Hotel Xcaret Mexico

Terrible service, phones were never answered. Lacking room and property service. I believe it’s due to the expansion.

My family and I (2 adults, and 2 young kids ranging from 5-10 years old over the scope of our trips to Xcaret) have now stayed at Hotel Xcaret 4 separate trips in a total of 7 rooms ranging from Junior Suites to Presidential Suites. We are writing this comprehensive review based on our previous experiences updated with the now mostly complete roll-out of the Mexico II section as we observed with our late December 2025 trip. We have stayed at other premium resorts in the area and in our opinion Hotel Xcaret has provided (and still does provide) a top rated resort experience, but there are some caveats we would like to share. The decor and layout of Hotel Xcaret is truly unique and stands above other premium Cancun/Riviera Maya resorts in our opinion and experience. While the ocean view and access is not ideal (like most Riviera Maya resorts in the Sargassum era), the amazing rivers and caves offer lagoon type beaches that are visually interesting and incredibly practical for children and adults alike. These areas are also spread out, providing many appealing places to spend the day with no towel game shenanigans like in most other resorts. There is an amazing cave river that snakes through the resort grounds with numerous sand beaches and stone step access points and you can kayak or swim/float through most of it. Personally, I enjoy snorkeling in this river because there are many large fish. There is very cool natural stone-based architecture on most of the resort buildings with some very nice wood accents replacing the stone in the new Casa Eclipse and Casa Vida areas. This is truly a special place to spend your vacation and we enjoy encountering new surprises each visit. The food at Hotel Xcaret has been and is still a highlight. We love Mexican food and there are so many different types of high-quality Mexican cuisine offered at the many different dining venues. The new expansion provides numerous additional options in this regard - we only had a chance to try Costero and it offered interesting and diverse Mexican seafood options that even my picky young sons enjoyed. Compared to other premium resorts in the area, we really appreciate the flexibility of Hotel Xcaret since there are numerous a la carte restaurants and the two large buffets restaurants that do not require reservations. We had one stay at Grand Velas and an annoyance for us there was that you must make a reservation at a specific time for a specific restaurant for dinner each night and there was only one Mexican option. We live in a major city and can get much better Asian/French/Italian/etc food at home, so we prefer diverse regional options. There are some options if you do not like Mexican food, but while they are excellent in our experience, they are more limited than other similar resorts. Room service can have a long wait at peak times, but has a solid range of options. There are bars spread throughout the resort, and drink options are high quality without an extra charge required. For lodging, even the lowest room category (Garden Suite) is spacious and has elegant touches. If your means allow, I would recommend an upgrade to at least the junior suite level because this room category includes the excellent private concierge service along with a private airport transfer that will allow you to check in much faster. You also receive VIP restaurant status which may save you a few minutes if you go to eat at a busy time. All rooms have high quality bedding and most include a fold out couch that is very comfortable for 2. The climate control and other room functions work very well, but we have had occasional minor maintenance issues in some of our rooms in the original resort section, such as slightly clogged shower drains or low shower pressure. These types of issues are typically addressed promptly. The resort design is so interesting that even the rooms with the worst views will still have pleasant aspects. The higher the room category, the better view and privacy you will typically have, although this is less the case in the new section as I will detail below. The rooms all have large modern TVs and great portable bluetooth speakers. The noise insulation seems to be very good in my experience. Fun regional snacks and solid mini-bar options are included and re-stocked as needed. The massive expansion of “Mexico II” has brought some very nice new features, but with some notable trade-offs. There are very cool new kid-friendly areas with the waterslides, arcade bar, and kid play areas. The family-friendly (but still mostly serene) rooftop pools are also very nice areas to hang out. In our most recent visit, these rooftop pool areas took the place of the river beaches as change-of-pace hang out areas. These pools have attentive service and great food and drink options. The downside is that some of the overall services seem to have been slightly reduced - there were fewer stations at the buffet restaurants or more “Multi-purpose” stations - an example being the full spit-style al pastor taco stands not always being available or being combined with all other types of tacos. There also seemed to be less impromptu cultural/holiday performances this visit versus previous visits - perhaps there were as many (or more), but they were spread around the resort and hard to find. It was hard to contact services through mechanisms besides our private concierge (who were amazing), and it was sometimes hard to get enough water. We probably would not have had enough water if not for the tremendous efforts of our concierges. Advanced bookings for restaurants and activities were more challenging in this visit than our previous visits. We did not get our specifically requested times for any activities or restaurants despite reaching out to the hotel 4 weeks before our visit, although in most cases the alternates were acceptable. Finally, in our opinion, the biggest downside to the new expansion is that the resort room categories seem to have diminished in quality due to fitting in so many new rooms. In particular, the junior suites are not as appealing as in “Mexico I” due to greatly reduced quality of views and reduced privacy. This is a shame, because this has been our baseline category, and while the junior suite room itself has the same great footprint, the privacy dice roll means that we will not likely choose this category when we visit in the future. The same was not true of one of the new resort area presidential suites which managed to feel very private although it was in Casa Vida in the middle of all of the action near the water slides. The service has always been excellent in our experience (again, we have always had private concierge service due to our room category). Jimena Rodriguez and Edgar Perez were our most recent concierges and they were outstanding, quickly and thoroughly responding to many minor and a few major items. Their manager Carime worked with us on one particular issue and came to a meeting very well prepared so our precious vacation time was not wasted. We have previously had Katya Silva, Alejandro Bueno and Andres M in December 2024 and they were excellent overall and helped with a beautiful in-room Christmas setup for our children. In February 2024 we had Carolina Gonzalez and Adriana Garrido and they were also incredible, finding us a reservation for the Sunday brunch without us asking and even coordinating an impromptu Pizza making class for our group. Any review for Hotel Xcaret would be remiss if it did not include the major value driver of access to the Xcaret park and activity network. This resort truly has grown with our family as we are able to try new parks/activities as our children are ready. This has helped provide us with fun new experiences and is a major factor in our continued visits to the resort. I won’t go into detail as the parks are covered adequately by others, but it is worth mentioning specifically that guides for activities are universally great. All in all, we love this resort and are already planning our return visit next year.

Loved the service! Alexander at Chi restaurant is awesome! He is an incredible waiter! Ask for him! 😁 The food was excellent and the drinks were too! The parks and resort are exceptional!

The grounds on this place are spectacular. The staff not so much. Policy rules over all and accommodating is non existent

We had been excited to visit XCaret for years, and it absolutely met and exceeded our expectations. The food, the design (of the rooms and the whole hotel), the pools and beaches and coves, and the spa are all terrific. But it was the service that was just next level; from our incredibly attentive butler team - Juan Pablo, Alejandro, and Brandon - to every single server, bartender and attendant who helped us during our 7 days, there was a genuine warmth, charm, and pleasure to assist from everyone. XCaret for all its luxury and ease does not feel like a ‘corporate’ hotel - it was designed by architects, not property developers, and it really *really* feels different as a result. We had a terrific time with two kids (6 and 3 yrs old) going to Xel-Ha, Xenses, and XCaret parks, which are all special and authentically different from each other, and there were some moments (the tortugas!, the bike zip-line!, the cemetery!) which felt less like an amusement park and more like an honest vacation adventure. We plan to make our trips here a family tradition, and look forward to being back as soon as possible.