Occidental at Xcaret Destination — Hotel in Quintana Roo

Not wheelchair friendly, and staff is either very helpful or highly miss informed different info from different people lead to us running around a lot. I am in a wheelchair from foot surgery and even though the resort itself is nice I wouldn't recommend this for guest in wheelchairs. #1 non of the pools have a wheelchair access seat so I have to crawl in and out of the pool which is gross because a lot of the shaded areas have mold and stink. #2 the snack bar bathrooms are not wheelchair accessible, the main lobby wheelchair bathroom is kept locked, the wheelchair bathroom closet to the pizza and tacos doesn't lock neither does the one by the hot tubs which is the closet usable to the snack bar for wheelchairs. Brought the locked bathroom to staff attention our first day....still locked, was told 2 days later it was broken after this review. The power in some of the buildings goes out with a light rain storm which knocked out the elevator, they did move us rooms. Just know to book a room on the main level just in case if traveling in rainy seasons. #3 a lot of the wheelchair "ramps" are super steep and unkept which makes navigating them extremely difficult and scary. #4 The resort is large and doesn't have golf carts or any other option allowed for wheelchairs so be ready to for the trek all over to do anything on property if your in a wheelchair they are willing to push you to destinations though. #5 Only have emergencies during normal hours. Our son got sick in the middle of the night we tried calling the front desk multiple times with no answer. He was in severe pain so we called an ambulance only after the call was my husband able to find staff and figure out the doctor, we cancelled the ambulance I just am annoyed we wasted their time. I wish the front desk would have answer one of our several calls. Also during the day we tried to call for more blankets no answer husband had to go to desk or call multiple times, same for towels, pretty much anything just be ready to make a lot of trips to the front desk if you need anything. There is no chance they are answering at night and like a 50/50 chance you might get someone during the day. #6 The food sucks at the buffet and snack bars. My son had a very hard time finding things he would eat. There were flies all over alot do the food which I gets it's the jungle, overall just low quality though. #7 All the shops have a step up so if your in a wheelchair they are all inaccessable. #8 Also the main lobby has a very rocky area by the Mexico sign that you cannot navigate without wheels getting stuck so you have to go out and around which is fine if it isn't raining. #8 A lot of miss communication, We got told different times for Paco's Tacos that they were open for lunch, that they weren't. That pizza and tacos were both available then they weren't it was every other day for one or the other, just alot of finding out for ourselves or asking several times. #9 Trying to leave early for a fishing trip security wasn't paying attention at post when trying to leave so we had to get out of our car to get his attention at the main gate to leave after waiting and giving up on waiting do to our time crunch. #10 Private beach gazebo is incredibly hard to get into the "ramp" is not usable, I had to use a stool to transfer up and then back into my chair after my husband moved it up. I was told there wasn't a way to the beach by staff there so I watched my family snorkel and play without me, then the next day I was told there are sand chair to rent so you can go to the beach if you spend more money, or there is a ramp in the private club area so if your a club member I guess you can get to the sand at least. I am sure this trip would been awesome if I wasn't in a chair, but the overall difficultly with the chair has made this trip very difficult to enjoy. If I could walk even a little this would be a great resort but unfortunately I cannot put weight on one of my feet.

There were dead cockroach in the hall for at least 2 days. Wild life will come right up to...

While writing this review, I feel conflicted about my overall stay at Barcelo Occidental.

My extended family and I traveled to this resort to provide my ailing Mother some serenity and healing ocean air. We selected this resort based on a recommendation from family members who have visited before and raved about the location and accessibility of the pool and lagoon. We enjoyed our time and with some changes, we would return…maybe. Continue reading for specifics.

Let me start with the positives. The general atmosphere is beautiful. It feels tropical and like they carved the resort out of the jungle. We loved that the wildlife was part of the experience. However, the only downside is that after putting my clothes out on the balcony to dry, there were what I suspected to be animal droppings on them. While this wasn’t pleasant, I don’t fault the resort but I do think it requires thorough maintenance and upkeep that might not be happening on a regular basis. The esthetics of the main building/lobby were also very beautiful. We found some nice souvenirs in the shops that lined the river and people were very friendly. Lastly, the man made beach lagoon was wonderful for my Mom because there were no waves, easy to walk into, and she was able to sit on the rocks and enjoy the water with little effort.

Now for the not so positive. As many others have said, the resort could use some updates. This didn’t bother me as much as it has others but it’s worth mentioning.

Beach- I think it’s time for new lounge chairs. Some of them are broken or sagging and look dirty. Also, not everyone wants to listen to club music.

Service - The building concierge was more or less useless specifically at my mother’s building. My mom walks with a cane so I escorted her everyday to and from her building. They never once offered her transportation. In fact, when we asked for them to get her a wheelchair, they hesitantly and only after insisting did they call on our behalf to accommodate. I also asked them on several occasions to swap out the whole apples she received as her welcome gift with cut fruit as she could not bite into them. Which they replied with “we don’t do that. You’d have to order room service.” Even after I said that was not acceptable and they said they would put in the request, she never received the cut fruit. In my opinion, that is a disgusting response to a simple request for an elderly woman. And the most jarring was the incessant attempt to get us to sign up for their timeshare. Every time we thought we were having a pleasant interaction with someone, it ended with a pitch to “become a member”. If you want people to join, your first priority should be to make their experience exceptional…I guarantee you’d get more hooks in than with your bait and switch attempts. Lastly, the ladies at the reservation desk were rude and uninterested in helping us after we said we didn’t want any discount associated with the membership. She called the spa for us but it went to the wrong office and when I told her she did not offer to make another attempt to contact them.

Cleanliness - some of the bathrooms around the property were straight up gross. In particular, the one below the snack bar. The floor was wet…like puddled with water. Nothing more gross to me than a wet bathroom. The men’s bathroom in the same area had like a fog in it that made my nephew cough. At the towel return huts (which were spaced far apart, not clearly labeled, and often without an attendant) there were piles of dirty towels on the counter.

Food - Why isn’t the maple syrup and French toast in the same area? Why isn’t there bacon every morning? I just expected more and it would have made not being able to make a reservation less of a disappointment. The snack bar had the best food in our opinion but had the smallest variety.

I’m sure there is more I can say but I think those are the major highlights (or lowlights). Generally, we enjoyed our stay because how can you not when you are in paradise with all inclusive benefits but could it have been...

Honest review: on the Pools, Beach, Rooms, and Food.

Let me preface this review with this. I have been traveling to the Yucatán and Quantana Ro for over 28 years. I go down with my family roughly 3 or four times a year for the past 12 years. My experience is based on staying at a wide variety of hotels resort in the area

This review should help you really get a good understanding of the resort from a season travelers perspective. When we read the reviews about this hotel, as always, there’s mixed but over the years I’ve come to find out some folks view of a great hotel, and some folks view of a bad hotel are not all the same.

This is not a bad hotel nor is it a great one .

First, let’s start with the the overall grounds of the resort, cleanliness and so forth. As we spent our 4 1/2 days at this resort, I found it to be pretty dirty with trash along the side of walkways. I noticed that the grounds were not very well maintained or manicured, overgrown. You can tell that they cut back on this quite some time ago.

The Pools they’re OK to be honest they did look a little dirty half the time and they were pretty crowded . It’s definitely not an experience that I think myself or my family would like to have.. I don’t wanna get into a pool and it feel nasty but that’s the way it looked.

The rooms they are OK if not on the lackluster side. They don’t really look like they’ve been updated and room service. Never did a very good job. As far as cleaning goes we never got a refill on our coffee in the room and our snack bar refrigerator remained sparsely stocked at best. We had a room for two adults and two children, and we constantly only got two towels for the bathroom. The toilets barely flush and I know this sounds petty, but the soap and body wash were worse than cheap. They were basically watered down.

When it comes to the check-in process, that honestly was fine they were friendly and they offered you flavored water or champagne, which was nice. The process did take about 45 minutes to check in and they took the luggage to our room which also was nice. . The one thing I did love was we had someone guide us through and show us around on the way to our room which was great and helpful when it came to trying to figure out where things were.

Food to be honest, the food really was pretty good. The variety was a six on a scale of one to 1010 being the most variety which frankly I’ve never seen at an all-inclusive resort. Freshness of the food seem good. The area was fairly clean, and my kids seem to love the variety as well.

The beach the one thing that everyone should be aware of is many areas in Riviera Maya Leito Carmen are plugged by seasonal seaweed and it is almost impossible to get away from even when they placed the barriers. It still manages to hit the shoreline. . However, in the case of this resort, they have a very unique situation where they have a cove for their beach where the waves are calm the water is clear and there’s very little seaweed. So you could actually go out and enjoy the water with your family and the little kids even babies will enjoy it because of the low turbulence. My son absolutely loved feeding the fish. My toddler also loved feeding the fish. Truly, it was one of the highlights of the trip. As far as the beach goes, I would give it an 8 out of 10 due to its seclusion and lack of seaweed.

Service on the beach was good as well. We met several great servers and the bartender was also very nice.

I think the best part of this resort was the animals. There are iguanas everywhere other little creatures and I didn’t mention the monkeys, but there are tons of monkeys at this resort and they’re very friendly. They will come right down to you. actually, while we were walking through one of the trails, one of the girls in front of us, had one walk right up to her and kind of give her a hug. It was super cute. We also had another young lady where the monkey walked up and jumped on her back and was also very friendly. The animal experience here was a...