Visisted Nov 3-10. We booked through Auction-mart ( airtransat) from Vancouver. Airtransat service on the plane was well below BAD. At the resort check in we were told that we were very lucky in that we were given one of the best Villas and room. (4823) -OCEAN VIEW second villa from the beach - three flights of stairs and a hop across the sidewalk and we were in the theatre or the swim up bar, or the lobby or any of the 5 restaurants at the Akumal. We had requested to have our friends next to us and they were given room 4824 right next to us. We were there to celebrate my 60th birthday and having these rooms really made it a great holiday. Service and food in the buffets was excellent although we did not have time to try everything. Both waiters and bar servers were on the ball...often getting more drinks than we really needed.....fantastic... The service and strength of drinks in the bars was debatable although after 3 or 4 one did get a buzz. Tulum ruins on Sundays are free. Got there at 8:00 am, hardly any people, left at 10:30 and one could barely get through the crowds. Same with Xel-Ha -left at 1:30. Collectivos were great but the taxi would also offer cheaper rates if one ignored them at first and headed for the collectivo.
I had left my safe key out one day and even though our room was always made up well before 11:00 (Thanks to our maid Adriana) this day it was'nt. Could not find my key, but noticed a note on the safe that my key was at the reception. The maid saw the key, called security, they took and inventory of the safes contents, took the inventory and the key to the reception, and locked the room. Everything was there and handled very professionally. GREAT SECURITY. We left a daily tip for the maid and the fridge person. Great Service from both. When my wife wanted to give the maid $10 at the end, she refused and said the Big Hombre already gave her a $20 which she pulled our of her apron. This is a great resort with wonderful, honest and hard working staff. Note: Take a few car deoderizers and hang on the airconditioner and the fan and the musty smell of the subtropics will be gone. We also had a basket of fruit and a small bottle of tequilla in our room on arrival - a nice welcome.
Ate at the Dolce Vita for my birthday and the waiter put together a birthday cake from the tiramisu with a candle in the middle. It made my day
...I would also like to thank Mr. Gill and the Public Relations Personel for fullfilling our requests...Thanks --Muchos Gracias.

starasoff@telus.net

met some great people , although my perception of spain and spanairds has deteriorated .........they are a loud bunch of drama queens , that aside had a wonderful time .

spent two weeks...10 days would have been better, food does start to get repetitious. yes the grounds are clean , the staff friendly and you feel secure when walking at night.

carefull when it rains, saw many people slip and fall due to marble floors, beleive me you don't want to be calling a doctor down there $$$$$!

my wife came down with a very high fever the day before we were to leave, doc said it was dengue fever...so bring your bug spray!

did the coba ruins, an atv tour, and a reef snorkel ....enjoyed them all.

6600 block is where you want to stay......right on the beach, not many are!

good luck finding lobster, bacon, and dollar bills........all are locked in a vault somewhere on the grounds i'm sure lolol!

craig ,maija, richard, mike, chris, beth , george, bill& julia.......HOLA!

We were there Nov 11th to Nov 18th - my review is long but hope it helps

WEATHER
Great! November has short days so get up early and enjoy, it is really dark by 6pm. It was hot with some afternoon clouds, and we had a cool rain storm one night while we were at dinner.

A-LA-Carte - BOOK RIGHT AWAY!!
We were in Golden Club - 4 a la cartes - For some reason we (in booking) didn't have access to all the restaurants, found out later we could have booked through the Public Relations for all, but we went to ARLEQUIN - loved it, MIKADO- very cool presentation but the hostess was evil and rude and if you go try to be on time here, they are not but we were a little late 10 mins and she screamed at us (they had overbooked and tried to blame us) it kind of ruined the rest of my stay I yelled back NO worries....they "accomodated" us for the 9pm seating (which went in at 9:30) , GRAN TORTUGA - good had a t-bone nicely cooked, DOLCE VITA good too . I really wanted to try the Mediterreano and Chinese both were hight recommended.

NOTE: we met a couple who waited to book and they made them have dinner at the same restaurant 2 times. **ALTERNATE your a la cartes and buffet - the buffet gets repetitive - it is really good but the same.

ROOMS - 6922
Very few have oceanview and the akumal side is really rocky a small spot for wading but no swimming.
Ask for - king bed, top floor - it is the jungle so there are bugs and hmm critters.....like mini lizards, large cockroach looking things oh and we saw a crab!! hahaha
We were given - 2 robes, little bathtub samples, 2 beach towels, slippers, nothing really else sounds like TULUM diamond club was better...

NOTE: TAKE some kind of bug spray (for the room) and bug repellant,(for your self if you are taking some tours) our room had these little "GNAT" things especially if we had a coffee in the am they didn't do anything but you could see them scurrying around the bureau and they were in my make up bag eeewww, we requested "fumigation" in our room, i took a spanish - english dictionnary to make sure i knew some words .

INTERNET
If you can get on sometimes one only worked sometimes NONE.

BEACH
We are pool people there are a lot of pools, lots of space BUT people do reserve in spite of the NO RESERVING signs.
For the beach head over to Tulum and reserve a chair or two you will see where you can swim. AKUMAL has a small spot but swimming is so-so more like wading

NOTE: take water shoes best investment we could have made!

TOURS:
Tulum ruins - fun, nice beach, DON"T buy a package too expensive we went on the Tuesday - bus - $2 usd /person, 4.5 USDpp, thats it!
XEL_HA - buy the $59 from your tour operater and take the bus again - the package gets you snorkely gear, and access to most of the activities in this park. Really cool there I would recommend it!!

ME:
Not sure what it was, and probably a coincidence BUT I got sick ... as of Thursday am I was "indisposed" , I brought immodium it helps, but seemed interesting I was fine all along then the incident at the Japanese rest and the next day I am unwell.... I have to go the doctor on monday still not 100%. We have been to Mexico a lot and never had a problem.

Tips
I know my post seems negative but it should read AVERAGE versus -ve, I am glad we got a deal. This resort is big we liked that b/c it was busy, we like walking so it was good. We will return to Mayan but NOT here. I want to try the Iberostar, and maybe longer.
WE preferred the buffet at Tulum food seemed hotter and they had club sandwiches at lunch! yummy.
People love this place - I think it is OK

If you want more info (if possible hahaha) email me LindaRDH@gmail.com

Linda

My family and I returned from the Mayan Riviera last night. We stayed at the Royal Golden section of the Akumal part of this hotel.

Considering we went with teenagers, we had a pretty good time. The girls enjoyed the activies that were put on every day at the pool. The activies team did a great job!

We were in Villa 63, which was a two minute walk to the beach, the pool, and the ever open snack shop (where they had guacamole, and I was in Heaven!).

I found the all inclusive to be excellent, with the exception of tipping (i thought that would be included!). You weren't restricted to three meals a day, you could have as many meals as you wanted at the snack bar, and if you really wanted to you could go from hotel buffet to hotel buffet.

The property is huge, but they had little shuttle "buses" to take you around. We took the shuttle everywhere, which saved our feet from walking.

We went to the Mexican Fiesta on Thursday night. We found it informative and entertaining. Not sure if it was worth the $16US per person, but it was fun.

We only went on one excursion (the Coba Jungle/Mayan village tour), as we found lounging by the pool a great way to spend our time.

The weather was very very hot, low to mid 30's plus humidity. I had been watching the weather reports before we went, and it said rain, rain, rain. It rained the first night we were there, two evenings when we were having supper, and the second last full day of our trip. The rest of the time was hot. The humidity took a lot of getting used to.

The majority of the guests at the resort were from Canada. I did feel that some people were rather rude, in thinking that the people who work there should speak English. We were in a foriegn country. It wouldn't have hurt to put a bit of effort into the language.

Overall it was a great time, and if I am able to return to Mexico, I will definately stay at the Gran Bahia Principe Akumal.