Sandos Playacar Beach Resort Playa Del Carmen

Flight from Victoria to Cancun on Skyservice, Very good.

Cancun airport was an absolute madhouse, the day we arrived I think a plane landed or took off every 30 seconds. Once we found our Signature guy, time for cervasa's. Trip from the airport to the resort took about a hour, with stops at 3 other resorts first.

Check in was quick and painless as we were the only ones,available champagne was nice. We had requested to be near our friends who checking the next day,wasn't possible that day but we were able to change rooms a couple of days later to be in hacienda beside them.

The rooms are quite nice, each block of haciendas have their own small pool, a couple of them had hot tubs but not ours. The mini bar was filled with water beer and pop everyday,as well as the usual towel sculptures. The haciendas are the farthest from beach but still only a couple of minute walk.

The food at the both of the buffets were excellent,so much so that we didn't try the ala cartes for which there are 3 reservations per week. The service at the buffets was very good with the exception of 1 night where our waiter was just overwhelmed,there were alot of spring breakers like us. The kids loved being able to get whatever they wanted(read nachos and ice cream) when ever they wanted.

We had heard that drinks get watered down,not in our case,we tipped well and even had the bottles turned over to us to make our own shooters(yehaww). With exception of 1 day there was no mint for mojitos, but once again tipping got me the lions share of the mint for the whole day. Our main server was Amelia at La Bumbola, the main bar,she was excellent.

The pools were very good, not heated but perfect for the hot days. We spent alot of time around the family main pool which had alot of activities for all ages. The adult pool seemed pretty quiet.

The BEACH is awesome, clean, large compared to the resorts towards town,that lost alot of beach to the hurricanes. The resort is the last heading south for a while, so you could go quite a ways. You certainly can tell where the resort property ends as the garbage grows quickly.

The shows were pretty good with some audience participation,my face hurt from laughing so much at the Perfect Couple contest. The costumes in the Mayan show were incredible,as was the show itself.Broadway show night was very good and Fun casino night for prizes was just that, fun.

The resort overall was clean and well maintained and would go back again, and would recommend it to anyone. Particularly families though.

We took the ferry to Cozumel 1 day and rented Mexican Ferraris to see the island. The ferry ride was very rough with a few people getting see sick, we rode inside on the way over and on the outside deck on the way back, which was just as rough but the fresh air and dramamine took care of everybody. The island is small and can be driven around in a couple of hours. We stopped at Paradise Beach and spent most of the day there.

We took 1 excursion, Most of the day spent at Xel Ha. Once again awesome. Swimming with the fish, it was also all inclusive, which was nice. We saw lots of fish a couple stingrays and attempted to get some pictures. The rest of the day we went to Tulum, it was really interesting. The beach was really nice after touring the ruins. If you're afraid of heights ,there is a large staircase down to the beach, which frightened a few people. We didn't go to Chichen Itza for the spring equinox, we heard that there was going to be alot people and according to our guide to Tulum there was upwards of 30,000 people there. He made his first pickup to go there at 5 am and dropped of the last person at 1 am, 20 hour work day, and then picked us up 7:30.

When we went into town we successfully put off the timeshare salesmen just by telling them that were leaving the next day. Fifth street has tons of shops and of course you can barter.

For anyone thinking of going the Mayan Riviera, I hope this is helpful.