Luxury Residences by Villa del Palmar Cancun

Great resort for families with kids under the age of 10. One Bedroom rooms are amazing if it's a family of 4 as the parents get their own room and the kids sleep on a pull out bed, plus it has 2 FULL bathrooms, a FULL kitchen and washer and dryer! Prob. the best room we have ever had as a family. Fridge and snacks stocked daily (beer, juice, water, Gatorade, nuts, snickers, gummy bears, expresso, coffee, etc.). You want to book here in advance for one reason...you need to book restaurant reservations online way in advance of your arrival otherwise you will find the only available sit down restaurant times are at 9pm. However, this isn't as bad as you think as the kids club is open till 10pm so, it was nice to send the kids to the kids club so the parents can enjoy a nice dinner. Food at the restaurants are 4/5 in my book. Can't complain and service was excellent. Buffet is good for breakfast, and ok for dinner. I liked the calamari and shrimp stations a lot! Lunch...you can goto the Mexican restaurant (middle of the pool areas (no reservation needed for lunch)....it's good. They will also serve you food if you're sitting at a lounger by the pool...just ask for a menu. Room service is 24/7 and FAST...like 30mims average time...latest was 40mins. Drink...they have everything. No in pool bar though. The serve you on the beach and at the pool. Nice beach bar with swings...but for some reason I found the bartenders moody...unlike the waiters walking around. Beach is much better than the Cancun strip in that you can walk and swim in the ocean...it' not crazy waves, etc. They also have a cool in water obstacle course in the ocean. It's not a big beach...no a long beach, but it's decent. It's a 2 min. walk to the big dock where you can take a boat to the Island (which I highly recommend...rent a golf cart and go to North Beach for the day...they serve food and drinks there and it's comparable to a Cuba beach). Resort is not big at all...perfect size. They said we were at max capacity when there and it did not feel like that at all. They have a good ratio of workers to guests and the restaurants are not crazy packed. The shows are typically at the front of Garza hotel...you have access to this front area and nice bar there too. Shows are decent. It's quiet at night. I would highly recommend this resort to families with young ones (ours were 5 and 7), they loved the place and the kids club! If you go...get the one bedroom, you will not be disappointed. 10/10 kids club...not because it was a big fancy kids club (because it is NOT), but because the staff in there is amazing...every hour is something...(i.e. crafts, facepainting, scavenger hunt, etc.). If you're on the fence....choose this place (one bedroom or forget it). We've stayed at Planet Hollywood previously...looked fancy, lots of restaurants....but we liked this place better as you could actually get in a restaurant and it wasn't packed everywhere, and the quality of the actually hotel build was much better.

bed was fabulous, food was decent at the buffet, staff was great especially Wilfredo, Romo, Erik, and Raymundo, Bocados steak house was INCREDIBLE, access to restaurants was poor, many errors on bill that had to be clearly watched for erroneous charges. Store on site was a complete rip off because you are a captive audience. I understand up charging but 3-4x pricing is uncalled for. Owner concierge was useless. Bars close to early especially with no to little access to restaurants. Chairs around the pool are unavailable as they are reserved either by staff or visitors by 2:30-3:00 am.

I want to write a special acknowledgement for Luis Alberto at Palmita Deli in Cancun. Luis was so friendly, extremely helpful and professional to deal with. I hope to see him again when we return. The Deli is remarkable for food, service and cleanliness. Five stars to Luis and the people he works with!

Our family recently stayed here for a week this past March (not during March break). We booked the trip back in December based on reading a series of positive reviews and hoping to find a family friendly resort to spend a relaxing week, the stay was anything but. We had booked three rooms, but upon checkin were told that the hotel was overbooked and they had only two rooms but would try and “secure” the third room that we had on our reservation. How this happens I’m not sure but from what we could tell, and overhearing others in the lobby this seems to be a frequent occurrence. Additionally, we heard a fellow guest at checkin who was arguing with the desk staff after having been shuffled to Villa Del Palmar from the chain’s other resort Hotel Mousai. After talking with the gentleman they informed us that they booked a stay at Hotel Mousai months ago but upon arrival they were told that hotel was not even finished construction and were promptly moved to Villa Del Palmar. Upon further investigation over the week these all seem to be common practices from Tafer Hotels and Resorts. Eventually, the desk staff were able to secure our third room but we were forced to wait for more than two hours for this which was a bad kick off to our stay. Moving past checkin, we quickly discovered the restaurant options while superficially decent are in fact exceptionally poor. Getting a reservation for four people let alone six takes three to four days minimum and the only other option is the buffet which was lack luster to say the least. While the food was better at the restaurants that required reservations it was still rather abysmal given the advertisement that they are a premium resort. Having been to Mexico numerous times in the past our expectations were not high for food in general but the quality here was particularly poor. It’s also worth mentioning, that although it was almost impossible to make reservations for the restaurants, many tables were empty for all the meals we had at them. After inquiring, we discovered that the restaurants only have two sittings per table per evening. This results in terrible utilization rates and I suspect, the actual goal of serving far fewer guests and minimizing costs for the resort. Meals aside, we figured at least the pool and beach would be a positive experience, but yet again we were mistaken. There is a serious lack of lounge chairs, umbrellas, cabanas, towels and at times even glassware (plastic) in the pool and beach area. To secure loungers we needed to get up at 530am to reserve some of the few that were still available and despite this some of these were “stolen” while our family used the pool. It’s also worth mentioning that it appears as though the resort has spent as little money as possible maintaining the property and its amenities. The towels were threadbare, and many of the umbrellas were ripped or just missing from their stands. The resort also had serious maintenance issues with elevators frequently inoperable and at least two of our rooms losing running water for several hours during our stay. Lastly, checkout was a nightmare. We all paid for the all inclusive package and tipped our staff in cash. Upon checkout we found a slew of “incidentals” that were not included and that many of our “tips” were added by staff to our credit card bills in addition to the cash provided. All in all we had over $1000 worth of bogus charges including cappuccinos and mimosas as well as room service that were apparently not included in their all inclusive package…. For what it’s worth we did ask about all of these items beforehand and were told repeatedly that they were all included. From our experience here it seems obvious that the Tafer Resort chain is only really interested in selling timeshares in their newest offering (Garza Blanca, and Hotel Mousai) and that they are not interested in maintaining Villa Del Palmar or the guest experiences and are satisfied to milk its existing goodwill and reputation for all its worth. Travellers Beware!

What an amazing resort - truly a tropical family paradise! We loved everything about our stay, the food was amazing, the beach is small but nice and private, the kids club staff are awesome, the pools are heated and excellent. There is nothing not to like about this place, truly exceptional service from all of the staff, clean and well-appointed rooms, etc. We did the all-inclusive option and it was awesome, that said, I think we can get an even better deal without it given that we don't drink that much alcohol. Still was just an awesome trip overall and kudos to the staff for making it great.