Hotel Xcaret Mexico

The service is APPALLING. Everyone is clueless and no one wants to help or go out of their way in the slightest. The hotel is beyond overcrowded and they can’t accommodate the number of guests. Everything is a LONG wait or an impossibility- the shuttle, the check-in process, reservations, the food lines, excursions, and so on… Get ready to wake up at 6am to fight for a chair by the pool and to stand in line for 30 minutes to get seated at the breakfast buffet. We’re in a suite with a butler but not sure what their responsibilities are as they haven’t been able to assist us with much. Most of the employees barely speak English (including the person taking room service orders!) We arrived at 6pm and they made us wait on line 30 minutes to check in, an additional 40 minutes for our room and another 40 minutes for our luggage. By the time everything arrived it was already time for us to put the kids to bed and it’s honestly been downhill since then. I can’t believe we spent close to $2k/night to wake up at 6am and wait in 30 minute food lines. We tried booking a cenote tour and they told us they need to be booked 4 weeks in advance and the next availability was end of April (no one said anything about this when we booked). They mix up our order constantly and there is barely any water anywhere, including by the pool & beach. I walked into a restaurant and practically begged them for a cup of water for my kids- they told me the server by the pool could bring it. Meanwhile we were laying by the pool for 4+ hours and didn’t see a single server. BE WARNED AND STAY SOMEWHERE ELSE!

If this review saves just one family from spending their hard earned money and precious family time here then great. Unfortunately we didn’t and most definitely paid the price. Quite simply the hotel is too big and too greedy to be able to provide a service that correlates with the extreme prices they charge. Our running joke for all our stay is that we are sheep, tagged, and ushered into our various pens because that is honestly how it feels, to have paid £23000 ($30000) for 2 weeks for a family of 4 feels like we have been well and truly scammed. You are expected to book restaurants and activities 1 MONTH, yes that’s one MONTH in advance of arrival, and even if you do, you had low hope of actually getting your “requests”. I for one don’t see pre-paying for meals as a request. The information and organisation is from the start completely missing. Length of trips out aren’t disclosed until you get aboard the buses- we took a trip on catamaran which says 2 hours- turns out you are deposited on an insanely busy “island” which is just horrendous for 6 hours with no alternative way to get back unless at your expense. Our experience at one restaurant was that we were given our starters and mains all at the same time, so I was sitting with a bowl of soup, and a steak without any sides because the waiter said he had larger group he had to attend to, this was whilst he turned off lights around us and cleared the restaurant for closing. The patrons are not priority because we have effectively pre-paid our 5* meals and so are beholden to them. If I was given this kind of service in a restaurant I just would t pay. We contacted management to request they listen to our concerns and their response was to get us a table at a restaurant which were expected to be grateful for. We were put into a WhatsApp group for requests after this but again they just ignore all communication. This is a 3* hotel. This place is a scam. Yes we are still here so if the company would like to say get in contact with us. We await your response.

This was the most disappointing experience we have had at an All Inclusive (we have been to 10 across 4 countries). I called to request a wish list in Jan and was hung up on. I emailed and got one and sent it in 30 days in advance. Followed up two additional times. Finally got a response the Friday before our Monday departure stating that Xenses and XelHa were confirmed and that La Cuevas was booked the night I requested. I immediately emailed back asking if the 4 other restaurant reservations were confirmed. No response was received. Well we show up Monday to find out that we had no reservations. As soon as Miriam at concierge saw this, she immediately decided to escalate to a manager- umm OK? Maybe just check and make our reservations? After 30 min of waiting, and a day of traveling, we were just sitting in the lobby alone. I went back into the concierge and Miriam acted like she had no idea who I was. Well after 45 min a “manager” Elio showed up and said there was nothing they could do. Did not apologize or even attempt to try. We asked for info on where we could dine and he was USELESS. I was super upset at this point since I spent a lot of time planing and preparing and needed to know where we could eat. Just super rude and truly terrible customer service. We were then left on our own to try and find our room in this rat maze of a resort. Room was nice but beware- you will need to beg for drinkable water. Ordered room service that never came. Our phone was broken and it took 2 trips to them to fix it. Had to go back to the nightmare concierge team and spend a hour just asking to have water delivered. This resort has potential- great parks and beautiful setting but it is all for not when you are treated like garbage. They are in the customer service industry- shame on you Elio and Miriam- do better. Book elsewhere- I’m sure inmates get better customer service and respect that we did.

Prior to our trip we emailed several times to arrange dinner and activities. We have been to the adult resort before (Arte) and were aware that reservations fill up. Several emails over a month before our trip and not one was ever returned until two days before we were to leave…of course everything was now full and we were unable to get ANY of our food reservations. We also wanted to coordinate our rooms. We were traveling with 7 of us and needed two rooms that were near by. Needless to say they had us in completely different buildings across the property. It took almost an hour to try and get rooms somewhat close to each other at check in. Again, all of this could have been avoided had they responded to emails, we even make several attempts to call the resort and no one ever answered. So we ate at the same restaurant for a week… Then when we went to check out and received the bill, they had charged us $200 for a “no show fee” to one of their parks…except we DID go and all their photos that they try to sell you prove it. Yet, they actually made us show them photos from our phone and attach it to some email with another form, to “prove” to them that we actually did go. Needless to say, I’ve traveled all over the world and have NEVER been treated like this at a resort...especially one where you spend $20000 to take your family of 7. I’ll will never be back and I’ll be sure to let everyone know of our experiences at Xcaret, including our travel agent.

The reviews before this one really hit all the right points, so I will keep mine short and just point you to the things to read about further, below. The resort is wonderful in terms of its rooms, pools, and staff. The food is also fabulous, which is surprising for an all-inclusive. Yes, there are a few duds; but every sit-down restaurant was fabulous, and the big buffet at La Central was shockingly good too Just avoid the small buffet places. Maintenance was also good. We had two problems, and both were fixed within 10 minutes. The problems? The concierge system is awful, and yet the resort requires you to have advanced reservations for excursions and also the non-buffet restaurants. You need to start emailing and calling no later than 4 weeks before your trip, and expect to have to send 10-15 emails before they respond, if then. I called many times also, ultimately pretending I was a travel agent making a new booking (they answer that line) and getting transferred to the concierge, who finally helped. IF YOU DO NOT HAVE RESERVATIONS AHEAD OF TIME, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO DO ALMOST ANY OF THE EVENTS OR RESTAURANTS. The problems continue on property. We ordered room service three times, and never did the food arrive. Never. We arranged transportation with the concierge to ride to the airport, but when we got to the bus they had no record and were very nasty about it (especially Judith) until I was able to prove that they were wrong. We reserved tennis courts and when we showed up they again had no record of it. Check-in and check-out were both terribly slow. And at check-in they offered us two rooms that were 10+ minutes apart, even though we are one family; and our "2 queen beds" become "1 bed plus a terrible sleeping sofa". (They ultimately gave us two rooms nearby each other, but garden view when we had paid for river, and still with the terrible sleeper sofa instead of the beds.) And they run out of towels at the pools all the time, which is annoying, and they forget to reset things like water bottles and soap when they make up the rooms. Overall, we had a great time, but the above failings are disappointing for a hotel at this price point. One last thing, for MANAGEMENT: in addition to hiring someone to solve the above organizational problems, have someone check the installation of the toilets. In both of our rooms, the toilets were not installed correctly, which meant that the water would continue to flow after a flush unless you very intentionally pulled the lever up. That must be wasting a ton of money/water across the property, and it is easy to fix.