Beach Palace Cancun — Hotel in Cancún

We’ve stayed at multiple Palace resorts over the last 10 years and have always had a great time. We’ve been to Moon Palace at least 5 times, Playacar Palace once, and Le Blanc Cancun once. 1st time at Beach Palace.

Pros: The views from the honeymoon suite were amazing! Probably a good resort for families, as it’s small and easy to navigate (NOT good for couples) The superbowl party was great. Service and food both really good. Roman at the sports bar was awesome!

Cons/Issues: Checking in, there were many small things missing from the room (welcome wine, espresso cups, potato chips, etc.) They wouldn’t let us change the alcohol in our room (never once been an issue before) The resort was SEVERELY understaffed. Only 1 of the rooftop pools was open, and the 1 that was open never had anyone actually working the pool side. No servers upstairs either. If you were on the roof and you wanted a drink, you had to go wait in line at the bar (where I only ever saw a max of 2 people working, but usually just 1). Almost anywhere we went, we very rarely saw more than a couple servers working. Vacation planners tried to trick us into a presentation. We asked if we could visit other resorts and they insisted they could get us free passes to Grand. Sat us down, then threw in $300 “as a gift.” We went back down a little later and asked them, they confirmed it was a presentation and we canceled it. The elevators and waiting space around are tiny. We often had to walk sideways just to navigate through the groups of people waiting. Little to no shade around pools. Often, umbrellas couldn’t even be up because of the wind (one time we put ours up and someone came and shut it without a word). I left a decent tip on my husband’s birthday asking the maid to do something nice for him, and they took the tip and the note but didn’t do anything (or even clean it all the way) Multiple days in a row the room either wasn’t cleaned (despite leaving the green light on) or only half cleaned (didn’t replace towels, remove dirty dishes, etc.) We had to request the room be cleaned almost every day. Food overall was just not very good. Momo was good, Gondola was pretty good, but the rest wasn’t. The steakhouse was a big letdown especially. They closed the doors at Tavola one night 10 minutes after opening with only like 5 tables sat because “they didn’t have enough staff” but started seating people again a few minutes later. Likely a misunderstanding, but frustrating to be turned away from an empty restaurant. Pools and surrounding areas were DIRTY, especially the skybar pools. The water was filmy and, to our horror, we actually found poop floating in the pool on day 2. Didn’t go back to the upstairs pool after that. There was very little entertainment. There was a fire show one night and I think a couple singers throughout the week, but there is so little to do at this resort. When checking out at Palace, there are people near the doors to upsell you. The person who stopped us wouldn’t leave us alone. We told him the week sucked and he agreed that it’s not a good resort. He said they are well aware that the resort is in need of a renovation and that instead they are putting the money towards building a different one. When we said we had been to many other resorts, including Le Blanc, he made it seem as though we should have known Beach was a far inferior resort. I told him I wish we had known before we came here and that the service was severely lacking due to being understaffed. We had to tell him no another 3 or so times before he let us leave.

All in all, just not a good experience. I feel jipped that I spent so much PTO and money (over $5k just for the resort, not including flights or anything else) to have such a bad time. Crowded and service was lacking. Thank god we could spend our days at other resorts, so we spent the last 5 full days taking cabs (and spending additional money to do so) just so we could enjoy our time in Mexico. We seriously considered just eating the cost and going home early, it...

So the best part of Beach Palace is the beach. It's breathtakingly beautiful. We went and didn't see a single bit of seaweed, as we normally do when visiting Cancun. Don't know if it was the location, or the timing in January. The water was stunning, that amazing turquoise blue and the sand was soft and filled with tiny shells. Probably a good forty feet of sand until the beach, a great expanse to lay on sun chairs and some cabanas for "elite" members. The water was so warm, even on windy days, in some cases warmer than the actual pools in the morning. The main issue with facility is that it's old. You can see the worn down orange arch over the main pool and it's really just sad looking at this point. I don't know what purpose it serves, but it felt like if that arch wasn't there, it would be less obvious that the place was aging. The main pool is right next to the solo waterslide, but not connected to that area. Also it's not connected to the swim-up bar. The hot tub is small, but served it's purpose on the half rainy day we had there. The towels were plentiful at times, but on occasion we ran into a towel shortage, which should be never be the case in a resort. There was only was place to get towels, but the pool area is so small, it wasn't a huge deal, might be better if they had two towel areas. The drink service near the pool was ok, lots of people walking around asking if you needed something. What was weird was that when I needed someone it felt like it took forever for someone to come by, but when I wasn't drinking, I got asked a million times if I needed something. There definitely was a language barrier at times with servers and bartenders. I found that using Google translate to speak in Spanish worked better than hand motions and English. Definitely helps to specify your brand of alcohol. Couldn't sense any watering down of alcohol, but definitely at being my own bartender for COVID times, these drinks were weak comparatively. But again, you could specifically request a double and be happily on your way. The food was not bad, the smokehouse by the pool had great Monterey tacos, ceviche, guac and chips. I tried the al pastor dishes but wasn't impressed by others recommendations. The onion rings were on point and the pizza was ok. The buffet was a fan favorite, because of the quick service and lack of waiting for your meals. Expect to wait twenty minutes or more for your food, and much longer if you have a large party, when seated at the restaurants. Our favorite was Tavola, especially the pizza, provolone appetizer, eggplant parmesan appetizer, and lasagne. The tiramisu was delicious and different. I can't say anything positive about any of the special drinks at all the restaurants, I think they were the most disappointing of all. The gondola had great lasagna as well, but the meat dishes were a disappointment. The worst experience I had was at the Asian restaurant Momo, which also changes to an Indian restaurant on two days out of the week. The worst part besides the specialty drinks was the wagyu upcharge. I got a wagyu steak dish, and they overcooked the hell out of it. What a waste of great meat. Pretty sure the wagyu was frozen when they cooked it, then they left it on a heated plate with just banana leaves under it, making it cook the entire time it was on the plate. I've had wagyu, and this wagyu sucked, it wasn't tender at all. Makes me feel scammed. The rooms were ok, but our room sucked because the shower was weak. We didn't find out it was weak until we used a shower in another room. The toilet was slow, but they addressed that great and fast, as well as replaced the TV with lines in it quicker than anything. The service was phenomenal in those regards. The spa massage was the best I ever had. Check out was simple and easy. Check in wasn't that bad, but be aware that if you pay for several rooms, like through trip advisor, they won't let someone else check in to their rooms unless you are there. We had a large party and they wouldn't let another couple who arrived on an earlier...

We were sold this through a Costco deal. Included some “credits” We could apply to excursions or around the hotel. At first glance, this seems like a good deal. But it’s a trick. A full trick. There’s added fees that make whatever you buy or excursion you get to be equal to or more expensive than if you paid out-of-pocket. We chose the Dolphin experience. Booked through the concierge three weeks in advance they canceled our time the day of. We had planned our entire day before and day after around being available for this excursion. It took some really incredibly strong will and forceful discussion from my end to get into the next time slot with a shuttle back in time for our dinner reservation. It was exhausting trying to understand how the credits still landed me with a $600 bill for this excursion. When I looked it up on the Dolphin experience website, it was actually cheaper if I had just gone through them instead of using my fake credits. Same with the Massage. You still pay $70. Same with the gift shop. I still had to pay $32 for a bag which I absolutely did not get and could get cheaper just on Amazon without my 250 credits applied.

When you walk into the hotel, they immediately bombard you with a sales pitch. After traveling all day. They wanna walk you through a very slow detailed sleazy sales pitch. It feels gross. I had to stop him and asked to go to our room. We had three very tired kids with us. A 5, 7 and 9-year-old. Arrived at 6:30 PM after being awake at 5:30 AM. Read the room. Sell me your sleazy stuff another time.

I was told prior to coming that we would have access to all of the Palace resorts. This is also a lie. You have access if you do the sales pitch. You have to do a two hour tour of one of their resorts to allow access to that resort. You can’t go no matter what unless you do this tour. They try to sell you a travel package. You were told you’ll have breakfast, but it’s the worst meal we had the entire time. However, I did like our sales guy which made it much more pleasant, and he was expedient as he could be.

Once you’re done with the two hour sales pitch, it is true, you get to explore that hotel for the rest of the day and it is a significantly better hotel.

At the beach Palace, The space at the pool is extremely limited and people hold the chairs as early as six to 7:30 AM. Past that and you can’t get one. Much less a few together for a family. Towards the middle of the day, they start to run out of towels.

There’s no shade down at the beach. They offer umbrellas that cannot be used because it’s windy. But it’s often windy. The resorts around us have more stable umbrellas that are locked in. Sturdier. This is something they should invest in. You just bake in the sun. One day, they wouldn’t even let us open the umbrella at the pool and there was absolutely no place to get shade anywhere outside. This seems like something a beach resort on a Windy Beach should be prepared for. Anchor down your umbrellas. Buy something sturdier.

You can’t book reservations to the extremely limited amount of restaurants until after you check in. But once you check in everything is booked out for the next two days. You have to book the third day at 7 AM before other people do to even have opportunity to be at a restaurant. If you somehow finagle this or push your way through the door, the food is spectacular. The service is spectacular. The restaurants shine at this resort. The buffet is very good, but meal after meal after meal it gets old. There is not enough restaurants. Also, if you get to the buffet a little bit late than whatever they have left is just what they have left. We got there at 9:30morning and they were out of so many things. Once again, the staff here was spectacular. Service and the food 10 out of 10.

The kids corner was incredibly kind. Pleasant. Easy. My kids loved the face painting. Balloon making. Origami. Bracelet making. Roblox.

The rooms were very comfy. Very convenient with a family suite. My kids loved the giant bath and took bubble...