My wife booked us a family trip to Ocean Coral Turquesa, an all inclusive resort in Mexico. We were literally counting the days until we left. Everyone was excited and couldn’t wait to get there.
The resort is all inclusive and self contained. Once there, you aren’t going anywhere unless you pay for a taxi or book an excursion.
First, let’s talk about the resort. It was clean, and the staff were friendly. Many of them spoke little to no English, which was fine, I got to practice my rusty Spanish. The pools were clean and clear and the swim up bar was probably the thing my family liked the most. Even my youngest liked to swim up to the bar and order a Sprite.
The beach on the other hand was a mess. It was covered in seaweed. And I mean covered. I waded into the water only once, and that was it. I just don’t like wading out four or five feet to get out of the seaweed which is swirling around you, tickling your legs. The seaweed was actually a hazard even when we weren’t in the water. When the wind shifted the wrong way the seaweed on the beach smelled like low tide in Jersey. (I’m from Jersey – this is not a complement.)
And then of course there were the two biggest let downs for us. The first was the food situation. Three out of four of my family members lost weight on the trip. And no it was not because they drank so much they purged their meals. (No one drank so much they threw up.) Basically there is the buffet plus several restaurants. The nice restaurants, (Sensai and the nicer of the two Italian places) are first come first serve and book up in the space of fifteen or twenty minutes. We waited for forty five plus minutes to book Sensai and still didn’t get in. So while there might be a few nicer meals to be had here, you probably aren’t getting them. You will try, and then you will end up at the buffet or at Route 66 – which was okay, but it was essentially burgers and dogs that you’d get at a highway rest stop.
In terms of shopping, we had two options. The first was market night. They set up tables everywhere and you could walk around and browse. We didn’t buy anything because the nice young man working the table told us the first thing my son picked up was $80 USD. It was worth maybe $10 USD – and that is if I was buying it inside a Disney Park. (It was a little molded skull for day of the dead.) The second option was the Gift Shop. It was also amazingly expensive. They want $25 USD for a tube of sunscreen. And they know if you are there shopping for it they got you. Which they do. And that pricing extends to everything in the shop. Even cheap souvenirs were outrageously priced. My wife needed to buy an extra toothbrush after we lost one somewhere. The sticker said $4 USD but while she was paying the “manager” told the clerk the price was wrong and to charge us $6 USD for it. That is just crazy. The next day I checked, all the other tooth brushes were still marked $4 USD. It’s amazing how something so simple can just change your whole perception of something.
What about stuff to do? Well, there are multiple pools. There were two ping pong tables. Everything else they wanted more cash for. We couldn’t really swim on the beach, the water while we were there was full of seaweed and very dark – which means no snorkeling unless you take a boat away from the beach. Want to go there? That is just $39 USD per person for an hour. So unless you just want to get a tan, and drink like a fish, there really wasn’t that much to do.
So we payed $600 USD to go to Xcaret for the day for four people. I wouldn’t do it again. It was overpriced since once again, everything besides walking around and floating down the rivers costs more money. And in some cases, a lot more money. Xcaret is really a mixture of a zoo, and an aquarium with three lazy rivers cutting under/through it. We did one of the rivers and didn’t go back into the water. Long stretches of it were dark. The kind of dark were you are swimming with fins and a life jacket on and people start to bunch up. You are getting flailed with flippers and hands. It wasn’t my idea of fun – much less safe fun. And talking about safety – I only wish I’d had my camera with me while there. There were places were you could step off the path and fall forty feet into a few feet of water if you weren’t careful.
Would I go back?
Nope. I would not. I would spend a little more and go someplace a little more expensive with more onsite stuff to do. You will have more fun and save money in the long run.