HOTEL BARCELÓ MAYA TROPICAL

Our first family trip to Mexico was absolutely wonderful. The resort was clean, beautiful and had a great layout. The pool and beach were perfect. There was a nice variety of food options at the buffet restaurants and the a la cart restaurants were very good. The only downfall is the process for making dinner reservations. It was difficult to obtain reservations on any given night, yet it seemed the restaurants had many empty tables. It was also difficult to coordinate dinner reservations with another family we were traveling with. Other than the dining reservation difficulty, the service was outstanding at the restaurants, bars, beach and pool. The staff was extremely friendly and hard working. One particular staff member, Isai Belam from the buffet restaurant always went out of his way to provide us with everything we need. We will definitely be visiting Barcelo Maya Tropical in the future.

Excellent stay, we will return... Excellent choices of food at every buffet for morning, lunch and diner. Excellent restaurant. Nice entertainement. WiFi should be free also from the lobby (MayaMall too far...)

We came here on our honeymoon and fell in love without the place! They pampered us with oceanfront view, room service, and spa discounts. There is a lot to do and the Alle inclusice package is phenomenal. The food is incredible an de theory biffets have amazing food including all you can eat fresh sushi. We had some nights when service was slow, but if you ask for Alejandro's Perez Perez he is on top of it and by far the best waiter we have ever come across! The entertainment team is a blast. Some bartenders made drinks better than others i think the best one wasn't either Alex or Aaron at the tropical pool bar' At the snack bar by the pool David was awesome also. You really can't go wrong from morning to evening life.

As others have said, you get what you pay for. First, the place is huge. You will walk a lot. The restaurants are average at best. The buffet was so inconsistent. The meat at any of the buffet style restaurants was always warm to cold, NEVER hot. Ever "fresh" hash browns for breakfast were luke warm at best. The ala carte dinners were better but nothing special. Book them early or you will miss out. The best meal we had was at one of our excursions, Xel-Ha. (great time BTW) Service was okay. The place is so large they seemed under staffed. One waitress at the pool bar. Didn't even see her the first two days. A few times our third. The rooms are average. Ours had an AC unit that cycled every night. The drain in the tub was broken. So was the pull to turn off the shower. Not everything was bad or average. Like I said, the place is huge. You have several bars. A night club. A Casino and a sports bar. You can bowl there but its very expensive ($15 per person, per game) There is a mall and plenty of shops. The pools are huge with a Bar at each end (service is slow, understaffed). The beach area is nice but as others have pointed out it is rocky. Near the pier in the center there is a place to snorkel and feed large fish. Bring your own gear. DO NOT buy the snorkel gear in the surf shop. $105 for plastic goggles and snorkel. The shops up front sell gear for $30 and that can be bargained lower. Their is a Dolpinarium but we didn't go there. They had nightly shows in the two theatres. Some were better than others. They had only one waitress working each night for a full house. Once again, understaffed. All in all, we had a good time. The food alone will keep me from coming back. That and the lack of service. Last note, XCaret was not worth the money. Just a glorified aqua zoo. Most of the stuff worth seeing cost extra and the excursion itself was a bit pricey. Included one meal an one rink. Xel Ha was a great time. Rafting, cliff jumping, snorkeling, all you can eat and drink and $45 per person less.

GREAT RESORT! Family friendly, food was very good. A lot of options at the buffets. Breakfast was good. But the omelette station can take a really long time if u happen to get behind people who want an egg white only omelette, the poor omelette chef has to crack a billion eggs 1 by 1 Ughhh! They could prob use 1 more omelette chef. Drinks were just ok. Stick to margaritas and beer and you will be happy. Pools are huge, not over crowded. Some parts of the beach were rocky but the Caribe beach was very nice, no rocks and very calm. A lot of fish off the dock, fun to swim with. We unfortunately only made it to 1 of of our 2 A la carte dinners. We ate at the hibachi grill in the Tokyo restaurant and it was very very good. Tempura was amazing and the main dish was tasty. The others in our party ate at the sante fe steak house and said it was very good as well. The kids had a blast at the kiddie pool and enjoyed the night time entertainment as well. Reserve your dinners as soon as you check in and if you plan on doing water sports you should reserve that right away too! Go to the water sports station near the dock, It gets booked fast. If you happen to need to buy goggles or beach toys, floaties etc.... make sure you buy them at the mexican plaza or even your main lobby. The gift shop at the dock charges double for the same cheap stuff. And my goggles broke with in 5 min!!!The staff members are nice for the most part. Everyone is helpful but some could afford to put in a little more effort in the friendliness department. The rooms in the tropical veracruz section are dated for sure. Most of the other buildings look like they have been remodeled. Our room was basic, but clean and and had a heck of an A.C. We joked and called our room the igloo! It was a nice relief from the heat and humidity. Beds were a bit hard but I still slept like a baby. The couch bed was nice and soft and more comfy than the actual beds. If you plan on using the double decker bus to get to the other hotels or the maya mall, just make sure u take the bus that is actually heading in that particular direction. 2 busses run at the same time. We weren't paying attention and got on the wrong one and it took take an eternity to get just 2 hotels over since we had to go to every stop heading in the wrong direction untill it turned around and headed to where we needed to go. We could have walked it faster! Over all it was a nice experience. I would definitely return.