Dreams Riviera Cancun Resort & Spa

The resort was beautiful, and the food and drink were very good with the exception of the room service, which was cold every time. It was full at the time we were there, and it still did not seem overcrowded, even at the pool area. Some important notes: there are extremely persistent timeshare salesman in the lobby who will "just need 90 minutes of your time", however, this presentation will actually take ALL day; the front desk will nickel and dime you if you are not watching the bill; and the ATM in the lobby will give you only 50s and charges 25$ AND a fee to access any cash. For some reason, you need to keep paper copies of EVERYTHING, so don't throw anything away. Keep every receipt! Seemed everyone was trying to sell us or upcharge us something, even at this all-inclusive, which is super annoying when you are on vacation. This is a Hyatt property. We have stayed at other Dreams/Secrets resorts and other Hyatt properties. I feel that this does not represent the Hyatt name well.

The staff were extremely hospitable and the resort was very beautiful. The pools, rooms and service were all excellent. The nightly entertainment was well done and the concierge service is great. The restaurants are good with the exception of the buffet. The only reason I give this a 4 is because of the beach and the sargassum. They need more help maintaining the beach. The smell is not good and does take away from the ambiance.

The hotel exceeded our expectations. The staff was incredibly friendly, always saluting and offering assistance. The room was clean, and the breakfast was excellent. However, the food could be improved, especially for dinner. The seaside restaurant needs some work. Additionally, the pool activities could be enhanced. A live DJ or other entertainment options would be great, and perhaps larger water slides for older children would be a welcome addition.

Food was disappointing. Staff was not friendly. Front desk ended up assigning our room to someone else mid way through our trip, having the guest walk in on me and child. Front desk was notified and nothing was done other than new room keys being provided. Staff around the pool will serve the guests in the Bali beds 90% of the time. It was rare that they came up to us asking for a drink. Preferred is not worth it at all. Really really disappointed.

To preface this, we are a 40 year old couple from Ottawa and have a 5 year old. Before having a kid we travelled extensively and have been to a number of all inclusive resorts in the Caribbean including in Mexico, the DR, the Bahamas, St. Lucia, St. Martin, Panama, Curaçao, Aruba, Antigua, Honduras and Cuba. Everything from a 2* to 5*. We paid a hefty price for this resort and had high expectations as we were excited to visit Mexico again and have never spent this much to travel. The plunge pool option was what ultimately led us to pick this resort and pay a bit more for some extra luxury as we thought it was a great option for traveling our little one. We stayed in room 2139 for one night and then 2144 down the hall for the rest of the trip - the last room was 2 double beds, plunge pool room in building #2 - and I can say we’ve never been to a noisier hotel. For groups and events we only saw an event for a dance competition group and a white party for a group of teens graduating, they were from Texas. We did not experience any weddings that week. The shows and music at the pool is nothing like we’ve experienced and that is the noise problem. The music from the pool area is so loud you just can’t get away from it and it shockingly starts so early. The shows they have at the lobby each evening echo into the rooms, we could hear the entire thing, word for word as if we were right there. We think it’s the way the halls and buildings were made, it echos and just brings the sound into your room. We did bring a sound machine and had it cranked the entire time. Check in was easy, they did upsell us to the premium club. I don’t think it really got us anything special and wasn’t really worth it. They charged us $350USD but it seemed that that price changes and wasn’t like a set amount as we kept negotiating until she wouldn’t lower it anymore. We didn’t get any special treatment or anything having paid that extra. They did ask us twice during the week for our room number when we were seated in the premium beach section. But just those 2 mornings and they didn’t regularly check as people came and went. So we aren’t sure that is worth it. The beach chair situation is just the most frustrating thing about this resort. You do have to get up early to grab a spot on the beach but we also saw people paying the staff to save their chairs. For example, a very large group arrived from Texas on Sunday and paid Enrique $120USD to save them 3 hutts and some beach chairs on the beach in the premium section. I saw Enrique running to the beach with items such as books and children’s toys and putting them on the beach chairs to save them while I myself was down at the beach saving my own chairs at 6am. Later that day, there was a huge fight because some other hotel guests had in fact saved those chairs with their belongings in the morning but didn’t get down to the beach until 12:30. When they arrived, everyone started arguing and what the group from Texas didn’t realize is that this paid service they were arguing for wasn’t like a real thing and was simply the staff doing it on their own, and those staff took those chairs from the other guests to fulfill that already paid for non-service. We witnessed Enrique and Freddyin the premium section of the beach, place items on a bunch of chairs and when people come down later in the morning or afternoon and ask for a spot, they are given one of these spots. This was hard as we have a 5 year old and need shade for him so I had to make the 6am trek to get a chair each day. I also didn’t budget into my trip that I’d need so much extra money to pay each day for a staff member to do this for us. We tip well but didn’t consider this extra expense which is quite frankly ridiculous. One day we left for lunch and came back and our stuff was in a pile at the bar and our spot was taken. We assume it’s the same situation that happened as I noted above but the difference is we were there all morning 7-12 and left for lunch so definitely not a reasonable situation. We felt really icky that they moved our stuff and gave our spot to another person. Management should decide if this is a tourist game to play or not. This sort of half game depending on how much money you can pay is just crazy and nothing we’ve ever experienced. Plus, you can’t take people’s belongings and move them away and give the spot to someone else but yet still have people save their chairs in the early morning, it should be all or nothing. One morning there weren’t any tiki hutts left so we chose a spot with an umbrella. We sat there from 7:30am until noon. The staff came by at noon and closed our umbrella and said we weren’t allowed to have the umbrella open due to the wind. We had it open for 4.5 hours before this and it wasn’t an issue but out of nowhere it became an issue. So we had to leave the beach as there wasn’t shade for our little guy. It just seems like we were maybe the only non-paying guests so they didn’t treat us as kindly. The tipping culture here was also nothing we’ve experienced. The staff were kind but some of them were down right rude unless you tipped. One day my husband asked for 4 drinks from the lobby bar as we planned to stay in our room at our plunge pool all afternoon since our beach umbrella couldn’t be opened, the lobby bar bartender refused and said it was a 2 drink maximum. When challenged, he told my husband to speak with his manager and then all of a sudden couldn’t understand English when asked where said manager was. All week we couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was off with this resort but we finally did: this resort caters to families and kids but they don’t quite hit the mark. The buffet is closed 3 nights a week so unless you want the limited room service options you have to go to a sit down dinner. This is hard with young kids, you never know their mood and wouldn’t want to ruin someone else’s dinner. The noise is what will deter us from booking again. We specifically asked for building #2 based on a review we read but we definitely think this was a mistake as it was brutally loud all the time, day and night. The resort is very clean, well taken care of. However, we did see a limping raccoon and the birds will dive and eat any leftover food that’s around. The food was average as everyone else noted. It was odd that the breakfast buffet didn’t offer bacon or sausage every day, but I saw someone order some from the back kitchen on the days it wasn’t out so maybe it is available that way. The beach was full of seaweed, nothing the resort can fix but a factor if you love the ocean! It sticks to you while you are swimming and isn’t just on the beach in large piles, it’s very much all over in the water and on the ocean floor too. The mosquitos are super bad at night and if you leave your patio door open, you’ll be sure to have a ton in there waiting to pounce come nightfall! I woke up with my arms covered in bites so we learned our lesson to keep the door closed all the time. This isn’t a relaxing, easy going resort. We loved how small it is and that the restaurants didn’t need to be booked ahead of time but that’s about it, nothing special. There are so many resorts in Cancun that we think we’d have a better experience. Tip: be sure to download the Hyatt app. The buffet is closed 3 nights a week so you have to know what restaurants are open. It also lists the activities and you can see the room service menu there.