Hotel Xcaret Arte

We are at the airport now having spent the last five nights at XCaret Arte. We really enjoyed our trip and I thought I would share my mind numbing notes here while still fresh in my mind. Happy to answer any questions. Overall: I absolutely loved the visual beauty of the resort and our daughter said it was her fave all inclusive resort ever. I found it to be magical, like nothing I’ve seen anywhere else, including the five years we lived and traveled in Asia. We normally don’t ever go back to the same places, but this is one that I would definitely return to and probably stay on the Mexico side to experience something different, although I would choose to go while school is in session to try to limit the number of kids around 😁 I find it interesting that it really is up to you to do research in advance to make sure you get a full experience. If it weren’t for this group, I would not have known to do things such as to email the resort and ask for a wish list form and submit my request for park and dinner reservations 30 days in advance. And I would not have understood that we did not have access to restaurants or bars on the Mexico side, but the adults on the Mexico side had access to the restaurants and bars in Arte. That just seemed counterintuitive to me, but I went into the trip with a full understanding because of this group. Accommodations: We booked two rooms in the lowest room category available at the time of booking. When we checked in, they did not have two rooms near each other in that category, so they upgraded us at no charge to a spa room in the spa building which is Casa de la Paz. It included both a spa tub in our room and a beautiful stone spa tub on the balcony, neither of which we used, but the idea was great. It also included a free hydrotherapy session for each of us. We decided to take advantage of that one evening which is not something we normally would do, and we are so glad that we did it. The spa is stunningly gorgeous, and the guided hydrotherapy circuit was really fun to do and quite relaxing. Food: Dinner reservations were highly needed. Anyone without dinner reservations got frustrated as they ended up eating at the buffet most nights as drop ins generally were not able to be accommodated while we were there. We really enjoyed Arenal and thought it by far had the best ambience as the seating is outdoors under cover in the sand with a view of the ambiantly lit cave walls. The food was pretty good. We really enjoyed the food at Tah Xido Fusion. The sushi was surprisingly fresh and very good. I did not love the ambience of the restaurant. The fusion and Teppanyaki were all in one large room. It didn’t feel special. At first it seemed there were plenty of restaurants. However, we found ourselves eating at the two buffets for every breakfast and lunch that we were at the resort. There was no à la carte restaurant option for breakfast other than the vegan restaurant which did not interest my husband. And for lunch, we did not want to take the time to do an à la carte option. The two buffets Cayuco and Mercado were both good. Cayuco had an amazing seafood selection for lunch. Mercado had great ambiance, seemed very authentic and had a huge and varied selection at every meal. We ended up getting gelato there many nights. We ended up picking up salads and sandwiches at the lobby coffee shop on our way to some of the parks. They were quite good. You have to ask for salad dressing. There was also an automated expression coffee machine outside the coffee shop which was great for lattes and cappuccino’s without waiting in a queue. Our daughter chose this resort based on TikTok videos, and one of the things the videos had mentioned was the mini popsicle treats all over the resort. We only ever saw them at the entrance near the lobby. But they were quite good. She had also seen a chocolate room on the videos, but we later learned that that is at La Casa de Playa, which is a resort that is part of XCaret group, but is not accessible by guests of either Art or Mexico. Our young adults did love the late night taco stand outside the speakeasy. And we all ate there after Xoximilico with a number of friends we met on the boat! And as a side note, the Bio restaurant on the beach on the Mexico side really seemed to have great ambiance with outdoor seating in caves. We found the buffets in the parks themselves to be consistently sub par. Eat at the resort to the extent possible. Bars: Our family enjoyed the main pool bar and also enjoyed being able to get drinks at the rooftop pools. Our young adults enjoyed the hidden speakeasy. This was especially true our last night as there was a group of about 12 young adults around the same age at the speakeasy that one night. The other nights they did not see young adults out at either the speakeasy or the Cantina. The Cantina seemed to be jazz or Latin music every time they stopped by there. The speakeasy was the one with the club like DJ vibe. Pools: We did not find the pools to be too cool. It did seem odd to us that there were no food options at any pool except one rooftop pool, Diseno. There was a lot of early morning seat saving for the best pool side seats which we first found annoying but then joined in in order to get first choice seats like the beds right on the water. But there were plenty of seats open otherwise. Parks: Our first park was Xenses and we found the “town” fascinating and really enjoyed the circuit that followed with some unique fun experiences. We walked through the parks just dressed in bathing suits and water shoes. Xenses is ideal for a 1/2 day visit. We would definitely go back as was a unique experience. Our favorite park was Xplor Fuego. We did Xenses that morning and came back and hung by the pool for a while and then showered and headed to Xplor Fuego in the evening. Because we had been wet all day and had already showered for the evening, we decided to skip the water options at Xplor Fuego. We would definitely go back and do those on another visit. Even so with just the dry options (6 of the 7 zip lines, amphibious vehicles which we just drove slowly in the mud puddle part), we really had a great time and thought the ambience was really special and would definitely go back. Our young adults loved XelHa. Unfortunately, we did not go early in the morning due to the young adults having a late night the night before and we had the option of going later in the day because we had a rental car and it is only 30 minutes drive. We ended up only being in the park for a few hours. We walked the entire park, which is really quite a large area. We paid extra to do the zip bikes, which was a unique experience that we enjoyed. We did some cliff jumping and the river rafting from start to finish. We saw a lot of free activities we wish we had had time to do such as the zip lines into the water. I did not love the fact that so many of the activities were an additional cost. It felt “in your face”. We didn’t have a lot of time so we skipped those anyway and if we had more time, we still would have had plenty to do without the paid activities. My family really enjoyed Xoximilico. The dinner was not good, but the drinks and music and dancing plentiful and everyone on our boat was ready to have a good time. It was definitely a unique experience but as a non drinker was probably not something I would repeat. We ended up skipping Xenotes as I made a tactical error and booked it for the morning after Xoximilico which is a late night. I started to justify that we had been to other cenotes so wasn’t important that we missed but the more I read about that park, I really want to go back and experience it. In an ideal situation, I think a resort day in between each park would be best but not reality for everyone’s schedules. Activities at the resort: Every morning, we would get up early and walk for one hour primarily exploring the resort and to get in some “structured exercise” which is funny in retrospect since most days I ended up with 20,000 to 28,000 steps. I really felt like I knew every nook and cranny of the resort by the time we left after six days of walks but it is a bit mind-boggling how large and intricate the resort is. Towards the end of the week, we found a whole circuit of beautifully lit roads in underground caves that the resort seemed to use for moving goods via golf cart but also seemed to welcome our walking. It was like a whole other world down there and we didn’t get to explore all of it. We reached it by going down some random stairs by the river on the islands between the two resorts. We walked the fitness trail and bridges to islands and would end up on the Mexico side inadvertently, but no one stopped us since so we just walked around the Mexico side and enjoyed seeing it. We took bikes to Xenses. You pick up a form at the concierge by the 2nd check in lobby and they direct you down the hill from the buses to the parking area just past the guard. The bikes were plentiful and it was an easy ride to the park. One morning, we caught the sunrise at the top of the spiral pyramid. There is a chapel on top with water views everywhere which was really special. We also saw the sunrise from the rooftop pool at Musica and on the netting seating areas just past the right side of the main pool bar, overlooking the river and the ocean. We took out the paddle boards and kayaks a couple of times on the river by the beach which stretches across both resorts. We loved the beautiful scenery and were stunned at how large the fish were and how crystal clear the water was. You need a reservation for the kayaks and paddle boards which you do at the beach with the attendants but definitely need to get those booked as they do fill up and you need to show up a few minutes early prior to your reservation. If you are five minutes late, they told us they would give away to people that were waiting for no-shows. We also floated down the adjacent inner river a couple of times using the life jackets and went down one of the hidden slides which was really fun. They had warm water pouring over the slide which made it fast and comfy. We saw a couple of other hidden slides but they were not open. There were very large iguanas perched on many of the rock formations in the river. We saw green, orange and gray iguanas. And we also saw some type of capybara looking animal a few times. I found it interesting that the arts and crafts type experiences were never mentioned to us while we were at the resort and I only knew about them from this group and that those should be reserved upon arrival at the concierge desk. Had we had more time at the resort I might have like to try some of them, but I felt like we had so much to do and those were things I could do at home so we did not partake. We did enjoy the artwork and sculptures throughout the resort. Apps: We found both the “Hoteles XCaret” app for XCaret Arte and the “XCaret!” app for the parks to be very helpful. We found a lot of information on both that we we didn’t find elsewhere. We also were heavily reliant on the Hoteles XCaret app initially for walking directions although the Take Me There feature used a lot of iPhone battery. Definitely bring portable chargers! One thing we found a little confusing is that the map that they give you a check-in, assigns letters to the buildings but the buildings are numbered. It is important to be able to discern which building you are in as they all look somewhat similar and different buildings have different restaurants and bars/pools in that. But we soon realized that the 4 digit room numbers would tell us which building we were in. The first number is the casa or building number. The second number is the floor and the last two numbers were the room number. We were in 5522 so we were in Paz which is building 5 and we were on the 5th floor and our room number was 22. The buildings were: 5-Paz 4-Musica 3-Piramide 2-Artistas 1-Diserno The lobby was generally accessed from 5th floor of the casas and the main pool/beach/bridges to islands was generally accessed from 3rd or 2nd floor. The rooftop pools were verbally accessed from the 7th floor. Rental car: We rented a car from Avis and picked up at the airport in Tulum and returned it to the airport in Cancun. We had a beautiful Jeep Wrangler and we had a great experience with the rental and with driving to and from the resort and to and from the parks when we wanted to avoid the bus which was sometimes very cold with blowing aircon while we were still damp from water activities. The only park you cannot drive to is Xenotes as it is private property. We loved the flexibility the rental car gave us and the hotel had no problem with valeting it for us and retrieval was 10 minutes. Ok that was a lot! In summary, we would definitely go back to experience more!

Was perfect time in deceno swimming pool because of Uriel and Mariana! They were so kind and have best customer service mind. I really highly recommend you to meet these guys in this pool. One of my best memories in this hotel with them. Thank you so much Uriel! Hope meet you soon in South Korea😄 hahaha.

everything is perfect. We met great and friendly servers. Mercedes and Mariana, Uriel, Gabriel. they were so kind to be here

always the best place to enter never disaapoints, the friendliness, cleaniness, smells amazing, being greeted with a smile, food and drinks do not disappoint, lots of good food, miss my mezcalita de marqcuyao : ) Concierge Antonio (Tony) is awesome friendly, proffesional and helpful, Aurelia (server at Mercado) the most friendliest, attentive and professional. Brenda (butler Casa Artista) was amazing attentive, friendly and making sure we were ok. Joseluis Fierro is amazing person professinal, friendly and making sure his guest are all taken care of at the hotel to have the best experience, at first hand the best customer service hands down. Arte never disaapoints as you walk in and spend your vacation VIP music at 10:30pm was amazing Adrian, Anna and Carlos all super friendly they put on a amazing show each night. the reason I return every year, for the service and amazing experience.

I had very high hopes when we booked, and was overall disappointed in our stay. Let's start with the good: 1) The parks were fun with lots to do, especially for my adventurous young adult children. 2) The food was definitely of a higher quality than your average all-inclusive. 3) Drinks and bartenders were generally wonderful, with a few truly outstanding ones. 4) The wait staff, especially at the pools and restaurants, were great. 5) The resort is beautiful, with common space generally well-maintained. 6) The special buffets that were included, like Sunday Brunch and Christmas Eve, were outstanding. 7) The spa was amazing, but very expensive. So what was disappointing, especially for the price and its position as a 5-star resort: 1) Room quality was very uneven. My children had a great room; my husband and I had a more run-down room with peeling and bubbled paint in the shower, discolored furniture, things that came apart, and obviously old and discolored tiles, etc. 2) The service was also uneven--for example: Rhe cleaning staff never cleaned the tub (there was a dead bug in our room tub the whole time we stayed). The pool concierge was helpful when they could be found, but it was often hard to find them; also, the pool concierge held chairs for people not in attendance. The staff ignored monkey poop in the hall for almost 12 hours before cleaning it up. And more. 3) New Year's Eve was a disaster: there was nothing planned that was included, and few bars or locations were open past 11 p.m. You had to buy into a special dinner and event for ~$250 per person, which we did on the basis that it was limited to ticket holders, but by 11 p.m., they let anyone who wanted in. So, for nothing, those people got dessert and drinks and crowded the venue, making it feel claustrophobic. We could not get the wait staff's help or reach the bar. The champagne poured was a quarter of a glass while people came in with full glasses from the bar. The dinner served at the event was no better and largely the same as the included buffet from Christmas Eve and Sunday brunch; in other words, nothing special. We spent almost $ 1,000 and felt totally ripped off, since the only reason we did it was to have a place to go for the midnight New Year's toast. 4) Getting assistance, questions answered was very difficult throughout our stay. We got different answers to the same questions depending on whom we asked, creating a lot of confusion and affecting things like late check-outs and securing reservations for parks and dinners. The staff needs better training. 5) When our flight was cancelled, the staff were very unhelpful. 6) Only 1 rooftop pool served food. Even the main pool, which was next to a restaurant, did not serve food at the pool. In the meantime, we were not allowed to keep our pool chairs while we were at lunch. 7) Pool seating was a problem; there was not enough of it, nor enough with shade options. Midway through the trip, my husband started getting up early to get chairs by the pool, as we have done at family resorts. 8) While the parks were amazing, the resort was boring. There was no life at the resort -- no games or activities at the pool, nothing happening. You don't have to stay here to do the parks, so the resort should be offering some engagement too. 8) The property is poorly signed, making it hard to get around. 9) There is no daily event itinerary, and it is very hard to figure out what is available when and how to access it. Even the available information is often just wrong. For example, we were told one park (Xenses) needed reservations, only to find out it did not. 10) There are tons of extras to buy; one is pictures. But you can't purchase pictures by family only by room, which was very annoying, especially at Xenotes, where there was an actual photographer. On top of that, they make it difficult (impossible) to really see the pictures before purchasing, and you have to buy them by park. HINT: if you have more than one room, have someone in the room you are likely to buy the pictures for click in their wristband for every picture they can. 11) The bed was awful. Super soft and terrible on the back. If you choose this resort, make sure you plan ahead. Book reservations as early as you are allowed for dinners and activities. Things fill up, and it can be hard to get what you want.