Trip Motivation
Those who know me know I am highly susceptible to advertisements, and once I get an idea in my head, I can’t get it out. Hyatt mailed us advertisements for their new all-inclusive hotel in Cancun. Mexico was on our list due to Carter’s desire to see cenotes. We tagged on a 3 night-stay at this glorious hotel during fall break 2021. We had previously visited the same type of all-inclusive in Jamaica and knew the kids would love the kid’s club, pools, and drinks. We were not disappointed. For more info on how we traveled there from Merida and how we flew back home, see our posts here and here.
Hotel
Our stay at the Hyatt Ziva Riviera Maya Cancun was amazing. The stay was reasonably cheap due its opening status. It had just opened a month ago, and a few parts of the hotel were still in progress. $480/night was the cost for the 4 of us. Kids 4-12 generally cost half price and kids under 4 are free. It’s important to think about all that price includes. You would expect to pay around $300 for a hotel of this caliber in this area so is $180 worth the food, drinks, shows, activities, kid’s club? Yes I think so! With the quality of the offerings, we could have spent $180 on a dinner for our group. (Our kids eat a lot for a 4 and 6 year old) There was the option to book this hotel using Hyatt points. For reference, the points would have been 50,000 points a night (25,000 for 2 adults + 12,500 for each extra kid) If you’re staying without kids, definitely check whether points or cash is a better deal. I love all-inclusives, and our kids had an absolute blast. We barely spent any money beyond the hotel rate ($20 bottle of sunscreen yuck + some tips).
Although we weren’t upgraded to a suite on this visit, we still felt that the room was quite large. The kids slept in the sofa bed and we had a large king. The shower and included tub were grand and we had a nice walk-out patio area leading to the pools.
Pool life
Most of our time was spent in the pool and water areas. There was a lovely short area for the kids to stand up with a shelf. Our kids are both good swimmers and loved doing laps and diving down to get diving sticks. There were 9 pools (2 weren’t open yet) and a swim up bar in addition to 2 pool-side bars with more options on their menu. One thing I did wish was that there was a deeper section. The pools we swam in ranged from 3-4 feet which was great for our kids but I wanted to be a little more enveloped.
We also never found the hot tub although we didn’t need it since the temperature was hot and we weren’t looking very hard. Maybe when the other pools open. There was also a waterpark area with 4 slides. The sign said 1m (3 feet) but the staff seemed unsure about letting Ellie on and she was content in the smaller section. There was a splash area with small slides and spray features in the same area next to the kids club. The kids enjoyed playing here for several hours.
We did not spend a lot of time at the beach on this trip. There was a lot of seaweed that the staff worked diligently to remove every day. The kids still had fun building volcanoes and playing in the calm water but Ben and I didn’t get in the water to play. I’m more of a sit by the beach than a play at the beach gal and it was perfect for that but I wouldn’t come here if you were specifically concerned about the beach quality.
Kids Club
If you ask the kids what their favorite part of the trip was, they would say the kids club. They had limited hours during Covid but were still open every day from 9a-5p. The cost is included, and our kids begged us to spend as much time there as possible. There were games, tricycles, tv and video games, and tons of arts and crafts. The kids brought home 4 crafts a day. It was good that the kids had each other, but they also bonded with other kids that spent time there as well. There were usually 5-6 kids and 2 teachers. At the Jamaica all-inclusive, they had evening hours as well so parents could go to dinner, but this wasn’t available at this time. Hopefully on our next visit.
Shows and Activities
In addition to kids activities, we also received a list of daily activities for adults. It was mostly exercise classes with morning yoga, zumba, aquabiking, and aerobics. There were also group games and a general party atmosphere by the main pool. There was a small chess area and some tequila tasting. Every evening there were a few music performances and a themed show that changed daily. These were full-on productions with dancing, costume changes, and elaborate storytelling. Very fun!
Food and Drinks
During meals, and at the bars, we were constantly alternating water and mixed drinks. Pina coladas, strawberry daiquiris, top shelf liquor, wine, coronas etc. Carter and Ellie loved the pina coladas and guava juices. For breakfast each morning, we enjoyed the main buffet which had fruit, mexican tacos and entrees as well as an omelette station and a crepe station.
For lunches, our favorite spots were the taco stand on the beach and the pizza and salad stand poolside.
The real standout was the dinner offerings. They were on rotation, so only a few were open each night, but due to the low occupancy, we still didn’t have to wait. We enjoyed a steakhouse with filets and gourmet burgers a few nights and the Japanese restaurant the other night. Our kids love all you can eat sushi and ramen!
There was also all-you-can-eat ice cream and desserts that we did every night while waiting for the show. There were a few restaurants that we didn’t try, including a French adults-only option, an upscale Mexican fusion restaurant, and an Italian option. Menus for the restaurants can be accessed at this site: link
Final Thoughts
This was a great stay and worth the price tag. We did a good amount of exploring and adventuring in the first half of our trip and it was nice to spend this part of the trip relaxing and enjoying a more luxurious stay. I think this will definitely be a repeat trip when everything is fully open. It would also be nice to coordinate with other friends with kids so the kids can all play together at the club all day while the parents chill pool-side. 🙂
