lucky you. we just returned from barcelo maya palace, and it sucked ass. made me long to get back to epm

Finally, we're recovered from our 8 days at Excellence Playa Mujeres, and I'm finally getting around to this review.

First of, my wife and I have done multiple cruises and stayed at other all-inclusives including Sandals... Excellence Playa Mujeres is better than all of them and it's not even close.

ROOM:
Check-in was a breeze, we were quickly taken to the Excellence Club check-in lounge (more on Excllence club later). We got to our room within 10 minutes of arrival with all our bags already delivered and towel-animals and rose petals on the bed. All the rooms have a stocked bar (gin, vodka, bourbon, wine, beer, rum, etc.) They only thing they didn't have in the room was Scotch, and I had them deliver Johnnie Walker. However, we ended up not even opening any other bottles because drinks were easy to come by in any of the 11 bars around the resort. Our room also had it's own hot tub with fully opening windows. Also, you can always ask for top shelf. I ordered all my "fruity" drinks with Appleton Estate Rum from Jamaica.

(Photos of the room)
View looking out our room (beach is to the left):


Towel-animals on check in:


View from the pool back to the room:


Our room was a swim-up suite, so we had our own pool right outside of our patio. Also, at the end of the pool was the Sol Bar where we got most of our drinks. We also had an Ocean view, so the beach was literally 250ft away.

BEACH:
The beaches were pristine. Toward the end of the day, the sea grass would wash up, but in the mornings, the tractor came by and raked it all up. Overall, it was not an issue.

Looking back at the beach from our SCUBA boat.


RESTAURANTS:
I loved every meal but one I had while at the resort. I ordered Ravioli at the Italian place, Toscana, and it was too salty. Everything else was great. We had filet mignon at the French place, Chez Isabelle, fajitas at the Mexican place, Tapas at the Tapas place, etc. My absolute favorite, oddly enough, was the sushi I had at the Ssian restaurant called Spice.

Each day, they would have a mini-restaurant set up on the beach where you could get food without having to leave. It seemed like they alternated between the taco bar (excellent) and the hot dogs/hamburgers stand (good).

Breakfast was great also. We switched between the buffet (which had everything you can imagine) and the Lobster House which had plates you would order. They made the best huevos racheros I'd ever had.

Be on notice, if you ordered something "picante" they didn't beat around the bush. I am from south Texas originally, so I felt I would be ready for it, but it was a new level of heat. Beware the salsa verde made with habanero!

Overall, the food was better than at any of the cruises or other all-inclusives I've been to. The most common complaint on Tripadvisor is the food, but I guess I'm just not that picky. I enjoyed everything I had. In addition, I think they have catered to the desired of American tourists as all the water we were served was bottled. Never had any worries of Montezuma's revenge from drinking the water.

ENTERTAINMENT:
Each of the shows was great, far and away better than the cruise ships. It's not cirque du soleil, but they're all pretty awesome. I was especially impressed by the magic show. I got called up on stage and got to watch the guy do some table magic, which was astounding.

The Vegas show was great, as well as the "romantic" show. My wife and I saw each night as an opportunity to go and drink and be entertained, then retire to the room by 11.

One night we stayed up and went to the night club for the DJ music. It was fun because there were a number of wedding parties there that really let loose, but overall, that's not our scene. The DJ was great, though.

RESORT ACTIVITIES:
Each day, the resort will deliver the "Excellence Times" to your room during turn-down service. If there is one I could recommend the most it is the bike tour, as crazy as that sounds. They lead a group of eight people on a tour of the grounds, as well as the golf course and the (almost completely empty) condos that are a couple miles away.

As far as water sports, I tried for the second time in my life to do wind-surfing and was successful at staying on for about 2 minutes. They also have Kayaks and Hobie Cats which we made good use of. Snorkels and fins are available at the water sports desk as well.

EXCURSIONS:
We went to the Mayan Ruins at Tulum. It was cool because it was on the beach about 1.5 hours south of Cancun. Included in the excursion was zip-lining, rappelling, and cave diving (awesome). This was separate from the hotel and cost about $100 per person including round-trip transportation.

Tulum:


We also went SCUBA diving through the resort. It was $100 per person for the dive class and a single-tank dive. It was our first experience with SCUBA, so I spent most of the hour underwater making sure I didn't panic and trying to pressurize my ears. After about 45 minutes I was fine, but by then it was almost time to come back up.

EXCELLENCE CLUB:
We opted for the Excellence Club. From reading others' reviews, people will say the Excellence Club is not worth it if they're not it in, and worth it if they are. I can say it's totally worth it. The main perk was access to the Excellence Club beach. While others had trouble finding chairs/beds on the beach, they were always available to us. I think one day we went to the beach and our favorite bed wasn't available, so we opted for two chairs that had a canopy. Also, they have waitresses and towel-people dedicated to this section of the beach, so the longest we ever had to wait for a new drink was less than 10 minutes.

It was our anniversary, and included in the package was champagne breakfast delivered in-room, an hour massage, and hour of hydrotherapy, and dinner on the beach. All of these were incredible.

SECURITY:
In light of the drug situation in Mexico, we were somewhat concerned about security. This may have been an issue if we were staying in Cancun, but it was never an issue here. You had to drive through two guarded gates where they checked your name. In short, no one that shouldn't be at the resort could get there. This was never a problem for us, and frankly, I think it's an overblown concern.

NEGATIVES:
I kept thinking about how I should include something that was bad, but I couldn't come up with anything. I did wish they had a better Scotch selection, as their "top-shelf" was Johnnie Walker, but that was totally minor. I also didn't like the Italian meal, but it was one meal out of about 20.

CONCLUSION:
This was the best resort we've ever been to, and I wouldn't hesitate for a second to book another trip. I'll edit the post if I think of any more to add.

[This message has been edited by Blatant Disregard (edited 4/30/2012 1:47p).]

Thanks for the review. What were the pool temperatures like (main pool, lazy river).

You may want to resize your pics, they are absolutely mammoth.

I will work to resize them....

Is there a better way to book this resort other than through their website? Any cheaper deals?

We're trying to book a trip for later this year.

I checked through Cheap Caribbean and a few others. Expedia was $400 cheaper. Just run your dates through several sights and see who comes out cheapest.

For the deals, call Megan Whelan at Honeymoons.inc (678-894-7295) www.honeymoonsinc.com

I got her name from another poster on Texags about 2 years ago. The pricing she got us was reduced so much from the website, we were able to upgrade to the Excellence club junior suite for about the same price as the regular room!

In addition, she will make sure all your transfers to and from the hotel are arranged, and they will send you a packet in the mail with all your transfer tickets and check-in vouchers.

I was floored when she got me the pricing she did, because it was better than expedia and the excellence website.

quote:

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Thanks for the review. What were the pool temperatures like (main pool, lazy river).

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Pools were perfect temperature during the day. If you got in before 10:00am or after 7:00pm, it was a little bit chilly, but keep in mind we went in April. If you book a trip later in the summer I could imagine the pools might actually be hot.

The ocean water was slightly cold, but that is about what I expected. Once you're in, you're fine. Even SCUBA at 30 feet deep it wasn't cold.

The weather was between 83-87 degrees every day. One morning it rained, but it was over by 11:00am and the sun came back out. Plus, its more of a tropical "refreshing" rain, so it was not an issue.

One more thing, I did a couple of panorama shots with our camera that turned out awesome. Here are links to them, as the pictures would blow up texags.

http://i.imgur.com/iJ5D2.jpg From our room

http://i.imgur.com/yr6fs.jpg The water

[This message has been edited by Blatant Disregard (edited 4/30/2012 1:46p).]

Thanks for the report. Air Tran is starting non-stops to Cancun from San Antonio on May 24th.

Here now and it's basically paradise.

View from our rooftop

NIIIICCCCEEE!

How cold is the balcony pool?

I hate all of you

Building 9

Damn you all for rubbing it in.

Im so freaking pumped! My Fiance (wife by then)and I are going in June!

My wife and I headed there the week of May 14. Does anyone have a recommendation for a private transfer service from the airport and back?

I'm going May 7-11, and booked with USA transfers. Used them for playa de carmen last year and were awesome. $69 roundtrip for private. I learned long ago to always do direct/private versus the mass resort buses.

http://www.usa-transfers.com/

USA transfers kicks ass

Another Plus one for USA transfers...

We use them every time that we go to Cancun. Just grab a cerveza on the way out of the airport and you are on your way.

that is some dedication there txag2008

make sure to use your iron and ironing board

[This message has been edited by Theo is a Touchdown (edited 5/3/2012 12:19p).]

Thanks for the responses!

Excellence Playa Mujeres: Apr 29-May 4

Ended up booking the trip for me and my newlywed with www.thetropicaltravelers.com. It was the same price as I was finding though Expedia, but it seemed like I was able to get more support with the lady I dealt with.

Flight from Dallas to Cancun was only 2hrs 10min which was very nice and a big reason we didn’t do St Lucia/Antigua/etc. Transfer to the resort on the very far north side of Cancun. We had to pass through 2 or 3 security gates to finally make it to the resort. Greated by champagne at the front door and checked into our 2-story rooftop terrace.


View from our rooftop


For the next 5.5 days we mainly did lots of eating and lots of drinking.
--We did book a trip to the island of Isla Mujeres that included a catamaran ride to the island, snorkeling on the boat ride there, lunch on the island with a few hrs to do what we wanted (we rented a golf cart and cruised the island), and on the boat ride back we even got to do a form of parasailing. It was tough to leave the resort knowing that you had already paid for it, but I would recommend a trip to the island like this. (did I mention there was unlimited alcohol included??).

Our boat




--We also took one afternoon and spent time at the resort spa. We did the 80min ‘Hollistic’ couples massage with an hour of hydrotherapy beforehand. It was definitely nice, but I don’t think I would do it again. (I’d just rather spend my $$ on other things).

Overall Pros:
-We took full advantage of the all inclusive part of the resort. Went to almost all of the 9 restaurants at the resort and used the 24hr room service many times
-The service from the employees. I still do not understand how they get the employees to be that happy/service oriented with tipping not being a big incentive. It blew me away.
-Cancun being just a bit over a 2hr direct flight for us, so our travel time was minimal.
Overall Cons:
-The death of my camera on the 3rd day. I had just a digital point and shoot Canon that I left in my shoe on some rocks near the beach. We went out in the water for not but 10min and when I cam back one of my shoes was soaked and one was dry. Of course the wet shoe was the one with my phone in it. (I was still able to get the pictures from the SD card)
-If I had to do it all over again I would book private transfers to and from the resort/airport.

I had never been to any ‘tropical’ or all inclusive place so I don’t have much to compare to, but we would both definitely recommend this resort to anyone. If you have any specific questions I’d be glad to answer. Below are just some general pictures that we took over the week.














[This message has been edited by txag2008 (edited 5/15/2012 3:29p).]

nice. thanks

through whom did u book the catamaran

Olympus Tours. It was the same company that we had our resort/airport tranfers set up with. They are set up in the bottom level of the lobby at the resort.

On a side note.....I was disappointed to not run into a single Aggie the entire trip. I would have bet money that we would have......

here are a few other pics for flava...

^^^
nice pics

And agreed about the food/drink, I think I gained 7lbs over 6days

Thinking about booking EPM for honeymoon in mid-late November. What should I expect as for weather and water temperature (pools and beach)? Should I be concerned about either?

i will preface this by saying that my wife and i are likely going during right about the same time frame.

that being said, the weather can be a little spotty. it could rain the entire trip or it could be all sun.

went there about 3 years ago during the same time and it was clear as a bell, but heard many guests say it rained the entire week prior...

never had any issues with pool temps, and really didn't go in the beach.

ta can be very helpful for this

anyone been to Excellence in the Dominican?

Last time we went to EPM - it was over Thanksgiving. The weather was generally the same as always (a little cooler than summer).

However, none of the pools are heated, so the pools were a tad bit chilly that time of year. (Nothing unbearable - just an excuse to drink more!) The ocean was still nice and warm.

quote:

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Should I be concerned about either?

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No.

Honeymooned there in Nov 08. Isla Mujeres is also worth a day trip, and it is easy to take a taxi to the ferry.

quote:

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Isla Mujeres is also worth a day trip, and it is easy to take a taxi to the ferry

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Agree that's it's worth the trip. But I wouldn't suggest taking the ferry. Pay a little bit more and sign up for a catamaran trip (included food/alcohol/snorkeling)

16 days until my Lady and I will be there!