Hotel Marina El Cid Spa & Beach Resort — Hotel in Puerto Morelos

Can't quite go with 5 stars, because that's a little too perfect and it's nice but not our thing, unless you have more money than common sense and like being in a really fancy prison. Unless you are a member you don't get WiFi service until you have agreed to sit through 90 minutes of trying to sell you a time share that is 2k USD a month and a down payment of around 48k USD. That is way more than most people play for a mortgage. And it's never 90 minutes, ours was 3 hours, and after saying no many times you have to walk back to your room, ours was on the ventus at Marina El cid,which for us was about 200 to 300yards, the length of a couple to 3 football fields. We missed our first Uber that we had set up to go into the beach town of Puerto Morales. Back to the WiFi, it's spotty and they act like they gave you some big prize, and you can't use a fire stick because the code for the WiFi is for just your phone, nothing else. Next day after the time share spill the hotel itself wants you to sit through a 60 minute video about just becoming a member without purchasing the time share, and to persuade you they offered us a few things, and we chose an excursion to the Mayan ruins of Tulum. Sounds great, but.... They say it included an hour of shopping, still sounds good, but.... They take you to a jewelry store, give you a number, assign a salesman to you, and he takes you around and shows you overpriced jewelry that there is no way to 100 percent verify that it is genuine, he tells you that you need it and everything is 50% off just today, you tell that the signs have been there a very long time, so that's a lie 🤥, and then they try and sell you t shirts that are $50 USD for 3 but they only have 2 designs, white, no color and the screen print that is nothing special, there are way better ones at little shops elsewhere, then when you finally get to tulum at around 1pm, the hottest part of the day, you walk about a mile to the ruins in the sun, with not hardly any shade, walk uphill and through about half of the ruins because the other half is blocked off for extensive repairs, then a mile back to the entrance, they said lunch would be included but no, you have to pay, if you immediately order because you aren't given enough time before the driver says it's time to go, he then went back to the jewelery store, 30 minutes away from the highway, picks up a friend that needs a ride back up to the resort, so basically you agree to get severely dehydrated and exhausted to nausea and fatigue, and the next morning they want to show you the 60 minute video, we were too sick to go but kept calling our room even though I told them we both had diarrhea every 20 minutes, still trying to guilt us into coming, holding our transportation back up to cancun to the ultramar for the next part of our vacation we had planned, we arranged our own transportation and got out of there as quick as we could. ALSO... The food was absolutely terrible 🤢 we had extremely delicious food in the town of Puerto Morales, beach part and La Colonial, definitely get out of the resort and try it, Uber is available and also taxi's that are very affordable. But after all that negative ranting, here's the positive, is it beautiful? YES, did we enjoy the experience overall? YES, the actual employees are wonderful, Bar tender Enique at the adults pool was awesome, he would make us anything we wanted and helped us with our mediocre Spanish, and Carlos, on the kids and adults pool area out from our room, we would come out to sit on the patio and he already had 2 beers waiting for us and brought us beers without having to ask, great guy, we will definitely miss him, these 2 employees made it a really great time aside from the other stuff. Lastly we did not pay for the stay so there's that, my wife "won" the week stay, technically they just wanted to get us there to sell us a time share but who would turn that down? We sort of knew what we were getting into and figured after we were done we would stay another week in Mexico, 3 days in Isla mujeres and 4...

I Wish I ⛔️ ⭐️ rating❗️Upon arriving at the hotel my spouse and I originally booked a Jr. Suite with Jungle view. We had never stayed at this resort nor had a clue as to its its location or what it appeared to look like. When we arrived it was dark and immediately upon check in Ricardo,”Asked, my husband would we like a room upgrade with a pool & ocean view at additional $200.00. But the room would not be available until the next day. So we would stay 1 night in our original booking and change rooms the next day. It being my husband birthday weekend. We agreed when we made it to the viewed room it was way smaller than the Jr. Suite we originally booked 🤦🏾‍♀️and immediately notified the front desk stating this isn’t a room upgrade this a downgrade with a view. The beach has brown water not swimable, I wouldn’t even put my feet in it. The front desk clerk pretended as if she couldn’t understand English and hung the phone up in my face. So I then went to the front desk to address the issues. I was told well you change back to your old room but I’m not sure if we can refund your money it being that it was paid cash. I’m like wow!!! So, as the trip proceeds we noticed the room TVs have very limited English on some of the channels so I asked if it was possible to change or add captions I was informed no….. I asked about internet access I was informed that I had to pay for internet $30 a day per device (3) and the internet was horrible it did not work. But as you can guess they still charge me. I booked an excursion that never arrived to the resort to pick us up and also never refunded us our money. The resort asked us to do a 90mins tour that turned into 3hours in return they were supposed to given us the $200.00 we lost on the room and the excursion that never happened because they got mad because we didn’t want to put down on a $9,000 resort during Christmas. While being on vacation every where we went someone wanted to sell you something and when you refused to buy they became hostel and proceeded aggressively with attitudes. I HATE THAT THE 🌎 REVOLVES AROUND SO MUCH RACISM BUT UNFORTUNATELY ITS TRUE ‼️‼️. THESE ARE THE ISSUES THAT WE AS PEOPLE FACE‼️‼️THIS RESORT IN FACT IS 1 THAT DOES NOT TAKE PRIDE IN CATERINF TO ALL OF ITS GUESS NO MATTER THEIR CULTURE, ETHICS, OR RACE‼️‼️MEANING IF YOU DONT LOOK LIKE THEM, SPEAK THEIR LANGUAGE, OR SPEND YOUR MONEY THE WAY THEY WANT YOU TO THIS ISNT THE RESORT FOE YOU‼️‼️ THE RESORT IS NOT WELCOMING TO PEOPLE OF COLOR I HATE TO PUT IT THIS BUT THIS IS HOW THEY MADESELF AND HUSBAND FEEL!!! I HAVE NEVER BEEN ON A TRIP OR ANY PLACE SPENDING MY MONEY & TIME TO FEEL SO MISTREATED AND READY TO GET BACK TO THE 🇺🇸. NOT EVERYONE AT THE RESORT MADE US FEEL THIS WAY WE HAD A GREAT HOUSE KEEPER SO WE TIPPED HER DAILY. Every restaurant served almost the same foods. So my husband and I stopped eating on property after like the 2nd or 3 day. We ended up renting a car from the property getaway rental car area, and oh boy that was an experience. The first day with the rental it was okay we stayed local we didn’t drive to far. We didn’t know the area we just wanted to get away from the resort. So, the second day we decided to drive to Tulum,Mexico and Cenotes just to sightsee and swim. But our rental car was like nope. It wouldn’t stay crunk while we were driving . We were in the jungle barely had phone service so I called the hotel and the rental car company to tell them hey the rental car keeps cutting off but no one answers the lines. The first 6 times I call no one answers. The 1 time someone does ans, the hotel receptionist says nothing and hang up In my face. I keep calling and and end up getting someone else, this person tells me When someone does answer the lines she states and tell me that someone will call me back in 20mins. 🤦🏾‍♀️🤦🏾‍♀️ No one ever called back‼️‼️ What a scary feeling to be so far away from 🏡 in a foreign country with poor phone service and not able to get anyone on to help you. Not to mention it’s after 4:00pm so soon it’ll be getting dark, and...

Marina El Cid offers pleasant grounds and a decent, if fairly large, layout, but our visit was marred by a specific ‘party-time’ vacation culture and unpleasant resort sales pressure (and then institutionalized contempt from declining all offers, paid upgrades, investments, and excursions).

The sales pressure in fact started even before we left Cancun airport, but then continued at our check-in desk (to upgrade our room at USD $100/night) as well as with the ‘concierge’ (to join their loyalty programs, to entertain their time-share investment, to buy various day-trips and excursions). Our luggage was held hostage until we heard their investment pitch.

From that point on for the rest of our vacation, we were second-class citizens at Marina El Cid. Dinner reservations became virtually impossible; Wi-Fi codes now cost USD $60 per device. Room housekeeping was spotty; the front desk would hang up on us mid-sentence.

In the end we made it work, but it was work to make it work.

The restaurants and food were excellent, if slightly inconsistent. Coffee was severely hit and miss; some undrinkable, but the chai lattes at Mercado rivaled anything we’ve had anywhere else in the world. Room service was 24-hour and one of the few services that our second-class status didn’t seem to impact.

The pools themselves were well-maintained, and both infinity pools (a huge draw, for us) were beautiful: we highly recommend the adults-only infinity pool on the Ventus side.

But the combined Marina El Cid – Ventus – Ventus Ha complex is large (by Cuban, Jamaican, and Dominican Republic standards) and large means loud. Perhaps this is Mexican vacation culture, but it was very difficult to find a beach/pool-oriented corner of the complex that wasn’t spoiled by throbbing dance music and/or elbow-to-elbow crowds of loud, personal-space-oblivious vacationers. There were three tiny spots for loungers outside of these cones of noise, and of course they were immediately ‘held’ by selfish resort guests and their synecdoche towels.

Marina El Cid, if you’re reading this: you need to revisit your efforts to suppress the ‘reserve lounger by towel’ practice and actually enforce the completely ignored signs you uselessly have up about it. It’s infuriating. Dozens and dozens of loungers are held by towels every morning, many of which are not retrieved until 4 – 5 hours later (by my timed observation). I learnt that many Platinum Club members are residents at your resort for 6+ months a year, and that apparently comes with severe entitlement: they believe themselves to be outside your explicit ‘guest’ policies.

And wow, it was busy in the week leading up to Christmas. There was a marked increase in population density during that time – and many were large parties of multi-generational families. There were lots of loud people everywhere and they brought their obnoxious behaviour with them. I watched little kids pour full margaritas into the pool. Table manners were appalling: people wearing grimy baseball hats even at the nicest, most formal restaurants there; eating with their mouths open, elbows and forearms on the table. But is that a problem only at Marina El Cid? Or in all Mexican all-inclusives? Or everywhere now, for that matter? I don’t know.

I do know that our dinner at Kobo, the Japanese teppanyaki restaurant was to be our nicest, most formal dinner, and it ended up being the noisiest experience we had there. The table behind us was full of very loud, very drunk guest who were screaming their appreciation for the cooking theatrics. Screaming. Several guests were wearing baseball caps and eating with their forearms on the counter. Luckily, the food itself was superb.

At the end, I suggest that in-depth research is critical before you book a holiday: if you’re looking for a vibrant, higher-energy, high-population party vacation scene and you have a budget for upgrades, and/or fortitude for time-share sales pitches, then Marina El Cid could be a great choice; if you don’t value those characteristics, you may want to keep...