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Barcelo Maya Beach Resort Traveler Review :: "Excellent Resort"

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Summary of All Property Reviews Ratings based on answers from a total of 17 reviews (All Reviews) 10 is best 1 is worst
Feature	Ranking	Feature	Ranking
Cleanliness of Property	9.35	Quality of Property	9.41
Privacy & Quietness	5.59	Quality of Service	8.35
Courtesy & Hospitality of Staff	8.65	Accuracy of Website (marketing hype) VS. Actual Experience	8.47
Food and Dining Experience	7.71	Price/Value of Property	8.29
Safety Factor (Did you feel safe at property)	9.35	Quality of Beach (ranked closest beach if property is located off the beach)	9.29
Total Property Score: 8.45 | Average Star Rating: 4.47 out of 5

• 82% (14 visitors of 17) said they would go back to Barcelo Maya Beach Resort again.
• 82% (14 visitors of 17) said they would recommend Barcelo Maya Beach Resort to friends.

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Spent 10 days at the BM Beach and had an excellent time! I would gladly recommend this property to anyone who was looking for a good quality AI in the Riviera Maya.

Also, here is a link for photos from the trip. (You may have to copy and paste since I'm not sure how to do it properly)

http://travel.webshots.com/album/555688511ImUXhg

Pros/Cons
Pros. You're staying at a resort that is big enough to have every thing you need without ever leaving the grounds. In fact we only left the property twice to go into Playa to do some shopping (once for long pants, so I could get into the ala carte restaurants, I must've missed the posts about that, obtw they'll let you in with flip flops, saw many people doing the same ). Also, the level of service from every member of the staff is on a higher level than any property I have ever stayed at, including Ritz Carlton, Fiesta Americana Grand, Intercontinental and Hyatt to name a few. Without a doubt the best overall service of any hotel staff I have ever seen.

Cons. You're staying at a resort that is big enough to have everything you need without ever leaving the grounds. Although I knew this resort was big, the immensity doesn't really hit you until you try to walk from one side to the other in the afternoon heat. Also you have so much to do, you don't really find your self wanting to leave and explore the surrounding area.

Registration/Check-In. We arrived around 6 pm on a Thursday evening and checked in immediatley and were in our room in 10 minutes. I contacted the hotel prior to arrival and requested a room with one king bed, preferably on the third floor close to the pool/beach. We got a room with two queen beds on the second floor. I asked the front desk person at check-in if we could get a room with 1 king as we requested and it was available but would not be as close to the beach. The lady at the desk told us that if we did not like our room she would find us a different one, but once we saw our room and the view of the ocean from our balcony we were VERY happy! No changing rooms for us. We could handle separate beds for the view. We were in room #1204 at the very end of the Tulum building.

Room. As stated, great room. Large patio with incredible view. Yes the beds are very hard, request a mattress pad, enough said. Excellent coffee, (which I'm drinking right now, it's amazing what $5 to the housekeeper will get you!) The minibar was well stocked, but had to request extra cerveza a couple of times. One of my only bitches about the resort is that they only serve Corona at the bars and we really don't like Corona. But we love Modelo and that's what was in the minibar. So, once again $5 to the housekeeper and we had Modelo coming out our ears! In fact we removed all other items from our minibar fridge to give the housekeepers more room to stock Modelo and they were very obliging.

Beach Absolutely incredible! This is the biggest asset of this resort. I can only speak for the Beach/Caribe side since that's where I spent most of the time but the Colonial/Tropical side looked good also, although perhaps a bit more rocky. The beach is wide, the sand is white and soft and the grounds crew is out there every morning at 6 am (sorry, chronic early riser) cleaning and preparing it for the day.
The water is usually very clear in the early part of the day, but clouds up a little close to shore as the wind picks up and more people are disturbing the sand. One thing I do want to point out is that by the line of buoys that separates the swimming area from the watersports area is an obvious discharge outlet about 20 meters off of the beach in about 2 feet of water for something. Has anyone else noticed this? What is being discharged I don't know, but I suspect it's runoff from pools/fountains, etc. or possibly sewage? If you get closer to the area it has a foul odor and I am very concerned that the Barcelo is actively destroying it's most valuable asset, the beach and water, it is very disconcerting.

Pools. Also incredible, I don't know how else to describe them. Lots of fountains, the jetted areas are nice and there is plenty of space at the pool bars even in the busiest of times.

Food.
Buffets Every time we ate at the buffets we walked away raving about a different item. There was always something that really impressed us. Variety was good and quality was great.

Al a cartes Since we only went to the Japanese restaurant (see above discussion about long pants) I can only speak about it and it was great. Surf and turf was shrimp since lobster was out of season, but was awesome!

Room Service Was outstanding, the garlic shrimp are fantastic! It's $3 a plate for room service but well worth every penny.

Activities We are naturally lazy people , and since I was unemployed for the first half of our trip we weren't too keen on spending money on day trips. Although we did give serious consideration to going to Xcaret for the day but decided not to spend the $200+. So we spent most of our days hanging out by the pool or the beach, which is what we came for anyway. Snorkelling off of the beach near the pier is incredible and we also took the 2 hour snorkelling trip down to Akumal for $26 pp and saw lots of turtles, fish, a stingray and a huge barracuda. Well worth the money. The water trikes are a lot of fun and there are hobie cats and windsurfers available for the guests. Walked by the exercise room and spa and the facility looked very nice but didn't use either one.

Entertainment There are movies at 9:30 every night in the theatre on the Beach/Caribe side and the live shows are at 9:00 every night in the theatre on the Tropical/Colonial side. The movies are things you can rent at Blockbuster, but still kinda fun. The live shows are pleasantly surprising. We honestly didn't think the shows would be as good as they were, but the band is very good and the level of talent of the performers and dancers is great. Is it Broadway? No, but definitley better than some Vegas shows we've been to and well above most cruise ship/all inclusives.

Shopping We were also pleasantly surprised by the diversity of shops available at the resort. The prices were a little higher than in Playa, but you don't have to spend $35 to get there and the people at all of the stores, (and trust me, Melissa drug me into everyone!) were friendly and alot of fun.

Grounds Impeccably maintained, the small "jungle" greenbelts between the buildings are wonderful and we saw many Iguanas, Geckos, butterflies, birds and squirrels.

Well, hope I haven't been too long winded and this report provided some info for those of you, like us planning their first trip or returning after a few years. We'll definitely be back, probably last week of November, 2007.

Property Review
10 is best 1 is worst

Would you stay at this property again?: ... Yes
Would you recommend this property to your friends?: ... No
In your opinion, how would you classify the "style" of this property: ... Family Oriented
Possible Anwswers: Family Oriented, Couples Oriented, Mixed/Diverse in a Good Way, Mixed/Diverse in a Bad Way

• Cleanliness of Property: ... 10
• Quality of Property: ... 10
• Privacy and Quietness: ... 0
• Quality of Service: ... 10
• Courtesy and Hospitality of Staff: ... 10
• Accuracy of Website VS. Actual Experience: ... 10
  
• Food and Dining Experience: ... 9
• Price/Value of Property: ... 9
  
• Safety Factor (Did you feel safe at property): ... 10
• Quality of Beach (ranked closest beach if property is located off the beach): ... 10

Destination/Island Review
10 is best 1 is worst

Would you visit this destination/island again?: ... Yes
Would you recommend this destination/island to your friends?: ... Yes

• Cleanliness of Destination/Island: ... 9
• Options of Activities in the Area: ... 10
• Ease of Transportation (air, taxi, bus, shuttle): ... 9
• Quality of Beaches in the Area: ... 10
• Courtesy & Hospitality of Locals: ... 10
• Safety Factor (Did you feel safe in the Area): ... 10
  
• Local Restaurant Experience/Options: ... 7
• Price/Value of Destination (Does your dollar stretch?): ... 9
  

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