This was my second trip to Hotel Xcaret Mexico. I had previously stayed there in the Summer of 2024, before the expansion opened. On my previous trip, everything had been more or less perfect. The property was beautiful, the food was amazing, and the service was everything I expect from a five diamond resort. We got housekeeping, a minibar refill, and turn down service daily, including a daily gift of mexican candies in a little basket on the bed. The hotel even sent two separate gifts to our room to help us celebrate our anniversary- chocolate strawberries on our first night, and a cake on the night of our anniversary. |This year we arrived a week after the expansion that doubled the size of the resort from 900 rooms to 1,800 rooms opened, and based on our experience, I don't think that the resort was prepared in terms of having enough staff and that staff being trained for the customer service that guests expect when they're paying for a five diamond hotel. |The first issue we encountered was a leak in the roof of our bathroom. We attempted to call the front desk to let them know about it, but the phones kept giving us an error message. We went to the front desk to inform them of the leak (this was around 6 pm), and they told us that maintenance would visit while we were at dinner, and that if we needed to change rooms, we could do so that night. We also told them about the phone issue, and were told to dial 0. When we got back to the room, the leak was still going strong and it was starting to smell. I tried to call 0 for the front desk, and again, I couldn't get through. I went to the front desk, and was told that maintenance would go in the next morning to fix it. I put a trash can with a towel in it to dampen the sound under the leak, and we went to bed, very annoyed at this point that we were paying $1000 a night for a leaky room that was starting to smell bad. Thankfully, the next morning when we went out to the beach the leak was fixed. No message was left in the room, and when I went to the front desk to ensure everything was fixed I was told it was fine and no apology was given for the inconvenience and delay in resolving the issue. |The next issue we encountered had to do with the food. As I mentioned, we were at the resort last year and had a flawless experience with the food. This year, all three people in our party got some level of food-borne illness at some point during our stay. I know it was something from the resort or a park, because we only ate food from Xcaret properties for our entire stay, and we're not big drinkers (only had 1-2 drinks with dinner), so it wasn't like we had overdone it on the booze. Mine was really bad, with vomiting that took me out for an entire day of our trip. My wife was worried about me, and went to the front desk to find out about the medical services on-site, and it took the staff 15 minutes just to figure out how to call the doctor so that they could give us the location. Later that day we ran out of water and my 14 year old went to the front desk to ask for some. The front desk blew her off and told her to dial 0 from the room. Knowing that didn't work, my wife and daughter ended up having to grab a bunch of drinks from the cafe to bring back to the room. |Because I got sick, we had to cancel our tour to Tulum/Xel-Ha. We cancelled it with the concierge within the timeframe to cancel so we weren't charged a cancellation fee, but we had paid an extra fee for the environmental taxes. When I asked about receiving a refund of those fees, the concierge seemed unsure what to do and recommended I email the same department that I had used to make my activity reservations. I've sent two emails so far, and I'm still waiting for a response. |Finally, the day to day room service was severely lacking this time. There were 3 days that our room wasn't cleaned at all, we only received turndown service one of the eight days that we were there, and the minibar was only restocked twice. One day we left separate, labelled tips for housekeeping and the person who restocks the minbar, and housekeeping took both tips (no minibar service that day). Also, not that I expect extras for our anniversary, but I did put our anniversary on the reservation, and we never got anything in our room, nor in the restaurants.|All of those issues aside, this is a beautiful and unique resort. The food is amazing, we love the parks, and the rivers and caves of the resort are nothing short of breathtaking. |I find the original side of the resort to be much better than the expansion side. There is an attention to detail on the original side that isn't always there on the new side. We love Bio, the vegan restaurant in the caves near the beach for breakfast- their avocado toast and cacao bowl are awesome! The Mercado buffet is great all-around for meals. Don't miss their seafood night on Friday, complete with grilled lobster! There is also usually mexican candy out on the buffet that you can get in a small pick and mix bag. Chibali also has a candy station that has ice cream and cotton candy. For a la carte dinner, we like the sushi at Xin-Gao and literally the entire menu at Cantina Los Faroles. I highly recommend the guacamole with chapulines and the ribeye with chicitana ant butter at Cantino Los Faroles. Cantina Los Faroles also has an hourly light show set to music that can't be missed! |The new side of the resort is nice, but it is markedly less upscale and a lot of it feels more like a cruise ship than a five diamond hotel. La Xentral, the main buffet, is loud and so ridiculously packed, especially during breakfast hours before people head out on tours. Whenever we could, we opted to go to breakfast on the HXM side of the resort. Xinema is nice for a quick snack with its food carts, but there were many times when I was there and I had to wait in front of a cart for a few minutes for someone to come out of the back to serve the food. Also, you can't take all of the food in Xinema with you- just the churros and popcorn. Who ever heard of a taco cart that doesn't let you take take your tacos with you?!?!?! When I was sick, my wife and daughter had to sneak out some pizza to me in napkins! The a la carte restaurants were better than the buffets on the new side. La Silla was absolutely amazing, with highly attentive service and fabulous food- try the pork fideo if you get the chance. Tama-mon's teppanyaki experience was fun, though I found the meat to be a little underseasoned. We tried Costero's seafood buffet lunch, and it was very enjoyable. There was a create your own ceviche bar, where you could pick your ingredients and they would make a bowl of fresh ceviche for you. The shrimp taco bar was also really good!|I think the only place where the expansion outshines the original side of the resort is the water activities. The kayaking area on the new side goes through the river by the spa and has lots of little islands with hammocks and slides (not open yet during our visit). It's well shaded, unlike the beach kayak area on the original side, and it feels much more secluded. The pools are also much more interesting and unique in the expansion. There are of course the big slides near Casa Vida (not all open during our visit), but also some smaller slides near Casa Luna, a rooftop pool in Casa Vida where you have views of the entire resort, including Xcaret and Xplor, and a teens only pool in Casa Sol. My personal favorite pool was the cenote pool under Casa Sol. It has a swim-up bar, and behind the bar is an entrance to the river in which you could either walk down some steps or use a waterslide to get in- so beautiful. |They didn't tell us about this when we checked in, but behind Costero in the caves you can get a golf cart shuttle between the two sides of the resort. We took this almost daily. The drivers are really friendly and always gave us lots of interesting information about the resort and the wildlife that lives there. I always made sure to tip them for their awesome service- my feet were very thankful for the shuttle!|I can't review Hotel Xcaret Mexico without mentioning the parks. All of the parks are included when you stay here, and it's easily the biggest benefit of staying on the property. Transportation to the parks is pretty easy using either the buses from La Xentral or the trajineras near Chibali to Xcaret. We had one issue when going to Xplor Fuego with the transportation. We got on a bus at around 6 and didn't realize the drivers shift was ending. We were dropped off at Arte next door, along with some others that made the same mistake from other buses. About half a dozen buses went by, all of which were ending their shift for the day, before we finally found a bus that was still running. If you're going to Xplor Fuego, I would go late in the day at like 4, do a couple of things during the day, then just wait around from 5- 5:30 when they open for Fuego- it's a lot more efficient! Even better- start your day at Xenses, then go directly from Xenses to Xplor since the stop for Xplor is directly after Xenses. I also highly recommend doing Xenotes. It's a really fun trip with ziplining, snorkelling, rapelling, kayaking, and swimming in five different cenotes. If you do this one, I recommend getting to the meeting point early. We got there right at the meeting time, and ended up being put on the bus with a family of 17. It felt like most of the tour was catered to the big family since there were only three in our group. Our group didn't even get to sit together on the bus, so it was pretty awkward- it would definitely have been more enjoyable if we were in a group with many smaller families. Lesson learned- next time we'll be the first family at the pickup point!|Our second visit to Hotel Xcaret Mexico left us with mixed feelings. Despite being deeply disappointed in the service during this trip, and feeling that we didn't get the trip we paid for, I love this resort. I hope that the management can fix the issues and bring HXM back up to the Xcaret standard. I think on future trips we will definitely request the original side of the resort for its luxury resort feel over the crowded cruise ship vibe of the expansion. Better yet, we'll wait until our daughter is 16 for our next visit and stay at Hotel...
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