews and is budget-friendly”. I can guarantee if I sent someone to this resort, they would question my qualifications as a professional travel agent.

Long blog post short, Cancun was great! So much touring done but it was all worthwhile! Some great new resorts to dream about at night and think about for my family’s own vacations… always happy to help with yours too. https://www.GototheMouse.com/AndBeyond

Until next time!

Amber