Alila Mayakoba — Hotel in Quintana Roo

I’ve just completed a 14 night stay at the Andaz Mayakoba and it has been one of the best hotel resort experiences to date. The hotel is split between a Lagoon section and a Beach section. You travel around by golf cart, bike or on foot. The golf carts are driven by a member of staff and are constantly heading around the resort or you can call one to your location. The beach had a lot of seaweed but the staff were doing their best to clean it all up, apparently it was a big thing this yearand took a lot of effort to clear up. We had a lagoon suite which was just perfect for my family, my parents taking the large bedroom, while I slept in the living room, it had a desk and the larger balcony had a plunge pool. Housekeeping came frequently, to clean the room, stock the minibar and offer a turn down service at night-time.

Covid tests were available on site everyday for both Antigen and PCR tests and we received the result the same day via email.

There are five food options in the resort, in terms of prices, Casa Amate and Sotavento are the more expensive options, while Cocina Milagro and Tinta del Pulpo are the more reasonable. We didn’t try VB. The Casa Amate is the flagship restaurant serving very good local dishes, we went there for our first meal and also for the Sunday Brunch which is a wonderful event. They also have a happy hour between 5 and 6. Cocina Milagro is the other restaurant at the lagoon, serving a good buffet breakfast with a couple of rotating dishes, quesadillas and tamales, and the regular buffet favourites. They change menus for lunch and dinner, and if you get to try the current Asian menu, they’ve worked hard and produced some fantastic dishes.

Tinta del Pulpo is on the beach side, serving up breakfast, lunch and dinner, the burgers and fish sandwich offered at lunch are good, but go for their tacos and tostadas, those are to die for, honestly the best fish taco I’d had in a long time.

Sotavento is the seafood grill on the beach. The food is wonderful, fresh seafood cooked on a wood fire, what more can you ask for?

On to activities, I took advantage of the gym which was well equipped. The lagoon pool was nearly always quiet, lots of shade available, drinks and food are brought to you from the Cocina Milagro. We looked at the spa but we didn’t take advantage of it.

Down on the beach there is a pool area and a beach area. You’ve got access to Tinta del Pulpo and VB for drinks and food there. The sun loungers are first come first served and it’s the busier area. My dad had a couple of tennis sessions at the courts, it’s a short cart ride. A free nature walk can take you all the way through the resorts to all the hotels and the golf course clubhouse. Along the way, you can do a tour of a Cenote, and visit the Pueblito, a little town in the resort that has food options, a souvenir shop and a church.

One thing to point out are the boat tours and they’re such a great outing, being a free service that you can go on multiple times, we went once as a basic lagoon tour, and once with food for a lunch service. The boat can also be booked to transfer you between hotels or down to the beach.

Hurricane Grace visited us at the Andaz. The staff made sure we knew what was going on and kept us updated, very professional.

I have a lot of people I’d like to mention by name.

We met Omar, Chef de Cuisine early on in our stay and he and my mother discussed the new Asian menu in detail. Grace and Cielo were always there to greet us at Cocina Milagro, and Nairobi made us some excellent dishes. Rebecca and Francisco were always helpful.

Sergio took us on some wonderful boat tours around the lagoon, very knowledgeable about the estate.

Adnan, Eduardo, Miguel and Ishmael were some of our servers while there, always helpful, always joking with us and happy to help.

Alex Flores was the man with the bags, fast, very good at Tetris and with a happy attitude.

To the others whose names I’ve forgotten, I’m so sorry! I didn’t...

This place was absolutely fantastic! A couple key points below.

Kids: If you have kids, you're in luck with the Kids Club (Kimbo). There was no fee to drop off kids at almost any time of the day and there were plenty of child-centric activites. No reservations needed, either. Some activities had an extra fee for the supplies involved, like candy tasting and the pixel art (for using the beads and for gluing it to a hat). All of the staff there were so incredibly nice, spoke English very well and our kids had such a great time, they kept asking to go back.

The Water: The two pools were both a lot of fun. We stayed next to the beach side of the resort, and the pool there was a little more geared toward kids and was quite large, never crowded at all. The beach is a 10 second walk from that pool, so even if you get tired of the very salty seawater, you can get into the pool. Be warned the pool is very warm due to the sun, so getting in the pool earlier in the day is sometimes nicer. On the beach they clean up the algae that washes up every day (sometimes it seemed like multiple times a day). The sand is smooth, and there are plenty of chairs with umbrellas and helpful staff to help move the umbrellas to provide plenty of shade. The staff have menus for food, drinks, and it's delivered fairly quickly. One of the highlights for me were the tacos and the seafood mixture in a cocktail type sauce.

All of the staff was amazing, and I have to commend Paco for his excellence service and always anticipating our needs around the pool and beach areas.

Nature Trail: This was an area that leads from the front of the lobby and winds through parts of the rest of the other properties (like the Rosewood, Banyan Tree, etc.). It's a concrete path that some people walk, bike, or run. I did a run, and even though I'm in pretty good shape, this one took a lot out of me. Considering the heat and humidity I was sweating even before I started running, so be aware. You'll go by all kinds of plants, the cenote (be sure to explore, there is normally someone always there to give brief tours), pass by the beautiful golf course, and more.

The Food: Great, great food. The breakfast buffet at the Milagro was really good. They had a pastry area (including some gluten free muffins or cookies), a vegan area, egg making station where a cook would make any kinds of eggs you wanted, all kinds of precooked meats like bacon, chicken, sausages, chilaquiles, and more, oatmeal, cereals, yogurts, and on and on. Even the salsa they had that I put on the scrambled eggs was very tasty. And most important, they had good coffee and espresso type drinks. Casa Amate was also an extraordinary experience for food. The seafood and other starter dishes were really quite spectacular as well as unique. There was a gluten free dessert dish that was like a flan, with coconut milk ice cream that was delicious.

The Pricing: Some of the pricing for the drinks and food may seem on the higher side ($15-$20 for a cocktail to be delivered beachside or poolside), but from SF Bay Area pricing, it seemed about the same for what we would normally pay to eat out. The bottled water in the room and at the restaurants within the Andaz was not charged for, which set my mind at east considering how much water we needed to drink to stay hydrated.

Getting Around: The property itself is huge. You can easily catch a golf cart that the staff drive around all during the day, and from what they say, the night. I don't think we waited for than 5 minutes at any single point. Or, there are plenty of bikes and you can bike to any of the other areas. It was fun to bike with our kids and see some of the animals and enjoy the beautiful scenery.

I definitely recommend checking out the Andaz for a relaxing, fun getaway, with or...

Let me start by saying that this shouldn’t be considered a 5 star hotel, but overall we had a good time. We were debating between here and another known hotel chain in Cancun and ultimately decided this one thinking it would be more “luxurious.” Lol, it wasn’t. I’ll give you the perspective from a family of 4 with 2 small children, 5 and 1.5 years. As non-parents, we had traveled to the Cancun area (Tulum, Playa del Carmen, Isla Mujeres, inland ruins….lots of places) several times and rented a car and went many places on our own. This time we opted for “easy.”

There were several families there with small children. We got there late and check-in was average; absolutely nothing felt special. We got there with happy shuttle because it was half of the advertised price as Mayakoba and just as easy (all the shuttles/SUVs wait and pick you up from the same spot at the airport).

The beds and pillows were great. No bathtub if your kid is scared of showers (they do have a handheld showerhead which was fine for our 5yo but the little one cried the whole time) and hard concrete floors (super slippery when wet!) with several eye level ledges capable of having a baby run into (ours did twice). Not enough pegs to hang towels for more than 2 people which is a pet peeve of mine in beachy resorts.

We opted to stay within walking distance to the beach which was a fantastic decision with little kids (otherwise you have to wait on a golf cart or ride bikes and rent a trailer). Very easy to go and pick up forgotten items. Comfy loungers! The food at the beach was terrible, though (think Walmart frozen food) but service was nice. The beach was certainly calm enough for our toddler. They were constantly hand raking the beach for seaweed (there wasn’t too much) but I guess the world loves plastic and there were definitely a few plastic bags in the ocean. The beach area has 2 artificial barriers to prevent big waves…which was nice in terms of young kids, but we didn’t see any fish either (weird, right?!). Which brings me to my next observation; Mayakoba seems to be a very artificial area, they want to give you this “experience,” but it’s really just a sheltered resort that has nice weather with some “Mexican” accents. And it’s one thing when it’s a tourist area, and another when it’s “just tourists.” Maybe that’s your thing, but I found it a little creepy and dull.

The prices for food were ridiculous ($38 for breakfast buffett that didn’t offer anything fresh and tasty, except OJ and pastries). The service also fell severely short at breakfast, too. The first time there we had to ask how it worked. Often times it was very reactive, we were getting our own water and oj, high chairs, etc. and then someone would help us. Also, be warned, they start taking stuff away at 10:30 even though it’s advertised 7-11. If there was an egg station at the buffett, it wasn’t obvious. I would up ordering an omelette one morning from the menu which was about $12usd, also gross, nothing was melted, and I still was charged a full buffett price. I didn’t bother complaining because I was just ready to leave and enjoy my vacation. Even if I had “free” breakfast, I would think it was meh.

We did enjoy Cello over at Banyan Tree and it was nice to not have “Mexican” for once. We also enjoyed the fish tacos at Tinta de Pulpo but all the tables are tall so no high chairs which makes it uncomfortable if you have kids or ADA (we sat outside at a picnic table). Vegan Bar has 1 TV to watch any games, but it’s awkwardly placed and you only have vegan options if you’re hungry.

The kids loved riding the golf carts around. The pool was shallow in many places. We did not try Kimbo club because...