Great staff, clean, but extremely hard bed!
We absolutely loved the view and the friendly staff. They had daily activities for the guests which were very entertaining. The complimentary internet service was wonderful! The beds are extremely hard. There are not any clocks in the rooms other than on the TV Guide on Channel 02. One morning we requested a wake up call and never received it. I know this because I woke up at 5:30 am with a backache from the awful beds. Make sure you bring a watch and swimshoes. Lots of rocks/shells on beach...and they hurt! You have a lot to keep up with (room key, safe key, towel cards, bracelet). Also, we booked an Xrail Excursion through the TraficTours rep in the lobby and were extremely misled. We were told we would be going to the Mayan Ruins, on a long trail ride through the jungle where we could stop and take pictures with monkeys, parrots and by really old large trees. The first buggy we had, the gas pedal broke off while driving through downtown area and the second one we had broke down on the highway due to a faulty ignition. We had to drive this buggy through the downtown area, which was kinda dangerous seeing that people run stop signs and red lights. The trail was more of a man-made dust trail through some woods. Towards the end I asked our tour guide if we were going to take pics with the monkeys and he said they didn't have monkeys or parrots there. And the ruins we saw...was the El Cocoral. Then at the end of the 6 hour excursion the tour guide asked us for a tip and explained to us that he only works by tip basis only. The majority of the "tour" was driving through downtown and going to the lighthouse. I was very disappointed. We paid $188 for two of us to go. Everywhere you turn, someone has a tip jar. The guys on the parasail boat have tip jars, the people who run the shops downtown have tip jars at the register, all the bars have tip jars of course...but you couldn't go anywhere without seeing a tip jar. And our all inclusive package included tips. Which i understand anything outside the resort does not include tips. The food was very bland. The best food was at La Veranda Restaurant. Also, while taking a shower...the water would cut off every 2 or 3 minutes...then cut back on after about 10-15 seconds. This happened on a daily basis and we stayed 6 days. We also purchased an international calling card which we found out didn't work. So we made a few phone calls which totaled 15 minutes. The resort charges $5.00 per minute so we had to pay $75.00 upon checkout which was expected. The staff was extremely friendly and the environment was really nice.