Trip Motivation
We recently spent a few days at a great all-inclusive hotel in Cancun. We had previously visited the same resort in October 2021 (link here) and a similar all-inclusive in Jamaica in 2019. It was a great trip full of pool visits, kids club arts and crafts and unlimited pina coladas!
Hotel
Our stay at the Hyatt Ziva Riviera Maya Cancun was great! We found a great deal by staying the days before Christmas. The kids had days off before the holiday and our nightly rate from Dec 21-24 was only $470 a night. 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 5 and 7 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 (taxi ride to the hotel and a few tips throughout the week).
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 balcony with beach views.
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 and waterslides and a swim up bar in addition to 2 pool-side bars with more options on their menu. There was a waterpark area with 4 slides. 3 feet height requirement and the kids had an absolute blast. 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 were 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. We did several classes of aquabike, yoga, boot camp style workouts and had a great time. There were also group games and a general party atmosphere by the main pool.
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! On our trip, we saw an amazing acrobat water show, a fun Disney sing-along and an African dancer show!
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.
Unlike our last visit, the hotel was at full capacity and all restaurants were open to account for the business. For lunches, our favorite spots were the taco stand on the beach and all you can eat steakhouse. The real standout was the dinner offerings. We enjoyed a mexican restaurant, a dinner buffet (Carter loved scallops!) and a 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. We still haven’t been able to try the French adults-only option, and the 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. This is definitely going to be a repeat trip. 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. 🙂
