Anastasia Goudogiannis
I had dinner at Marenostrum tonight and it was wonderful. It’s my 22nd trip to Barceló and celebrated my birthday. The food was delicious and the service excellent. Roman and Moises were my servers and they took extra care making me feel special and brought me a birthday cake and sang to me. They offered me sangria which I never thought to order. My food was delivered hot and in a timely manner. They checked on me multiple times asking how the food was and if I needed anything else. Excellent service!
Dave Nelson
Really nice place for a vacation. But there were frustrations. The pool chairs and cabana areas are taken very quickly somehow in the middle of the night. So you have to wake up early to get chairs. Like I would say 5:30am. If you get a covered area you’ll enjoy it much more. And many will already be taken. The pool areas are really cool. You get 3 dinner reservations that aren’t in the buffet and we booked ours the night we got there and they only had 1 available. It was good food at the seafood place. The buffet had some positives and negatives but we all have our likes and dislikes so I would say there’s something for everyone. The staff was mostly very kind and helpful. Strangely some of the staff walk around like watch dogs and think they have to police everyone but most are quite friendly and helpful. We found if a staff was unreasonable we just asked someone else and they were fine. Even though it’s all inclusive some staff just simply would say no on bottled waters, smoothies or other amenities. And like I said we’d just go somewhere else and ask a different person and they’d usually help you right away. There are quite a few things that we didn’t know about until the last day. So get out and explore and see what you actually get that’s included. The shops are actually pretty good and not awful prices. Rooms are decent. And ours was fairly clean. We did snorkel out on the beach and had good luck out by the rocks. One big negative is that you are way far from Cancun. So a taxi is pricey and there isn’t much else around. So if you have other plans I’d maybe strategically stay somewhere closer cause you’re in the boonies here. Over an hour from the airport. You’re closer to Tulum so if that’s one of your destinations this might be a good spot. One and done for me.
Elise Gabriele
I have never had a worse experience at a resort. In a nutshell, the food was terrible, the staff seemingly uninterested in accommodating guests, and most importantly, it was an unsafe environment. Read on for details.
We were traveling with a large group of high school seniors for their spring break trip. There were 11 parents and 18 kids. To start, one of the kids’ bags was stolen off the transport, and it contained his passport and wallet. Check in took over an hour, and the staff’s English was very poor, making every interaction difficult.
The resort is massive, which isn’t a bad thing, until you have to consistently walk back to the front desk because your key doesn’t work yet again.
I wasn’t expecting fabulous food at an all-inclusive, but I was expecting decent food, and I was expecting tortilla chips, salsa and guacamole - we were in Mexico after all - yet it was strangely unavailable. Even the margaritas were premixed. Dinner reservations were nearly impossible to get, despite not allowing guests to make reservations before arriving at the resort. And then the restaurants weren’t even full. It seems they want to push you to the buffet, which is obviously cheaper for them.
The resort does not offer beach or poolside cabanas, so guests must get down to save chairs before 8am each morning.
While worn, my room was very clean, and the housekeeping staff was friendly and responsive - the only staff members I found to be friendly. I had plenty of towels, and there was a large shower and a separate tub. Many in our group had trouble getting hot water; I thankfully did not have that issue.
The most important takeaway from this review though, is that it is not safe. Kids in our group were accosted by security on our last night there and told to get in a golf cart, which they thankfully refused to do. It became clear that night, and the next morning, that the hotel had set up our group for a shakedown - demanding hundreds of dollars in “damages” that they could not prove before they would let us check out.
I strongly recommend you consider another resort in the Cancun area and avoid Barcelo.
Susan
Kids club was nice. Gym was nice. My only complaint was that after paying $160 for the basic dolphin experience, they wanted to charge an additional $120 for the photos. I asked to take my phone with me and they said they would take care of it. 😞
Phillip
Carlos in housekeeping found a suitcase we left behind. We were already at the airport. Lupita at the desk was able to help us get it in an empty taxi and send it to me at the departure gate. I cannot express how grateful I am for such a trustworthy and dependable team. Thank you so much.