Barceló Maya Tropical - All Inclusive

When you pay $21 thousand Canadian dollars for 3 ocean front rooms, you expect what you paid for. Beautiful resort, good food, beautiful beach the water warmer water than the pools, BUT very expensive stores and they will not barter, they will not take cash, will only charge to your room or mc, ( for example roll of tums $7.00 USA $1.50 in town, key chains $15.00 USA) NO beach venders, no spa services on the beach and spa was very expensive, I asked why everything was so expensive and they said “your on a Barcelo.” We took the public transport out by the gates for 30 pasos ($1.75 USA) each to Playa del Carmen, the public transportation runs back and forth on that main road and they are about 10 minutes apart to take you and bring you back. To take a taxi from hotel was $70.00 USA.one way, If you take a taxi only take it one way cheaper in Playa for return and taxis are lined up for you. They will barter a price. ROOMS- we didn’t have the rooms we paid for, ocean front yes but not double beds as we wanted. 2 people landed up sleeping on the couch for 7 days in two of the rooms. Same with people beside us and below us when they talked to us. Couldn’t move us for two days and still wasn’t what we wanted so stayed where we were. You pay that much you expect what you paid for. Party of 6 and one room was in a different building. Requested to be together as we had a young child with his mother and didn’t want them alone so we all switched up so they were next to us and the two men went to the other building. OCEAN front room, screen door won’t shut, when the lights were on NO tv , lights off tv, PHONE didn’t work. Repair man come up and shook his head and left. No English. Basically 3 days to get electrical issues fixed after going to the front desk. Ordered room service and were told no room service to tropical. What? We are premier status. FOOD- they make all your reservations for you in the specialty restaurants before you get there. AGAIN booked our group at different restaurants.manager worked that all out so we were all booked at the same restaurant. NICE hotel but the staff are all confused about booking and pass you onto someone else just to get rid of the problems, so just get the manager he knows his stuff and will straighten things out. Premier lounge is where you book in and out and it is always full of people complaining. BARCELO you claim to be a top of the line facility, you need the staff to be more efficient, we are coming from a different country and we are depending on our travel agents and you to give us what we paid for not having to be stressed out when we get there with wrong rooms, wrong reservations, electrical issues in the rooms, plugged shower drains, doors un usable, sleeping on couches.

We had an amazing time at this resort. The service was amazing, the food was fabulous and the grounds were immaculate. I highly recommend staying here. We will definitely be returning!!!!!

Was a fabulous stay at a fabulous resort. We’ll definitely be back. We enjoyed every aspect of our stay.

Great pools and grounds, clean and well-maintained. À la cart restaurants great but lunch buffets not good. Room comfortable but some maintenance issues. Generally the public bathrooms here are terrible. Maintenance and smell deterred use. The chair situation is horrendous and would make me think twice for future reservation. The resort did cater to older children with multiple options for activities. We appreciated the options. The beach was amazing here in certain spots. Not enough staff at bars but drink quality good. Spa and massages were fabulous.

We've visited this resort 3 years in a row and it does not disappoint. excellent facilities and a wonderful vacation spot

We were a group of 16 and all of us loved the resort. Even though we were there at peak time the resort never felt crowded. There was always room in the pool and on the beach and space in the common areas. The rooms were large and comfortable. The buffet food was average but the al a carte restaurants were very good, especially the Italian restaurant. The biggest complaint from our group was the difficulty in getting lounge chairs by the pool or on the beach. Someone from our group would have to get up early to "reserve" chairs which you aren't supposed to do but if you don't you will be out of luck. Other than than it was a great vacation for everyone and we would definitely book this resort again.

Mid-level resort. Went with a family with two kids. Pools and beach were nice and service was typically very good. Restaurants were Ok at best. Santa Fe was really good but it is was difficult to get other reservations (or non-existent if not Premium level). We have had better dining experiences at other resorts. Buffets were Ok with food often cool and not a lot of fresh, crispy options. Room was clean and nice though the walls were thin and we could hear a lot of hallway / room above noise. Suggest a noise machine to reduce if bringing kids.

Do you really get what you pay for at this resort? I'm not convinced. If you are looking to spend several hundred dollars for average food, a small room, right on the beach where you can swim with sea turtles and walk up to self serve yourself to free, but bland food and drinks all day - this resort (and other like it) may be it for you. Despite being based in a country with significantly lower prices, everything is priced at a high US rate. We happened to travel on what turned out to be a very busy season, which unfortunately meant some (not all) of the allure of an all-inclusive went away. Out of 7 nights, we were able to be seated in a restaurant once, and no, 1 out of 7 in the 4 restaurants we were actually offered is not a good ratio - nor what was marketed to us. Sure there is food abound, yet self-serve buffet line food with a 30 people line to get the sole food that is cooked by a cook (not chef) is not an experience extraordinaire worth the price. Even the one bottle of wine we bought - to get out of the 1 red and 1 white house win - was upcharged over 300% compared to US fine dining. Ridiculous. The good parts: the beach is nice, although the lack of beach chairs is frustrating as people apparently get up at 4 am to throw their towel on the few chairs that are open. We did not opt for this, and then set on the beach instead, which was fine. There is also no drink service on the beach, which again is fine, yet not what you expect for the price paid. We were also told we could not be served at one beach bar, although there are no evident lines in the sand (or on signage) telling us we couldn't get a beer poured exactly there. It's more self-serve than service, frankly. Another positive is that the pools are very nice, our youngest enjoyed the slightly larger (free) water slide, and that snorkeling is more fun than you may think given the abundance of fish and even sea turtles in the water. The lack of local flavorful variety of foods was surprising and so was the lack of made to order options, be it foodwise, drinkwise, or juice wise. Would we go back? Probably not. Not because it's not good, but because the price to greatness ration is not there. If I'm paying these prices, I'd rather rent my own villa on the beach, and I'm confident I would still end up paying half the price for a family of five, if even. Extra bonus for the people working here genuinely seeming to be happy.

The 2km of beach and boardwalk are the highlights of this resort. The grounds and facilities are impeccable. The food and drinks are good.

Staff provide service within guidelines. Doesn't seem to try and help when asked (i.e. was denied use of a utensil even though it is right next to him/her simply because it's closing time). And, I gather, common resort problem of finding pool/beach chairs after 8am.